Passage: Independence era leader Munoko's dark and light heritage

Kanu longest serving Organizing secretary, Nathan Waliaula Munoko who iss currently 97 years. He said that despite Mzee Moi's death , his rich legacy that he has left behind will not be easy to delete. [Photo/Courtesy]

The passing on of former Kanu National Organising Secretary Nathan Waliaula Munoko ends the chapter of yet another of the few remaining independence era politicians who played a key role in shaping Kenya’s political order.

At the age of 102 years, the former Minister of Works in President Daniel arap Moi’s government was among the few who were still going strong until the last quarter of this year when his health began failing.

“Bungoma, Trans Nzoia and the rest of Kenya mourns an exceptional leader, Mzee Nathan Munoko, after time in and out of hospital for the better part of this year,” eulogised former Bungoma Governor Wycliffe Wangamati.

Wangamati described the former politician and businessman as a man of great wisdom, who spent his life in the service of people, starting as a veterinary officer before later venturing into politics “where he left an indelible mark” during a career spanning over 30 years.

Munoko, one of the leading lights in the the ruling party Kanu, served at a time when President Moi’s government became increasingly autocratic, leading to the expulsion of many outspoken politicians from the only party in the country at the time.

In the 1970s, Munoko’s name became synonymous with all decisions made from the Kanu party headquarters at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) and on many occasions spelt out party policy, especially on national elections and the clearance of party candidates.

The position of National Organising Secretary was so prominent that some observers ranked him third in the party hierarchy, after the President who was the chairman and the Secretary-General.

A family statement released last week said Munoko, who was Kanu life member Number 12, served as the National Organising Secretary from 1966 to 1985 and thereafter as the National Executive Officer from 1985 to 1988.
At that time, party officials, including Munoko, used the party disciplinary committee to instill fear among the country’s political top brass and independent minded leaders who dared to oppose the government of the day.

During the Kanu days, outspoken MPs not only faced the wrath of the party through suspension but also expulsion, leaving them party-less and therefore ineligible to vie for any political office.

Those who issued statements that either opposed, or were contradictory to, the regime would be dealt with at lightning speed through suspension either on the same day or within 24 hours pending disciplinary hearings.

Among those who suffered from the single party dictatorship was pre and post-independence hero Masinde Muliro, who Munoko replaced when he was sacked by President Jomo Kenyatta as Minister for Works in 1975.

The fiercely independent Muliro refused to vote against the adoption of the Select Parliamentary Committee report on the assassination of JM Kariuki in 1975 saying, he could not be coerced to reject it because: “There is no collective responsibility in murder”.

Muliro supported the Elijah Mwangale report which recommended that senior leaders in Kenyatta’s government, among them Minister Mbiyu Koinange who was the President’s close confidant and Police Commissioner Ben Gethi, be investigated for the heinous crime.

Demonstrations by university students and other Kenyans in towns around the country protesting the murder intensified after the report revealed that the Nyandarua North MP was assassinated and his body dumped in Ngong forest.

After Munoko’s death, former ODM Director of Political Affairs Wafula Buke, who was still a student when the deceased replaced Muliro, claimed he betrayed colleagues for personal gain.

In a post titled The Price of Opportunism, Buke wrote:

“Those who reap from the pain, suffering or death of others have something to learn from Munoko’s life. Jomo Kenyatta sacked Muliro and appointed Munoko, a fellow Bukusu.”

Apart from the blemishes he collected while serving Kanu, Munoko was a distinguished civil servant and politician whose stellar career revolved around being a noncontroversial conformist.

Unlike other storied politicians from the western region like Muliro, Martin Shikuku, Peter Kibisu, Wafula Wabuge others who came later like Mwangale and Kijana Wamalwa, all legends in their own right, not many young Kenyans have heard or read about Munoko’s political life.

“Having been on the KADU side with others from the region, Munoko abandoned the revolutionary and devolution of power ideals, joined Moi and a few others to become a hawkish KANU diehard after the two parties merged. He ended up shouldering the baggage of Kenyatta’s regime that became increasingly totalitarian,” says Bungoma North KNUT chairman John Wangili.

But that notwithstanding, as Wangamati correctly puts it, Munoko was a man of great wisdom and dedication, who used his connection with President Moi to silently pull his political strings.

While condoling with Moi’s family after his death in 2020,  Munoko, who was 97 years old at the time, told The Standard:

“I am saddened by the death of a very close friend, age mate and dedicated leader whom we interacted closely during early independence,.”

In his 90s, Munoko was until recently amazingly physically fit and clear-minded, narrating many defining personal and national moments with interesting anecdotes.

In its latest edition, The Kenya Year Book interviewed an agile and alert Munoko, who was still driving himself around Nairobi and attending to personal and official functions.

Munoko was born on May 20, 1922 at Kolani, Sirisia of the then Bungoma District, in a polygamous family. He was the first born of his mother who was fairly young when his father died in 1926 and so remarried, leaving the late minister under the care of his step brothers.

“My life would have been bleak were it not that my father had given firm instructions to my elder brothers that I should not leave our home and that they take care of me,” Munoko said in the interview.

His brothers valued education in those early years and, as a child, he lived in the Quaker (Friends Church) communal setting, where he received religious and secular education at Chwele B School between 1932 and 1934.

In 1935 he was admitted to the Government African School, Kakamega, as student number 122, where he is said to have held the record in the inter-school half-mile marathon, beating boys from Kapsabet and Kabianga schools who had dominated the event.

Munoko also played rugby before going to the Maseno Church Missionary School in 1939, where he sat Junior Secondary School Certificate exam in 1940. He joined Alliance High School in 1941 and served as house prefect and member of the famous Baluhya Musical Club.

At Alliance, he played football, hockey and volleyball and was classmates with Cabinet colleague Robert Matano and Assistant Minister Charles Rubia, who also served as Nairobi mayor for many years.

Munoko passed the ‘O’ Level Cambridge Overseas School Certificate exams in 1942 and proceeded to Makerere in 1943 for a diploma course in veterinary science. In 1946, the Veterinary School was moved from Entebbe to Kabete in Kenya. He was among the first graduates of the school on the Kabete campus, in 1947.

The former minister also recounted how he bagged the Governor of Uganda Award for The Best All Round Student, having been in the university’s first 11 soccer team with Edward Mutesa, who later became the Kabaka of Buganda. He was also a sharp shooter and a member of the Makerere College Cadet Corps at the rank of corporal.

After college, he was employed as a veterinary officer and posted to Maseno in 1948 to take charge of Central Nyanza District, before moving to Mombasa as the Port Veterinary Officer. He inspected all local slaughterhouses and was in charge of hygiene of the meat supplied in Mombasa.

Munoko was, in 2023, handed his state recognition medal of Elder of the Burning Spear (EGS) by Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, a medal awarded earlier by retired President Uhuru Kenyatta.

He was elected unopposed in the famous Little General Election of 1967 and retired in 1984. In 1978, Munoko supervised the construction of the Kenyatta mausoleum.