Duale: I confronted Bensouda as Waititu fled from the Hague

We used to flood the three cafeterias at the ICC complex, and Jimmy Angwenyi, the rabble-rousing MP from Kitutu Chache North, openly taunted Fatou Bensouda whenever she came to buy coffee.

But Bensouda was a brave Gambian woman. She ignored their intimidating threats and cackles. As she was walking away, I met her at the door.

"Asalaam Aleikum," I greeted her. 'Wa aleikum salaam," she responded, with a smile. "Where are you from?" "I am a politician from Kenya," I said.

"Why are your people misbehaving here?" Bensouda asked.

"Perhaps you may not know it, but I think your predecessor did a very shoddy investigation on the Kenyan cases. To Kenyans, it looks like a political conspiracy. You need to take a closer look at the investigations," I said.

"Is that so?" she asked. "Yes," I said.

She nodded, bid me goodbye and walked to her office.

Meanwhile, the civil society activists did not relent in their personalised campaigns against the politicians.

They printed posters with pictures of politicians next to images of blood spatters. When Ferdinand Waititu, then Kabete MP, saw the images, he thought they were from the ICC. He took off.

Alice Ng'ang'a, then Thika Town MP, and I spent hours looking for Waititu. He was not in his hotel room, yet his luggage was still there. We were alarmed.

Thirty hours later, he called from Nairobi, saying he saw his picture at the ICC with the message that he was an accused person and took the next available flight to Kenya.

We laughed a lot about it.

I recall one afternoon, the Ugandan gadfly David Matsanga, who was at the ICC claiming to be an investigative journalist, confronted the civil society activists and it almost got nasty, but the ICC orderlies intervened.