Details of JM Kariuki's 1975 murder, as disclosed for the first time in the year 2000- Daily Nation

Details of JM Kariuki's 1975 murder, as disclosed for the first time in the year 2000   Details of JM Kariuki's 1975 murder, as disclosed for the first time in the year 2000, by a three part feature published in the "Daily Nation" newspapers of 2nd, 3rd & 4th March 2000. Sections of the three part feature reproduced verbatim below: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cover of the "Daily Nation" of Thursday, 2nd March 2000: Startling new evidence about the murder of charismatic politician J.M. Kariuki is revealed by the Nation today. The populist MP was interrogated at the Kingsway House headquarters of Special Branch, exactly 25 years ago today, after being framed for a series of bombings in the capital. JM was also questioned about secret bank accounts he had allegedly opened and the supposed disappearance of funds donated by foreign countries to the National Youth Service which he had headed and to former Mau Mau fighters. He was shot in the arm by the then head of the GSU (General Service Unit), Ben Gethi, during a bitter exchange with one of his captors, President Kenyatta's personal bodyguard, the Nation has discovered. Then he was dragged out and driven to the Ngong forest where his body was found by a herdsman. The Nation also reveals that JM was threatened by a powerful son of President Kenyatta, Mr. Peter Muigai, two months before his murder. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pages 9, 10 & 11 of the "Daily Nation" of Thursday, 2nd March 2000: Who fired the shots that killed Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (JM) Kariuki? New evidence shows that the first bullet was fired by General Service Unit Commandant Ben Gethi in a Nairobi building and that it was not intended to kill and didn't kill him. The fatal shot was not fired until the fiery Nyandarua North legislator was driven behind Ngong Hills by men assigned by President Kenyatta's bodyguard, Senior Superintendent of Police Arthur Wanyoike Thungu. By early 1975, somebody had decided that Josiah Mwangi Kariuki - popularly known as JM - had to be eliminated. President Jomo Kenyatta was old and ailing. JM was believed to have his eyes on the presidency. Besides, JM had a dashing style and struck a powerful chord with the masses. It earned him bitter enemies in Kenyatta's State House. Not only did the dapper Nyandarua North MP give generously to charity, but his speeches were increasingly populist. He was known to have given the princely sum of KSh 80,000 to a public cause at a time when the President's highest known donation was KSh 3,000 to the Jomo Kenyatta College of Agriculture at Juja. His repeated attacks on the establishment did not help matters. On the 10th anniversary of Kenya's independence (1973), Mzee (Jomo Kenyatta) joyfully extolled the country's achievements while JM remarked elsewhere that Kenya had become a country of 10 millionaires and ten million beggars. The first danger signal to JM came a few days before Christmas 1974. JM was playing darts over a drink at Nakuru's Stags Head Hotel with Mark Mwithaga, his long-time friend and MP for Nakuru Town, when Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Muigai Kenyatta and Nakuru Mayor Mburu Gichua walked in. They strode right up to the two and one of them barked at JM: "You have brought trouble here from Nyandarua. Be warned: This is Nakuru and we can finish you at any time!" Mwithaga recalls their deep surprise. "Muigai and Gichua never even bothered to say hallo to us. They just lectured JM and left. We were very, very shocked". Muigai, President Kenyatta's eldest son by his first marriage, was a key member of the Kiambu political mafia. If JM wished to dismiss the Stags Head encounter as an isolated incident, he was in for a surprise. In January 1975, a well-connected Assistant Minister asked JM out for lunch at the Norfolk Hotel to "discuss a worrying matter". At the mmeeting, the Assistant Minister spoke of a secret meeting by a politically influential group which had decided that JM must be eliminated. The conspirators, said the Assistant Minister, hoped to convince President Kenyatta that JM was organising a citizens' revolt against the government. They had shown Mzee selective extracts from JM's speeches. And although Kenyatta had not approved their plan, the conspirators believed they had sufficiently poisoned his mind. The friend advised JM to seel audience with the President and give him his side of the story. One hurdle stood in JM's way. The leading anti-JM conspirators also happened to be the gate-keepers of Kenyatta's State House. JM's youngest wife, Terry Wanjiru, recalls her husband's fruitless attempts to see the President in his final years. A chance presented itself at the wedding of Attorney-General Charles Njonjo on November 18, 1972. Cutting through the throng of dignataries, JM walked over to Mzee and gave him a warm handshake. An excited Kenyatta replied "You're so lost JM. These days you don't come to say hallo to me!" To which JM replied, "Mzee, I have always wanted to come to see you but your men have been blocking me". "Is that so?" was Kenyatta's reply and he promised to look into the matter. By early 1975 nothing had changed. JM was still unwelcome at State House yet he was increasingly desperate to meet Kenyatta. Driving home to Gilgil in early February 1975, JM came across Njenga Karume, the Nominated MP and inflential chairman of the powerful tribal organisation GEMA (Gikuyu Embu Meru Association), near Naivasha. JM flagged down Karume and the two chatted by the roadside. Karume, now the MP for Kiambaa, recalls: "JM looked disturbed. He was not the confident man I knew. He began by thanking me for having stood by him in 1974 when a powerful clique wanted GEMA to campaign against him in the 1974 elections. Then he told me of the plot against his life and his difficulties in reaching Kenyatta". Karume sympathised with JM's predicament and promised to secure him an appointment with the President. Time was running out fast. By early February, JM's enemies had laid down a scheme to "sort out" their problem. They resolved to stage a series of events that would turn the public against JM and at the same time convince Kenyatta that JM was a boil that had to be lanced. A shadowy movement calling itself Maskini Liberation Organisation was formed as part of the propaganda campaign. Since JM presented himself as the "voice of the poor" the public would readily identify the movement's violent activities with him. Leaflets allegedly issued by the movement were printed and distributed in different towns. They bore the names of JM, Charles Rubia and five others as trustees of the Maskini Liberation Organisation, all of them "outsiders" to the tight clique around Kenyatta. Suddenly a spate of bomb hoaxes hit Nairobi. Anonymous calls would be made to police and newspaper offices that a bomb was about to go off. In the second week of February, a bomb exploded at the Starlight Discotheque on the edges of the city centre. There were no fatalities but the message was clear: Not all bomb alarms were false. Someone called the Central Police Station claiming that Maskini was behind the discotheque blast and there would be another bomb at the Tour Information Office, next to Hilton Hotel. A bomb went off there two hours later. In Parliament that week, Embu East MP Njagi Mbarire asked the Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs Daniel arap Moi to confirm or deny the existence of the Maskini Liberation Organisation. Moi declined to answer the question, citing ongoing investigations. Kamukunji MP Maina Wanjigi ventured that the VP was being non-commital because Maskini Liberation Organisation was the creation of government operatives. The conspirators were growing impatient. They met secretly at Nakuru's Midland Hotel on Wednesday, February 26, 1975, and again at State House, Nakuru, the following day. The JM matter, it was decided, had to be settled that weekend. Mzee Kenyatta had travelled to Gatundu for the weekend when the two Nakuru meetings took place. Evidence would later emerge that Kenyatta's chief bodyguard, Wanyoike Thungu, attended the Midland Hotel meeting and arranged the discussion at State House. JM, meanwhile, was becoming apprehensive. His doctor advised him to take a few days rest against stress. A friend called Elizabeth Koinange booked the two of them onto an OTC (Overseas Trading Company) bus bound for Mombasa on Friday, February 28. At the last minute a friend, Isaac Macharia, dissuaded the MP from going to the Coast. He was lucky. A bomb exploded in the bus he would have taken, killing 27 people and injuring 100 others. The plotters' February 27 meeting at State House, Nakuru, had resolved that JM be put on a 24-hour surveillance until the "job" was done. A friend who had borrowed the MP's car noticed that he was being trailed by a well-known police reservist, Patrick Shaw, in a white Volvo. He reported the incident but JM had more pressing matters to think about. The next day GSU Commandant Ben Gethi, who had had been a close friend of JM, had called to alert him of a plan to implicate him in the city bombings and have him jailed without trial. Gethi pressed him to meet the country's security chiefs and explain his innocence. But the MP was adamant that. Witnesses later quoted him as saying: "Why should I explain my innocence before anybody has openly accused me? I will wait until they arrest me and I'll prove my innocence". Within two hours, Gethi was on the line again. He told JM that he had thought over the matter and convinced that JM's best option was to informally meet the security team "in a friendly atmosphere". Gethi promised to be at the meeting to ensure JM's security. JM finally caved in to the GSU chief's pressure when the two men met at the International Casino the next day. The meeting was set for Sunday, March 2. That was the day JM would disappear, later to be found dead murdered in the Ngong Hills forest. That Sunday morning Gethi visited JM at home. It was a rather unusual visit, as the Parliamentary Probe Committee later noted, but Gethi insisted that it "was just a normal call to a friend's house". Investigations now show that Gethi had taken to JM a pistol he had promised him, to guarantee his safety during the Security Committee meeting. Witnesses testified that Gethi's visit was so secretive that he entered JM's bedroom instead of waiting for his host to be woken up. At midday JM went to the Ngong Racecourse, where he and Gethi had a brief chat. Later in the evening he popped in at the Hilton. Gethi would deny before the Parliamentary Probe Committe that the two of them met, but witnesses said they had seen him in the company of reservist Patrick Shaw. Witnesses have told the Nation that several things happened at the Hilton while JM was away. At around 5 p.m. Patrick Shaw and a Mr. Young, also a police reservist, chased away all parking boys who usually hang around outside the hotel. Some taxi drivers were also asked to leave. It has also emerged that then CID head Ignatius Nderi and then deputy director of the National Youth Service Waruhiu Itote were seen briefly at the Hilton with the two men. One of them was Pius Kibathi, a trained policeman who never joined the force, and the other Councillor John Mutung'u of Olkejuado County Council. JM arrived at the Hilton's Coffee House at about quarter to seven. He was about to settle down with a friend when Gethi suddenly appeared. He excused himself and walked away with the GSU boss. Apparently Gethi had not to find JM with anybody else. On noting the dilemma on Gethi's face, JM quickly excused himself as he told Macharia: "By the way, Gethi and I were to meet, let me have some minutes with him". A hotel security man, Mr. Fred Sing'ombe, saw JM and Gethi enter a Peugeot station wagon behind the hotel. JM's white Mercedes Benz, Registration Number KPE 143, was left in front of the Hilton Hotel, where the family found it when the MP disappeared. His movements from the hotel have for years been a mystery, even to the House Select Committee. But the Nation has now established that the two men went to the Special Branch headquarters at Kingsway House in Muindi Mbingu Street. Gethi and JM entered the building through a back entrance and headed for the office of a senior Special Branch officer. In the room were the senior officer himself, Kenyatta security chief Wanyoike Thungu, the NYS's Itote, CID director Nderi and reservist Patrick Shaw. JM was apprehensive to see Thungu in the meeting. The two had never had time for each other ever since JM worked as Kenyatta's private secretary in the early 1960s. He also knew of Thungu's roles in the Nakuru meetings which plotted against him. At Kingsway House, Gethi left JM to be questioned by Nderi and Shaw on the bombings. The MP, says a senior retired policeman, answered all the allegations raised by Nderi and Shaw until the two appeared satisfied that he had nothing to do with the bombings. Thungu, who remained silent, then took over the questioning. He wanted to know why JM had been "going around the country insulting Kenyatta". JM denied that he had ever insulted Kenyatta and that all he had talked about was social justice for all Kenyans, which was quite in line with Kenyatta's beliefs. Thungu then touched on a raw nerve. He asked JM to account for some money he allegedly received for schorlarships while serving as a private secretary to Kenyatta. He also referred to money issued as compensation to Mau Mau fighters who had lost their land during the independence struggle, which was handled by JM when he was an assistant minister for Agriculture with special duties. Itote, who had worked closely with JM at the NYS (National Youth Service), talked of money from the Chinese Government which JM had allegedly received on behalf of the service. The exchange between JM and Thungu became heated. Thungu, says an impeccable source, lost his temper and punched JM viciously in the mouth, knocking out three of his teeth. JM's body found at the City Mortuary eight days later had three lower teeth missing. Instinctively, the bleeding JM reached for a pistol in his pocket, the same gun he had been given by Gethi that morning. But Gethi, the only person in the room who knew JM had a gun, was quicker on the draw. He whipped out his service revolver and shot JM in the upper right hand arm to protect Thungu. As JM collapsed in a pool of blood, Thungu phoned a senior politician to inform of what happened. It is not known what the senior politician said. However, evidence received by the JM Probe Committee and later corroborated by Gethi in a confession to JM's sister many years later, stated that after the telephone call, Thungu called three men who had been waiting in another room (the three were named in other circumstances by the Probe Committee). He ordered them to handcuff JM and take him to a car downstairs. They had been brought to Kingsway House by Nderi to give evidence on JM's alleged involvement in the city bombings. The vehicle into which a bleeding and wailing JM was bundled belonged to a councillor, John Mutung'u of Ngong ward, the area in which JM's bullet-ridden body was discovered by two Maasai elders the following morning. Councillor Mutung'u was later summoned by the Parliamentary Probe Committe and asked to bring with him his car, a green Peugeot station wagon with a red inscription: "Meat Park". In it's final report, the JM Probe Committe recommended that Councillor Mutung'u be investigated alongside Thungu, the Minister of State Mbiyu Koinange, his bodyguard Peter Karanja, Nakuru Mayor Mburu Gichua, then Nyandarua District Commissioner Stanley Thuo, NYS deputy director Waruhiu Itote and JM's rival in the 1974 General Election, one Evan Ngugi. A member of the JM Probe Committe who talked to the Nation disclosed that it suspected that Mbiyu Koinange was the person Thungu talked to on the telephone after JM had been shot. The MPs established that Thungu had driven to Nairobi from Nakuru by a discreet route on the afternoon of March 2. Questioned by the committee, Thungu insisted that he spent March 2 with the President at Gatundu. The President, of course, couldn't be summoned to verify this. A confidential witness testified before the Probe Committee that Gethi remained alone at Kingway House until past midnight, chain smoking and talking on a police radio. Before his death on September 12, 1994, Gethi confessed to JM's sister, Rahab Mwaniki, that he had taken JM to Nderi and Shaw, for questioning on the bombs. He said he had left JM with the two senior police officers and returned much later to find a Mr. Pius Kibathi and two other men dragging a bleeding and groaning JM to a vehicle behind Kingsway House. But other sources say Gethi never left Kingsway House until JM had been taken away. In his memoirs "A Love Affair with the Sun", Sir Michael Blundell, a well-connected former politician and businessman, said one some of the cartridges recovered from the place where JM's body was found in Ngong were fired from a pistol belonging to a presidential guard he did not name. The House Committee established that two different pistols were used to kill JM. Clearly, he was shot at different places, first at Kingsway House and later at the Ngong Hills scene of murder. The guns were either a .38 Walther or a .38 Mann, both of which also happened to be the pistols used by members of the GSU Recce Company. Officers in the Recce Company are used for special duties, the main one being providing escort to the President and visiting heads of state. Probe Committee members believed that JM's murder was a foregone conclusion and would have taken place even if Thungu had not provoked the shooting at Kingsway House. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "How Kenyatta doctored the report", as appearing on page 13 of the "Daily Nation" of Thursday, 2nd March 2000: June 3, 1975, was a day of great expectation - and suffocating tension. The committe investigating JM's murder had completed its work and a report was due to be tabled in Parliament. Mr. Elijah Mwangale, the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee, was in conference with his 13 members in Room 7 on the first floor of Parliament Buildings. They were going over the details of the 38-page report when word came through the Clerk's office that the committee was required at State House, Nairobi. Three copies of the report had been done. Mr. Mwangale took one with him. The other two were each put in the "custody" of former Butere MP Martin Shikuku and former Wajir East MP, the late Diriye Amin. Their instructions were simple: They were not to leave the precincts of Parliament until the afternoon session of the House was over. Meanwhile, Mr. Mwangale left for State House with a few members of his committee. They included former Starehe MP Charles Rubia and former Lurambi North MP Burudi Nabwera. The two MPs with the other copies were "policed" by other MPs. All the windows of Room 7 were locked inside and the keys taken from the sergeant-at-arms and kept in the custody of the two MPs. Were all these precautions necessary? Suspicions were high. Attempts to sabotage efforts to table the report could not be ruled out. Every so often the custodian MPs took turns to visit Room 7 to confirm the copies were still intact. The tension was aggravated at 2.30 p.m. when the afternoon session of the House started without any word on when the Mwangale team would return. Meanwhile, at State House, Mr. Mwangale and his team were facing Mzee Kenyatta and had been asked one question: Why were the names of Cabinet Minister Mbiyu Koinange and that of the president's bodyguard, Senior Supt of Police Arthur Wanyoike wa Thungu, in the report? Rubia: "Kama ni hivyo Mzee, tunaweza kuondoa hayo majina alafu tuipeleke bunge" ("If that is the case Mzee we can delete the two names and thereafter we table it in Parliament"). Kenyatta: "Kama ni hivyo sawa sawa"! ("If that is the case it is alright"). Mzee Kenyatta gave Mr Mwangale a green pen. He made him delete the two names and sign against each deletion. Back in Parliament, Mr. Shikuku and Mr. Diriye entered the Chamber with their copies clutched under their arms. Without warning Mr. Mwangale and his team entered the Chamber, eliciting sighs of relief, foot-thumping and loud cheers. Mr. Mwangale tabled the report minus the two names. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "How JM fell foul of Kenyatta clique and became an obstacle", as appearing on pages 8 & 27 of the "Daily Nation" of Friday, 3rd March 2000: To understand the animosity between JM Kariuki and President Kenyatta's bodyguard, Arthur Wanyoike Thungu, is partly to unravel the motives of the killing which nearly brought down Mzee's government. Wanyoike was among the top security men gathered to question the Nyandarua Naorth MP at the Kingsway House Special Branch headquarters on Sunday March 2, 1975, the day JM disappeared and was later found murdered. It was he who had drawn JM into a bad-tempered argument over missing foreign funds. The exchange resulted in the MP being shot on the arm by Ben Gethi, the GSU commandant. But what united different people in Kenyatta's court against Josiah Mwangi Kariuki? What traits of his character set them so firmly against a man, who, like them, was a former Mau Mau detainee and a veteran of the freedom struggle? The Nation's investigations show that JM left a trail of of bitter and powerful enemies wherever he worked. His first job in independent Kenya was as a private secretary in charge of political affairs in the office of Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta, later President of the new Republic, between 1962 and 1964. Kenyatta had first heard about JM while in prison. The young freedom crusader, who was detained between 1953 and 1960, had made a name as a spokesman for victims of colonial oppression, even in prison. On his release in 1960, JM visited Kenyatta, who was still in detention at Maralal. The two men hit it off instantly. JM then left the country for Oxford University and returned to become Kenyatta's private secretary. Mzee trusted JM so much that all delicate missions, like securing overseas training for the President's security men, were handled by him. Kenyatta also used JM secretly to negotiate for compensation to victims of the Mau Mau liberation war. Thungu had two reasons to dislike JM for life; one was personal and the other communal. Kenyatta's security when JM became his private secretary was dominated by men like Thungu, who hailed from the President's Gatundu village. Many of these had been youthwingers of Mzee's Kenya African Union (KAU) party, (Kenya African National Union's) KANU's predecessor, before Kenyatta's imprisonment in 1952. JM was strongly opposed to Kenyatta's choice of bodyguards, none of whom had proper police training or formal education. He proposed that a National Youth Service be set up to absorb the former KAU youth and Mau Mau fighters for vocational training. Over the question of Kenyatta's security, he found stauch allies in then newly-appointed director of Police Intelligence, Bernard Hinga, who would later become the police commissioner, and the head of the Prime Minister's Escort Guard, Sir Alex Pearson. At the intervention of the three officers, Kenyatta dropped the idea of taking all his former youthwingers as bodyguards but refused to be separated with a few from his Ichaweri neighbourhood. He instructed that they be sent overseas for training. Thungu was among those selected few. He never forgot that he had narrowly missed the chop. For that he would never forgive JM. But JM had an even bigger problem, He came from Nyeri District. Kenyatta's State House was largely a Gatundu-Kiambu affair. JM was a stranger. A palace campaign was launched to discredit JM in the eyes of Kenyatta. Matters were not helped by the fact that JM was openly ambitious and pushy. Slowly, Kenyatta began to mistrust JM. In "Politics of Independence of Kenya", historian Keith Kyle recounts an incident where Kenyatta sent JM to secure six training slots for his bodyguards in Israel. However, he turned to Dr. Gikonyo Kiano, who was not a State House employee, to decide who would have the scholarships. So vicious was the anti-JM campaign at State House that a young woman he was in love with and for whom he had paid half dowry as dissuaded from marrying him. The girl was later married to a member of Kenyatta's security who is today a Cabinet Minister. In early 1964, Kenyatta was finally prevailed upon to drop JM as his private secretary and to scrap the job altogether. JM was moved to the newly-formed National Youth Service (NYS), the same place he had wanted to dump Thungu and company. As National Leader of the NYS, JM toured the country, overseeing recruitments and inspecting project sites. But a new set of trouble awaited him. The NYS Act ranked the force's National Leader together with Service Commanders, allowing JM to sit in national security meetings. The Kiambu clique that had hounded him out of State House were uneasy with this situation. They resolved to strip him of this new post as well. JM played right into their hands when one day in 1968 he entered Parliament in full NYS uniform. He was then MP for Aberdares Constituency, later renamed Nyandarua North. Immediately JM entered the Chamber, a Cabinet minister prompted by Attorney-General Charles Njonjo asked the Speaker whether it was in order for JM to enter the House in forces uniform. Speaker Hunphrey Slade ruled there was nothing wrong with it as long as the uniform did not include a cap. The matter didn't end there. Some ministers took it to the Cabinet and complained to Kenyatta that JM had gone to the House in uniform to rival the Commander-in-Chief, the only person known to have entered the Chamber in military uniform. A few weeks later, JM was sacked as NYS National Leader and the post scrapped. Yet Kenyatta still had a soft spot for his former secretary. He appointed JM an assistant minister in the ministry of agriculture, with Special Duties. This vague post meant he could rival his own minister. JM's role in the ministry of agriculture soon got him on a collison course with the Cabinet member in charge, Bruce Mackenzie, and his friend Njonjo. In early 1969, JM took advantage of the minister's absence from the country and sacked by notice two expatriate directors of agriculture and five other senior expatriates in the ministry. Mackenzie cancelled his trip and flew back home in a rage. He immediately raised the matter at a Cabinet meeting. Kenyatta supported JM, arguing that he had the powers of a minister and was covered by the rule of collective responsibility. The Cabinet couldn't disown the decision. Mackenzie and Njonjo never forgave JM. Kenyatta later transferred JM from the ministry of agriculture to the ministry of Tourism and Wildlife. The 1969 General Election gave JM a chance to demonstrate his organisational capabilities and the respect he commanded among colleagues. By now JM had set his sights high. At a victory party JM hosted for his supporters and friends after the 1969 elections, he confided in them that he would be going for "big things". It was the beginning of the increasingly radical JM projected through word and deed, snipping at the Kenyatta government at every opportunity. Speaking during a student graduation at Highridge Teachers College in early 1970, he said that the Kenya Government had betrayed the vision of the freedom fighters. Colonial white settlers had only been replaced by black settlers. He told a stunned crowd: "I believe firmly that substituting Kamau for Smith, Odongo for Jones and Kiplagat for Keith won't solve what the gallant fighters of our uhuru (freedom) considered an imposed and undesirable social justice". A few weeks later he received a standing ovation at Nairobi University when he declared: "It takes more than a National Anthem to create a nation". Later he hopped to Uganda's Makerere University and declared Kenya's policy on African Socialism a hoax. JM was now the man to watch. A GEMA delegation called on Kenyatta to complain about the MP. But Kenyatta dismissed their worries, saying JM was "just a young inexperienced bull that doesn't know from which side to mount a cow". But clearly others did not think so. A scheme was put in place to slow JM by denying him permits to hold or address meetings. The restriction was extended even to innocuous gatherings like family parties. A birthday party he had scheduled for March 21, 1971, aws cancelled at the eleventh hour by the State. And on January 1, 1972, a huge rally he had organised to be attended by a number of cabinet ministers and MPs was cancelled at the last minute. An incensed JM later told Parliament: "This anti-JM campaign is now bordering on stupidity". Denied a chance to speak outside Parliament, JM turned to the House to air his views. The then deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Munyua Waiyaki, recalls: "JM would call and ask me not to miss Parliament as he was preparing a bombshell. He particularly liked the days when I was in the Chair as he knew I wouldn't deny him a chance to say whatever he wanted". JM's other strategy was to give generously to development projects. The contributions aroused suspicion that he was being externally funded by foreigners who preferred him as a future president of Kenya. JM countered the rumours by saying that it was not how much money he had but how generous he was at heart that mattered. But the suspicions grew, as JM had no known sources of income to support the large sums he gave away. At the time he died, his known businesses included a shareholding in the Rift Valley Trading Agencies, which he co-owned with Vice-President Moi and Moi's brother-in-law Eric Bomett. He also owned a tour company with Israeli businessman Ernest Kahane, a mining company with his brother-in-law Harun Muturi and two restaurants in the city. Many thought those investments could not finance JM's private race horses and his ostentatious casino gambling habit. It was whispered that the Chinese were behind JM's seemingly endless resources. But his widow Terry denies that JM had any forign backer. "For all the time I lived with him, he never held a secret bank account. In any case, the government had the machinery to uncover such an account had it existed", she says. JM's political enemies went on the offensive in the 1974 General Election. All his campaign meetings, except one, were cancelled. He was virtually banned from visiting his constituency during the campaigns. In the meantime, Nakuru's Mayor, Mburu Gichua had camped in Nyandarua North with instructions to ensure that JM didn't go back to Parliament. To the great chagrin of his detractors, JM retained the seat with three times more votes than the combined total of his opponents. During the swearing-in of the new Parliament in November 1974, MPs gave JM a standing ovation. It rivalled the applause they had just given Kenyatta, who was in the Chamber. It was about this time that secret meetings began in Nakuru and in the city on how to stop JM. Taped speeches of his addresses were played to Kenyatta but Mzee was not alarmed. He only suggested that the MP should be warned to change his ways. According to the the Nakuru Town MP, Mr. Mark Mwithaga, the Stae House clique that wanted JM eliminated were themselves interested in keeping a hold on the presidency after Kenyatta. Which is why they held meetings in Nakuru and resolved that JM must die on March 2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A warm welcome tohttp://michaelmundiakamau.webs.com

The Story of Gerishon Kirima

Sometimes in mid-2005 Nairobi property magnate Gerishon Kamau Kirima, frail and crutching on his walking stick, limped into Nairobi’s Market Branch of Barclays Bank with a bag full of cash. He was alone.
A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman rushed in and publicly admonished him for carrying large amounts of money along Nairobi streets. It was end month and it could have been money collected from his rental houses, which bring in more than Sh 17 million a month, according to court records.
Few discerned that this was perhaps one of the wealthiest rags-to-riches Kenyans alive. Unlike other flashy millionaires, Kirima’s style of running business was rudimentary, just like the furniture he made in his early years.
By the time he died aged 88 in a South Africa hospital while undergoing treatment on Wednesday, Kirima and his family had for the wrong reasons become the center of attention as the family fought in and out of court corridors for the control of his multi-billion real estate and other commercial ventures.
It was a drama that had all the tenets of a soap opera: cash, witchcraft, back-stabbing, and litigation. Kirima hardly controlled it, and was more of a spectator, as old-age and senility caught up with him.
Born in the tea-growing Kiruri village in Murang’a and on the slopes of Aberdares, Kirima was a simple man whose dressing, mostly v-necked sweaters with a suit, hid his business acumen and wealth, but revealed his humble backgrounds. Scrupulously honest, Kirima was also naïve politically always failing to read the mood. Part of it was borne of his little education background, having dropped out of school at an early age, and innate fear of wading through uncharted waters.
As a person Kirima evaded the sophistry associated with millionaires, opting to run his business based on trust with his sons and daughters – and the first wife. At best he only trusted himself.
Like many businesses registered in early 1960s, at a time when women inherited no properties, his empire was simply a masculine Kirima and Sons Ltd, exemplifying the weaknesses of the social structure that he was molded into.
Like many of his age-mates who did not go beyond basic education, Kirima’s background is weaved around the colonial education structure that prepared Africans for menial jobs.
That is how the self-made millionaire started off as a carpenter after he eloped from his Kiruri home and settled in the Kinangop plateaus. It was here that he started his carpentry workshop becoming one of the pioneer African businessmen.
Kirima was mean albeit thrifty with the little money he earned. At the dawn of independence he would shift to Nairobi working as a pioneer carpenter at the Royal College (now University of Nairobi) and operating a small workshop in Bahati and later in Kaloleni where his first wife, Agnes would man as she brought up the children.
It was the venture into meat and real estate business that would catapult Kirima into big business. The end of the state of emergency in 1960 and Independence three years later opened a rural-urban migration unprecedented in Kenya’s history. Kirima opened bars and butcheries across the African and Asian neighbourhoods, taking advantage of the new elite who had money and new jobs. The Africanization policy led by Commerce minister Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano, who hailed from Kirima’s constituency also favoured Kirima as a young African entrepreneur. With Asian business targeted for closure and as rules were twisted to favour African businesses Kirima was one of the pioneer beneficiaries.
In 1967, he had saved enough cash to enter into big real estate business and surprised many African elites, mostly ministers and senior civil servants in the Kenyatta government, when he bought 500 acres from Italian Donenico Masi in Nairobi. By then only Kenyatta and his family had managed to buy such land within Nairobi district. In the same year, Kirima bought two other large farms in Nairobi which included some 108 acres from British settler Charles Case and a further 472 acres from Percy Randall, the settler who sold most of his land to Magana Kenyatta in 1967.
With such large tracts of land, bought from well-established ranchers and enough for ranching, Kirima was set for business as a big meat supplier. His main worry was that the Kenya Meat Commision, which was still commandered by British settlers did not allow meat from African farmers.
As the chairman of African Butchers Association, a lobby group seeking permission to sell meat in the city, Kirima managed to have the Africans have their way- a move that saw him start a private abattoir in one of his farms in Njiru area of Nairobin and which partly led to the death of Kenya Meat Commision (KMC), largely seen as a colonial outfit.
With Dr Kiano at the helm of the ministry of commerce, businessmen from his Murang’a backyard thrived by purchasing tens of properties in Nairobi’s River Road and from the vacating Asians whose business licenses to run retail shops were withdrawn. Also, as Asians lost their permit to run transport business, Kirima entered the business with his Kirima Bus Service competing with Dedan Njoroge Nduati’s Jogoo Kimakia Bus Service as the two leading African-owned bus companies in Kenya against established British company Overseas Trading Company (OTC) on the central Kenya route.
But the Kirima bus company did not survive for long. When Kenyatta issued a decree that allowed Matatus to run transport business from Nairobi to other towns in 1973, Kirima and other transport entrepreneurs: Muhuri Muchiri, Kamau Mweru and Nduati were some of the first casualties of the stiff competition. While buses were licensed by the Transport Licensing Board, the matatus were exempted.
Both Nduati and Kirima concentrated on real estate as they abandoned the bus companies. Those close to Kirima say he may have abandoned the business because he was a hands on man and always wanted to collect his money.
It was in the real estate where Kirima built a solid empire mostly concentrating on low income rental houses in Eastlands.
Kirima combined his business with politics. Having rose as a tycoon in the 60s, Kirima managed to get recognized among the African elites and his burial committee is an indicator of those who rubbed shoulders with. But even with that he was still a rural man. His children would still pick coffee in his farms, go around Nairobi collecting rent, and sell meat in their spare time.
At the political front, Kirima was elected a councilor in Nairobi rising to became a deputy mayor. He later contested the Starehe seat after then then MP, Kiruhi Kimondo was kicked out of Kanu in 1989. With the clamour for multi-party politics, Kirima was the Nairobi chairman and he organized the Kanu brigades that manned most of the City bus-stops. It was these brigades that would later become the thuggish elements that haunt the Matatu industry in Nairobi today.
The late Kirima did not win the Starehe seat in the 1992 multi-party elections and lost to Kimondo who defected to Kanu in 1994 leading to a by-election won by then Nairobi-mayor Steve Mwangi. A few months later, Mwangi quit his seat and politics, and Kirima won the seat on a Kanu ticket becoming the sole Kanu politician, and the only Kikuyu, to have won a parliamentary seat in Nairobi during Moi’s multi-party parliament. His appointment as an assistant minister was largely a reward.
Away from politics, Kirima spent his time at his up-market Kitisuru home and at his K&S House opposite Jevanjee Hardens in Nairobi.
It was from these two places that the drama on how to run the properties he had acquired for years was privately fought before it spilled into the courts and later to the streets.
Diabetic and partially blind, Kirima died without resolving his estate rows. The pale grey gate at Kitsuru still hides much of the drama captured in some video footage by the daughters and sons of the first wife as they fought the third wife.
Kirima had a second wife who stays in Kiruri village and away from the rows. With Kirima now dead, the battle to control his estate will begin in earnest. It will be bruising at best, and rough at worst.

Seven Types of Inequality

IT was more than a century ago, in 1870, that Queen Victoria wrote to Sir Theodore Martin complaining about "this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights'." The formidable empress certainly did not herself need any protection that the acknowledgment of women's rights might offer. Even at the age of eighty, in 1899, she could write to A.J. Balfour, "We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist." That, however, is not the way most people's lives go - reduced and defeated as they frequently are by adversities. And within each community, nationality and class, the burden of hardship often falls disproportionately on women.

The afflicted world in which we live is characterised by deeply unequal sharing of the burden of adversities between women and men. Gender inequality exists in most parts of the world, from Japan to Morocco, from Uzbekistan to the United States of America. However, inequality between women and men can take very many different forms. Indeed, gender inequality is not one homogeneous phenomenon, but a collection of disparate and interlinked problems. Let me illustrate with examples of different kinds of disparity.

(1) Mortality inequality: In some regions in the world, inequality between women and men directly involves matters of life and death, and takes the brutal form of unusually high mortality rates of women and a consequent preponderance of men in the total population, as opposed to the preponderance of women found in societies with little or no gender bias in health care and nutrition. Mortality inequality has been observed extensively in North Africa and in Asia, including China and South Asia. 

(2) Natality inequality: Given a preference for boys over girls that many male-dominated societies have, gender inequality can manifest itself in the form of the parents wanting the newborn to be a boy rather than a girl. There was a time when this could be no more than a wish (a daydream or a nightmare, depending on one's perspective), but with the availability of modern techniques to determine the gender of the foetus, sex-selective abortion has become common in many countries. It is particularly prevalent in East Asia, in China and South Korea in particular, but also in Singapore and Taiwan, and it is beginning to emerge as a statistically significant phenomenon in India and South Asia as well. This is high-tech sexism.

(3) Basic facility inequality: Even when demographic characteristics do not show much or any anti-female bias, there are other ways in which women can have less than a square deal. Afghanistan may be the only country in the world the government of which is keen on actively excluding girls from schooling (it combines this with other features of massive gender inequality), but there are many countries in Asia and Africa, and also in Latin America, where girls have far less opportunity of schooling than boys do. There are other deficiencies in basic facilities available to women, varying from encouragement to cultivate one's natural talents to fair participation in rewarding social functions of the community.

(4) Special opportunity inequality: Even when there is relatively little difference in basic facilities including schooling, the opportunities of higher education may be far fewer for young women than for young men. Indeed, gender bias in higher education and professional training can be observed even in some of the richest countries in the world, in Europe and North America.

Sometimes this type of division has been based on the superficially innocuous idea that the respective "provinces" of men and women are just different. This thesis has been championed in different forms over the centuries, and has had much implicit as well as explicit following. It was presented with particular directness more than a hundred years before Queen Victoria's complaint about "woman's rights" by the Revd James Fordyce in his Sermons to Young Women (1766), a book which, as Mary Wollstonecraft noted in her A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), had been "long made a part of woman's library." Fordyce warned the young women, to whom his sermons were addressed, against "those masculine women that would plead for your sharing any part of their province with us," identifying the province of men as including not only "war," but also "commerce, politics, exercises of strength and dexterity, abstract philosophy and all the abstruser sciences."¹ Even though such clear-cut beliefs about the provinces of men and women are now rather rare, nevertheless the presence of extensive gender asymmetry can be seen in many areas of education, training and professional work even in Europe and North America. 

(5) Professional inequality: In terms of employment as well as promotion in work and occupation, women often face greater handicap than men. A country like Japan may be quite egalitarian in matters of demography or basic facilities, and even, to a great extent, in higher education, and yet progress to elevated levels of employment and occupation seems to be much more problematic for women than for men.

In the English television series called "Yes, Minister," there is an episode where the Minister, full of reforming zeal, is trying to find out from the immovable permanent secretary, Sir Humphrey, how many women are in really senior positions in the British civil service. Sir Humphrey says that it is very difficult to give an exact number; it would require a lot of investigation. The Minister is still insistent, and wants to know approximately how many women are there in these senior positions. To which Sir Humphrey finally replies, "Approximately, none."

(6) Ownership inequality: In many societies the ownership of property can also be very unequal. Even basic assets such as homes and land may be very asymmetrically shared. The absence of claims to property can not only reduce the voice of women, but also make it harder for women to enter and flourish in commercial, economic and even some social activities.² This type of inequality has existed in most parts of the world, though there are also local variations. For example, even though traditional property rights have favoured men in the bulk of India, in what is now the State of Kerala, there has been, for a long time, matrilineal inheritance for an influential part of the community, namely the Nairs.

(7) Household inequality: There are, often enough, basic inequalities in gender relations within the family or the household, which can take many different forms. Even in cases in which there are no overt signs of anti-female bias in, say, survival or son-preference or education, or even in promotion to higher executive positions, the family arrangements can be quite unequal in terms of sharing the burden of housework and child care. It is, for example, quite common in many societies to take it for granted that while men will naturally work outside the home, women could do it if and only if they could combine it with various inescapable and unequally shared household duties. This is sometimes called "division of labour," though women could be forgiven for seeing it as "accumulation of labour." The reach of this inequality includes not only unequal relations within the family, but also derivative inequalities in employment and recognition in the outside world. Also, the established fixity of this type of "division" or "accumulation" of labour can also have far-reaching effects on the knowledge and understanding of different types of work in professional circles. When I first started working on gender inequality, in the 1970s, I remember being struck by the fact that the Handbook of Human Nutrition Requirement of the World Health Organisation (WHO), in presenting "calorie requirements" for different categories of people, chose to classify household work as "sedentary activity," requiring very little deployment of energy.³ I was, however, not able to determine precisely how this remarkable bit of information had been collected by the patrician leaders of society.

5-TYPES OF LOVE

Epithumia: Is of Greek origin and is a love based on a strong desire of many sorts. Many times it is associated with lust or sometimes to covet. While epithumia love can draw couples closer together it can also be divisive as it can lead to an uncontrollable desire to have or to own. We often hear on this forum from people who desperately try and draw a spouse back after they have become detached from the marriage. The efforts can be overwhelming to the retreating spouse as epithumia love can be seen as controlling. Epithumia love can also nurture strong bonds in a couple if they both experience it especially in a sexual context. To mutually desire each other sexually and to engross themselves in love making that is driven both by desire and selflessness in pleasing each other. Epithumia love is a double edged sword and is most likely manifested in a positive manner in the early stages of a relationship.

Eros: This the love most associated with romance. It is that head-over-heals feeling we get when a relationship moves forward. Your world and mind circles about your loved one and they are always on your mind. You strive for time together romantically. It is manifested in poetry, words of affirmation, love making, that special look in the eyes.…. A feeling that you could not be happy in life without their companionship and love. Eros love is wholly emotional and cannot be summoned at will. Sadly while most of us have experience eros love in our lives it is not sustainable. Most experts estimate that it will only last 18 – 24 months in the best of relationship before the relationship moves on to another form of love. While eros love is not sustainable, it can cycle in and out of a relationship over its course.

Storge: (Also Greek) Storge love is often described as a comfortable old shoe relationship comprised of natural affection and a sense of belonging to each other. Storge love represents a safe haven for couples as it is a place of acceptance, mutual respect and shelter. Many couple dwell in storge love for years and misunderstand it as mundane or boring. But in effect it is a very safe place but can simply lack that spark we seek. It can also serve as the moat around your marriage protecting it from outside forces and allow the other types of loves to dwell and flourish. Storge love can co-exist with other types of love and can be likened to a foundation made up of trust and safety.

Phileo: This love cherishes and has tender affection for the beloved but it expects a response. It is a love of relationship, comradeship, sharing, communication and friendship. While eros makes lovers phileo makes a close companionship that is all trusting. They share each other’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, plans and dreams. They confide in each other the most intimate secrets, fears and needs that they would not share with another. A marriage without phileo will be unsatisfactory no matter the passion in the bedroom.

Agape: Many have heard me speak of agape love in several posts over the last year. Agape love is of particular significance to marriages in troubled waters, especially if one partner has disconnected. To love agapely is to love your spouse completely, love them wholly, but expect nothing in return from them at the current time. Agape love is different from eros love in that it is not sexual, nor romantic in nature. Its nature is that of self sacrifice but is not unconditional. You can love your spouse completely and still have boundaries and maintain your self respect. Agape love is also different from the other kinds of love in that you can choose it. You can elect to love your spouse this way because it is what is best for your family and marriage. It is a giving of yourself for the betterment of the marriage. Agape love can help you to “protect” yourself emotionally during difficult times as you love your spouse but expect nothing in return. Many I talk to have difficulty in trying to apply this type of love but if the marriage is in trouble and the detached spouse still cares for you but is in danger of leaving agape love can do wonders both for you and the marriage.

Michuki’s widow passes away in Nairobi

The widow of former Environment Minister the late John Michuki, Josephine has died at Nairobi hospital after long battle with cancer.Mrs Michuki died on Wednesday morning at the hospital.

  The late minister passed away in February 22 this year at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi where he was undergoing treatment.

Liberian president suspends son

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has suspended one of her sons from the post of central bank deputy governor for failing to declare his assets, her office has said.
Charles Sirleaf was among 46 officials suspended for not making the disclosure to anti-corruption officials, it said.
He was one of three sons appointed to top posts by his mother following her re-election last year.critics accuse Mrs Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace laureate, of nepotism.She has appointed her son, Fumba, as head of the National Security Agency and another son, Robert, as a senior adviser and chairman of the state-owned National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL).

Robert Sirleaf is suing two local newspapers - the Independent and The Analyst - and opposition politician Jefferson Kogie for libel for suggesting that he has benefited financially from the posts.
In a statement, Mrs Sirleaf's office said Charles Sirleaf and the other 45 officials would remain suspended until they declared their assets to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Other suspended officials include the presidency's Chief of Protocol David Anderson, Solicitor-General and Deputy Minister of Justice Micah Wilkins Wright and Deputy Director General for Broadcasting Ledgerhood Rennie.
Mrs Sirleaf, who took power in 2005 at the end of 14 years of conflict, has repeatedly pledged to tackle corruption and to promote good governance in Liberia.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, shortly before she was elected for a second term in polls marred by allegations of widespread rigging.
Corruption remains a major obstacle to development in Liberia, where most people live in poverty despite the country being rich in mineral resources, analysts say.

TONY GACHOKAS LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL GITHU MUIGAI-ICC MATTERS

13th August 2012
Hon Githu Muigai, EGH
The Attorney General
State Law Office
NAIROBI
CC
Cabinet Sub Committee on the ICC
Hon Samson Ongeri, EGH, MP
Hon Yusuf Haji, EGH, MP
Hon Eugene Wamalwa , MP
Hon Amason Kingi, EGH, MP
Hon James Orengo, EGH, MP
Hon Otieno Kajwang, EGH, MP
Dear Sir,
RE: INFORMATION REGARDING THE KENYA SITUATION
My name is Tony Gachoka. I am a Kenyan Investigative Media Personality of over 20 years
standing. I have worked for the Government of Kenya, and in particular between the years
2008-2009, I was the Chief of Protocol in the Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of
Kenya, the Rt. Honourable Eng. Raila Amollo Odinga, as evidenced in the copies of
appointment letters accompanying this letter to that that effect.
My duties included managing the diary of the Prime Minister for all local and international
meetings, national and international protocol, press, publicity and public relations. During
my time working for the Prime Minister I became privy to certain information relevant to the
ongoing International Criminal Court trials regarding the Kenya Situation (2007-2008). This
information, which I can support with documentary evidence in my possession, touches on
some of the evidence adduced before the Court and which has been relied on by the office
of the Chief Prosecutor.
The Court has now set trial dates for the situation in Kenya cases and is in the process of
preparing for trial. I recently attended a Press conference called by Office of the Prosecutor
of the ICC at Serena Hotel Nairobi on Thursday July 26 2012 at 2:30 P.M where Mr. Phakiso
Mochochoko, Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarities and Cooperation Division and Ms
Shamiso Mbizvo, Associate International Cooperation Adviser were in attendance and
stated that the OTP is continuing to gather relevant evidence in regard to the Kenya
Situation.
Being a conscientious person, and spurred by this disclosure by the ICC with respect to
gathering of additional evidence in regard to the Kenya situation, I officially wrote to the
Information and Evidence Unit vide a letter dated 1st August 2012, in which letter I informed
the said office of my being in possession of crucial information with respect to the case and
the fears for my life and for the lives of my family given that the information I hold is
extremely prejudicial to some of the most powerful and influential personalities in Kenya
today.
The Office of Information and Evidence has since written back to me vide a letter dated 9th
August 2012 acknowledging my letter and requesting for an opportunity to have a more
comprehensive conversation with them.
Additionally I also applied for a visa under reference NLDNAI201202862, to enable me to
travel to the ICC offices in the Hague on 31st July 2012 seeking a meeting with the Office of
the Prosecutor to volunteer my possible involvement - by way of evidence giving – with
respect to matters that have grave and serious implications on the pending ICC Trials set for
hearing in April 2013. This application was supported by a diplomatic note sent under the
seal of the Government of Kenya from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the hand of the
Office of the Chief of Protocol introducing me as a Kenyan in good standing.
I have today 13th August 2012, received communication from the Netherlands Embassy here
in Nairobi of the denial of a visa to travel to the Netherlands. To my mind, this confirms my
earlier fears which I have made well known to the wider public, of high level interference
and manipulation of the ICC process relating to Kenya by various powerful international
actors and agencies who do not wish that the information I hold would be accessible to the
ICC and worse still to the general public.
I am well aware of the provisions of the Rome Statute and the various commitments made
by the Government of Kenya with respect to cooperation with the ICC on all matters relating
to the Kenya situation and the pending cases. It is in this respect that I write to you in the
hope that you can and will use your good offices to ensure that the Government of Kenya
will facilitate my meeting with the ICC to give evidence and information in my possession as
part of this cooperation process.
Meanwhile, I will continue to explore and pursue all national and international legal
remedies to ensure that justice is served for all victims of the post election violence and that
the true circumstances surrounding and persons most responsible for the Post-Election
Violence are held to account.
Thank You very much for your time and consideration.
Yours Faithfully;
Tony Gachoka

Lessons from John Michuki-must read

We all know him for his badassery in reforms in the transport sector. He is that headmaster who made sure all the matatus in his school wore yellow belts with identity marks of where they are going. We all know him for his badass reputation. No one, from here to Timbuktu, even the presidency could tell Michuki what to do. He brought in two mercenaries to tame the bickering at Standard House. When asked, he did not run back to his community for support against ‘haters’. He did the ultimate gesture, chucked from his Mercedes S-Class and pointed to the camera when you rattle a snake you must be prepared to be bitten”. After bitching about all sorts of draconian treatments and bills, the media backed off. Michuki 1, Media and Democracy 0.

 John Njoroge Michuki was born in December 1932 in modern day Murang’a County, way before any of your parents were even a concept in your grandparents’ imagination. He was born to a large family of badass sr – Chief Michuki wa Kagwi (He had 47 wives). Michuki did not enjoy the privileges of life in his early upbringing, since his dad died when he was young, plus the older kids used to disinherit younger kids. As a result, they had to make do with their 3 acre farm. Although he is rightfully a self made man, Michuki attributes his success to his disciplinarian father and a visionary and loving mother Mariana Wanjiku who, despite being illiterate,was keen on giving him education.

Mariana enrolled him into primo but after two years, he dropped out due to financial probs. He came to Nairobi to hustle, he did some tailoring-related works where he fixed buttons and made button holes uniforms during WWII, after the war, he relocated to Nyeri (the current hell-hole for Kenyan men) and did the same job, did some cooking and at the same time enrolled in school where he sat and passed his exams in 1945. In 1947 Michuki was admitted to Nyeri High School and later Mang’u school for A-Levels where he met Kibaki.

He served as a public servant for a long time under Moi after returning from a scholarship abroad. After he left office, he eventually managed to dislodge Joseph Kamotho, a political heavyweight then, to become Kangema’s MP. He was made (Bad)Ass Minister for Finance. Moi then did some crazy stunt of authorizing the controversial Molongo system of voting. Michuki lost but allied with Matiba, Kibaki and Co managed to bring Multiparty politics in 1992 and he recaptured the Kangema seat.

After Rainbow coalition, Michuki as Minister for Transport brought the much needed sanity into our roads. The biggest reform in Kenya transport sector since the collapse of Stagecoach and akina Kenya bus. Only a guy with badass ruthlessness could deal with the crazy underworld of matatus, cartels and rogue conductors. When moved to Internal Security…he allegedly put the menace Mungiki on a hit list when word of his apparent shoot to kill command came out. We have to say, at least thanks to him, illegal groupings activities no longer made the headlines. The dude practically tamed Munguki.As Environment Minister, amid the opposition from Rift Valley MPs, Michuki insisted that all occupants of the Mau Forests would be evicted and only some of the squatters would be compensated.

The man was so much, his body could not take it, and so Man Njoro passed away after a heart attack on February 21^st 2012. May his soul rest in peace and his badass spirit torment the rogue matatu operators, Mungiki members and land grabbers with equal might.

Mexican soaps could soon start airing in Kiswahili

As the battle for Kenyan television audiences gets stiff, various television industry lobby groups  from the source countries of most of Kenya’s television content  are strategising on how to strengthen their stranglehold. The Friends of Kenyan Viewers (FKV) based in Latin America, for instance, is planning to teach their actors Swahili  a move that could see the Latino soaps acted and aired in Swahili.
This is expected to come as a big shock to viewers since for once, the lips will be in sync with the dialogue

.
Lip synching
“We know hearing and seeing different things has been a big problem for Kenyans... it’s so obvious that you can detect it even on an old television set that has rain-like reception ... But we are proactive... we will deal with it once and for all and the best way is to have our actors speaking in Swahili for our Kenyan audience ... As you know, Kenya is one of our biggest markets. Or to put it differently, Kenyans are some of the largest employers of Latino soap actors,” explained Carlos Rodriguez, the chairperson of Friends of Kenyan Viewers.
When pressed on why they chose to undertake the lengthy and costly route of teaching Spanish speakers a foreign language instead of just using local actors who are native speakers of Swahili in their productions, Carlos Rodriguez was quick to defend their position. “Seriously! And give away jobs just like that?” He posed. “We will create jobs for your Kiswahili teachers of course ... Until we train our own!”
 The other two countries, one in Africa and the other in Asia (famous for a first lady who had more pairs of shoes than a Bata warehouse), are equally putting in place their own measures of fighting for a bigger piece of the Kenyan television pie.

Translations
The one in Africa is believed to be considering sub-titling their film and television productions into Kiswahili. It will be interesting to see how common phrases in Pidgin English like ‘she is pregnant for him’ and ‘he (sic) asked her to marry him’ and ‘abomination’ would translate in Kiswahili.
To further strengthen their stranglehold on their Kenyan audience, there is speculation that some of these countries might pay tribute to Kenyan audiences and even bestow a collective honorary award.
Not everyone, however, received this news with excitement.
 “What would be interesting to know is what we would call the awards... For me, anything with dumping ground in it will do!” A Nairobi resident offered.If the actions of these TV lobby groups to continually seek new ways of engaging their audiences are anything to go by, then local TV producers would be advised to learn from them if they hope to compete effectively. But Caroline Saura, a Matuu resident, begs to disagree.
“I don’t think that’s the secret to their success... My hunch is that it’s something to do with religious practices ... I mean, two are predominantly Catholic and the other predominantly black magic!” quipped

Transforming Toxic Leaders

Eloquence rules and eloquence fools. Eloquence appears in many forms and packages. Who commands and delivers eloquence? Obama dazzles some of us some of the time. Lee Iacocca turned around two U.S. auto conglomerates and charmed global players with his folksy rhetoric. A certain trial lawyer said "if it don't fit you must acquit."
The masterful communicator is built for leadership. Eloquence commands attention and climbs ladders. The gift of gab and dazzling nonverbals convey emotions, heart, and a visceral logic that cuts through the clutter. Audiences, clients and colleagues are inundated with words. It takes special language, tone and delivery to rise and seize the media's attention and center stage.
Eloquence, however, comes at a price. Eloquence can be brilliant and uplifting as well as gravely misleading and lethal. The eloquent speaker unveils, undresses, unhinges, uproots and unsettles audiences. Political and corporate reality is turned upside down and inside out. The marriage of eloquence and ethics allows business and citizenry to soar to higher ground. In stark contrast, the back alley splicing of eloquence and evil - destroys, sinks ships, ignites dastardly wars and devours fortunes. The ancients clearly warned us repeatedly against the senator, emperor and business king pin who dresses up his bad intentions, poisons and toxicity with silky, slinky, mesmerizing language, inflection and drama. Sometimes we choose to forget about those sophists and opportunists who charm us into bombing a questionable foe and persuades us to hand over our life savings to a horrible man and his Ponzi scheme.

Yes, eloquence has been around for thousands of years. It is deeply ingrained in the human condition. It was dissected by the ancient Greek and Roman orators and rhetoricians. Eloquence fascinated St. Augustine and was studied by medieval religious leaders. They applied eloquence to the pulpit. Eloquence was central to uplifting the pagans and pointing the unwashed masses toward organized religion.  More recently eloquence formally reappeared in Victorian U.S. and U.K. education as elocution. Eloquence was at the core of the gentleman in business, family and politics. To be utterly devoid of eloquence translated to a lower station in life. In the gutter talk of the early 21^st century we might state that the absence of any trace of eloquence indicates a station in life that is nastily labeled as "trailer trash."
Beware. Be forewarned that eloquence can be bright, fresh and enlightening as well as dark and deadly. The deadly variety prospers. Destructive eloquence is on the rise. It provides leaders with a psychological edge. It is a case of poison penetrating dreams and bank accounts. Scoundrels speak with a magic and exhilaration seemingly reserved for the lofty.
When the unethical leader in the form of a Madoff, Lay, Skilling or Kadafi develops a repertoire of toxic eloquence this greatly enhances their prospects for seducing, raping and confusing their constituencies. Extraordinary levels of eloquence, charm and deceit are required to persuade a workforce, a highly sophisticated and prosperous clientele, or a population to march lockstep into destructive investments and agendas. We are all fairly well briefed on the fact that eloquent Nazis spewed toxic laden rhetoric and accelerated a hatred that was unfortunately already churning deep within the German population. The satanic dictator appeared in flesh and mustache across Berlin, Cologne and much of Europe. He coughed up a deadly brew of nationalism, pride, and hideous distortions of righteousness and evil. Adolf was quite eloquent in his demonic agenda. Followers worshiped him, kissed his feet and in the presence of Nazi eloquence swore that they were at one with the Lord.
Unfortunately, this is not just about the Nazis and current dictators in the Middle East. As we well know, the big business of religion is hardly immune from the allure of the intoxicating speaker. On the dark and seamy underbelly of religion, a toxic eloquence elevated several T.V. preachers to stardom. Flocks of true believers were led astray into the valley of the shadow of death. Rape, incest, pedophilia, seduction and thievery posed as the gospel. Sadly, the silver tongued preachers have had their corporate CEO counterparts in Arthur Anderson and other fallen Fortune 500 angels. Bankruptcies, life imprisonments, suicides and deep mental disarray have been but a few of the consequences of corporate demagogues.
Real life corporate collapses can be linked to the likes of a Jeffrey Skilling or a Kenneth Lay. They are hardly being cast as scapegoats. They are rather at the source of wild side toxicity. The mother of invention here is to be found in deeply entrenched greed that bubbles to the surface in masterful language that titillates, excites, inspires unites and allows the chosen into an exclusive club. Meanwhile, the toxic leader who drools and dazzles with eloquence is an expert at casting skeptics and non-believers into exile and oblivion. Artful rhetoric, seamless semantics, perfected facial nuances and perfect gestures all present a veneer that disguises inner bankruptcy and demonic strategies. Toxic eloquence is a key to diffusing corporate and political poisons.
Companies go down. Consortiums and multinational ventures are dissolved as stakeholders shake their heads trying to understand how they were tricked. Otherwise brilliant professionals and crazy successful organizations were momentarily turned dumb, dumber, dumbest. How could our elite be so deceived? They have been bamboozled by the moving lips, exquisite words, and effervescent and vacuous promises uttered by criminals in couture Versace and Armani suits.
A case in point wass the anti-Christ CEO of Jonestown. Reverend Jones was quite an orator and he was able to oversee an impressive harem. Jones' silver tongued rhetoric persuaded individuals, couples, lovers, friends, families, business leaders and highly endowed professionals to partake in a mass communal suicide at Jonestown. Suffice to say that the misplaced fury and venom of this disturbed preacher still ricochets through our emotions and resonates decades later. How could such a bogus, fringe character and bona fide psychopath mimic Satan and court his followers to a mass grave? Jones and other dysfunctional leaders mesmerize those in search of revelation and a script to live by. How could a community of seekers subscribe to Jones's totalitarianism and sign on a dotted line that should have never come to be? Surely Jim Jones points toward the ferocity of a toxic eloquence and the fact that audiences are there for the asking.
Consider how the likes of a Bernie Madoff got his claws into the vaults, loins, bank accounts and life savings of so many prominent business leaders and top tier organizations? Bernie dug deep into the ancient handbook of supreme deception as he rationalized evil and covered it with a veneer of smiling, personable gamesmanship. His game was largely his eloquence as he required more than just distortions and lies to destroy lives, institutions and fortunes. The ability to financially rape and pilfer so many quality individuals and corporate entities was all constructed around his toxic eloquence. Madoff's words were what his clients wanted to hear. The logic was perfectly twisted. The references and verbal gymnastics were world class, superb and slippery as hell. The marriage of a Ponzi scheme to eloquence was a match ultimately made in hell. The problem, however, was that this hell was not readily visible to followers! It was dressed up in an eloquence that charmed wallets, egos and Eros!
Is there an antidote? I advise that we cautiously gauge eloquence on a case-by-case and leader-by-leader basis. Go beyond the glossy designed suits, perfected smiles, refined demeanors, and impressive dialects and maintain a healthy skepticism about those presenters who primarily "wow" you with their physical presence and delivery.