Remembering and re-membering Moi, and the way he made us feel

President Daniel arap Moi leads Jamhuri Day celebrations in Nairobi on December 12, 2002. His last major act in throwing straws to the wind came with the unveiling of Uhuru Kenyatta as his preferred successor. PHOTO | SIMON MAINA | AFP

What you need to know:

  • If death is a form of freedom, we whom Moi has left behind must ask what his death has liberated us from. Has Moism died?

  • He could dispense with us, play one against another, trade us off. Everybody was dispensable.

  • Sometimes he sacrificed someone here to win a community there.

Now that former President Moi has died, what tone of voice should we speak in as we re-member him? What pitch should our voices take?

CHESSBOARD

If we remember Moi, we will either whisper or shout because, invariably, those two extreme ranges were the ones in which we spoke of him when he was president. If we choose to re-member rather than dismember him (because death invariably compels us into civility) we might find a balance. We must, in this his hour of reckoning.

If we whisper now, we will be remembering the man we feared; who filled us with anxiety and despair, especially when elections came around. We whispered because we lived in fear that our words, our suppressed thoughts, might not find favour with a man reputed to dish out his wrath fast, and often, in brutal ways. We were small people, the little minions; the pawns on Moi’s chessboard. He could dispense with us, play one against another, trade us off. Everybody was dispensable. Sometimes he sacrificed someone here to win a community there, or a community to win something for himself (remember the people of Muoroto slum?)

And so, we whispered, collectively, to avoid displeasing him because mere suspicion, a rumour even, rather than trial and incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing, was enough to get one detained. Some came to the conclusion that if they kept their criticism of Moi and his leadership under wraps they would save their businesses from targeted destruction. Others imagined that tiptoeing around him would gain them entry into his court of bounty.

SCHEMING

But these were also the reasons many opted to shout whenever they spoke about Moi in public: To catch his eye, fretful that he must hear their unwavering loyalty to him. They figured that if they shouted enough to be seen by him, they might be rewarded accordingly — with a high-profile job, a plot of land, a wad of cash, a public mention that would open new doors of respect and adoration.

As the years rolled on, and Moi perpetuated himself at the helm, there was another kind of shout, and whisper, that marked how we spoke about him. Shouts of anger and defiance, whispers of surreptitious scheming and quiet resolve. “Moi must go” started as a whisper but grew into a clamouring din on posters and over loudspeakers. As we re-member Moi, let us also remember the movements, and moments, that finally ousted an intractable dictator.

Hezekiah Ochuka and his 1982 coup plotters. The December 12th Movement and its underground newsletter, Pambana. MwaKenya. The Law Society of Kenya. Wangari Maathai and the mothers of detainees who gave a face to RPP (Release Political Prisoners) — Monica Wangu Wamwere, Milka Wanjiru Kinuthia, Leah Wanjiru Mungai, Gladys Thiitu Kariuki, Veronicah Wambui Nduthu, Ruth Wangari Thungu.

FRUSTRATION

The six founders of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford) whose names had to remain unknown for a long time, for their safety — Martin Shikuku, Ahmed Salim Bamahriz, George Nthenge, Masinde Muliro, Philip Gachoka and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. And then there was Ufungamano Initiative, the assembly of religious leaders that started the campaign for a new constitution.

These movements, these moments, and these women and men, advocated the opening up of democratic space. They made us realise that it was possible — nay, necessary — to imagine life without Moi as president. They filled us with hope. But every time our spirits rose, Moi crushed them. Our neighbourhoods lost their lustre; roads went unnamed, their potholes grew into craters, the tarmacked became untarmacked, the untarmacked became cattle tracks. Water disappeared from our taps; drugs disappeared from dispensaries; food prices soared; our workplaces in government agencies faded and sagged under the weight of overemployment and underperformance.

Meanwhile, Moi found no irony in jetting into Washington, DC aboard the Concorde, with a delegation of 60 oddly chosen people, to beg for donor funds. We grew weary of him, and of one another. Our emotions oscillated between fear, frustration, anger and despair.

SELF-AGGRANDISEMENT

December 1991 brought some hope with the return to multiparty politics. But it was short-lived. Anxiety about the future rose to fever-pitch. Land clashes. Then — in total disregard of monetary policy — Moi printed money to fund his 1992 re-election campaign. The ensuing inflation impoverished us but Moi, awash with newly minted Sh500 notes, could now disrupt opposition unity. The cloak-and-dagger games intensified. Parochial interests and greed blinded the opposition. He outwitted us and won with a 35 per cent ‘majority’. Our despair hit rock-bottom. How could he still be at the helm yet 65 per cent of the voters had said “No” to him? What mathematics was this?

If the memory of Moi as president teaches us anything, it is that any struggle to overcome oppression requires more than one strategy. It requires the shouts, and it needs the whisperers — the quiet bees that flesh out oppositional discourse and think of new ways to imagine freedom. It also requires a vanguard of bold men and women ready to face up to authoritarianism, to take a bullet for the nation.

My prayer for Moi once he left the presidency was that he found inner peace; that he could finally put aside his self-aggrandisement, his chessboard, his penchant for political games that were often fatal for individuals and communities. From all the resentment he had harboured against so many for so long.

RESENTMENT

Raila Odinga, Charles Rubia, George Anyona, Mirugi Kariuki, Koigi wa Wamwere, Mwandawiro Mghanga, Kenneth Matiba, James Orengo, Paul Muite, Gitobu Imanyara, Kiraitu Murungi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Henry Okullu, Manasses Kuria, Ndingi mwana ’a Nzeki, Martha Karua, Smith Hempstone ... too many to mention here!

Moi resented them not because he knew for certain that any of them wished him ill. He harboured that resentment because he was so unsure of himself, so insecure that he never stopped amassing money, praise names, power, land; amassing more material things than one man can ever need, or use, in three lifetimes!

If in his lifetime Moi never felt free of resentment, never felt secure in his own skin, his own (dis)abilities, then my genuine prayer for him now, in his death, is that he is finally free from want, free from his political chessboard, free from the need to amass. That he has finally found peace.

SILENCE

If death is a form of freedom, we whom Moi has left behind must ask what his death has liberated us from. Has Moism died? In December 2002, when Moi finally handed over power to Mwai Kibaki, some were stunned into silence, convinced that the Big Man had one more trick up his sleeve, that he would find a way not to vacate the presidency.

But for many, December 30, 2002 was euphoric! Not since Independence day, December 12, 1963, had the country experienced such an exhilarating sense of triumph. “I am Unbwogable” had been the 2002 election campaign anthem. To it we had added (in a devious corruption of the lyrics of an old hymn) “Yote yawezekana bila Moi” (We can do without Moi).

A Gallup International survey released at the end of January 2003 rated Kenyans as the most optimistic people. In March that year, for the first time, our cricket team reached the semi- finals of the World Cup. We felt invincible in every way.

LIVELIHOOD

Did we think then there was anything about Moi that we would ever miss? I have witnessed the nostalgia around mass choirs and ‘Maziwa ya Nyayo’ — never mind their unsustainability. What else? His magnanimity — sponsoring a student here, sending another for treatment abroad? But that was a poor atonement for his chronic failure to carry out his mandate — to erect workable systems that would guarantee the majority a livelihood and secure social services for all. Charity, as they say, is the opium of the privileged!

What else? The man had boundless energy! He could be building gabions in Machakos today and visit West Pokot the very next morning — by road! Often wrong, very wrong, in those numerous roadside declarations, where he disrupted national planning, the annual government budget and personal lives without a second-thought, but Moi was always sober. At least in public. We now know that sobriety is a requisite virtue in a president.

Dr Nyairo is a cultural analyst. [email protected].