By Arch. Dr. D.K. Gitau | The Diaspora Times | August 2025

At independence in 1963, Kenyans danced in the streets, intoxicated by dreams of freedom, dignity, and justice. The Union Jack was lowered, and in its place, the black, red, green, and white flag of a newly independent nation soared. But as history has since revealed, the chains of colonialism were never truly broken—they were merely polished, perfumed, and worn anew by Black hands that took over the tools of oppression, wealth accumulation, and impunity.

Jomo Kenyatta, the so-called Father of the Nation, became its first landlord-in-chief. While peasants waited for the land promised during the Lancaster talks, Kenyatta and his close allies gorged themselves on former settler farms, prime Nairobi plots, and forest reserves. Freedom fighters like the Mau Mau were sidelined or died poor, while the Kenyatta family empire—quietly absorbing massive tracts in Juja, Taita-Taveta, Nakuru, Mombasa, and Laikipia—grew fat on the carcass of a broken colonial order. Those displaced by colonialism were once again uprooted, not by white settlers this time, but by the President’s own son, the late Peter Muigai, who grabbed peasants’ farms in Juja and dumped them in drylands like Gatuanyaga- Kirima Mbogo area. Independence for the elite; dependence and despair for the masses.

Daniel arap Moi followed, ruling for 24 years—first as a frightened successor, later as an imperial president. When he ascended to power in 1978, he was underestimated by the Kenyatta elite who believed they could control him. But once he survived the 1982 attempted coup, Moi shed his provincial modesty and morphed into a calculating autocrat. To break the Kikuyu monopoly on land, commerce, and bureaucracy, he unleashed a strategy of calculated vengeance. Kikuyus were politically and economically sidelined, their businesses sabotaged, their access to state tenders restricted, and their communities displaced—especially during the ethnic clashes of the 1990s, where state complicity was evident.

The Rift Valley, once a patchwork of peaceful coexistence, became a theater of politically instigated bloodletting. The Molo Massacre, among others, targeted Kikuyu communities settled in Kalenjin-dominated regions. These were not just ethnic confrontations—they were orchestrated evictions, enabled by police inaction, political incitement, and government silence. It was displacement as political arithmetic.

Moi ruled through the language of fear. The Nyayo House torture chambers in Nairobi became a symbol of state terror. Political dissidents, journalists, university students, and clergy were detained without trial, electrocuted, whipped, burned, and psychologically destroyed in underground cells. Many Kenyans who entered Nyayo House never came out the same. The Special Branch, Moi’s secret police, blanketed the nation in paranoia. Even silence was suspicious.

His repression extended beyond Kenyan borders. In 1988, the body of Julie Ward, a British tourist, was found mutilated and burned in the Maasai Mara. Her father, John Ward, spent decades pushing for justice, insisting that his daughter had been raped and murdered by individuals with state protection. The Moi government attempted to disguise the death as a suicide, then a wildlife attack—refusing to investigate or cooperate. Witnesses disappeared. Files vanished. British diplomatic pressure mounted, but Kenya’s judiciary, corrupted and captured, offered only impunity. The Julie Ward case became an international symbol of Kenya’s decaying moral fabric under Moi’s rule.

Indeed, under Moi, the judiciary became a mockery. Judgments were often written not in court chambers, but in State House or Kabarak. Crucial rulings were backdated or delivered in secret after working hours—sometimes read out in locked rooms, absent litigants and lawyers. Bribery was institutionalized. Justice could be bought, sold, and auctioned to the highest bidder. Judges who resisted were transferred to remote outposts or quietly retired.

All the while, Moi preached peace, love, and unity. His harambee gatherings, which promised development through collective effort, were often little more than political carnivals where loyalty was bought with brown envelopes. Poverty was weaponized. Tribalism was institutionalized. Moi made Kenya into a mosaic of fear and patronage: those who clapped the loudest were rewarded; those who questioned were punished.

Despite the oppression, Moi amassed a staggering personal fortune. His Kabarak estate became a citadel of wealth and secrecy—rivaling the holdings of the Kenyatta family. State resources were siphoned through proxy companies, shell accounts, and briefcase contracts. Goldenberg, the scandal that saw billions of shillings stolen through fake gold exports, occurred under his watch, draining national reserves and deepening poverty.

By the time he handed over power in 2002, Moi had perfected the art of appearing gentle while ruling with an iron fist. He left behind a nation traumatized, economically weakened, and politically fractured. His legacy was not of peace, but of silence—the kind that follows torture, loss, exile, and betrayal.

Mwai Kibaki, the gentleman economist, was ushered in on a wheelchair of hope in 2002, riding a tidal wave of national exhaustion with Moi’s kleptocracy. The NARC coalition that brought him to power was built on the promise of a new Kenya—free of tribalism, corruption, and repression. For a brief moment, the country exhaled. Kibaki was seen as a measured, competent technocrat—a break from the populist strongmen of the past. But beneath the surface, the same impunity that plagued Kenya’s first four decades of independence quietly mutated and returned, this time draped in economic jargon and digital spreadsheets.

Kenyans were promised zero tolerance for corruption. What they got instead was Anglo Leasing—a grotesque web of shadowy procurement deals involving billions of shillings paid to phantom security contractors. Then came the Grand Regency scandal, in which a landmark Nairobi hotel was secretly sold off to Libyan investors under murky circumstances, revealing the rot within Kibaki’s inner circle. His government quickly reconstituted the old club of political barons, this time with a thin veneer of technocratic legitimacy. The corruption was no longer loud and vulgar—it was slick, quiet, and hidden in policy documents.

One of the darkest stains of the Kibaki era was the Artur brothers affair—an astonishing episode of state-sponsored gangsterism. Two shadowy Armenian men, Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargasyan, were granted VIP status by senior government officials. They brandished guns at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, were photographed inside high-security state offices, and even oversaw the infamous 2006 raid on The Standard newspaper. Masked gunmen stormed the newsroom at night, destroyed equipment, and shut down the presses. The chilling message from the government was clear: “If you rattle a snake, be prepared to be bitten.” Freedom of the press was under siege, and Kibaki—known for his aloof style of governance—remained disturbingly silent.

Then came the 2007 post-election crisis—a national trauma that shattered the illusion of peaceful transition. After a highly contested election, Kibaki was hastily sworn in at dusk under tight security, prompting accusations of electoral fraud. What followed was unprecedented violence: over 1,300 people killed, 600,000 displaced, churches torched, neighbors turned against neighbors. The state, under Kibaki’s command, initially watched as ethnic cleansing unfolded in Eldoret, Kisumu, Naivasha, and Nairobi’s slums. Security forces were deployed selectively. The violence only subsided after international mediation brokered a power-sharing deal with Raila Odinga, forming a shaky Grand Coalition Government.

Even then, Kibaki refused to acknowledge the scale of the disaster or take political responsibility. The culture of impunity was preserved, as no senior official was ever held accountable for the killings, the displacement, or the orchestration of the electoral theft. The government’s loyalty remained to the elite consensus—never to justice, never to the people.

Kibaki’s defenders often point to infrastructure: the Thika Superhighway, modest improvements in economic indicators, and the stabilization of the shilling. But these were crumbs compared to the moral collapse that occurred under his watch. By the end of his presidency, Kibaki had become what many of his generation feared he might: a polite gatekeeper of the status quo, unwilling to confront the entrenched forces that sustained Kenya’s political and economic inequality.

Under his calm demeanor and quiet intellect, the foundations of state impunity were not dismantled—they were upgraded.

Then came Uhuru Kenyatta, son of the founding father, closing the dynastic circle. Under the guise of digital leadership, he perfected analog looting. Billions vanished—Eurobond, COVID-19 funds, SGR, NYS. Lavish Chinese deals lined pockets while peasants choked under debt. The poor remained poor, landless, jobless. What his father started, he finished: centralizing power and property in a tight, elite clique, even as jobless graduates became boda boda riders and street hawkers.

And now, William Ruto. He branded himself a hustler, a man of the people, a “son of a nobody.” But in power, he has proven to be the most deceptive of all. Unlike his predecessors who wore masks of statesmanship, Ruto rips off the mask and smiles. He tramples on the constitution, disregards court orders, and treats protesters as collateral damage. His government has killed young people in the streets and used police bullets as political punctuation. His administration—shrouded in religion, fake humility, and a lust for taxes—has weaponized the very tools of democracy against the people. He is no different from his predecessors. Only more desperate. More cunning. More ruthless.

And so the story continues: from Kenyatta to Moi, from Kibaki to Uhuru, and now Ruto. Different faces, same playbook. Token reforms, cosmetic changes, and endless slogans—Nyayo, Vision 2030, Big Four, Bottom-Up. But at its core, Kenya’s problem is structural: the state was designed to extract, not to serve; to shield the elite, not to protect the weak.

What Kenya has lacked is not leaders—but liberators. The system remains intact, feeding on the hopes of each generation. The only change has been the color of the hand that cracks the whip.

Until Kenya elects a leader in the spirit of Thomas Sankara or Ibrahim Traoré—a leader who prioritizes the people’s needs over personal interests—the cycle will persist. And the people will continue to sing freedom songs at funerals.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Diaspora Times. This is a political commentary meant to provoke critical thought and civic engagement.