Field Marshal
Elder Lister
Make no mistake, Moi was malevolent evil. A monstrous ogre that bore death, destruction and destitution for the whole country, leaving untold grief in its wake.
Forget, for a while, the travails he visited on the likes of Father Kaiser, Robert Ouko, Kenneth Matiba, Timothy Njoya, and countless students of the University of Nairobi like Oduor Ongwen, Tito Adungosi and James Orengo.
Let's not even talk about the likes of the Wagalla Massacre, the tribal clashes that he first fanned in 1991 to try to prevent the advent of multi-party democracy, or the shooting of thousands - THOUSANDS - of hapless pro-democracy demonstrators, especially from the Luo community, between 1991 and 1997 (it is at this time the mentality to use live bullets against Luo demonstrators was institutionalised in the police force, something we see up to today).
For me, the true evil nature of Moi is encapsulated in two events, or non-events in the case of one.
The first was the murder of about 150 pre-university students attending the NYS programme at Gilgil in 1988. The were hunted down like rabbits around the hills surrounding the NYS camp, and virtually all the girls - all 1,200 of them, were raped by a combined force of GSU, APs and anti-stock theft personnel. Their mistake? To refuse to pass out in front of Moi because he had not paid their allowances. The brutality meted on them was so bad that some members of the nearby military camps hid some of them in their barracks, a treasonable offence.
TODATE, the servile Kenyan media has never mentioned this atrocity.
The second event/non-event that opened my eyes to Nyayo's devilish nature was the AIDS epidemic. The first HIV case in Kenya was clinically diagnosed in 1983 by, among others, Prof. Ndinya Achola of the UoN. The minute the medics announced it, they were arrested and threatened with detention. As other countries moved with speed to stop the spread of the infection, Moi forbade any discussion or public education on the pandemic under pain of torture and detention.
It was not until 1998 - ALMOST 20 YEARS TOO LATE - that Moi first mentioned the word AIDS/Ukimwi to warn his people of its dangers. By that time, at least 2 million were infected, and a million had died!!! If this is not at the same level with Pol Pot I don't know what is.
I could cite painful terror that the man-devil visited on my wn family, but this would serve no purpose; it was the case for many Kenyan families too that saw their fathers dehumanised, their businesses destroyed and their children dispossessed.
This, then, is the man what passes as the mainstream media in this country is deifying and canonising. If you came from Mars today, you would think Moi was the best thing that happened to Kenya since Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi or Mekatilili Menza. A brutal killer who butchered his own people with one hand while holding the Bible on the other is made to look like the paragon of virtue.
It betrays the mercantile and duplicitious nature of the media, which to be fair is largely owned by Moi acolytes and hanger-ons - the Moi family itself at the Standard, his inlaws the Kittony's at The Star, his former foe-turned-business-associate at Citizen, and his 'political client' the Aga Khan at Nation.
If for no other reason this is why we, those who bear true fidelity and fealty to the truth and history, must forever be thankful for social media. With all its warts and all, it remains the one platform where truth can be told, free of political and commercial interests.
Moi will rot in hell, if there is one. Those that are saying that he lived too long are mistaken; he lived long enough to see Kenya take huge strides in development that his 24 years of Nyayo Error could not achieve. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Forget, for a while, the travails he visited on the likes of Father Kaiser, Robert Ouko, Kenneth Matiba, Timothy Njoya, and countless students of the University of Nairobi like Oduor Ongwen, Tito Adungosi and James Orengo.
Let's not even talk about the likes of the Wagalla Massacre, the tribal clashes that he first fanned in 1991 to try to prevent the advent of multi-party democracy, or the shooting of thousands - THOUSANDS - of hapless pro-democracy demonstrators, especially from the Luo community, between 1991 and 1997 (it is at this time the mentality to use live bullets against Luo demonstrators was institutionalised in the police force, something we see up to today).
For me, the true evil nature of Moi is encapsulated in two events, or non-events in the case of one.
The first was the murder of about 150 pre-university students attending the NYS programme at Gilgil in 1988. The were hunted down like rabbits around the hills surrounding the NYS camp, and virtually all the girls - all 1,200 of them, were raped by a combined force of GSU, APs and anti-stock theft personnel. Their mistake? To refuse to pass out in front of Moi because he had not paid their allowances. The brutality meted on them was so bad that some members of the nearby military camps hid some of them in their barracks, a treasonable offence.
TODATE, the servile Kenyan media has never mentioned this atrocity.
The second event/non-event that opened my eyes to Nyayo's devilish nature was the AIDS epidemic. The first HIV case in Kenya was clinically diagnosed in 1983 by, among others, Prof. Ndinya Achola of the UoN. The minute the medics announced it, they were arrested and threatened with detention. As other countries moved with speed to stop the spread of the infection, Moi forbade any discussion or public education on the pandemic under pain of torture and detention.
It was not until 1998 - ALMOST 20 YEARS TOO LATE - that Moi first mentioned the word AIDS/Ukimwi to warn his people of its dangers. By that time, at least 2 million were infected, and a million had died!!! If this is not at the same level with Pol Pot I don't know what is.
I could cite painful terror that the man-devil visited on my wn family, but this would serve no purpose; it was the case for many Kenyan families too that saw their fathers dehumanised, their businesses destroyed and their children dispossessed.
This, then, is the man what passes as the mainstream media in this country is deifying and canonising. If you came from Mars today, you would think Moi was the best thing that happened to Kenya since Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi or Mekatilili Menza. A brutal killer who butchered his own people with one hand while holding the Bible on the other is made to look like the paragon of virtue.
It betrays the mercantile and duplicitious nature of the media, which to be fair is largely owned by Moi acolytes and hanger-ons - the Moi family itself at the Standard, his inlaws the Kittony's at The Star, his former foe-turned-business-associate at Citizen, and his 'political client' the Aga Khan at Nation.
If for no other reason this is why we, those who bear true fidelity and fealty to the truth and history, must forever be thankful for social media. With all its warts and all, it remains the one platform where truth can be told, free of political and commercial interests.
Moi will rot in hell, if there is one. Those that are saying that he lived too long are mistaken; he lived long enough to see Kenya take huge strides in development that his 24 years of Nyayo Error could not achieve. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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