Nicholas Biwott's life was wrapped up in a mystery, according to a chronicler who at least attempted to be realistic on the deceased, whereas top news organizations, worried about antagonizing current authorities, covered up the details. Some even said of him as a politician, businessman and philanthropist, ignoring the dirt.
Major assassinations during the first phase government were being conducted from State House, for instance Isaac Njenga Njoroge who was hanged a few months after shooting in cold blood ex-Economy and Planning minister Tom Mboya in July 1969, said before being hanged why the (courts, police) do not go after ‘the big man.’
Naturally the courts sought to convict him for the murder, that is, the shooting and weren’t interested in who sent him, or knew about it. In that case the big man remained an item of speculation, creating an aphorism, the Kiambu Mafia.
A rapid profile of the late former minister says that Nicholas Kipyator Biwott, who died aged 77, “will be remembered as probably the most powerful man ever to grace the Kenyan political scene outside the Presidency,” an assertion that might be true of what the later generation of journalists think of Kenyan politics.
The point however is that while Biwott was a key figure in the shady operations of the Moi presidency, he never rose above being a hatchet man, or as some analysts would put it, ‘Mr Fix It,’ not having real decision making power. It has occurred earlier.
In the first phase presidency, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta passed through stages of being old and approaching senility before dying in 1978 at the age of 87, in which case real power was being exercised by the office of the presidency, especially by Minister of State Mbiyu Koinange. There was also the Chief Secretary, Geoffrey Kariithi, exercising power in liaison with Attorney General Charles Njonjo, all of them allied as prominent families around Kiambu core sphere of the Gikuyu ethnic loyalties. Third phase president Mwai Kibaki came from a hinterland sphere.
The chronicler says of Biwott that “he was never loud, but his influence in the corridors of power was unmistakably loud and reverberated far and wide, particularly during the high noon of the Kanu autocracy.”
That was perhaps the most important aspect of his political career, taking orders from the president and relaying them via special units of the regime, orchestrating operations which at the high tide of the killing of then Foreign Minister Robert Ouko, an official commission of inquiry formed by the Moi/Biwott regime reached the finding that the minister committed suicide, burned his own body. Scotland Yard was called in and fingered the culprits.
It was during this time that multiparty politics was coming up in Kenya and was being battled by axe and truncheon. Nyayo House in downtown Nairobi became synonymous with torture in East Africa.
This is admitted as the chronicler identifies Biwott with controversies afflicting the KANU regime - from high-level corruption and the poor human rights record during second phase autocracy, especially high profile assassinations like that of Dr Ouko early in 1990.
A story that reverberated around East Africa at the time said that during a high level tour of the United States on the precincts of the United Nations General Assembkly, a diplomatic error may have cost Dr Ouko his life.
Biwott had taunted the minister after he was invited to the State Department, after the US government had ignored President Moi due to human rights violations.
Secretary of State James Baker opted to hold talks with Dr Ouko, and Biwott was reported as having taunted Dr Ouko with ‘good morning Mr President’ just the next day, a signal of his fate.
Kenyan political watchers say that all these activities had an impact on his character, as he feared retribution every inch of the way, with fellow ministers usually unaware in what house Biwott lived, and that he never travelled in one vehicle for a long distance.
“He rarely ate in public, and if he did, such eating involved some kind of public spectacle that left people bemused rather than surprised.”
He is also compared to the late GG Kariuki, another former minister who died the previous week, that ‘Total Man’ as he once called himself, sort of identifying assassinations with masculinity, a macho image favored in Kenyan politics, as the only other individual known to have hitched a ride in President Moi’s presidential limousine. It was a regime of fear, all over.
“Few of his friends in the Cabinet knew where he stayed and at the height of his power, Total Man was a mysterious man,” that is a walking machinery of business manipulation, political string pulling, elimination of opponents and coordinating activities of acolytes with high flung bribes that permitted him to build a vast business empire.
Chroniclers say that it was soon after his elevation to the vice presidency in 1967 that the second phase president recruited ‘Total Man’ as his personal assistant, a position he served in until 1979 when he quit to join elective politics. In that case he knew nearly everyone around the president, and they knew his influence on him.
He was elected at the first attempt but did not serve on the back bench for long, as the 1982 coup attempt provided Mr Moi with the excuse to purge his enemies both from the government and far into the society.
He thus saw the need to use some of the darker streaks of his veteran top aide, in organizing missions against the regime’s more avowed enemies, or those becoming too famous.
Biwott became a cabinet minister in 1982, which just raised his profile to do as he pleased in the sectors he commanded, as nothing against him could be reported to the president; nothing at all.
In that case he built his empire as he slid from one ministry to another, first as minister for Energy, which was perhaps his most important appointment in terms of influence on business and economy, and also held portfolios like East African Community Affairs.
Chroniclers say Biwott had command over a large section of the Kenyan economy, including big development projects involving foreign investors. He went on to hold eight ministerial positions, including Regional Development, Science and Technology, Energy, East African and Regional Co-operation, Trade and Industry, Tourism as well as Trade and Industry. He built firms all over.
That is how ‘Total Man’ became a dominant figure in Kenyan business circles, with his interests said to range from importing fuel and selling it to local distributors, where at least one company operates in the local oil sector, Kobil Petroleum. There are also reports of his having invested heavily outside Kenya with commercial interests in Israel and Australia – since, just in case…
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