Anyang’ Nyong’o

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The lion sleeps tonight; Madiba has passed on. We thank God for his long life, the tremendous sacrifice he made to free South Africa from apartheid and the dignity he brought to the whole of Africa and the Third World as a visionary leader, a selfless individual and a man of peace.

We would like to pray for his family, particularly for Winnie, Graca and all the children who meant so much to him. They will miss him more than anybody else, and we ask God to give them the strength to endure the difficult times ahead while being grateful for Madiba’s very blessed life.

My family and I got to know Madiba very well in 2005 when he accompanied Graca to Nairobi for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in Kenya. Graca was then the chairperson of the Kenyan Review Team. As the minister for Planning and National Development I was their host.

A few days before the couple arrived in Nairobi I was briefed by the South African High Commissioner on how to receive them at the airport and how to play host to the two excellencies.

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The High Commissioner told me Madiba loves children, hence I had to make sure I took children with me to the airport. We, therefore, took with us six kids that morning and walked straight to the foot of the plane with two of the kids carrying flowers to welcome Graca and Madiba.

I was really astonished. Madiba smiled heartily when he saw the kids and headed straight towards them as all were beaming virtuously to receive the old man. As they received the bouquets they held the kids and kissed them, the kids smiling back sheepishly in gratitude for the grandfatherly and grandmotherly love they had just received.

As we walked to the VIP room, Graca pulled me aside and told me to ensure that Madiba was left alone with the kids for some time: “you must allow him to play with them; he loves that,” said Graca.

Inside the VIP room, all the kids settled with Madiba on the long sofa chair, each one of them craving for his attention. He made sure that he talked to each one of them. He took the little girl Wema on his laps and asked her: “What do you want to do when you grow up?” “I want to be a doctor,” Wema replied.

“Then I won’t fall sick until you become a doctor,” said Madiba.

Wema is now hardly 14. It will take her some time to become a doctor. By that time Madiba will already have been with his Lord for quite some time. I remember a few days later at the Intercontinental Hotel when Graca was introducing Madiba to some members of the APRM committee. She then turned around to him and asked:

“Mzee, what would you advice us to do to make people really appreciate good governance.”

“Well, well,” Madiba started, “before I go to join my Lord...”

“Stop it my dear,” interrupted Graca, “you are not going anywhere soon to join that Lord of yours!” The old man simply laughed and began where he had left: “Before I go to join my Lord...”

I found Madiba a man really at peace with himself. We invited them to the house for lunch one day but Graca advised that we have lunch at their residence at the Windsor Golf Hotel, not too far from our house. Since we don’t have little children, we had all our nephews and nieces to come, the only problem was that they were not toddlers! But Madiba loved meeting a big family. He commented that this was what Africa is all about: family. He took photos with almost every one of us, always smiling, always patient.

I remember driving with Madiba from the airport the day he arrived and noting how he gazed very attentively at the park on the left as we cruised on the airport road towards town. We were having small talk about politics. I took the opportunity to ask him something about the ANC leadership. “Mr. President,” I hesitated a little, “How do you choose your leaders in the ANC? For example when you decided after 5 years of being president that you would leave, how did you determine your successor?”

He gazed even more intensely into the game park for quite some time, making me almost feel that I had strayed into dangerous ground. But then after about three anxious minutes, and with the game park beginning to recede, he said in that firm and sonorous voice, still looking outside: “In the ANC, when comrades meet and discuss an issue, they agree on one common agenda and that is what works. We choose our leaders that way.”

I was disarmed. The answer was short but pregnant with meaning. And that teamwork that Madiba forged in the ANC for all these decades they have led the struggle in South Africa comes out very clearly in the new movie “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” which is yet to hit movie houses across the world.

Many African Heads of State will, no doubt, eulogise him in his death, each competing to shower him with superlatives. All this will, in the final analysis, sound rather hypocritical, for few have bothered to emulate him while he lived. He stayed in power as President at the critical time when he was most needed. He then stepped aside after five years to ensure that the institutions he had fought for were built by his team while he was alive. Where are such team builders and institutional architects elsewhere in Africa?

For our ANC colleagues the politics of inclusiveness that Madiba championed in 1994 to stabilise South Africa must be a political culture to be nurtured in his memory. Amandla!

God bless you Madiba.

The writer is Kisumu County Senator