There are very many stones out there laughing at our inability to turn them

By Barrack Muluka
So what is this precious thing we call life? Is it just a candle that can be snuffed out with the simple fillip of two fingers? Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) in his fascination with the supernatural world often mused about the President of the Immortals in Greek mythology.

When Tess is taken to the gallows in the classic Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hardy remarks, “ . . . President of the Immortals had finished his sport with Tess. Pain has been and pain there is.”

Tragedy is the substance of classic literature. Aeschylus of ancient Greece was the master of this genre. Our knowledge of tragedy in art would seem to begin with Aeschylus. He is so profound, so perfect, so complete that he is regarded as the father of tragedy in Literature. His understudies were Sophocles and Euripides.

In artistic tragedy, life often comes across as something so trivial that it can be snuffed out like the life a burning candle. In ancient tragedy, we human beings are comparable to what flies are to wanton boys. “To the gods, we are what flies are to wanton boys. They kill us for their sport,” we are told. The boys go on to show off to one another how huge their individual harvests are.

In Shakespearean parlance, life is only a shadow. We therefore witness Macbeth receiving news of his wife’s death with the words, “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Macbeth laments the brevity of life almost as if it is the only thing to do, and probably it is. But Macbeth is no respecter of life. From early on, we see him receiving a prophecy from three witches that he is set to become the king of Scotland. Eager to realise the prophecy, Macbeth eliminates all potential competitors. Once there, he must kill again and again – to protect his wretched reign. Macbeth is a veritable serpent hiding behind roses. Such is the tragedy of palace life.

Away from palaces, kings and kingdoms, mourning nations often pledge to turn all stones, if this is what they must do, to get to the bottom of the triggers and drivers of tragedy. Our Kenyan context is certainly no exception. When we have lost people both big and small, we have often pledged to leave no stone unturned.

There are many stones out there, however, laughing at our inability to turn them. In January 1969, we lost Clement Argwings Kodhek, a prominent lawyer and Member of Parliament for Gem. Kodhek perished in a freaky accident in Hurlingham, Nairobi. The Kenyatta Government pledged to leave no stone intact. Forty-three years and two presidents later, we still do not know what really happened.

The same year we lost Kodhek, Tom Mboya was cut down in daylight, in Nairobi. David Goldsworthy has wondered how Kenya has always wanted to forget this man, Tom Mboya, and the circumstances surrounding his assassination in July 1969. Robert Branch in Kenya: Between Hope and Despair 1963 – 2011 suggests that there was feverish effort to mask issues surrounding Mboya’s death.

The man who is said to have killed him, Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge, is reported to have asked why they were arresting him and “not the big man”.

Nobody followed the lead of “the big man”. Who was “the big man” that Njenga wanted arrested? Njenga’s trial itself only took eight days, at the end of which he was sentenced to death. As young people in the 1970s, we often heard that Njenga had been sneaked to Ethiopia.

We further heard that the Mengistu Haile Maryam Government, on overthrowing Haile Selassie in 1974, wanted to rendition him to Kenya, but that they were advised to kill him. Empty rumours, perhaps.

For Branch complicates matters when he reports that Njenga was in fact taken to the gallows on November 29, 1969 under huge secrecy. Apart from one man in Government, the hangman and the prison superintendent, nobody else knew of this operation – not even the prison chaplain. Did someone fear that Njenga would spill ugly beans?

But the Mboya case is just a metaphor of the mystery that shrouds tragedy in Kenya. We still do not know what happened to Kung’u Karumba who vanished into thin air after disagreeing with President Kenyatta in 1969.

Speculation abounds on what happened to JM Kariuki in March 1975 and to Dr Johnston Muthiora, JM Seroney, Ongili Owiti, Dr Robert Ouko, Bishop Alex Muge, Prof Odhiambo Mbai and a whole whale of others in their own time.

Have these lives been feeble candles? Have they been walking shadows, poor players that strutted and fretted their hours upon the stage and must be heard of no more?

Government has advised that we refrain from speculation regarding the sudden demise of Prof George Saitoti and Orwa Ojode. We only speculate because we do not know.

Or to put if differently, we speculate because we historically know that we are never told what transpired – even when commissions have been put in place to investigate and report. If only the Government could level out with the citizens . . .

Prof Saitoti and Orwa Ojode are the first prominent leaders to go in these times when we are on the path of reform. Perhaps Kenyans can expect that this time round, they will be told what really happened. If it was a technical matter, we would like to know about it beyond the traditional clichés. If it was conspiracy – which I trust it was not – the nation has the right to know. If it was something else, Kenyans must know. Judge Rawal and team have their job cut out for them.

The writer is a publishing editor and National Director of Communications at Raila for President Secretariat