Daniel arap Moi

Early life and entry into politics

Moi was born Toroitich arap (son of) Moi, Toroitich meaning "welcome home the cattle", in the Rift Valley village of Kuriengwo, which is now in Sacho division of Baringo County. Moi's father, Kimoi arap Chebii, died in 1928. Moi was only four then and little is known about his mother, Kabon. What is known is that Tuitoek, his elder brother, became his guardian. He proceeded to live with the Chesire family, his relatives, under the matriarch, Elizabeth Chesire. Reuben Chesire and Zipporah Kittony grew up with him at the home. Moi was one of the herdsboys from Sacho location recommended to join the new Africa Inland Mission (AIM) School at Kabartonjo in 1934 before it was shifted to Kapsabet. He was from the Tugen sub-group of the Kalenjin people.

At the African Mission School at Kabartonjo, Moi became a Christian and adopted the name Daniel. Moi attended Tambach Teachers Training College after its relocation from Kabartonjo from 1945 to 1947. This is after the colonial government denied him a chance to enroll at Alliance High School. He later attended Kagumo Teacher's College, and taught classes at Tambach Teacher's Training College. Later he became the headmaster of a school in the Keiyo District. He worked as a teacher from 1946 until 1955.

Moi entered politics in 1955 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. Moi was part of the Kenyan delegation at the Lancaster House Conferences in London, which drafted the country's first post-independence constitution, and in 1961, he became Minister of Education in the pre-independence government.

In 1960 he founded the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) with Ronald Ngala as a political alternative to the Kenya African National Union (KANU) led by Jomo Kenyatta. KADU pressed for a federalist constitution, while KANU was in favour of a centralized government. The advantage lay with the numerically stronger KANU, and the first post-independence constitution emphasised national unity, structuring the country as a unitary state.

Vice-Presidency

After Kenya gained independence on 12 December 1963, Kenyatta convinced Moi that KADU and KANU should merge 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 Kĩkũyũ-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. 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 MP for Baringo Central in addition to his various other offices.

However, Moi faced opposition from the tribe Kikuyu elite known as the Kiambu Mafia, who would have preferred one of their own to accede to 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. However, many senior Kikuyu politicians, including Mwai Kibaki and Charles Njonjo, as well as Kenyatta himself, opposed such a change to the order of succession, fearing it might lead to political instability if Kenyatta died, given his advanced age and perennial illnesses. Thus, Moi's position as successor to Kenyatta was safeguarded.

Presidency

When Jomo Kenyatta died on 22 August 1978, Moi became the 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. However, a Cabinet meeting decided that no one else was interested in running for presidency, thus various politicians began campaigning across the country for Moi to be declared the president unopposed. He was therefore sworn in as the second President of Kenya on 14 October 1978 as a result of the walkover electoral process. Upon becoming president, Moi promised (as noted by one journal) "to conduct an open, democratic government and lead the country into a new era of African socialism."

In the beginning, Moi was popular with widespread support all over the country. He toured the country and came into contact with the people everywhere, which was in great contrast to Kenyatta's imperious style of leadership from behind closed doors. However, political realities dictated that he would continue to be beholden to the system of government that Kenyatta had created and to whose headship he had acceded, including the nearly dictatorial powers vested in his office. Despite his popularity, Moi was still unable to fully consolidate his power. From the beginning, anti-communism 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 revolt was quickly suppressed by military and police forces commanded by Chief of General Staff Mahamoud Mohamed. There may have been two or even three independent groups attempting to seize power at the same time, for differing reasons, but the most serious was led by prominent Kikuyu politicians and members of the police and armed forces.

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. Moi pardoned them but not before establishing their traitor status in the public view. The main conspirators in the coup, including Ochuka, were sentenced to death, marking the last judicial executions in Kenya. Moi appointed loyalists to key positions and changed the constitution to formally make KANU the only legally permitted party in the country. But this made little difference to the political situation, as all significant opposition parties had been outlawed since 1969. Kenya's academics and other intelligentsia did not accept this and educational institutions across the country became sites of movements that sought to introduce democratic reforms. However, Kenyan secret police infiltrated these groups and many of their members were exiled. Marxism could no longer be taught at Kenyan universities. The remaining opposition at home went underground.

Criticism and corruption allegations

In 1999, the findings of NGOs like Amnesty International and a special investigation by the United Nations were published, and they indicated that human rights abuses were prevalent in Kenya under the Moi regime.

Reporting on corruption and human rights abuses by British reporter Mary Anne Fitzgerald from 1987 to 1988 resulted in her being vilified by the government and finally deported. Moi was implicated in the 1990s' Goldenberg scandal and subsequent cover-ups, where the Kenyan government subsidised exports of gold far in excess of the foreign currency earnings of exporters. In this case, the gold was smuggled from Congo, as Kenya has negligible gold reserves. The Goldenberg scandal cost Kenya the equivalent of more than 10% of the country's annual GDP.

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 transition 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 progressed, Moi, his two sons; Philip and Gideon (now a Senator), and his daughter, June, as well as a host of high-ranking Kenyans, were implicated. In a 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.

Wangari Maathai discussed Moi's actions during the 1980s and early 1990s, systematically attempting to dismantle the Greenbelt Movement after Maathai voiced displeasure at the government's attempts to build an office tower in Uhuru Park. According to Maathai, Moi's actions included removing the Greenbelt Movement from government office space and attempting to cut off funding from international donors by limiting funding through government sanctioned bodies. Maathai also discussed Moi's tactics during the beginning of the multiparty movement in the 1990s (see Forum for the Restoration of Democracy) whereby Moi announced the military would take over the government before the December 1992 elections. Maathai received communication during that time that an assassination list had been drawn up, and noted the mysterious deaths of Bishop Alexander Muge and Robert Ouko. The Release Political Prisoners party was also formed in the early 1990s to secure the release of political prisoners of the Moi regime and to protest state-sanctioned torture and random imprisonment. The police dispersed the protestors and many of the mothers of these political prisoners from Freedom Corner in Uhuru Park on March 3, 1992. After a year-long vigil and hunger strike by many of the mothers of these political prisoners in the Anglican All Saints Cathedral near Uhuru Park, the government released 51 prisoners en masse in early 1993.

Retirement

Moi was constitutionally barred from running in the 2002 presidential elections. Some of his supporters flirted with 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. At that point Kibaki required the use of a wheelchair, having narrowly escaped death in a road accident on the campaign trail. 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. Nevertheless, he still retained some popularity with the masses, and his presence never failed to gather a crowd. He spoke out against a proposal for a new constitution in 2005, which according to him, the document was contrary to the aspirations of the Kenyan people. After the proposal was defeated in a November 2005 constitutional referendum, President Kibaki called Moi to arrange for a meeting to discuss the way forward.

On 25 July 2007, Kibaki appointed Moi as special peace envoy to Sudan, referring to Moi's "vast experience and knowledge of African affairs" and "his stature as an elder statesman". In his capacity as peace envoy, Moi's primary task was to help secure peace in southern Sudan where an agreement, signed in early 2005, was being implemented. At the time, the Kenyan press speculated that Moi and Kibaki were planning an alliance ahead of the December 2007 election. On 28 August 2007, Moi announced his support for Kibaki's re-election and said that he would campaign for Kibaki. He sharply criticised the two opposition Orange Democratic Movement factions, arguing that they were tribal in nature.

Moi owned the Kiptagich Tea Factory, established in 1979, which has been involved in controversy. In 2009, the factory was under the threat of being closed down by the government during the Mau Forest evictions.

Personal life

Moi was married to Lena Moi (née Helena Bomett) from 1950 until their separation in 1974, before his assumption of the presidency. Lena's parents, the Paul Bomett family, were pioneer Christians in Eldama Ravine. They respected Moi, the young, tall, handsome and well-mannered orphan boy.

It was at the Bometts that Moi sought shelter during school holidays, unable to return home, 160 kilometres away, like the older boys. He would also stay at the home of the Christian family of Isaiah Chesire, the father of Kanu's nominated MP Zipporah Kittony, and former Eldoret North MP Reuben Chesire.

In 1950, after leaving Kagumo Teacher's College, Moi, who had been dating Lena, married her in a church wedding officiated by Erik Barnett, the son of Albert Barnett (after whom Kabarnet Town is named) at the AIC mission in Eldama Ravine after he paid two heifers, one ox, and four sheep to the Bomett family. Moi's long-time friend, Francis Cherogony, was the best man. With the marriage, Lena abandoned her career as a teacher and immersed herself in bringing up her family, settling down with Moi at Tambach Government School, where his first two children, Jennifer and Jonathan Kipkemboi, were born in 1952 and 1953 respectively.

Daniel arap Moi had eight children: five sons and three daughters. Among the children are Gideon Moi, who had a political career of his own in Kenya and Jonathan Toroitich (a former rally driver, died 2019) and Philip Moi (a retired army officer). His older and only brother William Tuitoek died in 1995. He was a lifelong member of the Africa Inland Mission Church, following his enrollment at the church's school with fellow acquaintance Sammy C. and Philip M. in 1934.

Moi was the founder and patron of major schools in Kenya which include Moi Educational Centre, Kabarak High School, Kabarak University and Sunshine Secondary Schools, and Sacho Primary and Secondary, among others.

Death

In October 2019, retired president Moi was hospitalized under critical condition at The Nairobi Hospital due to complications of pleural effusion. He was discharged in November 2019, only to be hospitalized again days later for knee surgery. He developed respiratory complications and underwent a tracheotomy. A month later, he suffered from gastrointestinal hemorrhage which led to multiple organ failure, and was placed on life-support.

Moi died at The Nairobi Hospital in the early morning of 4 February 2020, at the age of 95; however, during Moi's memorial service on 9 February 2020 at his Kabarnet Gardens home in Nairobi, his son Raymond, told congregants that he was 105 years old at the time of his death. Moi's body was lain at parliament building for public view for three days, from 8 February to 10 February 2020. A state funeral service was conducted at Nyayo Stadium on 11 February 2020, before the burial in his Kabarak home in Nakuru county. He was buried at his Kabarak home on 12 February 2020, complete with military honors which included a 19-gun salute followed by a missing man formation flyby. His grave is next to his former wife, Lena Bomett Moi, on the grounds of his home and farm in Kabarak.

Legacy

Eponyms

Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital

Moi Air Base, Nairobi

Moi International Airport, Mombasa

Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, Nairobi

Moi Stadium, Kisumu.

Moi Stadium, Embu

Moi University, Eldoret

Roads and streets:

Moi Avenue (Mombasa)

Moi Avenue (Nairobi)

A number of institutions of learning

Moi Girls High School, Eldoret among others