{UAH} Edmund/Pojim/WBK: WARIGI: Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru and the myth of the Nyayo link that never was - Daily Nation
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WARIGI: Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru and the myth of the Nyayo link that never was
Uhuru Kenyatta went out of his way to show his highest esteem to the Mwai Kibaki family following the passing on of their matriarch, Mama Lucy Kibaki.
The government made sure the farewell would be essentially a state affair, with a three-day official mourning period.
The government was fully involved in all the funeral preparations.
Uhuru joined the Kibakis to receive the casket at JKIA.
He took time to visit the family at their Muthaiga home in Nairobi where he signed the condolence book.
At the Requiem Mass on Wednesday, the President spoke with genuine affection about Mama Lucy, her husband and their children.
Watching the whole show made me question anew the epithet of "Moi-Kanu orphan" Uhuru's opponents like to pin on him.
Though I have no doubt Daniel arap Moi will always be the object of similar respect and consideration on the part of Uhuru, one could nonetheless sense the Fourth President of Kenya owes a stronger filial bond to the Third President more than the Second.
CLOSE TO KIBAKI FAMILY
At the Requiem Mass, Uhuru spoke candidly about how he had been close to the Kibaki family for most of his life.
The rather derogatory "Kanu orphan" label – which seeks to tie Uhuru with Moi's policies – starts from the central role Moi played in hoisting Uhuru into top-level politics, then clearing the young man's path to his first stab at the presidency. Yet the tag is misleading.
It misleads just as much as when Kibaki is tagged with Moi's regime and legacy just because he served in it as vice-president and Cabinet minister.
Kibaki is essentially a creature of the Jomo Kenyatta state through and through.
His ideas on national governance and economic management hark back to the Kenyatta regime where he was a key policy actor.
In truth, he fitted quite poorly in the Nyayo set-up and was treated by the Moi inner circle with disdain. The Makerere-educated economist was never going to be viewed comfortably by the insecure Moi.
Indeed, to the original founders of Kanu such as Kibaki, Moi's later reconstruction of the party and the State seemed nothing less than a remake of Kadu.
When he got the opportunity to bolt in 1991, he did, much as it was too way belated.
(The Director of Intelligence lost his job for failing to give Moi prior warning of the defection).
NOT A ZEALOUS NYAYOIST
Moi's embrace of Uhuru into his orbit from the mid-1990s was not because the Kenyatta son was a zealous Nyayoist like, say, Kalonzo Musyoka was.
Far from it. In fact, Uhuru had backed the Kenneth Matiba presidential campaign in 1992, breaking ranks with his larger family which leaned to Kibaki.
It was rather a set of political circumstances and calculations as Moi tried to steer his succession that led him to pick Uhuru.
After Kanu's loss in 2002, Uhuru dutifully played the role of Opposition Leader (remember his broadside at Kibaki's leadership as "hands off, eyes off, everything off"?).
Yet his performance never appeared convincing, or from the gut.
Uhuru's allies bristle at any suggestion that all this was about ethnic solidarity, though there was an element of that when he dumped the Orange movement shortly after the 2005 referendum.
Luckily for him, Moi somewhat cushioned the inevitable criticism of the move when he took the same direction and backed Kibaki for 2007.
Kibaki is famous for his stoic tolerance and his dislike of grandstanding.
Uhuru, however, has a whiff of the impatience and temper of his father.
Kibaki will be remembered for dramatically loosening up the bleak police state Kenya had become under Moi.
Uhuru is often accused by the Opposition of wanting to undo this and return the country to the "dark days".
There is irony here.
Many in the same Opposition today who indict him on this found no serious problem with the Nyayo state and enthusiastically supported Moi in the 1992 and 1997 elections (Raila Odinga being a notable exception).
* * *
Excessive religiosity can be a problem.
Some fishermen in Indonesia recently came upon a doll-like object which they believed had fallen from heaven as some kind of Godly omen.
It so happened its appearance coincided with a solar eclipse that swept the island.
Back in their village, the object was quickly turned into a figure of divine reverence.
But the authorities were suspicious. When investigators turned up, they quickly concluded the object had nothing remotely divine about it.
It was a sex toy. Simple. It took some explaining to the poorly exposed and backward villagers what a sex toy is.
gitauwarigi@yahoo.com
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