Today's leaders seldom serve with humility

For instance, it is no longer considered socially acceptable for a senior public servant such as a Cabinet Secretary or Member of Parliament to leave office without the outward trappings of wealth.

Such a person would be the butt of jokes in his village and would probably be laughed out of the local bar. If it was a man,  he would be asked what he had to show for his years as a big man.

This was not always the case. I know of people who retired to relative poverty in their rural homes but this did not stop them from holding their heads high.

I have had occasion in this column to tell the story of my first post-independence MP Bernard Mati who, after a remarkable career, retired to his rural home to a house he had tried to complete building for many years without success. He lived in that house on the charity of neighbours until he died in penury.

He was in good company. The man who succeeded him as MP, Elias Marete, fared no better in the wealth department.

A true man of the people, he was never unstinting in sharing with his constituents the little of his earnings he could spare after taking care of his thirst. As a result, he could claim with justification on the times he stood for election that he was indeed answering “the call of the people.”

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Such was the case in the 1979 General Election when I joined the party of his supporters who went to his home to fetch him so that he could collect his nomination papers after he expressed reluctance to contest. We found “Rwigi” or eagle, as he was fondly nicknamed, feeding his cattle. He was dressed in an old pair of trousers held up with twine fashioned from banana fronds.

When he protested that he could hardly be expected to travel to the divisional headquarters dressed in this manner, his supporters promised to buy him a belt and a new pair of trousers.

In those days, men such as this were so dedicated to public service that they had little time for themselves, were rare.

There was the case of Robert Matano, who served as a Cabinet minister in both the Kenyatta and Moi governments and was also Kanu Secretary-General.

A down-to-earth and self-effacing man, Matano was a dedicated public servant who avoided controversy except perhaps for the one incident when he had a disagreement in Parliament with the irascible party treasurer, Justice ole Tipis who hit him on the head with a Maasai rungu.

I had occasion to interact socially with Matano and found him an easy-going fellow who often dressed in rumpled suits that looked like he had slept in them. He loved his drink and it never bothered him if the lapels of his jacket were food-stained.

When he failed to regain his parliamentary seat in the 1983 elections and therefore lost his Cabinet position, it was time for him to retire to his rural home in Mazeras.

Unfortunately, he could not raise the fare and after making a public appeal, some well-wishers bought him a train ticket so he could manage to transport his household goods.

Some years later, Wahome Mutahi found Matano at his humble home, armed with a shotgun for scaring away baboons from his millet garden.

I also made the acquaintance of a man who in the 1970s made history of sorts by becoming the youngest Cabinet minister in the Kenyatta government.

He was a familiar face in Nairobi’s seedier bars, often drinking round the clock and waking up at strange bar tables in the morning and ordering for a refill.

Such behaviour among top public servants is unthinkable today and the unassuming lives they led would be a source of public scorn and ridicule.