Walking through the Corridors of Service

Former Cabinet minister Simeon Nyachae has broken his long political silence to reveal how he twice came to the rescue of President Kibaki’s presidency.

The revelations, published in a new book and reinforced during the launch in Nairobi on Friday night, highlight his relationship with presidents Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki and gives a glimpse of the tyranny, intrigues, lies, tribalism, and dirty struggles for power which have characterised Kenya’s politics and the Public Service since independence.

It also captures Mr Nyachae’s lost dreams, especially his unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2002 which he seems to blame on Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the media. But he reveals that he resolved to run, fully aware that he stood no chance of winning.

“We felt strongly that we had to go ahead as a matter of principle despite the signs that we were unlikely to win,” Mr Nyachae writes.

One of the highlights of the book is Mr Nyachae’s role in helping President Kibaki who was facing a stern test from Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) campaign for the 2007 General Election.

In April 2007, when the President was rallying troops to launch his re-election campaign, word went round that Mr Nyachae, a key pillar in government then, was planning to retire from politics due to ill-health. There was panic in President Kibaki’s inner circle.

The President’s advisers understood that the move would be a major blow to Mr Kibaki’s campaign in the face of the ODM wave which seemed formidable enough to sweep him out of power.

The President took a personal initiative and called the then Vice-President, Mr Moody Awori and Mr Njenga Karume, then minister for Defence, to a meeting. The three invited Mr Nyachae for an “elders’ cup of tea” at which they highlighted the impact of Mr Nyachae’s decision to retire and pleaded with him to stay on. He agreed.

“He expressed the view that I should stay with them for some time until after the 2007 general elections,” Mr Nyachae writes in his newly-published autobiography, “Walking through the Corridors of Service”.

Nevertheless, he says, he was not keen to retain his parliamentary seat. “I was only campaigning for President Kibaki and not myself.”

Mr Awori, who was the chief guest at the book launch, said: “We told him, ‘you are an elder. Which elders have given you permission to retire?’”

But as it turned out, it was not the first time Mr Nyachae was coming to President Kibaki’s rescue.

In 2004, President Kibaki was under siege and in desperate need of help. A group of politicians had hatched a vote of no confidence against his government.

“If the vote carried the day, it would mean that the President either resigns or dissolves Parliament, a move that was likely to plunge the country into chaos,” Mr Nyachae writes.

President Kibaki had been informed that some Cabinet ministers wanted to take part in the vote.

“So the President suggested a government of national unity involving opposition politicians to avoid the impending catastrophe.” This saw the return of Mr Nyachae and Mr Karume to Cabinet, to primarily reinforce President Kibaki.

The former Cabinet minister also recounts how Mr Odinga caught him off-guard with his “Kibaki tosha” declaration at Uhuru Park shortly after signing a deal with him in the run up to the 2002 election. The agreement was brokered by former Kisumu Town MP Joab Omino.

At first, Mr Nyachae says the declaration did not bother him. “However, when the remark was repeated a number of times on radio, I rung Omino . . . but he was not clear what Mr Odinga meant. I didn’t pursue the matter further.”

A week later, a group of leaders met at Mr Awori’s house to discuss a presidential candidate. But it turned out that the Rainbow Coalition had settled on a candidate, had come up with a government structure and distributed out positions.

“I had been given one of the two posts of deputy prime minister without consultation,” Mr Nyachae says. He opted out of the negotiations and hit the presidential campaign as leader of the Ford People party.

However, Mr Nyachae’s story is heavily self-censored. Much of the story remains untold because he is extremely sketchy on critical issues such as the murder of Tom Mboya, JM Kariuki, the Kenyatta Succession, Moi tyranny and post-election violence.

As a top man in the provincial administration during the Kenyatta days, chief secretary and minister during the Moi reign and minister under Mr Kibaki, Mr Nyachae obviously knows a lot.

For a man who has been actively involved in events that shape Kenya’s post-independence history, the narrative falls short of expectation. Mr Nyachae rose from a clerk to the position of Head of Civil Service (then known as Chief Secretary) and eventually served as Cabinet minister in both the Kibaki and Moi administrations.

In between, he served a powerful provincial commissioner in Rift Valley and Central provinces.

He is particularly reluctant to delve into his vast business interests and family life.

But in his speech during the launch, Mr Nyachae said he was bound by the Official Secrets Act which bars public servants from revealing sensitive information until 30 years after they have left the government.

Mr Nyachae reveals that his major reason for joining politics after a long stint in the civil service was to protect his business interests. The veteran politician has vast interests in horticulture, banking, real estate, insurance, milling and bakery.

He singles out a case in which the Kanu regime accused him of intending to use his wealth to destabilise the government. At one point, he says, the Kanu government planted a rat in one of his millers with the intention of closing it on health grounds.

In another instance, the government wanted to shut down the miller in Nairobi over claims that it was attracting several hundreds of birds which were turning out to be a nuisance for pilots in a nearby airstrip. He hired a Germany expert on birds who proved the government wrong. In fact, the birds were attracted by an abattoir in the neighbourhood.

On another occasion, the government refused to clear his Mercedez Benz 500 because “nobody was allowed to import a car that big unless he wanted to be President”.

But he is keen to project himself as a principled, selfless, incorruptible and brave public servant.

His eagerness to flaunt his association with political power can barely be disguised.

Some of the associations brought out interesting insights, and helpfully highlights the terror and witch-hunting which became the face of the Kenyatta regime in which he proudly served.

Kenyatta’s speech

Because of his bravery, he was tasked to read President Kenyatta’s speech during the burial of Mr JM Kariuki, the Nyandarua politician whose killing was blamed on the government of the day.

Bitter Nyandarua residents had composed a song called “Maai ni Maruru” (the waters are bitter) to display the anger of the JM murder. As the area PC, Mr Nyachae banned it.

Because of the resentment towards government, no Cabinet minister — including Gikonyo Kiano and Jeremiah Nyagah — was willing to read the speech. He went ahead and delivered the speech amidst tension and even condemned the killing.

The old man who left the political scene after the last General Election, says his loss of the Nyaribari Chache parliamentary seat in 2007 was “an act of God” to fulfil his wish to retire from politics.

He used the launch of his autobiography to advise his agemates to retire. “Don’t wait until death beckons on you. There is time and season for everything.”