Four days after he took over the reins in 1978, the new Head of State made a surprise phone call to journalist Salim Lone, leading to a visit to State House that laid bare how presidential power was being consolidated behind the scenes in the face of powerful opponents. This first instalment of a two-part series by Mr Lone revisits the intrigues of the Jomo Kenyatta succession.
"Saturday, August 26, 1978. It’s the fourth day after Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s death. I am in my office early, working furiously to produce a special edition of Viva magazine on what is unfolding in this momentous first shift of power in Kenya.
The telephone rings, and on the phone is a State House operator who tells me to please hold on as His Excellency the President wishes to talk to me.
Talk to me? I have never met Mr Moi. As a moderate but persistent critic of the regime, and a dogged fighter for people’s rights, I am used to getting only brickbats, or worse, from Kenya’s officialdom.
What had I done now to warrant the new President calling? I wait anxiously for him to come on the line.
President Moi finally comes on the line and I am utterly blown away by what he says — he is calling to thank me for honouring Mzee Kenyatta with the special edition of Viva we had produced two days earlier about his long history of struggle and his accomplishments for the nation’s stability and progress.
I tell him all 100,000 copies had instantly sold out. He is even more pleased. I then ask Mr Moi for an interview.
He refuses categorically, saying he never gives interviews. I give him reasons why such an interview would be immensely useful as it would give more information about his little-known personal life to Kenyans.
I am thrilled he agrees, and he asks that I make arrangements with his information chief Joseph Rotich to be in his office early on Monday morning.
I assume that the main reason Mr Moi called was the editorial in Viva ’s special Mzee Kenyatta issue, which expressed strong support for his succession and which also urged that he should be immediately addressed as President, not Acting President.
That had obviously pleased Mr Moi, since there were palpable murmurs of dissent about him, built around the not-too-subtle allusion to a “passing cloud” in one of our newspapers.
Indeed, the major media was being very cautious about throwing support for his formal accession to the presidency.
Outside, the nation was in deep mourning over Mzee’s passing, blissfully ignorant about high-level intrigues that might be going on to wrest power from Mr Moi.
Thankfully, few were then aware of the alleged plot to kill Mr Moi upon Mzee Kenyatta’s death, as later revealed in detail by journalists Philip Ochieng’ and Joseph Karimi of the Nation .
Over the years, many had thought that vice-president Moi would not succeed Mzee Kenyatta.
Part of it had to do with Mr Moi being seen as weak, thanks to widely circulating stories of him being regularly humiliated by junior police and provincial officers, without responding in any way.
I myself had been in a briefing in 1973 he held for four of us newspaper editors in his office, when the powerful Foreign Minister, Dr Njoroge Mungai, walked into the room, sat down by the side of Mr Moi’s desk and put his feet up on it, with the soles of his shoes pointing towards Mr Moi.
Mr Moi was also almost slavishly loyal to Mzee Kenyatta, and was seen to have made too many concessions on land in the Rift Valley.
Nor did he have a powerful ethnic base, as his Kalenjin community, a primarily pastoralist group, had little representation in the senior civil service or other elite institutions.
All this had culminated in a rousing national campaign by a group of Mt Kenya politicians to change the country’s Constitution so that upon the president’s death, the vice-president would not become acting president for 90 days while an election was organised.
This seemingly successful campaign had been abruptly declared treasonous in 1976 by then-Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, after obtaining Mzee’s approval at State House, Nakuru.
But of course the group, which had among it some of Kenya’s fabulously wealthy oligarchs, had not given up its efforts to keep power within the Mt Kenya region. What lay next now?
Anyway, on Monday morning at 7.30am, I was at Mr Moi’s office for the interview. I had to wait for it until 2pm.
Anxious about work in my own office, I twice told Mrs Smith, Mr Moi’s secretary, that I could come back when he was free. She checked and said no, I should wait.
I gradually realised that it was my good luck that I had to wait: I saw in those six hours how presidential power was being consolidated step by step.
Regularly trooping into President Moi’s office were some of the international leaders who had come for Mzee’s funeral, all the ambassadors of our key allies, Kenya’s military, police, security officials as well as powerful business leaders paying their respect and pledging loyalty.
The interview began well. President Moi walked me to a sofa in the corner and was very happy to be talking about personal things — as regrettably agreed — and it was almost with boyish charm he took out a few photos he had brought, particularly one of him riding a bicycle for a charity function.
Things seemed to be going very well until his hot line buzzed, he quickly hung up, and told me to quickly gather my stuff — cameras — and we would continue another time.
As I was getting my things together, there was a knock on the door and in walked Mr Charles Njonjo.
President Moi seemed embarrassed. “Charles, you know Mr Lone. He just wanted a bit of personal information about me.”
I greeted Mr Njonjo, who was not my fan and was looking quizzically at me and left.
This one incident spoke volumes about the current political situation but I did not mention it in what I wrote in Viva .
However, I could not get over the fact that our new President has no airs about him and was the kind of person who can pick up the phone to thank a journalist even at a critical crisis point for a just-established administration with strong opponents.
Older readers will recall that Mzee’s was a regal presidency, and even his senior public officials were like mini gods — unapproachable.
That was one thing you could not accuse President Moi of. On the streets and in the country, the political situation was rapidly resolving towards calm and in favour of Mr Moi.
That calm was a pivotal achievement for the new government, and it came about only because of meticulous, masterfully-orchestrated arrangements that had been put in place by vice-president Moi and his inner circle.
In that circle, the lynchpin was Attorney-General Njonjo, who over the years had come to wield enormous power over the all-pervasive, centralised state machinery that Mzee Kenyatta had organised to run the country.
Mr Njonjo’s power flowed from the exceptionally close ties and trust he enjoyed from both Mzee Kenyatta and the-then most instrumental foreign actor in Kenya, the UK.
As a new President who knew there was serious opposition to him, Mr Moi went to great lengths to reassure Kenyans of both stable continuity and much-needed renewal.
He appointed Mwai Kibaki vice-president. His promise of freer, more inclusive and corruption-free Kenya won immediate support.
He electrified the country when he announced on Jamhuri Day in 1978 that “all those who have been in detention are now at this very moment at their homes”.
With that, Kenya became one of only six African countries who had no political prisoners at that time. Among those freed were Wasonga Sijeyo, Kenya’s longest serving detainee, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Koigi wa Wamwere.
I was aware I had taken a risk in openly supporting Mr Moi, but the cause was compelling: like many, I was worried that members of the group around Mzee Kenyatta who were determined to succeed him would cement Central Province’s oligarchs’ political and economic power.
That would further divide Kenyans and unravel the already struggling national project that was essential for its survival.
In addition, the Central-dominated oligarchs knew their riches were tied to their group’s retaining political power.
To keep that power within, and the people cowed, they would have resorted to unacceptable measures, including violence they had already practised.
Even in hindsight, and despite the horrors that President Moi inflicted on Kenyans, there is no doubt in my mind that he was the person Kenya needed, rather than a representative of the oligarchic and ethnically oriented elite which was the dominant force in the country.
Salim Lone was for many years the Spokesman for Opposition leader and later Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
