Why Kalonzo is just the latest to fall victim to curse of the Kenyan VP

The Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka has lately had to literally beg deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto — both his juniors – to allow him attend their ‘prayer rallies.’

Kalonzo’s woes have drawn into sharp focus his office, which, constitutionally, is just a heartbeat from the presidency.

Cartoonists and other satirical commentators have had a field day depicting a hapless politician for whom high office does not seem to offer any leverage in the race to succeed President Kibaki.

He was appointed in January 2008 to shore up the legitimacy of President Kibaki’s disputed win in the presidential elections.

Soon after, Mr Musyoka was drawn into an embarrassing contest over who between him and Prime Minister Raila Odinga was second in the chain of command.

The Mwingi North MP’s problems, however, pale in comparison to the past holders of the office once described by the US first Vice-President John Adams, as “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” and the only one in the world in which “patience and firmness were useless.”

Perhaps lending credence to this tag of insignificance is the fact that at one time, retired President Daniel arap Moi left the office vacant for more than a year before reappointing Prof George Saitoti.

Mr Musyoka’s predecessors went through humiliations which include being roughed up by junior civil servants and being thrown into jail.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga came into office in 1964 as the nation’s first vice president at independence with a feeling of entitlement, having rejected an offer to form government with the clarion call ‘No Kenyatta, No Uhuru’ (independence).

However, he soon fell out of Kenyatta’s favour for opposing KANU’s policies after its merger with KADU. His decisions were soon being undermined, and his home and offices searched on allegations of anti-government activity.

In 1966, a KANU conference abolished the post of party vice-president and instead created eight vice presidents. Mr Odinga resigned from the government in 1966 and formed the Kenya People’s Union.

A visit by President Kenyatta to Kisumu in October 1969 turned rowdy and 21 people were reportedly gunned down by police. Mr Odinga was detained without trial and KPU was banned. He stayed in prison for 15 months.

Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi

While mystery still surrounds Mr Murumbi’s sudden resignation on August 31, 1966 after serving as VP for only six months, insiders say that by the time he was appointed, the Kenyatta presidency had been so engulfed by the president’s inner circle that official meetings were being conducted in Kikuyu language.

It is this outsider feeling that made him quit. Fiercely professional in his work, the son of a Goan shopkeeper and a Maasai woman could not stomach the shameless kleptocracy that had crept into the Kenyatta administration. He died in 1990 aged 79 in relative anonymity.

Daniel arap Moi

Upon the death of President Jomo Kenyatta on August 22, 1978, the Ngoroko, an armed appendage of hard liners who had unsuccessfully tried to constitutionally bar a Vice President from temporarily succeeding the President if the office fell vacant, tried to block Vice-President Moi from reaching Nairobi from Kabarak.

It was critical that Moi got back to Nairobi to summon a cabinet meeting and for Attorney General Charles Njonjo to ensure that the Constitution was followed to the letter.

But, perhaps, Moi’s tortuous journey to Nairobi was nothing compared to the earlier humiliation he faced from the President Kenyatta’s men.

“Kikuyu Cabinet ministers would deliberately speak in their own tongue when they wanted to exclude him; officials at the various State Houses would keep him waiting unnecessarily when he was due to see (Kenyatta),” writes British journalist Andrew Morton in his biography Moi, the Making of An African Statesman.

Kenyatta himself, according to Morton, also tested Moi’s mettle. “Moi was summoned to State House in Nakuru but was kept waiting by the president’s aide-de-camp, the then Rift Valley PC, Isaiah Mathenge, who allowed numerous groups to call on the president while Moi sat patiently in the waiting room.

“When Kenyatta rang to see who was left, Mathenge replied: ‘There is only Moi here’. Then Kenyatta came out and... asked Moi to listen to a choir with him. During the singing, Kenyatta dosed off. All the while, Moi kept his composure,” writes Morton. Mr Moi was allegedly at one time slapped by Mr Mathenge.

Mwai Kibaki

Mr Kibaki first became an MP at independence in 1963. He served under President Jomo Kenyatta as Finance minister and later as Vice-President in the Moi regime.

The calculation then was that Moi must have a Kikuyu as VP. Kibaki was on Moi’s side against the Kiambu mafia during the succession of aborted Kanu elections between 1976 and 1978.

In the Kanu elections held shortly after Kenyatta’s death, Kibaki beat Jeremiah Nyagah for the party vice-presidency. Moi then made him VP.

However, years later a dispute with President Moi resulted in his being undermined. He could not hold public meetings outside Othaya, earning the tag of ‘VP for Othaya’.

Ministers and MPs who associated with him were sacked, demoted or kicked out of Kanu. President Moi propped up politicians all over the larger Central region to fight Kibaki’s allies in the infamous 1988 elections. There was even an attempt to rig him out in Nyeri.

He was soon demoted from the Vice-Presidency in 1988 and transferred to the ministry of Health. In 1991, Section 2A of the Constitution was repealed, which saw him resign from government to found the Democratic Party.

Dr Josphat Njuguna Karanja

A former vice chancellor of the University of Nairobi, Dr Karanja, who was the VP between 1988 and 1989, had been hoisted from the position of an assistant minister only to be hounded out of the VP’s office barely a year later.

“President Moi was not comfortable with Kikuyu VPs and he wanted an excuse to do away with them. So he set up Dr Karanja, supporting his detractors while cunningly encouraging him to fight on so that when his end came he had no friend,” says a senior journalist.

The onslaught in Parliament was led by Embakasi MP David Mwenje and Kuria Kanyingi, the then director of motor vehicle inspections. In 1993 he was arrested and arraigned in court on charges of inciting the public against the government.

Prof George Saitoti

A former mathematics don at the University of Nairobi, Prof Saitoti replaced Dr Karanja.

The height of his humiliation came at a meeting in his Maasai backyard in 2002 when Mr Moi explained his reasons for overlooking him in his succession plans.

Speaking in Swahili, Mr Moi said: “Huyu makamu wa rais nirafiki yangu. Lakini urafiki na siasa ni tofouti...” (The vice president is my friend. But politics and friendship are two very different things.)”

Mr Moi was referring to the infamous March 2002 Kanu Kasarani delegates’ meeting, at which he sidestepped his vice president in favour of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta as his heir.

“If there is anybody who has been subjected to tribulations, it is I, Prof Saitoti. At one time they even tried to poison me,” Prof Saitoti said at a rally at Kikuyu in 2003.

Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi

In the run up to the 2002 elections, President Moi, desperate to stem the tide that was threatening to sweep the 40-year-old Kanu government out of power, appointed the then 42-year old Sabatia MP as vice-president.

Earlier, Kanu was crumbling as Raila Odinga led the exodus of politicians who included Saitoti and Kalonzo out of Kanu. Perhaps the greatest humiliation for Mr Mudavadi was the “homecoming” tour of Western Province following his elevation.

Everywhere he went, the VP was jeered and his motorcade either pelted with stones or blockaded.

His three-month stint as vice-president was the shortest in Kenya’s history and in the 2002 elections, little-known Moses Akaranga trounced him.

Michael Wamalwa

The charismatic and flamboyant politician who became the vice-president after the National Rainbow Coalition swept to power in 2003 did not suffer any known public humiliation.

Perhaps this is because of his charm and tact, as well as the brief time he served.

He was one of the group of young politicians who made up the original Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford).

He died in August 2003 after serving for only seven months.

Arthur Moody Awori

The 84 year-old politician, who had been derisively referred to as the Moi’s ‘professional assistant minister,’ having not risen beyond the position for two decades, was appointed Vice-President by President Kibaki upon the death of Kijana Wamalwa in 2003.

An amiable gentleman with a charming mien, he was chosen as “everybody’s uncle.”

The height of his frustration in office was when he was given a tongue-lashing by First Lady Lucy Kibaki at a New Year’s Eve dinner dance at State House, Mombasa, after he referred to Mrs Kibaki as second lady in a verbal slip.

He was also to suffer a humiliating defeat in the 2007 elections after he was reportedly forced to defend his seat against his will, in order to shore up the president’s fledgling campaign.