On July 14, 1966, Kenyans bore witness to a key moment in the war on corruption when bureaucrats – with the wisdom of a wasp – took the decision to silence the initiative.
It was on this day that R.D. McLaren, the Registrar of Societies – perhaps prodded by his boss Attorney-General Charles Njonjo – struck a fatal blow, deregistering the Kenya Anti-Bribery and Corruption Union.
It is interesting that when we talk of unions, we hardly think of this one – and we know very little about it. This grassroots movement, originally conceived in the 1950s as the Kenya African Anti-Bribery and Corruption Union, had sought to combat the festering corruption in the colonial government, especially during the dark days of the State of Emergency.
The group opposed the extortionate demands for hongo (bribes) in exchange for access to public services. Later, it dared challenge the very foundations of the nascent Jomo Kenyatta regime after independence.
Curiously, this once-vital organisation has all but vanished from the pages of history. There is little mention of it in contemporary literature – a ghostly reminder that it was silenced on multiple fronts.
Reading through government documents, we notice that the union shed the “African” tag in 1962, signalling a shift in its ambitions and opening it to other races.
By 1966, however, its voice was extinguished, leaving no independent entity to champion the cause of integrity – at least, not until the formation of Transparency International (Kenya Chapter), led by businessmen Joe Wanjui and Joe Githongo in 1999.
But this tale is not solely about corruption, nor is it merely about how we have stifled dissenting voices. It is also a story about the insidious rise of kidnappings and abductions – another method in the long-standing tradition of muzzling alternative voices fighting corruption.
In African traditions, there is a saying: when you are eating, you do not speak. Our politicians have embraced this norm and perfected the carrot and stick strategy for survival.
The “nyamaza-lisation ”– the enforced silencing of dissent – stretches back to the dawn of independence. Overtly or covertly, the suppression of alternative voices has been woven into the fabric of our political history. The whole idea by the elite, and using the Subaru gangs as their violent intermediaries, is to let no one disturb the feast.
Before it silenced the Kenya anti-Bribery and Corruption Union, the Executive had tamed the Kenya African Democratic Union and allowed its chieftains onto the dining table.
If that sounds familiar in our times, it is because the strategy used is the same.
What is of concern is the silencing of individuals, and how we fail to see this pattern. The assassination of Pio Gama Pinto in 1964 cemented this grim reality. The murder of the outspoken journalist-turned-politician opened a window in which political assassins would find easy scapegoats.
It was a space where impunity thrived and still does. From that moment, political dissidents were quietly but systematically erased, their voices stifled before they could reach the masses.
This pattern, born under Jomo Kenyatta’s watch, and later Daniel arap Moi, has persisted, steadily shrinking the spaces in which alternative narratives could bloom.
But even as those spaces shrink, we are still what Prof Casper Odegi Awuondo called “cheering crowds” as elites shepherd us into political paddocks. In those spaces, we remain mute as the “violent intermediaries”, the masked men in Subarus and faceless enforcers of silence, continue to kidnap those deemed “enemies” of the state.
Stalwarts of the ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition have fallen silent. Not even their loudest keyboard warriors dare touch the electrified wire of dissent.
The parallels to the Moi era are unmistakable – invoking memories of the 1987 disappearance of Stephen Mbaraka Karanja, whose case underscored the helplessness of the Judiciary in safeguarding rights.
The Judiciary and Chief Justice Cecil Miller appeared to collude with police in obstructing justice. Justice Dereck Schofield was disqualified after summoning Director of Criminal Investigations Noah arap Too for contempt of court.
In this tangled web of complicity, the Judiciary betrayed its mandate, revealing how easily the state could erase lives without consequence. Today, we are watching Martha Koome to see if her court would blink.
French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once remarked, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Indeed, the script of these abductions is all too familiar. State actors continue to criminalise dissent and enforce conformity as we witnessed recently at the home of Safina party leader Jimi Wanjigi.
Only Wanjigi, Law Society of Kenya President Faith Odhiambo and a few others seem to be putting pressure on the “Subaru gang”.
Wanjigi has also been targeted for intimidation and had his Muthaiga home raided by crack units – as the state looked for a Gen Z uprising scapegoat.
Kenyans are walking into a slippery path away from democracy. The abductions are symbolic of a government that is determined to eliminate dissent.
The abducted were rarely found in Chile during the reign of Augusto Pinochet. Gen Pinochet perfected the art of inflicting pain on his opponents and their families.
Many of his victims were thrown into the ocean or dropped from helicopters into one of the country’s active volcanoes. The infamous Dina – Pinochet’s secret police – was responsible for the disappearances of more than 1,000 people.
A Chilean writer lamented: “The military transformed our rivers, seas, lakes, volcanoes and mineshafts into a gallery of horror.”
Dina’s official mandate of national security masked a covert force of terror, authorised to surveil, arrest, imprison and eliminate anyone perceived as a threat.
Uganda’s President Idi Amin Dada established the State Research Bureau (SRB), which under the guise of intelligence gathering, became a notorious death squad.
Men in Land Rovers would abduct real and imaginary dissenters and take them to the crocodile-infested River Nile, where their bodies were discarded, and erased from history.
I recently re-read Henry Kyemba’s State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin, with interest in the SRB.
Kyemba, a minister in Amin’s Cabinet, recalls when the despot dismissed his Minister for Foreign Affairs Michael Ondoga during a graduation ceremony at Makerere University.
It was during his speech that he announced that he had dismissed Ondoga, who was sitting there as a minister.
“He was clearly shocked and horribly humiliated, yet he had no alternative but to clap like everyone else,” writes Kyemba.
“Several men leapt out, surrounded Ondoga’s car and ordered him out. He tried to resist. They beat him up and nobody came to his aid,” Kyemba writes.
Ondoga’s body was later found at Jinja Hospital mortuary. Amin then named beauty queen Princess Bagaya as Foreign minister. She later escaped to Kenya after rejecting Amin’s sexual advances.
We must stop the long history of tyranny, kidnappings and disappearances. What we are witnessing is a calculated effort to control the national conversation, to eliminate dissent before it has a chance to take root. Indeed, the more things change, indeed, the more they remain the same.
