President Moi Research Articles

Making or unmaking the nation? A reflection of president Moi’s regime

ABSTRACT This study explores Kenya’s second President, Daniel Arap Moi’s attempts to establish a sense of a shared national identity. Content analysis of books written about him, his speeches, and newspaper articles reveals how Moi used Nyayo philosophy, national holidays, the Father of the Nation narrative, currency notes and coins, and monuments to foster a Kenyan national identity. Despite efforts to forge a common national identity, the government frequently operated in a way that was at odds with what Moi said in his speeches. Whereas President Moi advocated for peace, love, and unity, his administration was largely characterised by clientelism, patronism, social and regional inequalities, and interethnic violence, among other social, economic and political evils. Because of the disconnect between what Moi claimed and what his administration actually did, his attempts to foster nationhood could alternatively be seen as a way for him to control the state, consolidate power, and legitimize his leadership. Therefore, during Moi’s rule, national identity building lacked a strong collective consciousness, which would have enabled Kenyans to institutionalise a sense of belonging and attachment to the nation.

Protocol and Order during the Mourning Period for the Late President Moi: Understanding Official Discourse of the Disciplined Forces and Cultural Ideologies

This paper is a reflection on both the language and acts of protocol and honour witnessed during the days of mourning and funeral service of the second President of the Republic of Kenya, Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, between the fourth and the twelfth of February 2020. Interviews with some military officers were used to shed light on the meanings of the texts and acts of honour and protocol. These include; the Presidential Proclamation, the flags traditions, the military marches, and the gun ceremony by army. The army was in charge of most of the ceremonies and activities that took place during that time of mourning. This discourse and honorary acts are contrary to another underplayed disgruntled discourse that those who suffered under the KANU regime had. Is it a cultural thing not to say ill of the departed? Was the media down playing these contrary views because of what they called ‘negative Kenyan groupthink’? Discourse analysis theory was used to help shed light on the intricacies of language and meanings in the discourse of the disciplined forces and other discourses backgrounded in these events yet are part of human experiences and activities. The gist of the paper is how discursive elements in the chosen texts and acts (for this article, the military) have practical, ritual, symbolic, semiotic, and cultural functions. In discussing this one event, the paper endeavours to show the importance of language in revealing social and cultural ideologies and how this knowledge helps in understanding peoples’ lives. As a social practice, language informs the social structure; who the people are, their behaviours and way of life

Political Support for Music Education in Kenya: A Paradox

Music and politics in Kenya have long been intertwined. Song exalted the spirit of political manipulation in Kenya, starting with the founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta to his successors including Daniel Toroitich arap Moi (President Moi). During President Moi’s regime which is commonly referred to as the Nyayo Era (or foot-steps Era), he appropriated the power of music for political purposes. He encouraged music educators in schools, colleges and community organizations to compose music, sing and dance in his praise. He toured countryside and cities around the nation and as he came into contact with music groups including but not limited to primary school and secondary school mass choirs, college and community choirs, he danced with them as the choirs sang and danced in his praise. Kenya’s political realities dictated that President Moi continue to build his political popularity by promoting music that praised his government policies throughout the nation. Since scholarly literature has shown that music is both a social performance and an effective communicative medium, this paper explores the paradox that while President Moi supported music education in Kenya, music also became a tool for his political expediency. The paper hence explores the role of music in the political governance in Kenya during the Nyayo Era and discusses some of the conundrums music educators in schools and communities confronted while teaching, composing and performing music. Keywords: music education, music as paradox, politics in Kenya, nyayo era , Moi DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-29-03 Publication date: October 31 st 2021

Dr. Mark A. Wainberg (1945-2017): Provocateur, Activist, and Champion for AIDS Care and Research.

Dr. Mark A. Wainberg (1945-2017): Provocateur, Activist, and Champion for AIDS Care and Research.

‘Donor-driven’ neoliberal reform processes and urban environmental change in Kenya

In this article, I heed the call by some scholars to focus on ‘actually existing neoliberalism to better understand how neoliberal processes play out in particular places and times. Through the lenses of urban political ecology, I explore the environmental impacts in Kenya of what I term ‘donor-driven’ neoliberal reform processes using the 1990’s privatization of Karura Forest in Nairobi as an entry point. My findings suggest that the regime of former President Moi improperly privatized more than half of Karura Forest to raise funds to support his re-election in 1997. The regime creatively used neoliberal discourses of privatization and private property rights to mask an illegal transfer of a key urban public forest to private interests. I argue that this transfer suggests that, in a context where Western donors largely dictated neoliberal reform in Kenya, the donors’ failure to anticipate how local political dynamics might complicate reform implementation, combined with their contradictory neoliberal policy agendas for the country, played in the hands of a regime whose survival depended on its ability to maintain patronage networks.

Changing Political Faces on Kenya's Coast, 1992–2007

The voters of Kenya's coastal province largely supported the ruling party of President Moi in the elections of 1992 and 1997, yet in 2002 they turned away from KANU and toward the NaRC coalition led by Mwai Kibaki. The results of the 2007 poll show a marked turn away from the party of government, amid a general decline in the numbers of votes polled. This paper examines the 2007 parliamentary election in four constituencies of Kenya's coastal region. It questions several of the prevailing orthodoxies and generalisations about Kenya's coastal politics, suggesting that the election of a candidate is a matter of local as well as national politics, and that this varies greatly from one constituency to another. The cases of Ganze, Bahari, Likoni and Malindi constituencies will be studied to illustrate these issues, exploring a variety of factors including the personalities of the candidates, their association with the key persons leading the national campaigns, and the relationships of the candidates with past regimes.

The risks of knowledge: investigations into the death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in Kenya, 1990

The Risks of Knowledge: Investigations into the Death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in Kenya, 1990. By David William Cohen and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. Pp. vi, 344. $59.95 cloth, $26.95 paper. In 1990, Kenya's foreign minister Robert Ouko was brutally murdered. His burned body was found, with a bullet in his head, near his farm in Koru. Ouko's killing followed an unofficial trip to Washington, D.C., by Kenya's head of state, Daniel arap Moi. At taxpayers' expense, Moi traveled in a leased Concorde jet, joined by an entourage of eighty-four ministers, including Ouko. Kenya at that time was engulfed in high-level state looting and human rights' abuse. The first President Bush snubbed President Moi and refused to meet with him, when Moi had come to the U.S. uninvited after having been hammered in the press and by human rights organizations. While in the United States, Kenya's former minister of energy and consummate Moi insider Nicholas Biwott apparently accused Ouko of upstaging the president, conspiring to unseat him, and spilling the beans to outsiders about corruption in Kenya. Biwott was also working to undermine a deal Ouko was trying to put through with a Swiss company to revive the molasses plant in Kisumu. After his return to Kenya, Ouko was relieved of his passport and told by the president to go home and rest. He was killed about nine days later, some say by Moi or Biwott, after being taken away in a white car seen at a distance by Ouko's house servant, Selena Were. The study does not seek to answer such questions as how Ouko died, who killed him, or why. Using a postmodernist approach instead, David Cohen and Atieno Odhiambo look at the process involved in the production of (p. 221) about the case. Thus their book examines what is known about Ouko's death from the standpoint of many different individuals and sources: family members, friends, colleagues, government officials, house servants, hangers-on, and others, views mostly culled from official transcripts, reports, inquiries, newspaper articles, and books by some of the principals. For those not of the postmodernist bent, the rendition of similar points by different actors easily descends into tedious repetition and rabid empiricism. How many times does one need to hear about the white car that came to take Ouko away in the middle of the night, or Ouko's statement to his sister that these are the things that are killing me? Or to read such unenlightening details as the plot number of Ouko's farm, his Kisumu and Koru telephone numbers, or the license number of his Datsun pickup. The study would have been stronger if the authors had sorted facts from gossip and provided more analysis about what Ouko's murder can tell us broadly and systematically about the state and politics in Kenya at the time. The postmodernist approach taken by the authors does not seek to reveal truths or to analyze them, but rather to present a set of narratives surrounding the murder. As the authors note in an opaque and jargon-laden introduction and conclusion, they see their task as providing the social history of knowledge in formation rather than discussing objective conditions (p. 28). This perspective is cumbersome, as there is a factual answer to the question of who killed Ouko and what this tells us about the politics of the time. Consequently, the study is a bit like stepping into the unsorted files of a police inquiry midstream; it is messy and inconclusive, and needs more facts, analysis, refinement, and editing. The book could also have benefited from the application of more traditional historical methods, including going back to reconstruct the period now and interviewing individuals whose earlier official testimonies might have been distorted by a climate of suspicion and fear. Instead, without such fieldwork, the study engages in a number of contorted speculations, using postmodernist terminology (e. …

Kenya: one step forward, three steps back: the succession dilemma

Despite the optimism in 1992, that competitive multi‐party politics would create effective and meaningful democratic politics in Kenya, there has been a process of political deliberalisation and politicisation of ethnic politics. There is, moreover, little prospect that President Moi will give way to a replacement at the end of his second five‐year term in 2002. There is even less chance that effective political democracy is likely in Kenya in the foreseeable future.

Pilfering the Public: The Problem of Land Grabbing in Contemporary Kenya

Political liberalization in Africa is a more problematic process than earlier thought. Powerful actors will attempt to maintain patrimonial control by developing creative counter-strategies to change. When faced with declining patronage resources, they will find alternative sources, often amplifying corruption and violence in the process. This paper provides a concrete example of this dynamic through an examination of Kenya's land grabbing-the irregular privatization of public lands. It argues that president Moi and his clients are increasingly and violently turning to public lands, which are less fettered by international scrutiny, as a patronage resource and instrument to maintain control. In response, many Kenyans are resisting this form of corruption and in the process are constructing a notion of the public that challenges the rules of the patrimonial game.

The political evolution of Kenya: The 1997 elections and succession politics

The Republic of Kenya is in transition from an authoritarian, neo‐patrimonial regime under President Daniel arap Moi to a democratic, multi‐party political system. In 1992, the first national elections were held and Moi and the ruling party, KANU, swept back into power. In 1997, the second post‐liberalisation elections featured a slightly more level playing field following a year‐long struggle by civil society for constitutional reforms. Once again, however, President Moi and KANU faced a divided opposition. Moi re‐captured the presidency but KANU barely won the largest number of seats in the new parliament. Moi must step down in 2002. Thus, Kenya's re‐democratisation has entered a critical phase. This article provides an analytical overview of the 1997 elections and the strategic options available to steer the presidential succession in KANU's favour.

SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY

IN THE LATE 1 980S, at the time of the end of the cold war, Africa experienced the beginning of a second liberation, as the peoples of Africa tried to throw off the political systems that had come to serve them so badly. The struggle was not the same everywhere, but one of its common features was the significant role played by the churches. In Francophone Africa, the struggle took a particular form; citizens' groups forced the dictators to convene a national conference, at which a wide range of groups debated the nation's future. The dictators, vulnerable and deserted by their previously supportive Western backers, had to give way, at least in the short term. One of the remarkable features of these conferences was the way in which Catholic Bishops were asked to preside over them. In Benin, Mgr Isidore de Sousa, Archbishop of Cotonou, presided over the national conference, then as president of the Haut Conseil de la Republique overseeing the transition process, was the highest authority in the land for the thirteen months leading up to elections. In Gabon it was Mgr Basile Mve Engone, Bishop of Oyem. In Togo, Mgr Sanouko Kpodzro, Bishop of Atakpame, presided over the process. In the Congo, Mgr Ernest Kombo, the country's first Jesuit and Bishop of Owando, presided over the three month long national conference and then the entire transitional process. In Zaire, Mgr Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kisangani, was elected in 1991 to preside over the national conference attempting to halt Zaire's decline into anarchy.1 In many other countries, the churches' role was just as significant, though it took different forms. For years, in Kenya, the most articulate criticism of President Moi came from individual Anglican Bishops, and later from the National Council of Churches of Kenya. In Malawi, ie whole process of opposition to President Banda's rule was begun by the 1992 Lenten pastoral of the Catholic Bishops. In Madagascar, the Council of Churches was the core of the 'Forces Vives' that led to the ousting of President Ratsiraka in 1992. And in Zambia the churches were among the most prominent local bodies involved in the transition

Elections and political legitimacy in Kenya

AbstractThough it began independence as a deeply divided society after the trauma of Mau Mau, Kenya maintained one of the open political systems in Africa despite its formal one-party status. National elections provided a device by means of which new blood could be incorporated into the regime. More recently growing economic difficulties and the insecurity of President Moi have greatly intensified authoritarian tendencies. Elections have increasingly been rigged in order to sustain Moi's narrow power base. As elsewhere in Africa the regime gave in to the demands for multi-party politics but the first such elections produced a highly fragmented political scene.

Structural changes in Kenya's broadcasting system: A manifesta tion of presidential authoritarianism

Between December 1988 and March 1990, the government of Kenya restructured its broadcasting system. Examination of government documents and press reports viewed from the perspective of literature on authoritarian politics in Africa indicates that the structural changes were part of a strategy intended to enhance the image and authority of President Moi, breath new life into the ruling party and attract foreign investors. The strategy did attract foreign aid and investment in the media and did give the president a more efficient propaganda tool and tighter control over the state's broadcasting system. But, the aid increased the nation's external debt; the regime's propaganda alienated the public, and the second TV channel served to encourage open debate and multi-party politics which undermined the president's authority.

Une Opposition en régime autoritaire: L'Exemple du Réveil Est-Africain au Kenya

This article is a case study illustrating the classical problem of the relationship between state and religion. In 1978 the newly-elected President Moi took advantage of a favorable religious situation in order to obtain the political support of certain churches. The resulting coalition of religious and political elites suffered from a lack of sympathy among the mass of the faithful, and the adoption in 1986 of a new electoral process led to strong political opposition on the part of Christian organizations. The mobilization of opposition against the regime appeared to be led by a broadly-based Protestant movement called the “East African Awakening” which eventually convinced the clergy to terminate its support for the regime. Some historical reflections about this movement explain the motivation behind and limits of its political activity.

The President of Kenya on Development and Population Policy

In following excerpts from his Independence Day address on I June 1985, President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya touches on two broad issues of current contention in development policy. The first has crystallized around contrasting development strategies presented in World Bank's Berg Report (1981) and in Organization of African Unity's Lagos Plan of Action (1980). President Moi's stress on price incentives to promote agricultural production and his support for competition, lowered tariffs, and a more hospitable climate for industrial development echo Bank's views. The second issue concerns extent of adverse economic consequences of rapid population growth: here President is firmly in traditional mainstream camp (perhaps prompted by Bank's projection of an ultimate stationary population for Kenya of 150 million), seeing problem of reducing rapid population growth as the most crucial challenge of decade. (Remarks of President Moi on same occasion in 1983 were quoted in PDR 9, no. 3, Sept. 1983, p. 574.)