From persecution to imprisonment, painful memories of personalities lost this year

 

President William Ruto and First Lady Rachel pay their last respects to Former Prime minister Raila Odinga as his body lay in state at Parliament Building. [PCS]

Tears welled up in my eyes as the priest led the final burial rites. He threw soil into the grave and solemnly said: “soil to soil, and ash to ash.” Diggers swiftly flung spades full of soil on the grave. With multiple swings, the soggy earth thudded onto the coffin. I fell to my knees and cried.

I cried for an old friend. I cried for the times lost. I cried for his children. I cried for the unfinished business in his career. I cried for lost dreams and buried desires.

As I sobbed, covered in mud up to my knees, strong hands pulled me up. I was taken to a bench a short distance away. I watched as they placed flowers on the grave. He had died with so much unsaid. He had touched thousands of souls and young lives in his career, yet few knew about his massive contributions to society.

Mourners washed their hands, enjoyed a sumptuous meal, bade the family goodbye, and drove or just sauntered away. That’s how brief life is, like a candle in the rain.

The painful memory of my friend’s burial ate into my soul this entire year, as I mourned the demise of a few powerful individuals, some of them intimate to me.

I shared wonderful moments with great Scientists —Prof Arthur Obel and Prof Davy Koech. I learned wonderful leadership lessons from former Prime Minister Raila Amollo Odinga, Mama Phoebe Asiyo, Cyrus Jirongo and Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o. However, I shared one common experience with all six; persecution and imprisonment.

Sometime in 2024, I stepped out of prison after serving two of a 10-year sentence a court had imposed on me based on fabricated charges. 

I tearfully reflected upon the moment my friend Koech and I prayed together. With his teary, sunken eyes, cracked lips and shrivelled cheeks, he said: “Keep praying for me, my brother, because I am a dying man.”  

I had visited him at the Industrial Area Maximum Remand Prison. “You will be ok, sir. You shall live and not die,” I said as I handed him a prison canteen receipt to help him buy essentials. I struggled to hide my tears as he staggered away.   

Koech was a traumatised man in serious pain. At 70, he had suffered a heart attack. He had endured abject poverty, calamity and sorrow in childhood.

The respectable Harvard professor became a convict serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption. He was unable to pay the Sh19.6 million fine imposed on him by a magistrate’s court.

We shared my 2021 prison experience when I was hauled in remand for a crime I knew nothing about. I told him what to do to stay alive, physically fit, and mentally stable. I linked him to friendly wardens and inmates.

The acclaimed scientist and researcher served his country diligently. But when he was relieved of his duties as the chief executive officer of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), he suddenly turned from a national hero into a villain. Then one day, he suffered a heart attack.   

During his recovery, I visited him several times at his Lavington home, where we conducted a series of interviews for his book.

Dramatic arrest

He recalled the dramatic arrest by armed and vicious detectives who raided his home and confiscated his laptop: “They picked me up without handcuffing me. I was pushed into a small, unmarked car and placed between two officers. I was treated like a dangerous criminal.”

Former Prime minister Raila Odinga Final Send off Journey in Kisumu. [PCS]

At the Kilimani Police Station, his fingerprints were taken. An officer shouted: ‘Take care of this criminal” Both the male and female cells were full so Koech shared some open space with a seven-year-old boy. This was in 2009 when his tribulations intensified.  

After years of lengthy court proceedings, Koech eventually appeared before Senior Principal Magistrate Victor Wakumile for sentencing. Silence enveloped the court. Koech sat pensively waiting for his sentence.  

The magistrate invoked Article 29 of the Constitution of Kenya and said that Koech could not be subjected to “cruel treatment” by being hauled into prison: “Because of the current Covid-19 pandemic, this court takes judicial notice of the difficult economic times people are going through. I find it fit to exercise my discretion and show mercy to Koech now 70.”

The professor was handed a fine of Sh19.6 million or to serve six years in prison for corruptly acquiring public funds.

Koech had been charged that on August 17, 2006, in Nairobi, he fraudulently acquired Sh800,000, the property of KEMRI. A second charge read that on December 12 2006, he irregularly acquired Sh6 million and another Sh12.5 million from KEMRI.

The magistrate noted that no loss was suffered because Koech returned with interest, the malaria research money. He allowed Koech to pay the fine in two instalments.

However, after retirement, reeling in debt, Koech endured raids from auctioneers. He lost his properties and had to financially cater for countless court proceedings. The sentence found him financially on the rocks and battling ill health. 

Sometime in early 2023, while interviewing Koech about his health and financial woes, he told me that what befell him also ravaged his long-time friend Cyrus Jirongo and anyone who fell out of favour with the government

“I’m not the only one who has been punished by vicious and evil politicians. My good friend Jirongo has suffered persecution for years. His properties were auctioned just the way mine were auctioned. The political system that was once our friend became a ruthless and brutal adversary. Politicians will use you and like toilet paper, tand hrow you into the sewer. I want my book to be a lesson to those who think they have the power or are close to the high and mighty in the political world. Disappointment and sorrow await them.”  

Koech’s friend, Prof Arthur Obel, chose to fight his battles quietly. When the system rejected him and started spewing negative stories about his “HIV/Aids drug Pearl Omega”, he decided to go into seclusion. From his Loresho home, he continued treating patients using his ‘rejected and demonised’ formula.

In his loneliness, his health went down, and death slowly consumed him. Another great Kenyan had fallen. Both Koech and Obel were demonised, but I knew a different side of their story that was not only amazing but was worth celebrating.

While Koech suffered incarceration, Obel and Jirongo survived emotional and psychological imprisonment.

Obel died in solitude while Jirongo perished under mysterious circumstances, oozing an image of a frightened, haunted and hunted man fleeing from hideous demonic forces. 

Koech had tasked me with the assignment of seeking funds for the Sh19.6 million fine.  As I scrounged around, the surprise pardon by President William Ruto came.

He walked out of prison, a changed man — physically weaker but mentally resilient. As he bade farewell to his prison family, he told them: “Don’t let the system break you”

Koech reflected on his time in prison as a period of growth and introspection. I looked at him as we took tea on the patio. In him, I saw the indomitable human spirit— a reminder that even in the darkest of places, light can shine.

“Prof,” I said “as I pen your book, I’m also writing mine documenting our shared prison experiences. It’s called Kabaa: A Prisoner's Cry”. He gave me what became his last smile and vanished before reading my prison chronicles.

While in prison, three other characters often occupied my mind: Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Raila and Mama Phoebe Muga Asiyo.

I wondered what Asiyo would have done if she were the prison boss during my incarceration.  I asked myself what she would have said if she had witnessed the beating and humiliation I endured. In her early career with the Kenya Prisons Service at the dawn of Kenya’s independence from the British, Asiyo handled prisoners with motherly love. 

Asiyo worked with young men in detention and was involved as a social worker in Nairobi with women whose husbands had been arrested and detained by the colonial forces.

Hacked to death

“I met many children whose parents had been killed. I even adopted two of them. One of the girls I saved could not sleep alone. At the age of 10, she had watched with horror from a tree top, as her mother was hacked to death,” Asiyo once told me.  

Asiyo took an interest in reading through the prisoner’s files. Many were in prison due to want and not greed. She began discussing the possibility of a non-custodial sentence, a concept the government was not ready for.

She initiated a programme which allowed the establishment of nurseries inside prisons to cater for children under five. Soon, the prison introduced dairy farming, poultry and other activities for prisoners.

Asiyo noticed that most women on capital offences were charged with murdering their husbands: “I told one particular woman not to plead guilty. Then I sat at the back of the courtroom to follow the proceedings. I was shocked to hear her say: “Yes I killed him and if he woke up even now, I will kill him again.” Asiyo was horrified.

The woman, Esther, was sentenced to death, but Asiyo successfully helped her file an appeal. Jomo Kenyatta had just taken the oath of office as the first President of Kenya.

The hearing of the case had taken time and the mitigating factors were grave. Fortunately, Esther was charged with manslaughter and released after some time.

One case shook Asiyo to the core. The accused had killed her husband. “I was preparing her file as she waited for her execution. I asked her son to come and get her wish and last word. She told him in my presence: “My son, you know I am dying in your place, but I want you to get married, get children and help the family tree grow.”

Asiyo was horrified. “I asked the mother why she should die for her son. She said that since the court had decided her fate, she wanted to go and be with her God. “You know Peter is my only child and if he dies, our home will be closed.” 

“I rushed to the Solicitor General Kitili Mendwa. I told him the story. He coldly told me, “Madam Asiyo, this woman could have been killed by a car on the road, so do not even bring up this case. I went to a Catholic priest to take me to see Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who gave me a 4 pm appointment. I knew by then the hangman would have come to measure the inmate’s neck. Mzee Kenyatta keenly listened to my story, asked for a green pen and commuted that sentence to life imprisonment.”

Asiyo ran back to the prison before the hangman could carry out his dreadfully cold assignment. A prison doctor had already given her an injection to help dull her senses.

When Asiyo told her about the President’s action, she fainted. The woman received a presidential pardon after a brief stay in prison.

That incident taught Asiyo about the dangers of capital punishment. She realised how easy it was to hang the wrong people: “Hanging was very rare during Daniel arap Moi’s time. There were real dangers of hanging pregnant women. This would amount to taking a double life. At one time, I called a doctor to examine a convict on death row. It turned out she was pregnant, and we saved her life in the nick of time,” said Asiyo.

A death sentence is dehumanising both to the convict and to society. It is demeaning even for those conducting the hanging act. Asiyo said that when the office of the hangman was Africanised, the person who took over from the mzungu suffered a mental breakdown.

When she became the first Kenyan woman Senior Superintendent of Prisons, Asiyo initiated major reforms in the prison system. While in prison, I was told of another Senior Superintendent called Wanja, who brought about great reforms at the Nairobi Remand Prison. Each time her name cropped up, I remembered Asiyo.        

The fear of death is a constant companion in prison. I imagined how it must have ravaged Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Raila, especially when I was shown the blocks and cells the two stayed in during their detention without trial in the 1980s and early 1990s.  

While in prison, I read and re-read Ngugi wa Thiongo’s memoir: Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary. I clung to the promise of God that the appeal I had filed at the High Court of Miliman I would restore my freedom.  It eventually did.

When the late renowned author Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o arrived and addressed Kenyan readers druing the launch of his book Kenda Muiyuru by the East frica Educational Publishers at the Kenya National Theatre. [Fille, Standard]

I drew courage from the story of Ngugi and scores of others who suffered incarceration during the Cold War era, when Kenyans squirmed under the vicious one-party grip.

Structurally, nothing much had changed in prison since the detention era. The high walls and narrow prison cells were designed to hold, isolate and constrain men.

However, we forged connections stronger than iron bars. Here, among the mix of hardened criminals, petty thieves, conmen and obtainers, grew a brotherhood. Survival, endurance, and resilience lived side by side with hope.

I was luckier than the two former detainees. I had books I could read and notebooks in which to capture my thoughts, experiences and observations. Ngugi recorded his, on toilet paper.

Prison, however, has remained a dark dungeon, an unpredictable world where a day could swing between boredom and sudden upheaval. I met hundreds of young men, many barely 1,8 rotting away. Thousands of petty offenders had transformed into hardened and vicious criminals. 

Ngugi and Raila closed their eyes before the ideals they fought for could be realised. Kenyans are still fighting for freedoms and democratic space. In the shadows of the prison walls, despair intertwines with desperation. The harrowing experiences of inmates remain as chilling as it was in Ngugi and Raila’s time.

Dark corridors echo with the cries of the oppressed, while guards—entrusted with maintaining order—become the perpetrators of violence.

The atmosphere is thick with fear, and inmates, stripped of their dignity, navigate a world where survival depends on alliances and silence.

In Kamiti, Ngugi was in good company. There was Koigi wa Wamwere, Martin Shikuku and Wasonga Sijeyo. It is Sijeyo who welcomed Ngugi to prison with sandals and a comb, precious items in prison even today.

“Ngugi and I would only meet once in a while when we were allowed a few moments of the morning sunshine. Otherwise, they kept us isolated to try and break us emotionally and mentally,” Shikuku would tell me years later.

“We developed a code. We knew what it meant when someone knocked on his cell wall or scratched the wall. Our biggest prayer was for Kenyatta’s death. We believed that it was only his death that would earn us our freedom,” said Shikuku. 

Back to Obel. I introduced him to my friend Dorcas, who had been ostracised and abandoned by her family for being HIV positive.

When the scientific world was throwing stones and hurling insults at Obel, I was quietly feeding him patience; friends, relatives and strangers who wanted to survive the HIV pandemic.

I recently spoke to Dorcas after The Standard ran my story on Obel.

The mother of four remains grateful to Obel, who was among the great Kenyans that the year 2025 took away forever.