For a former bare-feet goat herder and son of poor peasants to rise from rags to become the president of Kenya, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was some kind of genius.

For starters, Moi never went beyond the colonial grade four (although he later went to teacher training college). That is not the stage in any educational system where anyone learns theories, principles or political philosophies.

At grade four, they do not teach human psychology or social order. In fact, going by my own experience in rural Kenya, they did not even start teaching English properly until grade six. Even in today's Internet age, grade four pupils can hardly comprehend how the world works. So, the fact that Moi can scatter comprehensible English syllables is a feat to marvel.

This is particularly the case when one considers that Moi was an elementary school teacher in the Rift Valley before joining politics.

And coming from a tiny Tugen community, Moi shouldn't have had a fighting chance even within the wider Kalenjin communities. After all, he faced able challengers from the Kalenjin communities with solid educational backgrounds like Jean Marie Seroney and Dr Taita Towett.

The climb was sharp and steep. It was also difficult and tortuous. Moi started off as a Kenya African Democratic Union politician.

Unlike the nationalist Kanu, Kadu was financed and used by the British colonialists as a means to undermine the independence movement.

Kadu purported to represent "smaller" communities in Kenya; those who "feared" that the bigger communities like the Luo and Kikuyu would dominate them if self-governance was achieved by Africans.

After political independence, Moi lingered on in Kadu until the party was disbanded.

Then, he joined Kanu and became Jomo Kenyatta's loyalist. And within three years, Moi became the third vice-president of Kenya, having taken over from Joseph Murumbi who had succeeded Jaramogi Oginga Odinga but suddenly resigned due to disagreements with Kenyatta.

Jaramogi and Murumbi quit over ideological differences with Kenyatta. However, Moi had no strong philosophical convictions and beliefs. What he fully understood and practiced was the politics of survival.

No amount of roadblocks the Kiambu Mafia constructed in his path to stardom could stop Moi. He either gingerly circumvented or persevered through them.

Along the way, he used the opportunities and privileges closeness to power accorded him to acquire wealth and retain a small loyal team that he could rely on. Charles Njonjo and Simeon Nyachae fall under this category. So that when Kenyatta eventually died in 1978, Moi was able, through a mixture of luck and circumstance, to assume power.

Like a true genius, Moi used the aborted 1982 coup attempt to consolidate power and crush perceived or real threats. Soon all political parties except Kanu were banned and opponents detained, exiled, killed or reduced to penury.

Moi increasingly used his power to extend control over the economy, social and cultural spheres. Tawala Kenya and Nyayo songs were pervasive on the airwaves. Print media fell under the Nyayo spell.

Before long, Moi and his coterie focused on public land as a theatre for control and a source of personal wealth. Loyal politicians, senior army officers, diplomats and political fixers were rewarded with public land.

In the process, forests, public toilets, roads — name it — were invaded, occupied and converted into personal property by the politically well-connected.

That is the origin of Kiptagich tea estate. Kiptagich is a massive tea estate with a modern factory located within the Mau forest water tower. It covers more than 5,000 acres. The tea estate is in public land. Apparently, Kiptagich "belongs" to former President Moi.

Public records disclose that Moi never paid a dime for the land; never invested a penny to clear it; and never spent anything to buy seedlings. In other words, the land, tea plantation and infrastructural developments belong to the public.

Understandably, Kiptagich is very close to Moi's heart. He loves the farm and factory. They are his cash cow, so to speak.

Any inkling that Kiptagich might be repossessed by the people of Kenya makes Moi not just nervous but violently confrontational. Yet no one - not even Moi — has claimed that he purchased the land or that it isn't on the Mau forest complex.

Moi and his supporters have not indicated that the proceeds from the tea estate are being donated to charity or used in the public interest. If Moi bought the land, he has not stated from whom and for how much.

However, if he simply took the forest land when he was President, he must still explain to us why he did so. Kenyans are also interested to know why he deserves compensation of Sh 760 million for public land he has been unlawfully profiting from.

The writer is a barrister in Canada and advocate in Kenya. He is also the advisor of the Prime Minister on coalition affairs.

For the first time in his long and chequered political career; Prime Minister Raila Odinga has clearly demonstrated that he is capable of transcending politics and seeing the big picture.

Raila's principled stand on the Mau saga is in great contrast with the narrow and atavistic posture of the Rift Valley political leaders.

Raila has finally achieved states-man status and his political adversaries in Rift Valley, led by Agriculture minister William Ruto, have displayed their hopelessly cynical and devious characters.

Even former President Moi has put both his feet in his mouth on environmental matters.

Rift Valley voted for Raila overwhelmingly in the 2007 Presidential polls and all expectations would ordinarily be that the PM would do everything possible not to alienate this single most numerous bloc of voters barely 36 months to the next presidential contest.

But the Mau issue is an extraordinary matter and the PM has admirably risen to the occasion and shown himself to be an extraordinary politician and a genuine leader.

Raila should take the Mau issue to the next level by making it clear that the views espoused by the current crop of Rift Valley leaders are not necessarily the views of the people of the region.

Come 2012, a very large number of these MPs making such a sorry spectacle of themselves before media cameras will be voted out. They will undoubtedly fall as a direct result of the Mau issue.

The fact that Raila is willing to take such a huge political risk with such a large vote bloc should signal to all thinking Kenyans that it is not business as usual concerning the Mau Forest. It is not every day that a leader of the PM's stature and political savvy goes alienating entire vote blocs.

Unlike the motley crew led by Ruto, Raila has examined all the facts and options about the Mau and reached the inescapable conclusion: it is one of the country's foremost water towers and also serves the region, with implications that reverberate all the way to Egypt. What's more, the planet is in the grip of climate change precisely because of adverse practices such as settling in the Mau.

Raila knows that painful decisions have to be taken over Mau and is prepared to take the consequences.

I do not hold any brief for Raila and for those who care to know, the Prime Minister and myself, except in 2002 when he made his famous "Kibaki Tosha" declaration, have been on different sides of the political divide.

Irrespective of that, I do submit that Raila has outgrown the " Luo tribal chief" tag and is now ready to lead this country.

Go Raila Go! We are behind you and you have our votes.

Kariuki is a PR consultant.

TWO months ago there was drought in Kenya.

Now that it is raining, it is easy to forget that simple fact.

When there was drought, no-one disputed the need to evict settlers from the Mau Forest. Everyone understood that it was life and death for the nation.

The Mau is the largest of Kenya's five water towers, equal to Mt Kenya and the Aberdares put together. It must be protected.

Now that it is raining, people have decided that they can play politics with the evictions. That is a big mistake.

Relocation from the Mau Forest should go ahead but it must be handled humanely.

The total area of encroached or settled forest affects 34,000 households.

The present phase of evictions in the eastern and south-western Mau affects 1,700 families without title deeds.

Regrettably they cannot be compensated. Illegal squatters cannot be rewarded but they should be assisted to return to their places of origin.

However the government must identify land for the resettlement of the 30,000 households with land titles in 2010. They are legally entitled to it.

Kenya must push ahead with the relocation, harsh as it may seem, as the alternative is too bleak to contemplate.

Over the past few days, Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been severely criticised by two ODM Cabinet ministers, who are not only prominent in the Cabinet but also members of the so-called Pentagon, the team which was supposed to collectively lead the party after electoral victory in 2007.

The interesting thing is that in one case, the criticism means very little. And in the other, the criticism had huge symbolic significance, and political analysts may yet look back on this as a key turning point in Raila's continuing quest for high office.

Let's start with the criticism that carried no real weight: this was when Tourism minister Najib Balala, supposedly the Coast Province representative on the Pentagon, accused Raila of betrayal and said he was dividing Muslims.

Whatever may have been the provocation, this does not make much sense: Muslim voters are in general a much divided lot, just like Christian voters. Tribal and clan affiliations tend to count for more than religious affiliation when Kenyans vote.

In Garsen Constituency, for example, the reason Danson Mungatana won the seat in 2002 was that the Muslim vote was splintered along communal lines.

But of course the reason Balala is so bitter is no secret either. For the past few months, it has become increasingly clear the PM prefers to work with other Coast leaders at the expense of Balala. And this in turn suggests that come the next election, Balala cannot hope to get Raila's support for the Mvita seat.

This could mean the end of Balala's political career, especially if he should face Abdulsamad Nassir, the son of the legendary former Mvita MP Snariff Nassir.

The fact is that Balala would never have won the Mvita seat at any point if it had not been for Raila's support. So he has every right to be nervous: Balala needs Raila but Raila does not need Balala.

But Agriculture minister William Ruto, the other Cabinet minister to criticise Raila, is a different matter. His complaint cannot be casually shrugged off.

Have you noticed that when something bad happens to persons from any Kenyan community, very many members of that community will feel threatened?

In Thika not too long ago, for example, after their businesses were targeted by criminals, the local Asian community held a demonstration to protest police inefficiency.

What some indigenous Kenyans would probably attribute to the common myth that Asians in Kenya tend to keep huge amounts of cash lying about at all times, was seen by these businessmen as a direct threat to their welfare.

Likewise, when we read of violence flaring up at the border of the Tharaka and Tigania communities in Meru, many would be inclined to attribute it to the reputed propensity for violence among the men from that area. But if you were actually from Tharaka or Tigania, you would see it all very differently, even if you live hundreds of miles away from the scene of the violence.

And out of the approximately 1,000 people killed in the post-election violence last year, if there had been just 10 tourists butchered, less than 1 per cent of those murdered, it would have been a great deal more difficult to persuade foreigners to return to Kenya.

It is from such a perspective that the effect of the Mau Forest evictions on the Kalenjin community must be seen. Even if the rest of the country insists on focusing on the big picture and the environmental necessity of this action, this is not how it will seem to the Kalenjin.

All they will see is thousands of their own being added to the numbers of the displaced.

And they will note that where the IDPs originally from Central Province have received money, building materials, and even land, their own are left to shiver in the rain on some muddy roadside, with not a trace of the government assistance that had been pledged if the settlers left peacefully.

As a man who is believed to still have a presidential or prime-ministerial election campaign in his future, Raila should not have allowed this to happen, when there were so many ways in which the government could have mitigated the suffering of these people.

It was a huge strategic blunder. For this is the kind of thing that has a long-term impact on the sentiments of regional voting blocks.

And in this case, the Kalenjin who were among his most fervent supporters back in 2007 will neither forgive nor forget.

Muga comments on topical issues.

We are all aware of the environmental disaster that is the Mau Forest, where not only the forest is threatened but also rivers, lakes and even wildlife reserves, including the world-famous Maasai Mara.

What is odd is that in environmental legislation, Kenya led the way in 1999 when it created the ground-breaking Environment Management and Coordination Act.

When it became law, I for one, breathed a big sigh of relief. At the time I was part of a vigorous effort by the Kenya Association of Tour Operators to get a moratorium declared on the increasing number of random and unplanned tourist camps and lodges in the Maasai Mara.

Prior to EMCA, if you wanted to put up a camp in the Mara you simply made a deal with the local Maasai community leaders, had a quick chat with the county council, and away you went. With the coming of EMCA in came the cornerstone of the whole environmental process, the Environmental Impact Assessment.

So why, despite EMCA, was there a new wave of development of camps and lodges not only in the Mara but around the country?

In the Mara alone, more than 60 new properties have been put up since 2004. And isn't this the time when the greatest acceleration of destruction took place in the Mau too?"

So it seems that rather than saving our environment, as I had hoped, EMCA and the EIA process look as if they are accelerating its decline. How can this be happening?

I chaired an environmental meeting two weeks ago at which I asked my fellow participants why it was that so many EIA licences seemed to be granted to outfits which hadn't even applied yet for a business licence or a PIN from the Kenya Revenue Authority?

In the earnest discussion that followed it emerged that many businessmen felt that applying for an EIA should be the first tick in the box, because if one failed to get it, why waste more money getting any other licences?

Secondly, what do you think of a process whereby the developer pays the "expert" who does the EIA proposals for him?

He or she doesn't pay the National Environment Management Authority, whose job it is to administer the act and approve an EIA proposal.

It stands to reason that if you're allowed to pay the piper he'll play any tune you want.

So why doesn't Nema have a list of approved and certified environmental "experts" that get paid to go out and do EIAs? That way the applicant doesn't get to choose which "expert" goes out into the field to do the EIA, and he doesn't get to influence the process by paying the "expert" directly.

Sounds simple? It is. But it's not what's happening. Nema is being inundated by EIAs written up by "experts", none of whom has a bad word to say about their proposed projects.

And, finally, why have a tribunal, which can issue stop orders against contested development projects only for the developer to appeal to the high court and nullify the order?

Yes, there should be the facility to appeal, but why is the stop order set aside? Hotels, camps, shops and malls are being completed whilst EIAs are contested in the high court.

Surely if we are all entitled to a "clean and healthy environment" under the act, stop orders by the tribunal should be maintained until final rulings are made, either by the high court or the tribunal.

Nema has a tremendous mandate to do good. However, if its fails us then they have the capacity to do us more harm than good.

Earnshaw is the chairman of the board ofKer & Downey Safaris.

Seemingly “litigations” and “rights talk” have permeated the creases and wrinkles of our society so much so that even land grabbers and illegal settlers have the temerity to rush to the court of law to contest an eviction order issued by the Government. It matters less that the said eviction is informed by the cabinet`s decision to rehabilitate a water tower that has over the years been desecrated.

Neither do the illegal settlers give a hoot that eviction talks have been with us for over a year now. Instead, the illegal settlers, acting with impunity continued unabated with their agricultural activities besides the wanton destruction of the Mau Complex. They now have the impertinence to order the Government to give them time ad infinitum to ostensibly harvest their crops.

It becomes even more worrisome if one was to go by the intimations that behind the move to mobilize and incite councilors and the illegal settlers to seek an injunction are a cabal in Government. At this rate, it will become increasingly difficult to put the genie of impunity and grubbiness back in the bottle.

As for the courts of law, one wonders why they appear to have set aside their qualms and waded in the murky waters of politics. Time and again we have witnessed the courts entertain suits aimed at challenging decisions of the executive and parliament. For instance, this year alone, the court entertained a suit filed by the then commissioners in the defunct electoral body challenging the legality of the decision of the executive and parliament to send the entire electoral body packing. Similarly, when parliament invalidated the president`s unilateral decision to reappoint top officials of KACC, the court regaled itself with litigations from some quarters.

The willingness of the courts to entertain such suits serves as a pathway for judicial scrutiny of every single Government decision. This is an act that totally ignores the principle of separation of powers and is in the least, an abhorrent act to every right-minded citizen. Is it perhaps that the current constitution does not delineate the role of the judiciary properly? There is every reason that we should take up the task of setting equilibrium between the value of accountability through the court of law and the value of limiting judicial incursions on the autonomy of the Government to effectively discharge its sworn duties.

In the meantime I urge all and sundry to take cognizance of the overriding interests of the larger public. The overriding public and professional opinion is that conservation of the country`s water towers is sacrosanct. It would be a vile presumption for anyone to attempt to think even for once that Kenyans will entertain politically motivated subterfuge on the rehabilitation of our water towers.

Tome Francis,

Bumula.

MY recent criticism of our Nobel laureate Prof Wangari Maathai, and her interventions in the controversy on the Mau forest, appears to have troubled quite a few readers.

Obviously there are many who see her as a national icon, beyond all criticism.

Nonetheless, hardly a day passes before she comes up with some new statement to confirm that for all the honours that she has received internationally, she is first and foremost a parochial Kenyan politician, no different at all from many others. And in this she is further revealed to be both a false prophet and a hypocrite.

The most recent proof of her hypocrisy was in that she has guided some World Bank reforestation project right into her own political backyard, in the Aberdares mountain range.

This happens to be the one forest that is already effectively protected by a fence of the kind that the government has pledged to one day put up around the Mau forest.

But if we set aside for a minute her fame as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and see her as a failed politician determined to regain the Tetu Constituency seat in 2012, the choice of the Aberdares as the place to set up this labour-intensive tree planting makes perfect sense. It's fairly typical of how Kenyan politicians operate.

And as the gullibility of World Bank technocrats is stuff of legend, it cannot have been all that difficult for a person of her stature to convince the local World Bank office that Central Province was the ideal place for such a project - even though Eastern Province probably deserved it more.

What is far more disturbing, however, is her persistent declaration that no compensation should be given to the Mau farmers, and also that they must be evicted without delay.

In this she is a false prophet very much like those political leaders who, in the early years of independence in the 1960s, argued that the departing "white settlers" should not be compensated for giving up their farms, since this land they were now selling had been originally "stolen" from the indigenous Kenyan tribes.

Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed. And their wisdom was to be vindicated a full 30 years later, when the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe set out to accomplish precisely what these Kenyan politicians had advocated in the 1960s: violent and compulsory acquisition of the land owned by white farmers, with no compensation.

The contrast between the subsequent collapse of the Zimbabwean agriculture-based economy, and the relative success and resilience of the millions of Kenyan smallholder farms, could not be greater.

And the underpinning factor in all this is that in Kenya property rights were respected, while in Zimbabwe, property rights were violated.

When Maathai argues that there is no need to compensate the Mau settlers, since they "stole" that land, her words merely echo what Mugabe has been saying for over a decade.

She is supporting violation of the property rights of those farmers in the Mau, many of whom bought their land from the original allottees and received title deeds from the local lands registry.

It is true enough that there is something inherently dubious in the fact that former
president Moi should have a vast tea estate in what was formerly Mau forest land.

But as the French philosopher Ernest Renan said, "To form a common nation, people have to agree to remember a few things but also to forget a few things". And, as concerns the Mau, this perspective argues against violent eviction with no compensation paid.

For make no mistake - in the absence of compensation, those evictions will of necessity have to be violent.

We have already seen how this plays out, back in 2005, when the Lands minister of the time, Amos Kimunya, declaring the title deeds of the Mau settlers to be "mere pieces of paper", coordinated an eviction which saw homes, churches and schools burned and traumatised families left out in the cold on roadsides.

This is more or less what happened again on a more terrifying scale in the post-election violence, for which some of our leaders are now faced with the likelihood of being indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Given this recent history, if Maathai is determined to continue in her insane persecution of the farmers in the Mau, this is what she must do:

First she should return her Peace Medal to the Committee in Stockholm that gave it to her. And then she should prepare to make a journey to The Hague when the time comes, to join the other Kenyan political leaders who stand accused of fomenting politically-instigated violence within our borders.