The life and times of Kenya's longest serving President

Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was born on September 2, 1924, in the village of Kurieng’wo, Sacho location of Baringo District.

He was named after his father Kimoi arap Chebii, a Sot clan herdsman whose ancestors had migrated from the slopes of Mt Kenya.

They settled in the Tugen Hills to avoid intermittent skirmishes with the Maasai in the 19th Century.

Moi was the fifth child of Kabon, Chebii’s senior wife. He was named Toroitich, which means ‘welcome home the cattle’, espousing how central cattle were in the existence of the Tugen people.

At the age of four, Moi’s father died and his elder brother Tuitoek played a guardian role. It was Tuitoek who encouraged him to go to school at an early age as a way of running away from poverty and injustices that characterised colonial rule.

Moi married Helena (Lena) Bomet in 1950. They had eight children -- daughters Jennifer, Doris and adopted daughter June and five sons Jonathan, Raymond, John Mark, Philip and Gideon.

In the same year he got married, he attended a course at the Jeans School (Kenya Institute of Administration) and was posted to Government African School, Kabarnet where he taught teachers until 1955.

In 1955, Moi joined politics. His entry into politics followed a meeting with a group of freedom fighters under the command of Brig Daniel Njuguna who visited him in June of that year. He was sympathetic to their cause and after feeding and protecting them for two weeks, gave them food and money to further their cause.

In October 1955, the electoral college selected Moi from a list of eight nominated candidates to fill a vacancy left by Joseph ole Tamen, who resigned from the unofficial benches of the Legislative Council (LegCo).

He immersed himself in politics with resistance.

As he sat at the LegCo with four other African members for the first time on October 18, 1955 Moi did not know what was in store for him. He, however, swiftly adapted to the new challenges and in the following year moved a motion demanding African teachers be allowed to form their own association. Thus, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) was formed and registered in 1957.

Brought up in strong Kalenjin culture, Moi was a firm believer in justice, honesty and fairness to all. He worked alongside other leaders like Eliud Mathu, Ronald Ngala and Masinde Muliro in agitating for greater African representation in the Legco and the release of Jomo Kenyatta.

Constitutional talks

In 1959, he led a group of leaders to visit Jomo Kenyatta in detention in Lodwar. Subsequently, Moi was among the Kenyan delegation under the auspices of the Kenya African Democratic Union (Kadu) who went to the London constitutional talks of June 1960.

In 1961, just before independence, Moi was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry for Education. He would later serve as Minister for Local Government at age 37.

As all-conference chairman of Kadu, he saw the intricacy of politics and opted for a united and nationalistic approach, leading to the dissolution of the party in November 1964.

In January 1967, Jomo Kenyatta appointed Moi, then aged 43, as his vice president following the resignation of Joseph Murumbi.

He became President following the death of Mzee Kenyatta on August 22, 1978.

Since independence in 1963, Moi has won all elections as a MP for Baringo Central and as President in the single-party and multi-party era.

His leadership has seen many ups and downs. The major test was in August 1982 when a detachment of Kenya Air Force soldiers attempted to overthrow his government. But the revolt was crushed.

Peace ambassador

Moi travelled widely in search for peace in Africa and the world. Many a times, he was called upon to provide peace keeping forces in troubled parts of the world like Chad, Uganda, Namibia, Mozambique, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, Liberia, Morocco, Angola, Serbia/ Croatia, DR Congo, Sierra Leone and East Timor.

At various fora, Moi stressed that unless Africans cemented their unity and solidarity, solutions to the many internal and external hazards afflicting the continent would remain elusive.

He argued that the hard won independence stood in jeopardy unless Africans embraced co-operation as a means of achieving a more diversified economic development.

Moi supported formation of regional economic bodies to increase trade and as a means for the developing countries to have a united voice in the global economy.