I was 17. We were on school holidays and had dedicated our lives to finding free beer and parties.
Life was inefficient. There were no cellphones. We especially loved parties and events hosted by families in Kenya’s wealthy political class: no cash bars! Once some of my school friends sneaked out of the boarding house and ended up in the home of some permanent secretary’s beautiful daughter, drinking tea and Fanta and eating biscuits as gospel music crooned in the background and a pastor with a white suit, white shoes and an S-curl shouted “Gaaad, Gaaad Cheesus!”
We heard about the wedding of Philip Moi, son of then-president Daniel arap Moi. My friends drove down to Nakuru, my hometown, which was also the unofficial capital of Kenyan politics during the Moi and Kenyatta regimes. We drove past a massive new cathedral, built in record time for the son’s wedding. The cathedral was white with stained glass and spires. There was a traffic jam on the way made up of three kinds of vehicles: trucks, Mercedes Benzes and a smattering of Ferraris.
We sat in the heat with thousands of guests, eating rice and meat — many bulls had been slaughtered for this feast. Speeches were made and we waited, Fantas in hand, for the beer to be unloaded. We knew that on such occasions Kenya Breweries could be counted on to bring in truckloads of beer.
Alas, it turned out all the trucks were bringing wedding gifts for Philip Dearest. An old Kalenjin man told us that Philip was the youngest and most vicious of Moi’s children, known for beating up his workers. His brother John Mark — the bright one with a scholarship to Harvard, who had gone mad after ingesting too many substances, it was said — was nowhere to be seen. Gideon, who failed every high school exam, was his father’s favourite son. Today he is a member of Parliament, a one-goal polo player and one of the wealthiest men in Kenya.
No beer.
It turned out that Moi abhors alcohol and would not let it be served anywhere near him. Trucks were unloaded as businessmen competed for attention — cars, fridges, trucks. Oyugi, a politician close to Moi, gave Philip the keys to a house. His sons were legendary on the high school drinking circuit. They loved to toss wads of cash down on the tables of their sycophants (us) in nightclubs such as Bubbles and Visions and The Carnivore. It helped if you had a beautiful sister or were known to be especially cool.
Years before, when Kenya’s current President, Mwai Kibaki, was the vice-president, the most notorious supplier of frothy liquids to the Nairobi club and bar scene was Tony Kibaki — the son of Mwai — known as “The Bucks”.
Before the elections in 2002 there was consternation in Karen, the suburb of white Kenyan cowboys. A great many white businessmen had thrown in with Moi for protection. His son, Philip, was the youngest person invited to be a member of the Jockey club. In bars all over Karen I was being asked, so, do you think Kanu will win?
As is usual in such bars and their counterparts all over white Africa, any sort of coming change was a clear sign of anarchy soon to be followed by genocide.
A few days ago Moi threw his lot in with Kibaki’s re-election coalition. Those of us who know Kenya think he is doing this for one reason only: his family is the richest in the country, followed by the Kenyatta family. In Kenya, those sorts of assets can only be protected by political authority.
If a government comes to power with no loyalty to Moi, the former president is finished, as are his family and his close aides. There are thousands of individual Kenyans whose property and assets were stolen during Moi’s regime; there are many companies whose services were requested by Moi-associated people and never paid for. There are many thousands of people who make a living by being loyal to families such as Moi’s and briefcases of cash have always been dispatched to keep them singing praise songs.
In the previous election, Moi chose Uhuru Kenyatta to be his successor. While president, Moi protected the Kenyatta family’s mind-boggling wealth (including an entire district of sisal, where nearly a whole tribe of people, the Taveta, live as squatters on their traditional land). Uhuru calls Moi uncle.
This plan failed. But Kibaki was a suitable stand-in. He has protected Moi and his family over the past five years.
Moi’s deal with Kenya was: “I will police you. I will reward the loyal with brain-frying amounts of cash and beat the rest senseless.”
Kibaki’s deal with Kenya seems to be: “I will make the trains run on time so long as you don’t ask me, seriously, to threaten those who steal billions and play polo.”