From DPP to spy chief, Noordin Haji has been under siege from politicians

NIS boss Noordin Haji, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Principal Secretary for Cabinet Affairs Dr Idris Dakota arrive for the regional meeting for intelligence security chiefs known as Mashariki Cooperation Conference at the Sarova Whitesands Resort in Mombasa County on Sunday, January 28, 2024. [DPSC, Standard]

From being accused of targeting then Deputy President William Ruto’s allies, when he was the DPP in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, to lobby groups opposing his nomination as spy chief, Noordin Haji’s life in public office has not been easy.

Now Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is blaming the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director General for the political crisis in the country, saying he had failed to give President Ruto the correct picture of the unpopularity of the Finance Bill 2024 and the ensuing protests.

Gachagua attributed Haji’s “incompetence” to an inferiority complex, saying he was once a junior officer at the NIS before he was appointed the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

“When he was appointed to the office as DG, because of the inferiority complex, he chased away all the people who were senior to him when he was in the service, thereby crippling the capacity of that service and making it dysfunctional,” said Gachagua.

The DP also accused Haji of globetrotting, which, he said, made him lose touch with the country and was thus unable to advise the President effectively.

Haji is the man who approved Gachagua’s corruption charges, when he was the DPP -- and later dropped them shortly after the politician became Deputy President.

As DPP, Haji -- and the then Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti -- faced a litany of accusations by Ruto allies of being used by Uhuru’s administration to settle political scores.

They accused the government of targeting them because they supported Ruto’s presidential bid and that the then DP was the ultimate target.

After the 2022 General Election, Haji was again on the spotlight for withdrawing the cases he had filed against Ruto allies, including Gachagua’s corruption charges.

On May 22, 2023, Haji defended his decision to end high-profile cases.

“I know I have become synonymous with withdrawals but withdrawals are provided for under the constitution and it is a right where there is a miscarriage of justice,” the DPP said.

“Withdrawal must be done if it is justified, no matter who that person is in society,” he added.

Besides Gachagua’s, other politicians whose cases Haji dropped were Cabinet Secretaries Aisha Jumwa and Mithika Linturi. Haji cited insufficient evidence for his decisions.

Shortly after, President Ruto picked Haji as the NIS director following Philip Kameru’s early retirement.

But Haji’s appointment was opposed by lobby groups and lawyers who accused him of incompetence and failure to comply with the law while dropping charges of top politicians.

Some of the lobby groups that opposed Haji’s appointment as NIS boss included the Institute for Social Accountability (TISA), Transparency International Kenya (TIK), National Integrity Alliance (NIA), and Nakuru-based lawyer Khathrine Cherotich who filed a case in the High Court against the appointment.

TIK Executive Director Sheila Masinde said the organisation had spent eight months looking at cases that had been dropped and, based on their analysis, they had found that Haji did not comply with the law in discharging his mandate as the DPP.

“After five years you are telling us that the cases you have handled amounted to nothing. If that does not demonstrate incompetence and gross misconduct, what does?” she added.

Masinde said Haji should not be entrusted with another office, saying he had failed to exercise independence in his previous position.

Leadership and integrity

NIA, a citizen-centered integrity and anti-corruption coalition, said Haji’s nomination contravened Chapter 6 of the Constitution on leadership and integrity.

It argued that Haji was unfit to hold the office since his conduct as DPP had been questionable, particularly after dismissing eight graft-related cases linked to influential officials.

“Regrettably Mr Haji’s past actions while serving as the DPP have demonstrated a clear disregard for these fundamental principles. In the past 8 months, Kenyans have been astonished by a pattern of the withdrawal of corruption cases involving certain politically connected individuals which raises doubt to the DPP’s impartiality and commitment to fight corruption,” NIA officials said at a media conference.

“If these 8 cases had been successfully adjudicated Kenyans would have recovered about Sh11.3 billion, let alone the time and human resources that have been spent in the investigation, prosecution and adjudication process which could aid in dispensing other cases,” NIA added.

Haji had claimed that his office was misled by the former DCI Kinoti to believe there was concrete evidence in some of the cases, saying Gachagua’s Sh7.5 billion fraud case was “pushed by the DCI himself, through the media.”

Gachagua was on July 26, 2021, accused alongside nine other people with two counts of conspiracy to defraud the County Government of Nyeri of Sh27,493,860 and fraudulent acquisition of public property worth Sh6 million being part of the payment purportedly for the supply of dialysis machines to Nyeri Provincial General Hospital.

While withdrawing the case in November 2022, Haji accused the DCI of failure to complete investigations.

Less than two years after Haji dropped his graft case, Gachagua is himself now accusing the NIS boss of incompetence.

“Haji must take responsibility for the deaths that occurred and for the mayhem and for failing Ruto and the government and he must take responsibility for failing the people for not doing his job and advising the President correctly. He must do the honourable thing by resigning from that office and allowing the President to pick a competent DG,” Gachagua said in the wake of the June 25 anti-Finance Bill protests in which demonstrators stormed Parliament.

But politicians from the North Eastern region have defended him against Gachagua’s claims.

Addressing the press in Nairobi, the leaders said leveling accusations against Haji through the press was reckless.

According to the leaders, Gachagua had an opportunity to raise the matter at the National Security Committee instead of going public.

“The DP’s actions in discussing sensitive civil servants such as the Director General of the NIS in the press instead of taking his concerns to the National Security Committee, in which both of them sit, are reckless and unfortunate,” a statement read.

They accused the DP of demeaning the presidency and the government and asked him to resign.

“Following his attacks on Haji and open sabotage of President William Ruto, it is untenable for him to continue serving as Deputy President,” they said.