The death of Kenya’s longest-ruling president Mzee Daniel Moi, on Tuesday, sparked a heated debate among citizens, on the kind of legacy the ex-president had left behind.
Moi, although hailed for transforming the country’s economy and education sectors to a great extent, was termed as a ruthless dictator, who had almost everyone in the country wrapped around his finger for 24 years.
But different tales are told of the late politician’s life before his ascension to power, while serving as Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s vice president.
According to author Andrew Morton in a Moi biography dubbed The Making of An African Statesman, the former head of state underwent wanton humiliation under the hands of one James Mungai, a former Rift Valley police boss, who operated in Mzee Kenyatta’s innermost circle.
Mungai was part of a group that worked tirelessly, although in futile, to prevent Moi from taking over the reins of power after Mzee Kenyatta’s death, through a proposed constitutional change on succession terms.
So powerful was the dreaded Mungai, that he had the audacity, in 1975, to force a whole Vice President, to strip naked for a security search.
This, according to Morton’s narration, was after Moi returned to Kenya from an Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Uganda, only for Mungai and his men to accuse him of attempting to smuggle in weapons into the country, as part of an ouster plot against Kenyatta.
When Moi complained to the founding father about the incident, the latter mocked him by pointing out that the security docket was under the vice president’s office, thus it was Moi’s mistake to have let Mungai undermine him.
In other separate instances, Mungai is said to have slapped Mzee Moi on the face right in front of president Kenyatta, who did nothing to defend his immediate junior.
Soon after Moi was sworn in as President following Kenyatta’s death. Mungai fled to Sudan, afraid of retaliatory action from the politician who, during his presidential term, ruled the country with as much ferocity as he was subjected to.