{UAH} WBK, Ocen// Patriarch's footprint in the sands of time - Moses Mudavadi

 

WBK and Ocen;

 

The writer, Barrack Muluka, tells the story of the late Moses Mudavadi, and includes some of the details that I had raised here a little over a year ago, when his son, Musalia, was contemplating running for president.

 

Because I know Barrack - he was at Mombasa House (Kenya News Agency) when I was at Nation House and I covered Mudavadi even up to his rural home - I can attest to the accurancy of this article.

 

Moses Mudavadi was an unapologetic tribalist with a big heart, and even a bigger mouth. A Harvard grad given to profanity, The King of Mululu was partial to warm Tusker beer and medium-rear steak, over steamed potatoes.

 

 

Pojim

 

Patriarch's footprint in the sands of time

By Barrack Muluka

His rise to power was truly meteoric. Within the space of five years, he had risen from a little know political upstart in the then greater Vihiga constituency to a redoubtable political giant. He straddled the landscape like a true colossus. By the time he left this world, they wanted to kiss him and kick him in equal measure. They loved and hated in equal measure.

Moses Mudavadi first ran for the Vihiga seat in the 1974 election. He lost to the incumbent Peter Kibisu. Kibisu went on to be made an Assistant minister in the Third Parliament. However, Kibisu soon ran foul of the Jomo Kenyatta regime. Following debate on the JM Kariuki Select Committee Report, Kibisu joined the late Masinde Muliro and Mark Mwithaga, then MP of Nakuru Town, in voting against the Government. The fallout was swift. Kenyatta sacked Muliro, the undisputed symbolic leader of the Abaluhya people at the time, from the Cabinet. He jailed Mark Mwithaga and Kibisu over matters that had been forgotten.

 In the ensuing election in Vihiga in 1976, Mudavadi shrug off the competition. He easily beat such notables as Engineer Bahati Semo, the late councilor Lawrence Isigi and the late John Madete. His star was on the rise. But he would first have to mark his time on the backbench for two years.

In October 1978, following the demise of Mzee Kenyatta, the new President Moi appointed him to Cabinet, as Minister for Basic Education. He would go on to serve also in the Water docket before being moved to the powerful Ministry of Local Government. Some may even argue that Local Government was not such an illustrious ministry until Mudavadi took over. While in this docket, he dissolved the City Council of Nairobi twice, replacing elected councilors with appointed commissioners.

 Everywhere he went, Mudavadi left firm footprints in the sands of time. He is remembered as the one minister who did not hesitate to fill up teacher training colleges with as many as 60 per cent recruits from his Luhya community. Of these about two thirds would be from his Maragoli sub tribe. When leaders from other tribes complained, Mudavadi looked them straight in the eye. He said he was only correcting an imbalance from the past. He would repeat the same at the Water Training School when he served as the Water Development Minister.

Moses Mudavadi, when the story of Kenya is written, will be recorded as one of the architects of the politics of clientele and patronage in the country. He was a member of the Nyayo-era kitchen cabinet — some say because of relationship to the Moi family by marriage. He belongs to the team that made Moi larger than life. They authored the thought that Moi was infallible. To contradict him bordered on sedition.  But Mudavadi is also remembered as an individual who combined very rare qualities. He was equally humble and imperious. On national TV, he could talk of the Ministry of Local Government as "My Government," with the easy aplomb of an aristocrat. His regal and monarchical tendencies saw him christened the King of Mululu, in reference to the unending delegations of the Abaluhya that he received at his Mululu home in Chamakanga. He even hosted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Mululu.

Yet this individual was exceedingly accessible. He was a patient listener who gave ear to all and sundry. It was said that to get into his presence was to have your problem solved. Mudavadi was a generous man. He spent his money on the education of the poor. Apart from developing schools in his home, he paid school fees for many children. Such schools as Vokoli Girls, Chavakali High, Mbale, Vihiga and Madzuu Girls, to mention but a few, improved their fortunes by leaps and bounds in his time as MP for Vihiga.

He was the quintessential public servant. He sometimes forgot to pay school fees for his children while settling other people's children's fees. While he kept an open gate and an open door his son, Musalia, has been faulted for being hard to reach. Of important note, too, is that Mudavadi was not a rich man. He did not use his position in Government to enrich himself. Contrary to popular lore that his progeny were the children of privilege who had it the soft way, the contrast is in fact true. To be a Mudavadi was synonymous to bearing hardship. The patriarch was perpetually out there, looking after other people.

Mudavadi never quite became the paramount leader of the Abaluhya. This is not to say that he did not try. There were people like the late Martin Shikuku and the late Elijah Mwangale who considered themselves his seniors in politics. They would not defer themselves to him. While Mwangale was diplomatic about his reservations, Shikuku made no bones about it. He was often on the rostrum, taunting Mudavadi. He would cast him one-liners like, "Where were you when we went to Lancaster to bring independence?" The struggle for supremacy stayed its course up to the end of Mudavadi's life. It made it ever so difficult for the perpetually fractious Abaluhya to find unity of purpose in his time.

Besides this, there was always a simmering inter-community animosity between the Bukusu and Maragoli people, dating back to the advent of Quaker Missions in Western Kenya. The schism occasioned between the Maragoli and Bukusu would not allow Mwangale and the Bukusu to accept Mudavadi as a paramount leader. There was also disquiet among the Bukusu about the political marginalization of Masinde Muliro by a cabal that Mudavadi was perceived to belong to. This only compounded things for him. 

Mudavadi was invincible in Maragoli, the neigbouring Tiriki and the environs. He beat his strongest competitor, Eng Semo in the 1983 snap election at a time when he was increasingly being demonised as "a systems man." In his last election in 1988, he went unopposed in the Mlolongo elections.