FILE | NATION Mr Simeon Nyachae at a past Ford People function.
By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Friday, February 10 2012 at 22:30
Posted Friday, February 10 2012 at 22:30
Mr Simeon Nyachae, the former Cabinet minister, celebrated his birthday this week. He turned 80 on Monday, February 6. Tell me you knew about that!
Anyway, this man’s life story has super snippets. He speaks about his disagreement with Mr Martin Shikuku, back in the day when Mr Shikuku was, wait for it, an assistant minister in the Office of the President.
Mr Nyachae was in the powerful position of Chief Secretary, with sweeping powers that, if it were today, would combine the powers of the Prime Minister and those of the Head of Civil Service and secretary to the Cabinet.
Back then, Mr Nyachae recalls in his autobiography, the assistant minister would come to the office very early, stand by the door with a notebook and record the time each civil servant got into the office. Woe unto you if you came late.
Now, doing that at a place such as OP, where power resides, sent chills down the civil servants’ spines. As Chief Secretary, Mr Nyachae asked Mr Shikuku to stop his antics. One time when Mr Nyachae was out of the country, Mr Shikuku went to Parliament and said Mr Nyachae was running the civil service as if he was a Prime Minister. Of course, Mr Nyachae complained to the President; the President kicked Mr Shikuku out of the OP.
On two occasions, Mr Nyachae notes in the auto-bio — Walking Through the Corridors of Service — that when there was rumour or a general feeling that he could be fired, he always had the ear of his bosses, Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta (at the time Nyachae was a Provincial Commissioner in Central Kenya) and later from President Moi (when he was Chief Secretary). They listened to his side of the story, complimented him, and kept quiet. He kept his job both times.
That man was a workhorse too. In African Successes, Four Public Managers of Kenyan Rural Development, another book that takes a peek into Mr Nyachae’s life, Prof David K. Leonard notes: “When Simeon Nyachae was chief secretary, each day he got up at 5am, arrived at the office by 7am, had a meal sent in so he could work through the lunch hour, and did not leave the office until 7pm”.
And, yes, Mr Nyachae is a strict teetotaller. Yet, he worked at the East Africa Breweries for a few months, a time when his close friends must have had a super time, given those free complimentary drinks.
That noted, it’s happy belated birthday to the father of the man who is on the steering wheel in the roll-out of Kenya’s Constitution, Charles Nyachae.
Today is also Sarah Palin’s birthday. Sarah who? Yes, that lady from Alaska who wanted to be Vice-President of the US. Big deal?
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