Part 2

In our second instalment of David Maillu’s upcoming novel The Haves and the Have-Nots, the death of Kenya’s founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta provides no respite for Kenya’s poor. The country’s second president, Daniel arap Moi, promises to pursue the same policies as his predecessor, ensuring the fruits of independence would never be enjoyed by those who fought for freedom.

Chapter Two

When President Jomo Kenyatta died on August 22, 1978, the Macharia family, with a host of disappointed and disillusioned freedom fighters whom Kenyatta had deliberately betrayed, celebrated the leader’s death. In his public speeches, when he wanted to admonish those who challenged his authority, Kenyatta used to threaten them, saying in Kiswahili, “Sitaki nyoko”. Loosely translated to mean “I, won’t entertain your nonsense”.

The truth, however, was that he had become a nyoko nyoko to freedom fighters. The cultural enemy from within was the Kikuyu President himself.

Kenyatta’s death marked the end of a bad era. Many had the feeling that; irrespective of the good deeds he had done, the bad ones outweighed the good. But millions mourned his death all the same.

Macha celebrated the death by playing his guitar and singing his heart out. He celebrated it by dancing and sleeping with one of his music fans whose name he quickly forgot as soon as she mentioned it.

The Macharia family had every reason to hate Kenyatta. Their appeal for restoration of their land had failed, only to boost the success of Chief Waruingi’s family. They could not forgive the Kenyatta’s government for not pardoning Macharia but instead letting him die after years of detention. They had nursed the hope, in collaboration with the disgruntled freedom fighters, that the new government of President Daniel arap Moi would help them find justice.

But the new president, who came from the Kalenjin community, took the oath of office saying something they found unsettling, contradictory, and confusing at the same time, “Nitafuata nyayo za Jomo Kenyatta,” (I will follow Jomo Kenyatta’s footsteps).

While this was an assurance on continuity, it also meant that he would keep whatever wrong policies Kenyatta had formulated. If any of these were faulty, and  required alteration, Moi would certainly not correct them. He would serve freedom fighters and their children the same cup of bitterness that Kenyatta had served them. Basically, he would just be another Kenyatta.

On the other hand, things would never be the same again for the Kikuyu who felt the community had become orphaned by losing the presidency after fifteen years of leadership. They increasingly felt sidelined in matters of governance

Those who had inside knowledge said that President Jomo Kenyatta left behind one glaring and worrisome problem — that of land. While the Kenyatta family inherited large chunks of land that he had allocated to himself shamelessly, many Kikuyu people were left landless. His estate, comprising of the land, was big enough to be described as a district.

“Did he need all that land?” Most wondered.

“Good as he was,” they added, “Kenyatta was addicted to land acquisition and materialism.”

Ironically, the glory of independence never went to those who had fought for freedom, Kenyatta did nothing to honour the blood of those who died fighting for the country’s independence. He never erected any monument to immortalise their sacrifice.

The glaring evidence of Kenyatta’s reluctance to recognise freedom fighters was that the Mau Mau freedom fighters still retained the colonial tag of “terrorists” by the time he died. The glory of independence instead went largely to families of those who had supported the colonial government. These were infamously known as collaborators or “home guards”.

Ignoring compensation for the Mau Mau fighters particularly outraged Bildad Kaggia, a freedom fighter who was detained together with Kenyatta. At one time and before his death, Macharia had gone to seek Kaggia’s advice regarding his grabbed land. Macharia and Kaggia had known each for a long time and had shared a lot before they were detained. Detention had a way of changing and hardening people and no one was ever the same after a stint in one of the camps.

On his way home, Macharia was haunted by Kaggia’s shocking words which he had delivered tearfully.

“Brother Macharia, let me tell you something,” Kaggia had said while wiping tears.
“I never thought I would become disillusioned with Kenyatta son of Muigai. The Kenyatta who was among the six of us detained in Kapenguria for seven years – Jomo Kenyatta, Ramogi Achieng Oneko, Paul Ngei, Fred Kubai, Kung’u Karumba and myself – was a different person from the Jomo Kenyatta that became the President of this country.”
Kaggia stared at Macharia with a steely face, his eyes piercing into Macharia’s very soul.

“Very heavy words,” a shaken Macharia replied .

“Brother, you see… your integrity is not measured by mere words, but by your actions. Kenyatta and I – two men from the House of Mumbi – were good friends while in detention. We shared big dreams about independent Kenya and how we would restore our traditional social integrity destroyed by colonial culture. We talked about how we would return to our traditional worship and reclaim destroyed shrines… We talked about government where a leader is a kind caretaker of the community’s values… We talked about the dynamics of our traditional democracy where you are what you are because we are, and we are what we are because of what you are. Our friendship fell apart after Kenyatta became the President.”

“Why?”

“Because he dropped all those ideals and was afraid of being challenged. He became a foreigner to me. He simply replaced the colonial white governor with a black skinned governor, using the same oppressive laws that colonialists had used on us. He created a puppet government to benefit the White man economically. Same monkeys in different forests. Then it dawned on me that he had given lip service to all those ideals we cherished and that, from the bottom of his heart, he was immortal.

“He became greedy and, as days unfolded, he got addicted to the greed of making himself richer and richer at the cost of depriving people of their rights. He employed State power to get what he wanted, and was quite capable of killing anyone who crossed him. He didn’t want to hear of Bildad Kaggia anymore. The more he acquired, the more he wanted. His appetite for land was insatiable.”

“In a rating of one to ten, where would you place him?”

“Nine point five.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Kenyatta had made me his biggest enemy because I fought for the rights of freedom fighters and refused to be a party to the plunder of national resources. I am sure you remember the day he cursed and ridiculed me during that public rally where he laughed and screamed at me, ‘Kaggia, look at you and tell me what you got for yourself since the country achieved independence other than misery while others have made themselves rich?’ Remember that confrontation?”

“It’s still burning in my memory.”

“He hated me because I fought for the rights of freedom fighters. Kenyatta’s heart was never for the nation but only for himself.”

“Why did he ignore the freedom fighters?”

“Simple. He didn’t want to disappoint the British, who surrounded him with advisers. After the British surrendered the Kenya colony to Kenyatta, they signed a security contract to protect him. They were not foolish to surrender the territory without a motive of continuing to exercise their power behind the scenes and exploiting the country. No woman would divorce you and wish you prosperity. Instead, she would do her best to destroy your wealth and standing in society.

“He who has eaten something grows an insatiable appetite for it. The British had been the predators. Remember the predator is always smarter than the prey. The British devised a state which they managed to exploit diplomatically through proxies. They laughed behind Kenyatta’s back. Do you know one glaring symbolism that tells us Kenyatta’s psychological frame of mind when he was being sworn in to become the President of the new nation?”

“Tell me.”

“First, he was sworn in using the same Bible that had been used to colonise us, implying we had no religion that could be used for such a ceremony. Secondly, it is best expressed by his occupation of the same building that the British governor had occupied. Proverbially, he took the same cultural clothes the British had been wearing in the Kenya colony. Same suits. Same colours. Same kitchen utensils and dining table. The first thing Kenyatta should have done to demonstrate to the British loudly that we have cut off ties with them and become a sovereign state would have been building a new State House using African architectural designs.

“When he took over their cultural dressing, he accepted to become a British puppet. Kenyatta knew too well that if he compensated the freedom fighters who had been the enemy of the British, the British would not be amused. So he gave them a deaf ear and a blind eye. The British were still Kenyatta’s benefactors; he who feeds you can beat your mother while you watch. Also, he who feeds you can give you shit secretly.”

“But didn’t he listen to his Kenyan advisers?”

“He gave them a deaf ear. To start with, Kenyatta was not fully initiated as a Mau Mau. He didn’t complete the seven stages of the Mau Mau oath. Did you know that?”

“It has been a pet subject among freedom fighters. I heard a lot about it during my period in detention.”

“The hostility with which Kenyatta has handled freedom fighters and their families has dug the grave in which he will be buried.”

After Macharia’s death, his wife Muthoni, pressed by the children, also paid a visit to Kaggia for advice. Kaggia however killed her spirit by saying, “Sister, the best advice I can give you is: Forget about that land and move on. Justice has been buried with Kenyatta whose gatekeepers are now in charge. President Moi is ineffective. He wants to maintain the status quo of pleasing the mighty Kikuyu men. To start with, he’s held to ransom by Charles Njonjo and G.G. Kariuki, whose initials have been given a female moniker, Grace Gathoni. People say President Moi is married to Grace Gathoni with whom they ride in the same car.

Njonjo is President Moi’s spokesperson. Njonjo and Kariuki are the powerful Kikuyu men after Kenyatta’s death, and they are determined to maintain the status quo. What the grabbers now possess they would like to keep at whatever cost. Sister, please go home and take care of your children. Stay in peace. Who knows? Tomorrow belongs to no one.”

For a long time, the rich Honourable Jnr Josiah Waruingi, the man of the people as he loved to call himself, had been living with a bug of itchy desire. And Mumbi, daughter of Macharia was the cause of the bug. She was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. As is characteristic of men's behaviour, he felt he had a share in every beautiful woman. He prided himself in having slept with some of the most beautiful girls. He had lost count of the number of women he had slept with. As a wealthy man, he used to muse to himself, if you want to have fun, monkey with children of the poor but not with those of the rich.

His spirit teased him, telling him that he was not fully in charge of his territory until he had slept with Mumbi. However, the million-dollar question was: How was he going to get her? He knew Mumbi didn’t like him. Of course, they had crossed paths before, during which he threw the bait at her by proffering his hand for a handshake. Being a big man, he figured giving her a handshake was promoting her status and that it would thaw her attitude, making her dislike for him to reduce if not disappear altogether. He knew her brother hated him too. Mumbi was the only member of Macharia’s family whose hand he had ever shaken.

Following the fashion of modern cheating men, he had one wife, Wanja, but apart from her, he had many concubines and lovers scattered in the country and even overseas, just like most post-colonial wealthy men. He used money to lure many married women into submission and had many children outside marriage.

Mumbi featured in his mind only when he drove to the countryside, as he lived in the city of Nairobi. Like many well-up men in the countryside, he feared the danger of living in the countryside and exposing himself to robbers whose number was on the rise. They broke into rich people’s houses at night, robbing and vandalising cars.

It had become common to leave one’s car while on a business call, only to come back and find your car broken into or the tyres punctured. These actions were perpetrated against the wealthy as if to tell them: “You don’t belong here. We don’t want you. We can kill you.”

That was the reason many wealthy Kikuyu men migrated to Nairobi. They would visit their countryside homes for a day but would never spend the night. The Mungiki name was permanently implanted in their mind even though the government claimed it had contained them. Mungiki was a silent para-military group or militia that terrorised rich and poor alike in the countryside, spreading fear and allegedly circumcising women forcibly. Jomo Kenyatta had left every wealthy man in Kikuyuland fearing for his life. Most felt they owed the poor a heavy debt.

The opportunity that Honourable Jnr Josiah Waruingi had been seeking presented itself one day when he was in the countryside on a tour of his constituency. The political engagement went on late into the night. He came home after midnight in order to confuse any would-be robbers. While driving to Nairobi in the morning, he spotted Mumbi at the bus station.

He stopped the car and invited her with a smile, saying, “Mumbi, where are you going so early in the morning?”
Mumbi was in the company of three others who had escorted her to the bus stage. He stretched out his hand and asked her, “Would you like a lift?”

She shook her head. But her heart was in turmoil, and she fought against telling him she was embarking on a long journey to Nakuru to visit her maternal aunt. It made a lot of sense to accept the lift to Nairobi and thereafter seek transport to Nakuru. This would save her money and time, but she decided strongly against it.

“Jump in!” he persisted.

“No, no, thank you,” she said firmly, adding, “I’m okay, just go.”

He thought she was dressed up for a long journey and, unrelenting, teased, “Tomorrow, I’ll punish you if I find out you lied to me.”

She sighed and abandoning caution, blurted out, “I’m going to Nairobi.” But just as she uttered those words, she knew she had made a big mistake and quickly countered, “But I’m waiting for someone else.”

Her companions had stepped back to give him privacy to talk to Mumbi as soon as they realised he was their Member of Parliament.

“I’m going straight to Nairobi,” Jnr Josiah Waruingi lied, throwing the door open for her to enter the car.

It wasn’t usual for Waruingi to drive. He normally had a driver and only drove himself when out for secret deals. By the time Mumbi got in, he had already craftily decided what to do with her. He took off and drove silently for nearly twenty minutes after which he suddenly stopped and said, “You know what? I’ve forgotten something important in the house. I must go back. It won’t take long.”

He turned the high raised diesel monster of a motor vehicle and drove Mumbi to the gallows. When they arrived in the house he invited her saying, “Come in for a moment.” But she resisted, knowing very well what she had got herself into.

He used brute force, the kind used by men when they feel a woman is apprehensive, and cannot make a rational decision. The housekeeper had closed the big black gate after the car drove in. Poor Mumbi fought hard, but it was hopeless. She submitted because she knew it was pointless. Her resistance wouldn’t get her far, and she rightly sensed evil at play.
He dragged her to the bedroom as she feebly resisted, shouting, “Oh no, please, I can’t!” But to her shock and amazement, he fought her. When it became clear he was going to rape her, she fought with strength that wasn’t hers. But his tenacious power triumphed as he undressed her -- at gun point no less for that dastardly act.

“The cry of a chicken doesn’t stop the slaughterer from killing it, “he muttered under his breath as he unzipped and threw his trousers and underwear away. He blocked her mouth, muffling her sobs and screams.

He forced himself on her, rupturing her hymen as he increased his thrusts, pounding into her, moaning repeatedly oblivious of the pain he was inflicting on her, until he poured his semen in her while she cried out, tears of horror flowing down her cheeks as she clenched her teeth in pain.

This was a nightmare, Mumbi thought to herself. It was the worst thing that could ever have happened to her. She was beside herself with sorrow, feeling helpless and brutally violated as she lay quiet with wetness spreading between her legs, wondering whether she could wish away what just happened.

After the episode he tried to calm her down after common sense crept in and his realisation of the enormity of what he had just done. She had never known a man sexually. He had destroyed her. He pulled out a bundle of notes from his inner jacket pocket and made as if to pay her, but she hit his hand, sending the notes flying in all directions on the floor.

What happened thereafter shocked him; for he had never seen anything like it before. She vomited violently causing him to raise his hands and saying in alarm, “Forgive me, please!”

He had never, ever faced something like this in his philandering escapades.

The house reeked of vomit and it took some time for her to calm down so that he could let her out. Her sobs wracked her whole being. He let her walk to the gate, seemingly in a daze. The gatekeeper opened the gate for her and closed it behind her trying to digest what he saw in that woman.

Mumbi could not proceed with her journey and had to abandon it altogether. She walked back home dejectedly, feeling hollow inside. The terror on her face made her mother scream.

“Mumbi, what’s the matter?” she cried out in alarm.

Mumbi broke into tears again.

“What happened?” she persisted.

Mumbi cried louder for a while, pondering whether to reveal what had just taken place. She thought of sparing her mother the anguish and fury by keeping quiet about it. She decided on the latter and silenced the mother with a lie that she had received sad news of the death of a former schoolmate. She said she had to run to the family of the deceased.

As soon as she was out of the house, she called a taxi to take her to town. She had decided to see a doctor for examination and a full report on the evidence of the rape. She had read somewhere that after rape, a woman should not shower immediately but should go to the nearest hospital for an examination. She was also apprehensive she of getting pregnant or worse, contracting a fatal sexually transmitted disease.
That night when she was feeling a bit relaxed, she disclosed to her mother what had happened. The mother burst into tears, cursing Jnr Waruingi and calling him an animal. “How long shall we remain prey to the Waruingis?” She wondered aloud.

But even when Mumbi got the doctor’s full report bearing evidence of the rape, the family could not do anything because they had no money for engaging a lawyer to sue on their behalf.

“Mumbi, from where I stand,” a highly educated friend to the family advised her, “those are untouchable people. They use money to bend the law in their favour. As the cultural tune goes in this part of the world: Money is God. They worship money because it can buy them whatever they need, including justice. Just let it go.”

“Go where?” panicked Mumbi who felt even more helpless now.

“Think about the consequence of taking a Member of Parliament to court,” the advisor said. “Believe it or not, Waruingi can rape you again and again and even get away with murder. He can hire thugs with a little money to make you follow your father to the grave.”

“This is the kind of world we live in, without justice?” Mumbi posed. “I can’t afford to keep quiet about that,” she said hysterically. "I’m a Mau Mau orphan and I must fight for justice.”

Mumbi became more resolute and stubborn in her determination to follow through with her decision.

“How much justice did your father get after being detained for seven years? Injustice – correct? He fought for life-and-death freedom and was paid back with death. Please, shut your eyes and let it go.”

“Men have no idea about the grief of being raped.”

“I can see it in your face.”

“But you can’t feel it.”

“I am a human being. The distance from woman to man is not much. I know there are natural mountains that women can climb but which men can’t.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know what it feels like to be pregnant,” he swallowed and went into a moment of silence. Despite her desolate mood, Mumbi burst out laughing.

“Mumbi, beneath us I think there’s a powerful clique of ruling people doing its best to promote the population of the poor and ignorant citizens because it is easier to rule poor and ignorant people. Poverty and ignorance are powerful political tools. They are the predators and we are the prey.”

“I feel lost.”

“Try to find a room within yourself where you can live peacefully. Rich people don’t die a better death than poor people. Neither do they laugh more often than the poor. Down the road, you can get used to anything, even poverty. Thank God Waruingi left you alive.”

“Have we developed a culture of injustice? Is this how things should be? Have we gone that far in being insensitive?”

“If you’ve read Kenyatta’s book, Facing Mount Kenya, you’d realise how much the House of Mumbi has lost its grace. It’s hilarious that the man who wrote the book is the one who sold majority of us into poverty. I still believe Jomo Kenyatta was not a true Kikuyu.”

“Why?”

“He was tone deaf when it came to voices of our ancestors. He lived on top of Mount Kenya from where he watched us down here -- his livestock.”

The conversation ended because the advisor saw Mumbi break into tears of desperation.

Barely a week after the conversation, a stranger visited the Macharia home and introduced himself as a city lawyer. The robust lawman told Mumbi and her mother that he had been informed of Mumbi’s plight and wanted to help.

“I fight for human rights, and I have heard about your case. My name is Morris Muthiora. I have volunteered to seek justice for you without getting even a shilling from you. A member of parliament is not above the law. He should face the consequences of what he did. One thing I know is that it may be difficult for him to be imprisoned for the crime, but he can be forced to pay compensation for his dastardly action.”

Miracles do happen, Mumbi and her mother thought, as they listened to Mr Muthiora. It was as if they were looking at an angel. As Mumbi showed him the doctor’s report, she suddenly saw a glimmer of hope. Mumbi recited the rape incident privately to Muthiora, and then accompanied him to the shops to get photocopies of the doctor’s report. He promised to keep in touch.

“In a week, I will serve you with the documents that you must sign. I’m going to do my best. Rest assured you’ll succeed,” he said when leaving.

Lawyer Morris Muthiora kept his word. He came holding a neatly compiled file, bursting with confidence as he sought Mumbi’s signature.

“After serving the MP with the summons, how long will it take for the case to be heard?” Mumbi asked.

“It may take some time. I’ll do my best to push for an early hearing of the case. In the meantime, try as much as possible to relax. Once the case has been allocated a hearing date, I will reach out to you. It is not a difficult case to handle. You will of course be cross-examined, but your case is straightforward.”

After nearly a month of waiting, lawyer Morris Muthiora brought the good news to Mumbi. But this time he was accompanied by a journalist to interview her. He told her that publishing about the incident would help the case and could very easily force the MP to settle out of court to avoid getting embarrassed in court.

The rape story indeed ran a month later though it was published without naming the culprit but framed in a manner that the readers could guess the rapist’s identity. Part of the story asked, “How can a lawmaker elected by the people, and paid by the government, break the law he purports to uphold and yet get away with murder?”

Mumbi celebrated the development, but little did she know that it was the last time she would ever hear from lawyer Morris Muthiora. Month after month passed as she waited for news on the hearing date. After nine months, just when her patience was starting to wear thin, she received the shocking information that Morris Muthiora had gone underground.

This was after negotiating a substantial figure as compensation from Honourable Jnr Josiah Waruingi. and having the client’s money paid to his account. He had allegedly promised that he would transfer the money to the victim, Mumbi, after deducting his legal fee.

“Who is Morris Muthiora?” the Macharia family members asked in panic, desperately hoping that he would emerge out of nowhere and magically transfer the compensation money to Mumbi’s account.

That, however, never happened.

A full year and a half passed before another shocking story emerged that Morris Muthiora was not even a lawyer but an expert conman who could easily be in another country doing the same business while they were busy looking for him.

“Oh my God, what a world!” a devastated Mumbi cried, with all the hopes of getting the money now dashed. She felt dejected after all the misfortune that had befallen her family – from her father’s lands being grabbed, her brother’s rejection by a woman he intended to marry, the poverty that pervaded every aspect of their life, the rape by a member of the land grabber’s family and finally, the betrayal by a con artist.

She felt anger and desolation overcome her. And that’s when Mumbi made a momentous decision, she decided to forget about her age, return to the classroom and study law. Although she had passed her high school well enough to proceed to university, the family could not afford the university fees.

But her luck had not deserted her yet. She was lucky to get a sponsor who had been moved by her failed search for justice.

Next week: The quest for a traditional African solution to injustice

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