File | NATION Former Attorney-General Amos Wako says that whenever he thought of resigning over frustrations with authority something would happen that would create new home
By MUGUMO MUNENE mmunene@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, August 27 2011 at 22:00
Posted Saturday, August 27 2011 at 22:00
IN SUMMARY
- Ex-Attorney-General reflects on key moments in a controversial career during which he says he survived 20 attempts to get him kicked out of office, contemplated quitting five times and put his less known spiritual side to good use
Former Attorney-General Amos Wako survived 20 attempts to push him out of his prestigious State Law Office for the two decades he held the position.
He could only be asked to resign and not be fired because of constitutional protections on his office and those who wanted him out could only press the President to ask him to step down.
“People have wanted me out of office since the day I was appointed. And I don’t blame them because the AG is an attractive job. That has been the position until now that I’m leaving gracefully,” he said in an interview 48 hours before he left office.
“I’m happy that with all those machinations — God was kind enough to protect me. Situations would come and push me to a corner but things would just open up and go back to normal. Every year, for 20 years, it has been like that.” (READ: After 20 years, Wako serves last days as Kenya's AG)
The best opportunity for Mr Wako’s detractors came when Narc assumed power in 2002. President Kibaki’s confidants at the time resolved to persuade the President to ask Mr Wako to resign so that the new government could start on a clean slate. The task fell on the then Justice minister Kiraitu Murungi to deliver the news that Mr Wako should resign within a week.
Those familiar with the briefings told the Sunday Nation that Mr Wako took the news in his stride. But he had one request; would they please allow him some time to make contact with the United Nations, which had previously offered him jobs that he had turned down.
He reasoned with the Kibaki presidency insiders that it would only be fair to allow him to exit the scene with a soft landing — that he had been released to take up an appointment at the UN.
“We thought that he would obstruct the reforms that the Kibaki government wanted to bring. We tried to persuade him to retire but it turned out that he became loyal to President Kibaki and did not obstruct reforms. The initial fears we had evaporated and I think he has served President Kibaki very well and is leaving on a good note. People don’t know Wako,” Mr Murungi said while confirming that the new government had asked Mr Wako to retire in 2003.
It turns out that Mr Wako would initiate a personal, spiritual and philosophical rapport with Mr Murungi. The AG offered the new minister some books on the Hindu and Tao philosophies which teach — among other principles — that there is no point of fighting too much and, in life, it’s good to forgive others.
“He had become deeply religious and took life lightly, always smiling. But there is a spiritual and philosophical depth you see when you sit with him and he is very sharp when it comes to legal analysis. Certainly, this is not the last you are hearing on Wako,” Mr Murungi said on Friday.
Another deeply personal matter came into play around the time. Before he took office, Mr Wako had been barred from travelling to Ethiopia. In his capacity as the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, he had investigated Ethiopia over the illegal execution of some generals.
In July 1990, Mr Wako was supposed to attend a meeting in Addis Ababa which he nominated Mr Murungi to attend. The latter was considered by the Moi government a dissident and was being hunted down. The trip to Addis Ababa became his escape route.
“I personally owe it to Wako that I was able to leave the country,” Mr Murungi said.
Even as his exit was contemplated, there was another wind blowing in favour of Mr Wako. By his own admission, he had a warm friendship with President Kibaki.
They had worked together when Mr Wako was elected chairman of the Law Society of Kenya between 1979 and 1980 during which Mr Kibaki, then Vice-President, would be invited to address the society’s meetings.
The two would meet yet again when Mr Wako assumed office in May 1991 when Mr Kibaki served as the Minister for Health up until the end of the year when he resigned to launch his first presidential bid under the Democratic Party.
“I went to see him after the accident and he told me: ‘We are going to work together’,” Mr Wako said of his private conversation with the presidential candidate.But the clearest indication that their long friendship was bound to continue came in 2002 when Mr Kibaki was involved in a road accident ahead of the General Election.
But Mr Wako says that on his own motion, he had contemplated resigning and packed his bags, ready to leave at least five times, mainly arising out of the frustrations he faced with the political class.
The first time he thought he should leave was in 1992 after a Kanu parliamentary group meeting instructed him to withdraw some proposed constitutional amendments he had published, hoping to open a window for reform and end the agitation for multiparty democracy that was mainly playing out on the streets and at opposition rallies often crushed by the police.
The second time was in 1996. In his New Year’s message to the nation, President Moi had announced that the year would be the year of constitutional review. Mr Wako says he took the President seriously and thought the golden opportunity he was waiting for had come.
“I was in Paris within two weeks going to research and I was very well received by the French government at very high levels. I made statements about how we were going to have a new constitution from Paris,” Mr Wako said. And then the thunderbolt struck.
“By the time I came back, there were a lot of noises that there was no need for a new constitution because there was no constitutional crisis. I began getting a bit frustrated.”
But afterwards, a glimmer of hope appeared that there was a possibility the constitutional review process would kick off after all and he decided to stay.
The third time Mr Wako says he thought he had had enough was in February 1998. The constitutional review was about to take off. On the cards was the formation of a review commission.
It had been decided that each party was going to nominate representatives to the commission and it was Mr Wako’s mandate to meet with the secretaries-general of the various political parties to get the long-awaited process moving.
At a scheduled meeting, tight security was kept to ensure that only those sent officially by their parties would attend the talks. Then the ruling party Kanu staged sabotage.
“The entire Cabinet walked in. Here I was, chairing a meeting that the party in power was not interested in. I was mandated to try and solve the crisis, which we then did. It took up to August. The party of the government was the one sabotaging,” Mr Wako said.
“Patience kept me going. There was always hope that change was going to come,” Mr Wako said and then went into a long reflection. “I’m not sure that this country would have been the same if I had resigned on some of the occasions when people wanted me to leave.”
He added: “Whenever I thought of resigning something would happen that would create new hope. Maybe we would not have been where we are today.
There were very few reformers within government,” he said, obviously counting himself among the few. Undoubtedly, he said, his muted role would never attract much media attention.
And then in the run-up to the 2007 General Election, Mr Wako thought that he had been in office long enough and made his contribution and it was time to hang up his boots and take up an appointment at the International Law Commission.“In the reform process, attention is normally focused on those outside. They are able to speak out, demonstrate and that becomes food for the media. In that process, normally, it is forgotten that there are reformers from within who cannot talk or shout as those on the outside. Neither because of the positions they hold can they afford to come out in public and say this is my opinion because they are not politicians. I can tell you for reforms to take place; it took both those from outside and those from within,” Mr Wako said.
“But because of the violence, it became difficult for me to say this would happen,” he said.A little later, in the heat of the struggle to form the grand coalition government and determine how the long-awaited reforms would be undertaken, the strain of high office took a toll on Mr Wako’s will and again, he decided he would leave.
“After the Serena Talks, the way things were going, I had thought that we were not going to make progress. I was worried that we were going nowhere and I had said that if I did not achieve a new Constitution, I would rather resign,” he said.
And he thinks he has done a sterling job.
“When I came in, I was asked what I wanted to be remembered for and I said as a constitutional and legal reformer. I’m leaving this office having achieved that,” he said.
August 29, 2011: Read about the high-level meeting where Amos Wako’s mind helped rescue the Serena talks from collapse.
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