Not all politicians who fall by the wayside are useless, and not all useless politicians fall by the wayside. I met with former firebrand Kimani wa Nyoike some years before he died over a cup of tea at the Hilton, Nairobi.
I was interested in some letters he had written in the early 1960s to Jomo Kenyatta, and I had always wanted him to contextualise his US mission. I had written an article and said he was a spy.
We talked. We laughed. Nyoike was brilliant — until he crossed swords with some uncouth Kanu politicians and was brought down like a heap of potatoes.
Whoever planted Nyandarua’s Magumu Primary School children to sing ‘Tawala Kenya, Tawala’ song during a rally hosted by Kimani wa Nyoike at their school in mid-1987 was up to no good.
Soon, the then-MP for Nyandarua South was accused of demeaning President Daniel Moi for letting a song, ostensibly reserved for the Head of State, be performed in his rally.
Today, those with no idea how far we have travelled on the democratic path may think that this accusation was farfetched. But it was charge number 10, and Nyoike was found guilty and almost lost his parliamentary seat. Any other mistake would have led to expulsion.
This story is important — not because it is the third anniversary of Nyoike’s death or because the trade union he once led, the Union of Kenya Civil Servants, is threatening to go on strike — but because it shows how we sacrifice integrity for mediocrity and the consequences of mobilising hate.
Nyoike’s mistake was that he had defended the secret ballot during the debate on ‘queue voting’, which was about to be adopted by Kanu. He was also an independent mind in a sea of robots.
In its bad-mannered days, Kanu used the performance of ‘Tawala Kenya Tawala’ song to intimidate Nyoike in Parliament.
As a result, one of the most brilliant Kenyan debaters had to walk around with a suspension — and possible expulsion from the party — if he erred again. Unfortunately, his liberal politics would not match up to the ways of Kanu mandarins, grabbers and wreckers. Soon, Nyoike was jailed.
I asked him about that saga, and he said he believed the entire circus was choreographed from the highest echelons of the party.
Those who remember will tell you that Nyoike was a shining star in Kenya’s politics, and like many other brilliant debaters, he had to be dimmed. Moi was also cleaning up Central Kenya politics and only the ‘Yes’ men remained.
When you look at the charges today, you realise that they border on the absurd. Nyoike was charged with “inciting Magumu Primary School children to sing ‘Tawala’ song [for him]”. Let me quote the committee’s findings for posterity — and lest we forget: “The committee wishes to state that anybody has a right to sing the song any time provided it is sang in its right context. It has been found, however, that during the occasion under reference, the song, which was specifically composed for the President in recognition of his able leadership, to reaffirm to him the confidence of the people in his leadership, and to express the acceptance of him as the head of the nation and urge him to continue to lead, was distorted, with the subject’s name being substituted for the President’s in his presence.”
The committee, chaired by Okiki Omayo, went on: “There is no indication that the permission of the original composer of the song, Mr Wasonga, was obtained to reproduce the song in any other version. Secondly, the committee accepted the evidence of (Nyoike’s) driver that at the school gate, the subject was told that a song had been prepared for him and he did not ask which song it was, indicating that he knew it.”
Apparently, and Nyoike believed as much, a mischievous party official was behind the injection of the stanza “Tawala Kenya, Nyoike, Tawala Kenya Kimani” in the song — and Kanu ruled that this belittled President Moi.
Said the Kanu committee: “When the song began, as soon as he realised its erratic nature, the subject should have taken the initiative to stop it, but instead sat back enjoying the song. The possibility of a conspiracy with the choir leader can therefore not be ruled out and this amounts to lack of respect to and undermining the President, contrary to the Kanu code of discipline.”
And thus, “for condoning the singing of the song ‘Tawala Kenya Tawala’ in his own name, and for failing to correct the grave impression which was created by the choir and educating the children and public that the song is exclusively for the president,” Nyoike was found guilty and expelled from the party for one year, lost his parliamentary seat and was removed from Kanu’s National Governing Council. How Nyoike was supposed to know which songs were about to be performed was immaterial.
When you critically look at people’s micro-histories, you start to see the hooliganism that Kanu used to cripple any emerging leadership in the 1980s. And we have many lessons to learn from our past.
Of all trade unionists-turned-legislators in Kenya, Nyoike — known for his trademark bow-tie — was in a class of his own.
He had studied at Lincoln University, the alma mater of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah and Nigeria’s Nnamdi Azikiwe.
He was later admitted to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he enrolled for a doctorate in economics. After completing his coursework, Nyoike was appointed the Unicef director for Uganda, enabling him to conduct research for his PhD. But by that time, Tom Mboya had emerged as the biggest name in Western circles, and Nyoike was sent back to the US by the likes of Dr Munyua Waiyaki and Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano, to whittle down Mboya’s influence and sell Kenyatta’s name in influential circles. But, unfortunately, that story had never been told until I found those letters in an obscure file.
Later, although Agriculture minister Bruce Mackenzie appointed Nyoike to oversee the development of ADC farms upon his return to Kenya, Nyoike quit after the minister appointed a British settler as substantive chief executive.
It was, however, at the trade union, first as secretary-general of the East African Community Union and later of the giant Union of Kenya Civil Servants, that he got everyone’s attention. Nyoike was instrumental in building the Kariobangi civil servants’ housing scheme and had grown the union's membership from 13,000 in 1974 to 93,000 in 1979 when he left to vie for the Nyandarua South seat. He won with a landslide. But, soon, Moi banned the civil servants’ union for what he called “over-indulgence in politics”.
When the idea of ‘queue voting’ was floated first in 1987, only a few brave MPs dared to oppose it in favour of secret ballot. These were Masinde Muliro, Abuya Abuya, Charles Rubia and Nyoike — who was an assistant minister. For that, he was dropped from that position and marked as a dissident. He would pay dearly later. During the chaotic 1988 elections, Nyoike’s opponent was announced to have won 72.9 per cent of the vote, and by October, he was jailed for 20 months for “failing to report a coup plot against the Kenya government”.
Public rallies were held all over Nyandarua to denounce Nyoike “and his vibaraka (puppets).” In addition, he was accused of “maintaining friendship” with Koigi wa Wamwere and Andrew Ngumba, who had fled to Oslo, Norway.
After Kanu rigged him out in the 1988 elections, Nyoike’s attempt to win back the Nyandarua South (renamed Kinangop) seat ended up in a fiasco. Nyoike was destined to win the seat during the first multi-party election, but a last-minute Kenneth Matiba euphoria in Mt Kenya region saw him lose to a lacklustre prophetess Mary Wanjiru — who would stage prayers on the floor of the House.
And that story of Mary Wanjiru is another lesson. In politics, voters, in their euphoric wisdom, can short-change themselves. We have seen good parliamentarians — men and women who read and scrutinise documents – getting cast aside or sacrificed thanks to short-term euphoria and propaganda. But again, as we might have learned by now, politics is not a contest of brains. For us, it is a shouting match.
