Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Miguna Miguna: A man loved and loathed in equal measure

University of Nairobi student leaders Munameza Muleji, Kaberere Njenga, Joshua Miguna Miguna, Munoru Nderi and Oyuo Amuomo Ngala appear in court after being held for 14 days in communicado in 1987. Photo/FILE
University of Nairobi student leaders Munameza Muleji, Kaberere Njenga, Joshua Miguna Miguna, Munoru Nderi and Oyuo Amuomo Ngala appear in court after being held for 14 days in communicado in 1987. Photo/FILE 
By NYAMBEGA GISESA engisesa@yahoo.com
Posted  Sunday, August 7  2011 at  18:00

Share This Story
9Share
He has survived bitter battles with MPs, Cabinet Ministers and top government officials.
Related Stories
His biting, acerbic prose and a penchant for hitting hard has meant that you cross swords with him at your own risk. But it looks like he has finally taken a major hit himself.
The Prime Minister's Advisor on Coalition Affairs, Miguna Miguna, was suspended on Thursday, for what a letter from Permanent Secretary in the PM’s office, Mohammed Isahakia, termed as gross misconduct.
Predictably, the defiance that got him into problems with the Moi regime way back in his university days was all too evident in his reaction to the suspension.
Typical of a man who has been in the trenches for too long, he responded to the suspension thus: “The struggle for a democratic, equal and humane Kenya shall and must continue! I am going to stand upright up to the end,” in his writing on the blog Jukwaa.
In his University of Nairobi days, the lanky fire-breathing student was in the good company of student leaders who were in the bad books of the Kanu government.
The walls of his room, he told DN2 in an earlier interview, were veritable mosaics of Fidel Castro, Thomas Sankara, Malcolm X and Che Guevara posters.
The slogan, “The duty of a revolutionary is to make a revolution,” greeted you in his student room, he recalled from his NHIF Building offices last year.
Reflecting on those early days, Miguna writes, “How could I, a good Christian boy, be so rebellious? My parents suddenly noticed the dramatic changes which had taken place; my devotion to African attire, the fact that I refused to go to church, et cetera…” in an abridged version of his book Disgraceful Osgoode and Other Essays.
In those days, radical student politics would invariably incur those involved the wrath of the Moi state. For Miguna Miguna and co it was just a matter of time.
A day after addressing a students’ rally on November 13, 1987, he was arrested alongside SONU chair Wafula Buke, foreign secretary Munameza Muleji, education secretary Oyuo Ngala Amuomo, secretary general Kaberere Njenga and vice-chairman Munoru Nderi.
The student leaders were held incommunicado, he told us, and tortured for four days before being expelled.
Soon after their expulsion, riots broke out. Subsequently, the University was closed indefinitely and SONU banned.
“We were accused of ganging up with foreigners such as Libyans, South Africans and American racists, and Ugandans to destabilise the government of Kenya. Fighting Moi was a very interesting thing to do,” he recalled.
Almost one year later, Miguna Miguna and fellow student leaders Munoru Nderi, James Anampiu, Peter Gakiri and JT Ogola fled to Tanzania from where UNHCR sent them to Swaziland.
After six months, the Canadian government airlifted them to Canada as government sponsored conventional refugees.
Related Stories
Now Muleji works for a consulting firm in Nairobi; Ngala lives and works in the UK; Kabere in Nairobi.
Miguna registered at the University of Toronto in September 1988 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1990 before joining Osgoode Law School where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree in June 1993.
He was called to the Ontario Bar in February 1995.During the same year, he set up his private law firm and started providing legal services in criminal, constitutional, civil, immigration/refugee and family matters.
In 2001, he graduated with a Master of Laws (LLM) degree with distinction from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Canada.
He is also a certified mediator and alternative dispute resolution consultant.
Until Thursday he advised Prime Minister Raila Odinga on matters relating to the coalition.
He also penned for the Nairobi Star a scathing column that pulled no punches.
Among those who felt Miguna’s sting in his column are Eldoret North MP William Ruto, VP Kalonzo Musyoka and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.
“The Prime Minister didn’t have a problem with my column and I’ve not received a single note for libel,” he says.
And, in the exchange of brickbats, he has equally sustained hard hits from PNU strategist Peter Kagwanja and activist Moses Kuria.
When PNU accused him of being a Canadian citizen, he quickly answered: “I have never renounced my Kenyan citizenship and everybody knows that I am a Kenyan. A passport is not evidence of citizenship: only a birth certificate or citizenship card can confirm one’s citizenship. Raila Odinga, Koigi Wamwere, Jaramogi Odinga, Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, et cetera, have all travelled on foreign papers.”
Of the Muslim cap that is ever precariously perched on his head, he says: “My cap is not in any way an ideological or fashion statement. It’s just me. Even back in Canada I would wear it to court.”
The cap has replaced the long hair he kept in his student days when he represented the Faculty of Arts in the Students Organization of Nairobi University (SONU) in 1987, and consequently the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) as the Finance Secretary.
He was also the managing editor of the students’ newspaper the Campus Mirror and Vice chair of Kisumu University Students’ Association (KIDUSA) from 1986 to 1987.
Asked “what next?” Miguna Miguna says he is not about to let everybody into his plans.

No comments:

Post a Comment