Nancy Baraza: Lessons from the infamous incident

She is a trailblazer, and was Kenya’s first Deputy Chief Justice. Dr Nancy Baraza (pictured), despite having a reputation for righting wrongs, many Kenyans remember her for the Village Market incident.  She was accused of assaulting a security guard and there was clamour to the President by the Judicial Service Commission for her sacking.  Eventually, she chose to resign.

The 2012 incident even has its own Wikipedia page. But, she has moved on. She is now a lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Nairobi.  In a recent interview with Jeff Koinange, we got insight on her learnings from the infamous incident.  

1. Know your true worth

If there is one thing that cannot be questioned, it is her credentials, and she knows it. “Even as I was going through all this I got to hear what some of them were saying. ‘We will let her go!’ And these are judges (saying that). ‘She walks around like she owns the world.’ They were imitating how I walk. But you know me, you know how I own my space. That is how I was born. I walk. I own my space,” she said.

Being a treated like an outsider at the Judiciary, coupled with the aftermath of the scandal led her into looking elsewhere. “I look at my CV, I have a good CV. A beautiful one. So I walk to the next station and show them. This is my CV.”

Right now she is a lecturer at the University of Nairobi School of Law and is owning her space there.  However, don’t think you have seen the last of her. She might just come back to the limelight. “I have not closed that door. This republic is ours and the opportunities are ours. It is only God who can take my capacities from me. Not human beings. It is only God who can determine your destiny. Let people not define you, define your destiny for you. Let them not be the ones to define you. I believe it is only God who can say whether I am worth anything or not,” she says.

2. Nothing lasts forever…

When the incident happened, the backlash was so severe that her life pretty much came to a standstill and she questioned everything.

“I was so devastated. I never left my house…. Of course everybody was jumping on it, adding more vitriol. But I kept cool. I watched, sometimes amused, just wondering at the capacity of human beings. I have spent my life in public life, in civil society, running FIDA, trying to do good for Kenyans fighting for social justice, fighting for the people. At that moment I wondered, ‘Who are these people I am fighting for? You question your entire life - what you have been spending your time on? I almost gave up. But then I was like, ‘Maybe there are some good ones.’ And there are indeed very good Kenyans but there are really malicious Kenyans,” she said.

She says that her biggest lesson from that period was to not take anything for granted. Luckily, she did not lose her true friends.

“I could have died. I almost died. It wasn’t easy. But friends stood by me. My family stood by me. I prayed to God every day. It hasn’t taken me seven years. It’s because I have been busy. When you are teaching you don’t have much time to do other things. But it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t suicide… You are just so tired.”

Today, people are happy to see her. She never stopped shopping at Village Market despite the bad memories attached to it.

“People call me DCJ and they are very happy. We chat a lot and they tell me so many of their problems. I go to the mall, to the shops and get so many hugs. People are like, “You are teaching my children so well. So I just get hugs.”

3.  You can’t dwell on it…

“I think things happen for a reason. I don’t know why it happened. It happened but we have moved on,” she said. “I was surprised at what was happening to me. Spiraling, literally plummeting. I didn’t believe what was happening to me. But then it did happen. It took various dimensions and I just let go.”

The former DCJ  categorically said, and several times at that, that she has moved on from the incident. While she said that she would have done things differently if she re-lived the moment, it is not something that darkens her day anymore. 

4. Your ‘friends’ could be your undoing…

Not everyone had her back when her job was on the line. Even those she thought would. And that left her reeling, if not enlightened. What she learnt from the aftermath has left her a smarter woman.

 “That is what has been my pillar of strength – that I see through you. How many of you are genuine in what you are doing? How many of you are malicious? How many of you just envied me for that job?..."

 5.  Holding grudges will ruin you…

Moving on, for her, meant also shedding all the ill feelings that might have occurred as a result. “I have a smile for everybody. And that is what has kept me going. I hate nobody. I don’t hold any ill feelings towards anybody. I don’t blame anybody,” she said.  “I forgive and I move on. If you don’t forgive and forget then you are kept back. You don’t move,” she said.

She would even like to meet Kerubo (the security guard from the incident), who she has looked for several times but has not met since.

“I wish her a long life, a good life and success. I would want to meet her and find out how she is doing. I am sure she would want to find out how I am doing too.”

6.  Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses

At first she tried to fight the removal from her post, but eventually she withdrew the case from the tribunal and resigned. “I was getting nowhere. Things were so hostile. You also don’t want to hold an institution hostage. The institution has to function. Kenyans want justice and I didn’t want to stand in the way. And you weigh your options. Your viability is diminishing… I didn’t want to hold the judiciary hostage,” she said.

Speaking about other people who held on despite being embroiled in scandal, she says, “If there are bad rumours around you and you hold a very important institution, in some countries they step aside. Don’t say, “This is Kenya”. Kenya can do better than that. We must develop a value system which enables us to step aside.”

7.       She sleeps easy, because she did her best

“You see, when you get an opportunity to work, you work. If you expect Hallelluyah from people it may never come. I just wanted to go there and change a few things here and there. So that the wheels of justice can move, so that Kenyans could realise justice.” she says.

“That is a job I wanted to do. I wanted to make good jurisprudence in the Supreme Court. That is why I went to school and studied and got my PhD. I wasn’t going to mediocre. I prepared for that job.”

She explains that people spent even 20 years on the court corridors having never been heard or receiving judgement. So her reason for going to the judiciary was to help transform it. Because she hit the ground running, even the short time that she was there ended up making a difference.

“I got in as deputy chief justice and I wanted to make my reforms from there. Within the six months that I was there, I put together the judiciary transformation network. It has been the framework for transforming the judiciary. The one which was launched by Mutunga in 2016. I never slept. I put that document together. It was a very comprehensive transformation network which I showed to World Bank.”

“As you guys were sleeping I was teleconferencing with World Bank because it had withheld money because the judiciary did not have accountability institutions. So that framework had all that and they liked it. It unlocked a lot of money from World Bank. And from government too. Because then we could demonstrate that we have capacity to spend money and we can account for it,” she says.

8.       Life can be a drag but don’t forget to have fun…

The former DCJ was known to be such a good dancer in her high school days at Lugulu Girls. She even danced for former president Jomo Kenyatta two years in a row. Well, she still dances. Her favourite genre is Rhumba.

“… I have had good days. I still dance. I go to Carnivore. If there is a good band in town I go. Ask Bien,” she says. Her son, Bien Aime of the band Sauti Sol seems to have taken after her in dancing, but she says he takes after his father when it comes to singing. And she loves dancing to his music.

9.   Value those who love you

Even when the whole world is against you, there are some people who will be for you.

“What kept me going was my boys. I had been battered out there. Whether you die or not, they [people out there] have moved on… They don’t care what has happened to you. …But you have these children who depend on you. So you must be strong. Because where will they go?”

Her students also came through for her.

“I experienced a lot of warmth, support and especially from my students. You know how students are. At first I was scared. I thought with how students are, they can riot. But they didn’t. They said, 'Wow, you are coming to teach us?' I started seeing messages. My son would send them to me. 'She is the best teacher we have ever had.'" And that right there gave her the impetus to go back and teach her students as well as she could muster.