Michael Mundia Kamau
P.O. Box 58972
00200 City Square
Nairobi
Kenya

24th March 2004

NATION DEAF M

The two part segment suggesting that former President
Daniel arap Moi had to be convinced to hasten the
transition of power after the 2002 general elections
carried in the “Daily Nation” issues of 22nd and 23rd
March 2004, is an example of misdirected, hollow,
fabricated and nonsensical journalism. It goes against
logic for the Nation Media Group to expect the public
to believe that the Kenyan Armed Forces, who owe their
current stature to former President Daniel arap Moi,
played the role of saviour in a situation that the
Nation Media Group pathetically attempts to portray as
grave. Whatever personal grudge or vendatta that the
Nation Media Group bears against the the former
President, must be kept off the public.

After the failed attempt by the Kenya Air Force to
overthrow the government on August 1st 1982, then
President Moi immediately set out on a huge campaign
to revamp the military. It is no secret that then
President Moi was badly shaken by the coup attempt of
August 1st 1982. Then Chief of General Staff,
Gen.(Ret.) Jackson Mulinge and his successor
Gen.(Ret.) Mahmoud Mohamed, played the lead role in
crushing the mutiny, and were generously rewarded,
with Gen. Mohammed almost immediately being appointed
to head the then newly constituted Air Force 82. The
terms of service for the military in general were
upgraded attractively. It was in those days that the
generous discounts on a diverse range of consumer
goods enjoyed by the military through the Armed Forces
Catering Organisation (A.F.C.O.), became enviable
public knowledge. Many civilians used their contacts
in the military, big or small, to secure A.F.C.O.
commodities. Legend has it that military personal were
given free beef rations for their families in those
days, the higher the rank the bigger the portion, of
course. It was widely felt that the military were
excessively pampered, and then President Moi’s
government suffered heavy criticism for this. The then
government managed rather successfully to conceal the
heavy budgetary allocations made for the military,
through all manner of obscure votes made mainly for
the Office of the President. A commissioned military
officer of the rank of Major had a four wheel drive
Land Rover at his or her disposal in those days. A
career in the military was sought after by many in
then. All manner of professionals including doctors,
engineers, lawyers, architects, economists and
accountants, sought entry into the military.

The Nation Media Group expects the public to disregard
all this and have us believe that the benefactor of
the present Kenyan military, had to be convinced to
hasten a transition he had long and discreetly planned
for. The Nation Media Group ought to focus it’s
energies on providing direction to our deprived
country. The Nation Media Group has huge resources
that are being misused in the transition that this
country is undergoing. This country is in a de facto
state of siege and tension and faced with the real
possibility of going up in flames, and the best that
the Nation Media Group can do is to attempt to rewrite
history through two of it’s issues. Present and future
generations of this country may find this hard to
forgive.

There are many people in this country who may never
forgive Daniel arap Moi and his twenty four year
legacy. The Nation Media Group appears to fall into
this category even though their massive investments
were never under any real threat in those twenty four
years. Nevertheless, former President Daniel arap Moi
continues to lead a quiet semi-detached,
semi-accessible life in retirement in this very
country. He was wildly cheered during one of his most
recent public appearances on Saturday, 20th March
2004, at the burial of University of Nairobi don
Professor Jusper Musyoki Mumo. There is no fortress
around Moi and he isn’t attempting to create one. So
if anyone has a grievance against Moi, they should be
brave enough to utilise the existing avenues of
redress. It is cowardly to use the print media to
attempt to fight long vanquished battles. The almost
absolute majority of those who cheered former
President Moi at Professor Mumo’s funeral do not even
read the “Daily Nation” anyway.

In 1975 the then Nation Newspapers Limited reported
that the then missing Nyandarua North M.P. , J.M.
Kariuki, later found brutally murdered, was in Zambia.
I personally know someone who has never quite forgiven
the Nation Media Group for this and whom it took close
to 21 years before reading through a Nation Media
Group publication with any reasonable seriousness. I
consider this unduly harsh and uncalled for, but in a
small and big way, portrays the potential damage of
misreporting.


Michael Mundia Kamau