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• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 10

  Posted: December 27, 2009, 9:36 am by Chris

  Proud Makerere Don
  
  Despite being President Moi’s Vice President for 10 long years, it is rather obvious that Mwai Kibaki learnt very little or nothing from his long stint as VP. Very much unlike Moi before him.
  
  One thing that was always very clear during Kibaki’s campaign for the presidency was that he thought of Moi as an uneducated fool who ran a government full of fellow illiterates who had never gone to school and there was therefore nothing to learn from him. This is the arrogant attitude that Kibaki carried with him to State House in January 2003. This was further confirmed by an insistence on CVs before any public appointments would be made. There was no doubt that the idea here was to catch people who had no university education since this appears to have been the minimum bench mark that Kibaki had set in his early months as president of Kenya. Not only that, the president had his preferences in Universities with UK universities and Makerere being at the top of his list.
  
  The speech Kibaki made at Uhuru park on being sworn in as president was even more telling. He clearly emphasized that the era of road side directives and appointments was over.
  
  Again one his close aides, Kiraitu Murungi put it even more bluntly when he arrogantly said in a speech;
  
  “We want Moi to retire to his Kabarak home and look after his goats and we will show him how a government should be run.”
  
  What must have been going through Kibaki’s mind was that he was taking over from illiterates who knew nothing and with his credentials and those he would appoint the whole mess would be magically wiped out literally overnight. It was a very simplistic view which the president no doubt regrets to this day.
  
  In retrospect Kibaki had a lot of grand ideas for Kenya. But historians will record that virtually all of them had one thing in common they reeked of great naivety. I was at a meeting at Ufungamano house, Nairobi where Kibaki was addressing Christian professionals and he emphasized that the tax which was then being collected by the Moi government was more than enough to run government and take a lot of services to the people. In the same meeting Kibaki took time to emphasize to his audience that he lived in Muthaiga had lived there for a very long time. In all my years of following politics in Kenya I have never heard another leader emphasize their residence. You be the judge of what that was all about but in my book there is an overwhelming stench of pride and arrogance here.
  
  It is one thing to seek to be a reformist but one needs to understand the system that they are seeking to change much more deeply than Mwai Kibaki understood the Moi prtesidency.
  
  How could somebody be in government so long and even be Vice president for a decade and still be so naïve? I will leave that one for historians to answer but my opinion supported by a lot of evidence is that the problem is the man’s arrogance. The truth of the matter is that the more arrogant you are in this life the less you end up learning. And it does not matter if the knowledge is staring you right in the face.
  
  Granted, people all over the world approach high office with many grand expectations that are usually quickly deflected by the cold reality on the ground. In other words the job always looks much easier than it really is. Still having said this it is obvious that Mwai Kibaki was an extreme case of a very naïve person who had to make way too many adjustments even to be able to have a stable administration.
  
  This is the reason why very early during his administration a sizeable number of Kenyans were predicting that he would not make it to 2007 when the next general elections were due.
  
  Even more dangerous was the man’s way of dealing with any crisis. I have a theory that a contributing factor to this attitude had to do with his first marriage. On countless occasions Kibaki got locked out of his own house at night by his wife Lucy, leaving his bodyguards and minders in an awkward position. To deal with his wife Kibaki’s approach was always to ignore the crisis at hand and pretend that all was well. He would sleep in the uncomfortable environment of the car and would then behave like nothing had happened the next morning.
  
  This attitude clearly seeped into the former Makerere don’s personal management style when it came to making decisions and here there are many instances that clearly illustrate this.
  
  Indeed this attitude proved to be fatal.
  
  I will give just two examples.
  
  Had Kibaki dealt with the crisis over the memorandum of understanding and Raila Odinga more swiftly and decisively he would have quickly gained an upper hand over Raila Odinga. Instead he let the problem simmer until it became a major crisis that almost brought his administration to its’ knees. In any case it led to unnecessarily high tension in the country that climaxed with the referendum and prepared the ground for the post election violence of early 2008.
  
  An even deadlier case was the beginning of the post election violence when intelligence reports came in clearly showing that the country was burning and yet there was unprecedented indecisiveness on the part of the executive. This wavering cost many Kenyan lives that would have otherwise been saved. To make matters worse the whole situation had been provoked by Mwai Kibaki himself in the first place. He did this by leaving it very late in the election to rig the presidential vote (more dithering on his part) and this made his actions rather obvious to the majority of Kenyans. This is something that the ICC and Moreno Ocampo should look into more deeply as they seek to punish the main perpetrators of Kenya’s worst election-related violence ever. They should also look deeply into the Raila Odinga brand of politics shortly after the 2003 elections.
  
  Any manager will tell you that there are some decisions that if left too late weaken the impact of any move one may end up making later. The most recent example is the crisis at the Ministry of education where billions in donor funds has been embezzled. Even if Kibaki ends up firing the Education minister and the PS later, the impact will be almost zero now after all the pressure that has been brought to bear on his government.
  
  Good managers will also tell you that on many occasions swift decisive action even when the wrong decision has been taken is much better than indecision.
  
  This is the crux of the problem with President Mwai Kibaki’s leadership. And when you combine this with the unfolding political reality where there is a fierce struggle over the Kibaki succession, it is a recipe for disaster and unprecedented disaster for Kenya.
  
  (To be continued)
  
  Part 9
  
  Part 10
  
  Part 11
  
  Part 12Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 9

  Posted: December 27, 2009, 9:31 am by Chris

  Professor Kimya
  
  
  Apology: I take this opportunity to apologize to all my readers for failing to make a post yesterday as I had earlier promised. It was due to unforeseen and indeed unavoidable circumstances. To partly make up for this, this weekend special posts will extend to Tuesday.
  
  
  It has to be the most fascinating incident in the history of politics in Kenya. And it all happened at Kasarani Stadium sometime in March 2002. The occasion was a special Kanu national delegates conference called to pick the party’s presidential candidate for the elections later that year.
  
  The meeting had created great excitement because everybody knew that Moi was not going to run again in 2002. And still most folks were putting their money on Kanu and so whoever was elected the Kanu presidential candidate on this particular day would without doubt end up as president. Or so they assumed. The reason was that senior political analysts knew that Moi always fixed the elections and he was bound to rig it in favour of the Kanu candidate.
  
  And so with this kind of knowledge in mind the stakes were bound to be pretty high. And they were.
  
  It is also important to note that prior to this historical Kanu delegates conference a number of people had been promised the presidency by Moi.
  
  Raila Odinga had merged his party NDP (National Democratic party) with Kanu after being assured by Moi that he would the party’s chosen one for the presidency.
  
  Kalonzo Musyoka after years of faithfully serving Moi had also been assured that the presidency was his for the taking.
  
  Long serving Vice President Professor George Saitoti had also been assured that he would be the next president of Kenya. And what was more is that Saitoti had a precedent to support his bid for the presidency. After all Moi had been faithful to Kenyatta and had ended up ascending to the presidency. And Saitoti was more than faithful to Moi. It was almost amusing at public meetings whenever Moi mentioned Saitoti’s name, he would spring up to his feet at such lightning speed like a high school student vigorously campaigning to be appointed head boy. Saitoti knew how this pleased Moi a man who had never seen the four corners of an A-level classroom let alone a university lecture hall. It pleased Moi to no end that this extremely educated “professor” would jump up like something had bitten him, the minute he mentioned his name.
  
  Still Saitoti had made sure not to take any chances and had spent a small fortune the previous night canvassing delegates from all over the country to vote for him. He assumed that the whole thing would be put to the vote.
  
  Now the fascinating incident happened when moments after the delegate’s conference started Saitoti realized that his name was not even in contention for the party’s presidential candidate. Instead Uhuru Kenyatta was the sole candidate for the nomination. George just lost it then. Others would say that he went berserk. The good mathematic professor started shouting all over the place. His loud voice attracted the attention of President Moi who quickl barked a command; “professor Kimya” (roughly translated this means, “shut up professor”).
  
  Saitoti ignored his master’s command and continued to make plenty of noise throwing his hands all over the place. Moi had to repeat his stern command and the third time he did so stood up and gave Saitoti the kind of look that young folks like calling “daggers”. Saitoti finally quieted down and sat meekly on his seat.
  
  Now all this had taken place with TV cameras rolling. And the clip got through the “self censors” at the KTN TV station that evening and was aired. Kenyans stared at it in fascination. Most folks had never seen anything like this before. Not in the carefully choreographed Kenyan politics everybody was accustomed to. Especially where the president was involved.
  
  Actually the incident highlighted the desperate power struggle that had been going on for the presidency which had started as early as after the 1997 presidential elections when everybody knew that Moi was not going to stand again for president. Some of those desperate for the presidency had even figured out Moi’s biggest challenge in leaving the presidency and had spent fortunes reassuring his Kalenjin community on the ground that all would be well with them if they became president after Moi. I am of course talking about people like Kalonzo Musyoka and Raila Odinga.
  
  Moi’s challenge was to leave the presidency and stay out of prison and still have the vast fortune he had accumulated as president intact. Some of his close advisors advised him against leaving the presidency and put considerable pressure on him to stay on at all costs. They even created viable plans that would have allowed him to almost legitimately stay on in power. But once again Moi was too clever for most folks. He had made up his mind to leave the presidency and had carefully devised an exit strategy that would keep the country together and allow him at the very least a quite retirement. In doing so he took most of his opponents and many Kenyans completely by surprise.
  
  Even more surprising was Moi’s choice for successor. He had settled on the rookie Uhuru Kenyatta son of Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta. Actually his choice was not surprising if you understood that above all else Moi wanted to protect his wealth. Uhuru had inherited a lot of grabbed property from his father (the first president of Kenya). In wanting Uhuru to be his successor Moi was sure that whatever happened Uhuru would not come after him without badly exposing himself and his family. It was as simple as that.
  
  Moi’s plan would have succeeded except for one small detail that went badly wrong. Moi assumed that in the same way that the Kiambu mafia had been forced to accept him as president after Kenyatta’s death, there was little that other pretenders to the throne would do to stop Uhuru Kenyatta. The mistake made here was to fail to recognize the fact that a lot had changed since 1978 (24 years earlier). And even when George Saitoti defected to the opposition shortly after the Kasarani incident, Moi ignored the move as being of inconsequential. And indeed in a way it was. Saitoti has always struggled to win back his parliamentary seat in Kajiado let alone having any kind of national support that one could speak of. But what actually changed the whole equation was the defection much earlier of Raila Odinga. The man had the organizational ability to turn tables on Moi as he was to prove.
  
  Most analysts believe that Moi had grown a little too overconfident for his own good and this too was a major contributing factor to the big defeat he was to suffer in 2002.
  
  All eyes remained focused firmly on Kanu and few Kenyans paid attention to the developments in the opposition. After all many had already written the Kenyan opposition off. They had failed to unite and agree on one candidate since the advent of multiparty politics in 1992. Most people including Moi himself were sure that the greedy lot who all wanted to become president would never agree on a single candidate for president. Again this assumption was correct except for one little incident that happened at Uhuru Park when Raila Odinga stood up to address the mammoth crowd that had gathered. Everybody was wondering who the candidate for the star studded opposition line up would be. Many expected it to be George Saitoti others even thought it would be Raila Odinga himself. Moi’s think tanks (he had several) were busy mapping out a strategy for either of these front runner candidates. After all everybody knew that Kenyans would never accept another Kikuyu for the presidency and in fact saw a great weakness in Kanu’s presidential nomination. The Kikuyu’s had the numbers but one needed the other 41 tribes as well. All signs within Kanu were that Moi was preparing to take on a non-kikuyu candidate on behalf of his protégé. It is important to note here that although Saitoti is a Kikuyu (his real name is George Njuguna Kinuthia and he changed to it to Saitoti to facilitate higher education at a time when the colonial government would never have approved a Kikuyu for higher education out of the country).
  
  The Kenyan opposition in the run up the 2002 elections showed a resolve to get their act together this time round from very early on. Three significant opposition parties led by the late Michael Kijana Wamalwa, Charity Ngilu and Mwai Kibaki had merged and indicated that they were determined to field one opposition candidate to face Kanu. Still they were clearly not strong enough to topple the formidable Kanu political machine. When the Kanu rebels led by Raila Odinga and George Saitoti joined them, things changed. Still it looked like the whole game plan would collapse the minute they would have to name a single opposition candidate amongst them. This looked even more unlikely with characters like Raila and George Saitoti. Moody Awori, William Ole Ntimama and others now in the mix.
  
  All that changed with a single statement from Raila on that memorable day in Uhuru Park, Nairobi. Raila captured the mood of the crowd perfectly. Having been outsmarted many times before by Moi Raila was very determined and focused on defeating Moi at all costs. His single statement: “Kibaki tosha” changed everything. Thus history repeated itself. Just as his father had stood up at the Legco to pour praise on Kenyatta in the 1950s and demand for his release before independence and had by doing this handed over the presidency to Kenyatta when he was not even in contention, raila had dome a similar thing for Kibaki. Raila’s statement offered Kibaki as the compromise candidate in the “star-studded field” and made all the difference. But Raila had not chosen Kibaki by accident. It was a shrewd move to neutralize the influential Kikuyu vote by splitting it between the two Kikuyu candidates. The good unintentional thing here was that the presidential elections was de-tribalized, which was critical for such a sensitive election but postponed the problem for much later in 2007.
  
  Simeon Nyachae who had expected to make a strong bid for the presidency left Uhuru Park in a huff and mounted a solo bid for the presidency which predictably went nowhere. But the other main contenders realized that it was impossible for them to contest Raila’s “Kibaki tosha statement and quickly cooled their heels.
  
  And so that is how Mwai Kibaki became the third president of Kenya. For the first time in history Kenya had a popularly elected president who had been elected in a competitive atmosphere.
  
  Few would have imagined that his election was the beginning of major problems and that Moi’s steady but firm (and at times dictatorial) hand on the leadership of the country would be sourly missed.
  
  To be continued.
  
  Part 9
  
  Part 10
  
  Part 11
  
  Part 12Kumekucha

  
  

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes