Second President of Kenya, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi has died |
Former President of Kenya, Daniel Toritich arap Moi is dead, President
Uhuru Kenyatta has announced in a presidential proclamation.
He was 95 years old.
His death
was confirmed by his press secretary Lee Njiru.
He passed
away at night while receiving treatment at Nairobi Hospital.
President
Uhuru Kenyatta issued a presidential proclamation announcing the passing on of
the retired President.
Last
month, doctors at the Nairobi Hospital were forced to Moi back on life support
machines.
His
health situation has not been stable since he was rushed to the facility in
October last year.
At the
time, his spokesman Lee Njiru had said the visit was for a normal check-up but
since then he has been re-admitted four times.
Moi’s
medical team led by his personal doctor David Silverstein are said to be
managing recurring complications that have kept him at the hospital for almost
three months.
Moi (R) and his son Gideon |
He had been in and out of the hospital in the past years. On
his first admission to the hospital, he was treated for pleural effusion. Since
his admission in October 2019, where according to his spokesman, he was
admitted for an apparent check-up, he has been admitted another four times,due
to recurring complications.
Moi’s
health condition is compounded by a knee pain he has been nursing following an
accident involving his car in 2006 in Limuru.
He was a Kenyan politician who
was the second President of Kenya from 1978 to 2002. He
became president following the death of the first president of Kenya, Jomo
Kenyatta.
Through popular agitation and external pressures,
he was forced to allow multiparty elections in 1991; he led his party, KANU, to victory in the 1992 and 1997
elections.
Prior to becoming President, he served as the
third Vice President of Kenya from 1967 to
1978
Moi was
popularly known to Kenyans as Nyayo, a Swahili word
for "footsteps", as he often said he was following in the footsteps
of the first President, Jomo Kenyatta.
He also earned the sobriquet "Professor
of Politics" due to his long rule of 24 years, the longest in Kenyan history
to date.
At the age of 95, he was the oldest living
former Kenyan president at the time of his death.
Moi chose Uhuru Kenyatta (R) as his successor instead of Raila Odinga (L) |
Moi was born in Kabarak village, Sacho division, Baringo
County, and was raised by his paternal uncle Kimoi Chebii following
the early death of his father. He was from the Tugen sub-group
of the Kalenjin people.
After completing his secondary education
at Kapsabet High School, he attended Tambach Teachers Training College in
the Keiyo District and worked as a teacher from
1946 until 1955.
In 1955 Moi
entered politics when he was elected Member of the Legislative Council for Rift
Valley. He was the chosen replacement of Dr. John ole Tameno, the former
representative who had had to quit due to heavy drinking and suspected
connections to the freedom movement.
In 1957 Moi was re-elected Member of the
Legislative Council for Rift Valley. He became Minister of Education in the
pre-independence government of 1960–1961.
In 1960 he
founded the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU)
with Ronald Ngala to challenge the Kenya African National Union (KANU)
led by Jomo Kenyatta.
KADU pressed for a federal constitution, while
KANU was in favour of centralism. The advantage lay with the numerically
stronger KANU, and the British government was finally forced to remove all
provisions of a federal nature from the constitution.
After Kenya gained independence on 12 December
1963, Kenyatta convinced Moi that KADU and KANU should be merged to complete
the process of decolonisation.
Accordingly, KADU dissolved and joined KANU in
1964. The only real challenge to KANU's dominance came from the Kenya People's Union, starting in 1966.
That party was banned in 1969, and from that point onward Kenya was a de
facto one-party state dominated by the Kikuyu/Luo alliance.
However, with an eye on the fertile lands of
the Rift Valley populated by members of Moi's Kalenjin tribe,
Kenyatta secured their support by first promoting Moi to Minister for Home
Affairs in 1964, and then to Vice-President in 1967.
Senior Private, Hezekiah Ochuka (C) |
As a member of a minority tribe Moi was also an
acceptable compromise for the major tribes. Moi was elected to the Kenyan parliament in 1963 from Baringo North. From 1966 until his
retirement in 2002 he served as the Baringo Central MP.
However, Moi
faced opposition from the Kikuyu elite known as the Kiambu Mafia,
who would have preferred one of their own to be eligible for the presidency.
This resulted in an attempt by the constitutional drafting group to change the
constitution to prevent the vice-president automatically assuming power in the
event of the president's death.
The presence of this succession mechanism
might have led to dangerous political instability if Kenyatta died, given his
advanced age and perennial illnesses. However, Kenyatta withstood the political
pressure and safeguarded Moi's position.
When Jomo Kenyatta died on 22 August 1978, Moi
became acting president. Per the Constitution, a special presidential election
for the balance of Kenyatta's term was to be held on 8 November, 90 days later.
That never happened as the Cabinet held a
Special Cabinet meeting without Moi and decided that no one else was interested
and went around the country campaigning for him to be declared elected
unopposed. He was therefore declared President of Kenya in September 1978.
Despite his
popularity, Moi was still too weak to consolidate his power.
From the beginning, anticommunism was an
important theme of Moi's government; speaking on the new President's behalf,
Vice-President Mwai Kibaki bluntly stated, "There is
no room for communists in Kenya."
On 1 August
1982, lower-level Air Force personnel, led by Senior Private Grade-I Hezekiah
Ochuka and backed by university students, attempted a coup d'état to
oust Moi.
The putsch was quickly suppressed by military
and police forces commanded by Chief of General Staff Mahamoud
Mohamed.
To this day it appears that the attempt by two
independent groups to seize power contributed to the failure of both, with one
group making its attempt slightly earlier than the other.
Moi took the
opportunity to dismiss political opponents and consolidate his power. He
reduced the influence of Kenyatta's men in the cabinet through a long running
judicial enquiry that resulted in the identification of key Kenyatta men as
traitors.
The main conspirators in the coup, including
Ochuka were sentenced to death, marking the last judicial executions in Kenya.
He appointed supporters to key roles and changed the constitution to formally
make KANU the only legally permitted party in the country.
However, as mentioned above, Kenya had been
a de facto one-party state since 1969. Kenya's academics and
other intelligentsia did not accept this and the universities and colleges
became the origin of movements that sought to introduce democratic reforms.
However, Kenyan secret police infiltrated
these groups and many members moved into exile. Marxism could no longer be
taught at Kenyan universities. Underground movements, e.g. Mwakenya and
Pambana, were born.
Moi's regime now faced the end
of the Cold War, and an economy stagnating under rising oil prices and
falling prices for agricultural commodities.
At the same time the West no
longer dealt with Kenya as it had in the past, when it was viewed as a
strategic regional outpost against communist influences from Ethiopia and
Tanzania.
At that time Kenya had
received much foreign aid, and the country was accepted as well governed with
Moi as a legitimate leader and firmly in charge.
Western allies deliberately
overlooked the increasing degree of political repression, including the use of torture at the
infamous Nyayo House torture
chambers. Some of the evidence of these torture cells was eventually to be
exposed in 2003 after Mwai Kibaki became
President.
Half-hearted inquiries that began at the
request of foreign aid donors never amounted to anything substantial during
Moi's presidency.
Although it appears that the peaceful transfer
of power to Mwai Kibaki may have involved an
understanding that Moi would not stand trial for offences committed during his
presidency, foreign aid donors reiterated their requests, and Kibaki reopened
the inquiry.
As the inquiry has progressed, Moi, his two
sons, Philip and Gideon (now a Senator), and his daughter, June, as well as a
host of high-ranking Kenyans, have been implicated. In testimony delivered in
late July 2003, Treasury Permanent Secretary Joseph Magari recounted
that, in 1991, Moi ordered him to pay Ksh34.5 million ($460,000) to
Goldenberg, contrary to the laws then in force.
In October
2006, Moi was found by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment
Disputes to have taken a bribe from a Pakistani businessman, to award a
monopoly of duty-free shops at the country's international airports in Mombasa
and Nairobi. The businessman, Ali Nasir, claimed to have paid Moi US$2 million
in cash to obtain government approval for the World Duty Free Limited
investment in Kenya.
On 31 August
2007, WikiLeaks published a secret report that laid bare a web of shell
companies, secret trusts and frontmen that his entourage had used to funnel
hundreds of millions of pounds into nearly 30 countries.
Moi was constitutionally barred
from running in the 2002 presidential elections. Some of his supporters floated
the idea of amending the constitution to allow him to run for a third term, but
Moi preferred to retire, choosing Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of
Kenya's first President, as his successor.
However, Mwai Kibaki was elected
President by a two to one majority over Kenyatta, which was confirmed on 29
December 2002.
Moi handed over power in a poorly organised
ceremony that had one of the largest crowds ever seen in Nairobi in attendance.
The crowd was openly hostile to Moi.
After
leaving office in December 2002, Moi lived in retirement, largely shunned by
the political establishment. In 2005, a Scotland Yard detective, John Troon
who was investigating the death of former Kenya’s Foreign Minister, Dr Robert
Ouko, implicated Moi with the death.
Troon told a Parliamentary Select Committee
investigating the death led by Chairman Gor Sunguh that it was President Moi who
ordered the killing of his Foreign minister 15 years ago. Moi refuted the
allegations as malicious gossip. - Africa
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