A man who was always ahead of his time

By Andrew Kipkemoi

When James Bett called me about three weeks ago, I apologised for turning up late at a previous appointment that never materialised.

"Better late than never," I told him tongue-in-cheek. That seemed not to bother him.

"So when can we meet then?" he asked.

"What about now, I am free," I told him. Bett said he was running to an office across his office block at Hazina Towers on Uhuru Highway. He estimated that if I walked from I&M Bank Tower offices, we would meet in 15 minutes.

After a quarter of an hour wait at his office, I thought I had waited long enough and took off, but left a note with his secretary. He never called back and we never met.

Bett, as many fondly called him, passed on after a road accident on the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway on Easter Monday night. I met Bett in June last year at a friend’s house in the US. I was a fellow at the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowhip while he was on a tour popularising EMO, a Kalenjin social economic organisation.

James Bett, a peacemaker and investor, who used his skills to reconcile and empower poor communities. He will be buried Saturday (today). [PHOTO: COURTESY]

We talked about many things and I found him thoughtful, pragmatic and seized by a deep sense of purpose.

He was passionate about the potential of Kenya. From that encounter, I thought of him as the new breed of Kenyan leaders — youthful, educated and not poisoned by tribalism. Bett went against the grain in the 2007 General Election and sided with PNU in a predominantly ODM zone in Eldoret.

I met him again at the beginning of this year at a lawyer friend’s house in Nairobi. As happens nowadays, our conversation drifted into politics and the sorry state of affairs.

His charisma, sense of humour and sharp analytical skills endeared him to me.

Bett was way ahead of his time, certainly head and shoulders above his contemporaries. He was a great thinker and a dreamer. Though he spoke his mind freely and never hesitated to fault the politicians for their shortcomings, he was genial. He was good company.

Bett discounted claims that the post-election violence was pre-planned, instead saying the killings were a spontaneous explosion of anger caused by the disputed election results.

Lack of supplies

"Most of the people were ringed in by the mayhem and couldn’t find their way out and went without basic necessities … at least people would have warned their close friends from other tribes to evacuate before the violence escalated or even stockpiled supplies," he said.

He talked passionately about the efforts by EMO to bring about a rapprochement between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin in the Rift Valley in the aftermath of the bloodbath of early last year.

"He believed that the communities living in the Rift Valley understood the root causes of the ethnic strife and that it was only they who knew the lasting solution," says Mr Davis Thuo of the Rift Valley Professional Peace Initiative.

"He was a born diplomat … probably one of the best that Kenya never had."

I had sounded him off about a story on the politics of the Rift Valley and how shifting allegiance and perception was unravelling the myths that have shaped the politics of the region.

Of course, that never was and I am at a loss for words. Bett’s major lasting contribution to the Kalenjin community is the EMO Foundation.

"Tall oaks from little acorns grow," he exhorted the community during the groundbreaking ceremony.

That truth holds. EMO is an economic juggernaut with tentacles across the Rift Valley.

EMO filled a void left after former President Moi left office in 2002. In less than two years, EMO has instilled a sense of pride, patriotism and responsibility in the Kalenjins. Bett was the shepherd herding the community to the Promised Land. Many placed him in the ranks of the fabled Kimurgor arap Sisiwa who led the Nandi to Uasin Gishu at the dawn of the last century.

So popular was Bett that a fundraiser to offset his medical expenses raised more than Sh10 million in two hours. When he appeared on a local TV station, Bett talked about land consolidation as the solution to the perennial food crisis in the country.

Farmers desperate to raise fees for their children’s education are parcelling out half a point of an acre while a good number of the buyers are looking for a place to put up a house, grow little food and await death. "How sustainable are these palms of land?" he asked.

Fare thee well

He said smallholder farming was unproductive and uneconomical at best. Many would agree with that, but it was all because of enterprising mind.

Through EMO, he thought, the community could proudly claim a place in the economy of the country. Many bought their Safaricom shares through EMO Investment Company.

The ownership of Eldoret Krueger Farm could materialise through EMO. The sky remained the limit to the community.

"He who says it can’t be done should not interrupt the one who is doing it," Julius Kemboy, a lawyer and a friend of the deceased, said.

His wife Victoria and seven children survive him.

He will be buried today at his Sosian Scheme home.