James Karugu, the suave lawyer who succeeded Charles Njonjo as Kenya’s attorney-general, has been awarded a posthumous honorary doctorate in public service by Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in the United States, reviving memories of a man Kenyans easily forgot.
By the time he died in November 2022, Karugu was leading a quiet life in his Kiambu coffee farm. He had been a familiar name in the 1970s as the deputy public prosecutor until April 1980 when President Daniel Moi appointed him as the new AG to succeed Mr Njonjo, independent Kenya’s first AG who had resigned to join politics.
But on the morning of June 2, 1981, Mr Karugu surprised everyone after it was announced that he had resigned. Unknown to Kenyans, Karugu had been forced to write his resignation letter to pave the way for Moi’s control of the law office.
He left the State Law Office and started a quiet life away from the rough Nyayo politics, settling his family on the coffee farm in Kiambu.
In awarding him an honorary doctorate in public service, the university has described Karugu as a “distinguished alumnus” whose “remarkable journey from BGSU to the corridors of power in Kenya served as an enduring testament to the transformative power of education”.
His daughter Vicky Karugu collected the award.
Professional accomplishments
In 2010, the university recognised Karugu as one of its top 100 alumni based on his stellar professional accomplishments as Kenya’s second AG.
Karugu joined BGSU in 1958 when racial segregation was still in place in the US. As the first African student to enrol in that university, followed shortly by Mr Samuel Adu-Ampoma who later became Ghana’s high commissioner to Kenya in the 1970s, Karugu always stood out like a sore thumb and endured racial humiliation.
According to Prof Kefa Otiso, a geography lecturer at BGSU, when one of Karugu’s white classmates took him for a drink at a bar near the university, he had to announce that Karugu “was an exchange student from Africa” so they could enter the bar without problems.
Despite this, the young Karugu became part of a trailblazer generation that sought education in the US and whose success inspired many other students to follow suit. His father had sold a four-acre piece of land for Sh4,000 ($1,867 at the time) to send Karugu to the US for further studies. He later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science degree before pursuing a law degree at Lincoln’s Inn in the United Kingdom.
“His life taught us that the advancement of society, not personal gain, is the true purpose of leadership,” Vicky said at the convocation.
While he had left a mark in the State Law Office as a public prosecutor, Karugu would face the ultimate test after he became the AG at a period when Moi wanted to control all the pillars of power.
“The test of our society,” Karugu had told Parliament during his maiden speech, “shall be that the rule of law shall prevail, that we be guided by principles and principles alone and preservations of our public institutions, as they are, so that personal vengeance has no place in our society; that the humblest man has his right to be protected by the State so that no one shall be persecuted or have his liberty taken away or embarrassed for his thoughts or opinion.”
Taking power
The speech ruffled some feathers having been made when Moi was hunting down his critics and supporters of the 1977 change-the-constitution group that sought to bar Moi from automatically taking power after Jomo Kenyatta’s death were being shunned.
Karugu’s philosophical stand as AG came under scrutiny as the famous Frank Sandstrom case, where an American marine was accused of killing Monica Njeri from Mombasa, dominated the media; more so after Justice Leslie Harris fined Mr Sandstrom Sh500 for killing the girl.
He surprised everyone in Parliament when he said he was not satisfied with the ruling. But by that time, the marine had paid the fine and left.
As he once told this writer, his main worry when he became the AG was that corruption was taking root in the Judiciary. “Although it was not as rampant, it was there ...”
And when he quit, he had one philosophy that guided him: “I don’t have to be corrupt, and I can earn money by farming.”
The latest honour is for a man who left public office without a scandal. He is regarded as Kenya’s most independent-minded AG.
