VISIONS OF DAVID MUNYAKEI: OUR FORGOTTEN HERO

“….. worth a thousand words”



In 1994, David Munyakei, Kenya’s tragic hero, fled to Mombasa after having been warned that his life was in danger because of his misfortune in being both honest and courageous. For standing up to the rich and powerful on our behalf, he was forced to go into hiding, changing clothes, identities, even his accent. He had already crossed the rubicon by handing over the incriminating Goldenberg documents to Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o; the Elderkin series of stories in the Daily Nation had already been published, he had been arrested and released, and he had been fired from his job at the Central Bank. His mother had died. There was nothing for him in Nairobi except danger, sorrow and frustration. He did, however, with a caution born of the callous and cruel treatment meted out to him by the government, take with him and hide vital Goldenberg documents. For the unforgivable, irredeemable crime of possessing both integrity and a sense of honour, he was running for his life like a common criminal. One really is led to wonder whether honesty, courage, integrity and honour are on the list of the official Controlled Substances Act, or whether our-then government just decided that these crimes, even if not strictly according to the letter, certainly fell under the spirit of the law….. Montesquieu wept.

Once in Mombasa, Munyakei worked at a variety of jobs. Most significantly, after converting to Islam, he met and married Mariam Ali Muhammad Hani. In late 1998, he emerged from his self-imposed exile and returned to Olokurto, where he had spent many of his formative years as a child. Olokurto held memories of his childhood, of his grandmother, which whom he had lived and the carefree happy existence he shared with his brother Daniel. He took with him his wife Mariam, and their first daughter, born earlier in 1998.

In Olokurto, David Munyakei embarked upon a poverty-ridden rural existence that would be unremarked and uninterrupted for four years, but not without some happiness – he and Mariam had two more daughters. . There are now three Munyakei girls, Fatma, Naima and Sally, surely the most beautiful children in Kenya. Sadly, they have been compelled to have a self-possession and self-containment that no child should have to acquire, as the result of all the interventions into their lives by strangers both well meaning and malevolent.

When the winds of change swept the Narc government into power, suddenly, the edge of the spotlight once again found Munyakei as he testified before the Goldenberg Commission, and received the Integrity and Firimbi awards with much pomp and circumstance. The ceremonies accompanying these awards were attended not only by the people directly involved, but also by those who felt the need to burnish their public image. Association with Munyakei conferred a glow of righteousness and integrity – as if Munyakei’s spirit were catching – but as soon as the photo ops were over, these important personages hurriedly remembered other appointments. They would now be hard-pressed to remember his face, let alone to feel any urge to help him in his hour of need. Selective amnesia is a wonderful thing.

As for Munyakei, as suddenly as he had been remembered when we needed him, he just as suddenly disappeared back into oblivion after we deserted him yet again. Like a husk of maize, like potato peelings, like the bone of a succulent cut of meat, we cannibalised Munyakei, sucked out his marrow, licked his bones dry, and then casually, almost absent-mindedly consigned him to the collective dustbin where we throw those who are always with us but uncannily invisible. The wasteland of those we wish not to see. The desert of the unremembered and the unsung. The non-place of our treachery.

Not everyone forgot him. Transparency International adopted his cause, and helped him in ways both tangible and intangible. In addition, they are pushing legislation which would protect future whistleblowers and make certain that they do not suffer Munyakei’s fate.

Kwani have contributed time, money, expertise, and large amounts of compassion. All props and now I think it is time for other shoulders to bear the burden and other people to take up the torch. It is now time for the next stage of the project.

In that respect, I thought my blogger friends and colleagues would like an update on developments so far.

It has been collectively decided that those who most urgently need our attention and our protection are the three little Munyakei girls, whose education must not suffer not only while the lawyers wrangle over process and procedure, and whilst David Munyakei struggles to find the justice that has eluded him thus far, but also in the long-term. Although he was fighting for us, this is at least, a fight that he himself picked. His daughters did not have that option.

Munyakei’s daughters did not ask for a hero father, they did not ask for a fugitive father and they certainly did not ask for an embattled and pauperised father. Thus, the first priority, and the project with which I am personally concerned, is to set up an educational trust fund for the three little Munyakeis. As they are still quite young, and as primary education is free, the objective is clearly to make sure that they can go to the high school of their choice, and, if they wish it, to the college of their choice. If we act now, that trust fund will have time to mature and to grow, and to make this one inadequate gesture of acknowledgement of Munyakei’s patriotism meaningful. I ask you to join me in making this a reality.

This is a process that will take some time. There is the matter of appointing trustees, ensuring legal oversight, and other such bureaucratic red tape, but these are mere logistics, and all of us are working very hard, against odds too absurd to describe, to make it happen. So it will happen, of course. There is no battle I have ever yet lost, and I am surrounded by people whose idea of engagement and commitment is to win, win, win and win some more. This is an awe-inspiring collection of people, and I am (me!) quite humbled to be in their company.

In the meantime, I am currently working with several organisations here in Nairobi to set up an account to which you can send your contributions immediately whilst the trust fund details are worked out. For obvious reasons, those of us who have been involved thus far cannot in any way be seen to be involved in matters of the funds coming in, so it will have to be third parties who organise and handle the fund. Dr. Tade Aina, Representative of the Ford Foundation Office in East Africa, has gone out of his way to network and bring together the people who can be entrusted with this vital component of the project.

Mr. Harun M. Ndubi is the Executive Director of Kituo Cha Sheria, a legal advice centre which specialises in legal services for those who otherwise could not afford such representation. The motto, of Kituo Cha Sheria appropriately enough, is “To Those Who Care For Justice.” Mr. Ndubi has kindly agreed to let us use his organisation’s clients’ holding account for the Munyakei fund, whilst the trust fund itself is being established.

OPEN THOSE WALLETS! DAVID MUNYAKEI GAVE HIS ALL. HERE IS OUR OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE HIM BACK A LITTLE.

Please send your cheques, money orders, money transfers, money wires, credit card payments i.e. MONEY in all its forms and manifestations except cash, to the following account:

(please indicate that it is re: Munyakei education trust fund)

1) Bank account name: Legal Advice Centre Clients A/C
Barclays bank Westlands Branch. P O Box 14403 Nairobi

2)Account number: 1489734

3)Bank swift Code:BARCKENX

4)Bank Sort Code: 03 073 1489734


Not a single one of you out there cannot afford to send in $50, or a $100. At least. That in Kenyan shillings is @3,500 and @7,000 respectively. Those who can afford more, please give more.

Putting my money where my mouth is, my cheque for $500 is ready to go.

The offices of KITUO CHA SHERIA are in Nairobi, on Ole Odume Road, off Argwings Kodhek Rd.
P.O. Box: 7483-00300 Ronald Ngala, Nairobi, Kenya.
Tel: 574191, 574220, 576290
Fax:576295
E-mail: info@kituochasheria.or.ke



It also occurs to my enraged and offended mind that this is a rather apposite time to exercise that I.T. power I had written of earlier (see chickens coming home post). Get that mouse button clicking and send as many emails as you feel like sending to the Central Bank of Kenya….really, you can send the same email very many times over and I gleefully hope that you do so. Remember: Our Bank, Our Money, Our Government.

You can cut and paste the following message, or of course, you can compose your own.


Central Bank of Kenya: info@centralbank.go.ke

To the Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.

I am one of the many Kenyan citizens appalled at the injustice that has been inflicted on David Sadera Munyakei. As a citizen of Kenya, the Central Bank is holding money that is at least in part mine, and I feel I should have a say in its operations.

In my capacity as a Kenyan citizen, and as a person concerned about the future of my country I join the many other Kenyans who insist that firstly, you pay David Munyakei his back-pay plus the accumulated interest, which is now about 11 million shillings and still growing and secondly that you offer him his former job or a higher-ranking job at the Central Bank.

As a Kenyan citizen and as part of the people of Kenya whose will the Kenyan Government and its institutions is supposed to obey, I hereby let you know that my will in the matter of David Munyakei, as stated above, is that this fellow citizen be given his due and accorded the respect and gratitude that he deserves.
…………


I thank the Kwani? management and staff for their invaluable support and their readiness to accommodate my various forms of insanity and their efforts to assist me in bringing this story and this video to the blog world. Binyavanga Wainaina, all praise. Several of the Kwani Trustees have provided advice, networking and assorted forms of crucial help. All of us are indebted to Billy Kahora, whose excellent and inspiring original story in Kwani? 3 formed the basis for the several initiatives now under way. Transparency International, which has been engaged with the Munyakei case long before Kahora’s story came out, continue to struggle for justice and compensation for him and others like him.


Thank you very much to those who have posted comments and who, in astonishing numbers, have emailed me—I don’t think I have ever had so many emails in my life. I thank you for your concern and your outrage and your readiness to act (except I wish that you would post your comments on the blog, so people can see the amount of interest there is in this case.) Most of all, thank you for fulfilling my version and vision of all of you as basically decent, concerned, committed and engaged Kenyans – MMK, are you listening? – who will always do the right thing when the opportunity offers itself. Mini-Munyakeis every last one of you. Props and much hesh to all of you.

In the next post, I hope to have a Munyakei video clip to show you, showing the ordinariness of this most extraordinary of Kenyans......

Photo courtesy Jerry Riley