I have lost a dear friend in Njonjo, former graft czar Githongo pens

Africa Election Watch members including Inuka ni Sisi Director John Githongo (left), address a press conference in Nairobi on the controversial Ugandan Election that was held on January 19, 2021. [Jenipher Wachie, Standard]

A lot has been written and will be written about Charles Mugane Njonjo who died on Sunday. I would like to tell my own personal story.

Indeed, our paths crossed immediately I left high school in 1983. Together with colleagues, we had written a play and planned to perform it for the public.

We searched our minds for a public figure who would be our guest of honour on opening night. We wanted someone who would attract public attention to what we were doing, but importantly, would agree to show up.

Charles Njonjo’s name was all over the news at the time. His political career had just been truncated amid the prolonged political drama of the “traitor affair”. He was a figure of great public fascination for a variety of colourful reasons. We had other names of public figures in our list, and I was tasked with reaching out to them.

Frankly, I wrote to Charles Njonjo not expecting to ever hear back from him. He replied immediately, accepting to be guest of honour at the opening night of our play, The Human Encounter, that was to be performed at St Mary’s School in Nairobi.

We excitedly proceeded with preparations for the opening night. However, a few days later, news was conveyed to us that the authorities had deemed Njonjo’s presence at our event unacceptable and this was not negotiable.

I informed my colleagues and we decided that since we had worked hard on the production, we’d obey the orders and proceed with our play without Njonjo. I then had the embarrassing duty of disinviting Njonjo from being our guest of honour.

I spent an entire night drafting the letter to no avail. It was my father’s advise that helped me. He  told me not to agonise excessively since “Njonjo likes to be told the truth directly”. So, I wrote the disinvitation letter as clearly and respectfully as I could. I found a friend to pass it to him. The message I promptly received back, surprised me. Njonjo expressed his deepest appreciation for the invite and explained that he fully understood why it had been withdrawn and asked that we remain in touch. I was deeply relieved.

Over the years, through family and friends, he would reach out to me and we would interact jovially remembering the letter I had written disinviting him from being guest of honour. “No one has ever done that to me,” he would joke over tea.

In the early 1990s, political pluralism was reintroduced in Kenya and violence broke out in Nyanza, Western and Rift Valley provinces.

At one point, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans were displaced. I travelled to Laikipia and then Burnt Forest and was aghast at the state of the internally displaced that had been forced out of their homes by the violence.

Together with Dr David Ndii and Mutahi Ngunyi, we launched the ‘Kenyans in need appeal’. The then chief editor of the Daily Nation Wangethi Mwangi, gave us free advertising space to mobilise resources for the displaced, especially those in Ol Kalou who had been evicted from N’garua in Laikipia. The late Archbishop Nicodemus Kirima of the Archdiocese of Nyeri agreed to use the Catholic Church’s relief infrastructure to distribute any donations that came our way. Laikipia fell under Kirima’s remit.

The response to the appeal was surprising in its scale. People donated second-hand clothes, books, shoes and cash to the appeal. In total, we raised around Sh1 million worth of donations.

We delivered the first batch directly to Archbishop Kirima at his official residence in Nyeri. Our biggest and most consistent donor throughout the entire enterprise was Njonjo. He was not keen on his name being mentioned but we would sit at his home drinking tea and reflecting on the political situation in the country.

When I joined government in 2003, Njonjo remained one of my steadfast providers of moral support. On the morning when it was announced that I had been moved from the Office of the President to the Ministry of Justice, the first call I received was from Njonjo: “You’re going to resign immediately, aren’t you?” he asked in his typically direct way. In the end, I didn’t. I sometimes wistfully recall the advice at the time. 

When my situation in the Kibaki government went belly up in 2005 as he had predicted to me many times and I found myself in exile, Njonjo became an even more steadfast friend. He was loyal to his friends to a fault. Once you were his friend, he stood by you no matter how atrocious the circumstances.

While I was in exile, many a time Njonjo would tell me he was coming to London and we would spend the day together just walking the city, chatting and drinking tea. Back home, I found out he was in constant touch with the family offering moral and any other kind of support.

Again, when I returned from exile, one of the very first people to invite me for tea and a catch up was Njonjo and we took off from where we had left off in 2005. His observations on politics and some politicians were often wryly hilarious.

His capacity to read people was something I learnt. We would sit in his Westlands office and I would seek his opinion on this or that political interlocutor and in typical style he was always direct: “solid fellow”; “believe only half so-and-so says”; “take that one seriously” etc. 

By and large, Njonjo and I, kept our friendship quiet. In part this was because some of his diehard enemies were also my very good friends. So, we didn’t discuss his enemies; he advised me on mine.

Politically, even though there is much we disagreed on, the Njonjo I knew since I was a teenager was a man of his word. He was a dear friend in ways I have never been able to share. I never had complication or problem in my life that I raised with Njonjo that he didn’t immediately seek to solve.

And then he was also a very funny man when he wanted to be, full of jokes and insightful observations without the taint of bitterness. He was funniest with me when he joked in Gikuyu, which some people thought he couldn’t speak.

The Charles Njonjo I knew was a steadfast friend and a man of his word without hesitation. I have lost a dear friend and wish his family succour as they mourn him.