Blaming the Moi era: Memories of bad governance among Eastlands residents in Nairobi,Kenya

Introduction

In discussions about underdevelopment in African countries, ‘bad governance’ has often been identified as a major obstacle to improving the quality of life of African citizens. International aid and development agencies have blamed ineffective and unaccountable regimes in Africa for the low quality of life of the continent’s poorer populations (Moore, 2001: 386). Although a variety of internal and external factors help explain this situation, African people are inclined to ascribe their hardships to a lack of efficient leadership. They generally accuse Africa’s political elites of incompetence, greed and oppression. For those who have suffered under bad governance, memories of the painful past resonate, generating awareness of social issues and colouring interpretations of contemporary realities. Their public sharing of stories about the hardships that resulted from poor leadership can be viewed as a purposeful social action that is intended to help them come to terms with their version of history, which is often framed by present social and political contexts.

Kenya’s economic climate has experienced many changes in the post-colonial period. As a newly independent African state, Kenya was blessed with a relatively well-performing economy in the 1960s and early 1970s, but the country’s economic growth faltered throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s (Robertson, 1997: 147). The recession negatively affected the lives of the Kenyan people, especially those in the low-income classes in urban areas. As rural to urban migration increased dramatically in the midst of explosive population growth during those troubled times, the government could not adequately cope with the congestion caused by the massive population influx. Most people in low-income residential areas of Nairobi experienced various difficulties during these two decades as their incomes decreased and their urban living conditions worsened. This period of suffering was largely concurrent with the Moi era. Daniel Toroitichi arap Moi came into power in 1978 as the second president of Kenya (succeeding Jomo Kenyatta) and remained in office for 24 years, until 2002. As the country suffered from economic difficulties in the 1980s and 1990s, he systemically built an oppressive, authoritarian state under one-man rule (Adar and Munyae, 2001: 2). In the memories of older generations in Nairobi’s impoverished neighbourhoods, the Moi era was a depressing period of political oppression, mismanagement of resources, rising insecurity and increasing corruption.

This study aims to describe how Moi’s leadership is remembered by old-timers who lived in a low-income residential area of Nairobi. It also seeks to show the effects of current conditions on how they represent their bitter experiences of the troubled past. The analysis draws on oral testimony collected through fieldwork. The field research for this study was conducted during two visits, one in July of 2011 and the other in January of 2012, to Eastlands, a residential area of Nairobi. The fieldwork location was confined to earlier-constructed estates such as Bahati, Ziwani, Kaloleni, Maringo, Gorofani, Jerico and Buruburu, where the majority of residents had lived long enough to testify about memories of life in Eastlands during the Moi era. ¹ Eastlands was developed as an African quarter in the colonial period, and a series of public housing projects was constructed there just before and after independence to accommodate middle- to low-income workers who had migrated to Nairobi. During the economic hardships of the Moi era, estates in Eastlands that were once organized and well maintained became slum-like shanty towns. The initial objective of this testimonial project was to record the voices of the marginalized in this area speaking about the transformation of their residential environment, especially the deterioration in their living conditions. However, the bulk of the collected testimony focused on grievances about Moi’s leadership. Most of the informants were in their 50s and 60s and experienced the Moi era when they were economically active. This age group was chosen because the respondents had resided in Eastlands for decades before, during and after the Moi era. Therefore, they could provide testimonies about life changes under this leadership. Many of them were either long-standing tenants of city council houses or initial owners of housing schemes who worked as waged industrial or clerical labourers. During the interviews, they narrated their memories of the years of hardship in response to questions or occasional requests for clarification. The testimonials demonstrate how a community’s publicly shared perceptions of poor governance shape the associated memories of individuals. Their representations of the troubled past can be viewed as an effort to address current socio-political concerns.

Collective historical memory in post-colonial Africa

The study of collective memory has provided an increasingly influential means of understanding how past events are represented in the present. The foci of such discussions have been to identify which parts of the past are remembered, which versions of memory are privileged and what the loci are for the generation of memory. It is widely accepted that memory of the past is a social construction that is shaped by present concerns and needs. One of the pioneers of research on collective memory, Maurice Halbwachs (1992), asserts,

the past is not preserved but is reconstructed on the basis of the present … Collective frameworks are … the instruments used by the collective memory to reconstruct an image of the past which is in accord, in each epoch, with the predominant thought of the society. (p. 40)

To supplement Halbwachs’ presentist approach, Barry Schwartz (1990, 1991) notes in his studies of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington that collective historical memory has both cumulative and presentist aspects. His studies draw attention to continuities in perceptions of the past amidst contemporary revisions motivated by the changing concerns of the present.

According to the presentist approach, certain historical events need to be remembered because they play crucial roles in the present context. Ross Poole (2008) states that

the role of memory is not simply to provide us with cognitive access to the past; it is also to provide a route by which responsibility for past events is transmitted to the present, and thus to identify a locus of present responsibility for these events. (p. 152)

By remembering and foregrounding past events, a community that shares a common memory can clarify where responsibility lies. If members of the community suffered horrifying and traumatic experiences in the past, they have the right to claim justice in the present. For the suffering community, memory projects often bring current grievances into public discourse to validate their ongoing political and social struggles. The potential of collective historical memory lies in its capacity to bring the members of a community together and to authorize their present endeavours. The shared past among the marginalized group can be used to justify the group’s aspirations for improved rights in relation to their politico-economic interests.

Communities that claim historical grievances in post-colonial Africa have been the subjects of research in projects of memory that attempt to understand the past as a source of present responsibilities. Multiple cases of political instability, economic collapse and social injustice in post-colonial Africa have given rise to historical grievances among the marginalized groups on the continent. Sharing painful memories provides them with the opportunity to address unfinished business.

One national task in South Africa’s post-apartheid transition was to heal the wounds of the minority government’s violent domination and to promote social cohesion through racial harmony. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was created to hear personal narratives of the apartheid era, attracted academic attention to the relationship between individual testimony, historical memory and responsibility. Numerous studies have suggested that the documentation of testimonials through the TRC is part of the process of shaping the collective historical memory of the troubled past, and its politics of memory is designed to identify the responsibility for human-rights violations, thus promoting reconciliation in the present (Christie, 2000; Coombes, 2003; Denis, 2003; Minkley and Rassool, 1998; Posel and Simpson, 2002). ² In addition to studies on the TRC, students of collective memory have examined present recollections of traumatic experiences during the apartheid era to illuminate the dynamics of publicly sanctioned memories in society (Field, 1999; Pohlandt-McCormick, 2000).

The practices of truth-telling in other African countries that experienced violent national conflicts have been explored in the framework of collective historical memory discourse. The truth-telling processes to overcome the aftermath of traumatic history in various parts of the continent functioned as forums to generate collective memories shared by the affected communities and to provide a means to locate responsibility. During the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone, the people of the country suffered displacement, rape, torture, amputation, abduction and massacre. The stories of brutality committed against them were narrated through the TRC in the post-war context, and the community’s remembrance of atrocity and its social impact have been discussed in memory studies (Kelsall, 2005; Millar, 2015; Shaw, 2005). The resonating memories of ethnic cleansing in 1994 overshadow the present in Rwanda. The relationship between the experience of violence, memory and the potential for reconciliation in post-genocide Rwandan society has been demonstrated in related studies (Brounéus, 2008; Buckley-Zistel, 2006; Ibreck, 2010). In addition, several studies have addressed African people’s collective remembering of the political turmoil in other Great Lakes countries, including Uganda and the DR Congo (Bisanswa, 2010; Dokotum, 2014; Schoenbrun, 1993).

The 2007/2008 post-election violence (PEV) triggered by a disputed election result in Kenya in which more than one thousand people were killed and thousands became internally displaced cut a wide gash through the history of the country. It intensified the ingrained ethnic tensions arising from historical grievances against political and economic marginalization and skewed the allocation of national resources, especially arable land. To address the political crisis and promote national unity, a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) was established (Lanegran, 2015; Musila, 2008). Although the TJRC was mainly concerned with addressing the causes and effects of the PEV, it also investigated historical injustices and gross violations of human rights that had occurred since the colonial era by collecting testimonies and holding public hearings throughout the country. ³ The TJRC report mentions massacres, political assassinations, unlawful detentions and large-scale corruption during the Moi era as well as extra-judicial killings of suspected members of outlawed militia groups such as the Mungiki and the Sabaot Land Defence Force by state security agents under the rule of President Kibaki, Moi’s successor (TJRC, 2013). In addition to the state-driven practice of hearing traumatic memories in Kenya, victims’ narratives of the PEV were reviewed by researchers who were interested in the social construction of collective memory (Gona and Wa-Mungai, 2013a, 2013b; Muhoma, 2012; Muhoma and Nyairo, 2011; Njogu, 2009). The narratives in these studies are considered ‘the people’s history as it exists in popular memory’, and they ‘provide an archive which could inform future action and inspire further investigation’ into the PEV (Njogu, 2009: 10).

Studies on collective historical memory in post-colonial Africa mainly consider the experiences of marginalized African communities whose lives have been disrupted by inhumane events. Some analyses note the selective and changeable nature of representations of the past either to claim specific interests and rights or for fear of consequences in the present context (Brounéus, 2008; Buckley-Zistel, 2006; Kelsall, 2005). The remembrance of past traumatic events has the ability to capture the present by creating awareness of social issues and interpreting contemporary reality. This study documents a group of Kenyan urbanites’ testimonies related to hardships under oppressive and unaccountable leadership as part of the process of making collective historical memory.

The past and present of Eastlands

Africa experienced rapid urbanization, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. In the early 1960s, most of Africa was predominantly rural, with less than one in eight people residing in a city. Today, however, more than 40% of Africa’s population lives in urban areas (Freund, 2007; Myers, 2011). The massive urban influx and explosive population growth made African cities dense and overcrowded. African governments have largely failed to manage urban congestion, and the abnormal urban development has adversely affected the livelihoods of city dwellers, especially the poor (Simone, 2005: 1–4). Most African cities can be characterized by the concentration of poverty, the paucity of municipal capacity and informality in terms of social and economic reproduction (Parnell and Pieterse, 2014: 9–10). Nairobi, especially the eastern side of the city, displays these distinctive features of urbanism in Africa.

Eastlands is a residential area in Nairobi located east of the city centre. Since its establishment during the colonial period, Eastlands has provided affordable housing for middle- to low-income urban workers. The creation of Nairobi as Kenya’s capital was a colonial project. ⁴ Because the British colonizers developed Nairobi as a ‘white city’, no legal residence was provided for Africans until the early twentieth century. Whereas Europeans mainly resided in the western highland of the city, Africans settled informally in the unoccupied eastern parts. By 1910, there were six African settlements in Eastlands, whose residents occupied the lowest rung of the colonial society’s racial and economic hierarchy (Ross, 1975: 18). As the influx of migrant Africans into the city steadily increased under colonial industrial development, African residential quarters began to appear in Eastlands after the First World War. There was a construction boom in Nairobi between 1942 and 1955 that was boosted by the proliferation of municipal housing developments across Eastlands (Anderson, 2001: 149). However, colonial Nairobi did not provide living conditions in which African families could enjoy a sustainable existence. Because it was common for adult African men to migrate alone to Nairobi for work, most African workers living in public or company housing considered the city a temporary home. ⁵ The permanent African population clustered in the newly built settlements in Eastlands were service-sector workers, including servants, prostitutes and householders, despite the British colonialists’ policy of maintaining the capital city for male African migrants (White, 1990: 1). At that time, however, the majority of Africans viewed Nairobi as a place to earn money during their economically active years, and they planned to return to the rural areas from which they originated in their old age. African urbanites rarely lost their connection to their countryside homes.

As Nairobi’s African population grew, Eastlands’ estates gradually became divisionalized according to their residents’ ethnic origin. The Gikuyu, who moved into Nairobi from surrounding districts and constituted the majority, mainly settled in Bahati and Kariokor, whereas the major ethnic group in Makongeni and Kaloleni was the Luo. During the State of Emergency caused by Mau Mau, Gikuyu, Embu and Meru residents in Ziwani and Kaloleni were forced to move to Bahati, Bondeni and Kariokor (Anderson, 2005: 193). In post-independence Nairobi, these estates have continued to be considered ethnically imbalanced.

During the colonial period, the policy of racial segregation skewed the city’s development. The colonial administration did not allocate sufficient funding in the budget to accommodate the emerging African urban working class, and housing shortages became a chronic problem in Nairobi. Furthermore, corruption in the municipal government, which was prevalent towards the end of the colonial period, ‘generated in Nairobi’s African citizens a deep scepticism about the capacity of government to effectively regulate the urban environment’ (Anderson, 2001: 154).

With the end of the colonial era in 1963, residential segregation was abolished, but the compartmentalization of the neighbourhoods in Nairobi remained. The residential areas, which were demarcated by racial groups in the colonial period, became fragmented according to social and economic status, and the city was re-segregated along class lines (Robertson, 1997: 18). Since independence, the African community has been characterized by increased mobility and social differentiation. Whereas Africans of higher status (based on wealth, education and occupational position) moved to western estates, Eastlands continued to be an affordable choice of residence for the urban working class. ‘The East-West divide’ in residential occupancy is a colonial legacy that has become rigid since independence as the income disparity among Africans has grown (Médard, 2010: 30–33). However, the lifestyle pattern of male-only immigration has steadily decreased in Nairobi. Around the time of independence, residential quarters intended to house families began to be constructed in Eastlands. Housing estates such as Ofafa, Jerusalem and Jericho recognized the importance of multi-room units for family life (Ross, 1975: 28). Whereas private houses were common in the western estates, housing in Eastlands was built by the government or by employers. The majority of houses in Eastlands were owned and maintained by the Nairobi City Council (NCC), and they were easily available to urban immigrants who could afford low rents in the 1960s.

The paternalistic housing policy in the early post-independence period began to disintegrate, as government-built and financed housing could not catch up with the city’s high rate of population growth. The government therefore changed its policy at the beginning of the 1970s to one of encouraging individual home ownership. In the eastern Nairobi, squatter communities formed cooperatives to purchase the land they informally occupied. Site and service schemes then appeared through which the city supplied basic services for housing sites such as roads, water and schools. These two land-distribution processes, combined with the original allottees’ financial difficulties and irregularities on the part of the public authorities, shaped landlordism in eastern estates such as Huruma and Dandora (Huchzermeyer, 2007: 717–719). Around this time, middle-income families who sought a secure living environment and could afford mortgage loans began to consider buying into government-implemented housing schemes. One of the first housing schemes in Eastlands was Buruburu estate, which was developed in five phases between the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Most of its initial occupants were better-paid urban immigrants, such as government officials and bank clerks. The houses, which were mainly two-storey maisonettes with three or four bedrooms, were ideal for single families.

As rapid population growth has intensified in Nairobi in recent decades, the residential area of Eastlands has continuously expanded towards the outskirts of the city. New estates, such as Umoja, Komarock, Kayole and Donholm, were developed as housing sites to accommodate the growing population. These estates were initially home ownership projects developed for the middle class, but they later became easy prey for large-scale private landlordism (Huchzermeyer, 2007: 725–728). Multi-storey tenements are densely packed into these areas. At the same time, the illegal construction of extensions became rampant in Eastlands’ existing public estates in the 1980s. Residents of Eastlands, including tenants of city council houses, built unlicensed structures in their compounds with the intent of earning rent from them. Due to these illegal activities, Eastlands became increasingly overcrowded, and the jumble of shabby kiosks and bars along the roads worsened the situation for its existing occupants. Within a few decades, the once well-organized, well-maintained neighbourhoods of Eastlands had deteriorated into slum-like environments. With population overcrowding under way, Nairobi’s economy stagnated and declined throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s (Freund, 1998; Kim et al., 2000). In the context of the increasing division of the income distribution, the poorer population of the city was severely influenced by the economic slump (Robertson, 1997: 147; Campbell, 2006: 129–130). When structural adjustment programmes were implemented by international financial institutions in the late 1980s and 1990s, the residents of Eastlands suffered from massive structural reforms as their real incomes decreased, and some of them lost their jobs through the privatization of public firms (Aseto and Okelo, 1997).

The dramatic growth of urbanization and the economic recession fostered municipal mismanagement of the infrastructure and basic services in Eastlands. Local authorities in Nairobi were overwhelmed by the difficulties of managing urban services such as the water supply, sanitation networks, garbage collection and public security. ⁶ During the Moi era, the NCC came under stricter central government control, and insufficient funding was allotted for the maintenance of infrastructure and services (Robertson, 1997: 146). For the past 30 years, broken tarmac road surfaces, heaps of uncollected domestic garbage, wagons carrying plastic water jars and walls with faded paint and graffiti have become characteristic features of the urban landscape in Eastlands. Moreover, the area is characterized by growing insecurity combined with rising urban unemployment and ineffective police services. Eastlands is not the ideal residential choice for middle-income families that it once was. Former residents of Eastlands who could afford newly developed housing sites in peripheral urban areas escaped the old neighbourhoods in search of more spacious, serene and wholesome environments.

Eastlands was once a symbol of change and hope for Kenyan urbanites, who were filled with anticipation in the wake of independence. Although this residential area was once marked by colonial racial discrimination, the newly independent government tried to make it a decent home for urban working families by providing public housing and implementing a series of home ownership projects. Kenyans who settled in vibrant and functioning estates in Eastlands had high expectations of prosperity and success under post-independence leadership. Before long, however, their hopes turned into disillusionment with the national elite as the living conditions in their neighbourhoods deteriorated with the economic crisis and municipal mismanagement. The filthy, messy urban landscape that currently surrounds the residents of Eastlands reminds them of historical grievances that arose from economic impoverishment and bad governance. It appears that their general discontent with their national leadership converges on the political figure who dominated the country during the area’s decline.

The Moi era in the memories of Eastlands residents

Moi, who had been the vice-president of Kenya, succeeded Kenyatta after the first president’s sudden death in 1978. Despite Kenyatta’s nationalist background, towards the end of his regime, the political realm became increasingly dominated by a small band of elites from the president’s ethnic group, the Gikuyu, which was the largest ethnic group in the country. Although Moi was loyal to Kenyatta, the vice-president, who came from the smaller Kalenjin community, was never accepted into Kenyatta’s inner circle (Lynch, 2008: 34–37). When he first became president, Kenyans who lived outside the central region that is home to the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru peoples and were tired of ethnicity-based inequality considered ‘Moi as a welcome change in the nation’s ethnoregional balance of power’ (Haugerud, 1993: 83). Partly because of his minority ethnic background, Moi continued to link political power with ethnic division and sought to develop the ruling party, the Kenya National African Union, as an essential support organization (Branch, 2011: 127, 195–198). He transformed Kenya into ‘a party-state in which the party is an adjunct of the executive or office of the president’ (Widner, 1992: 5).

Before and after his ascendancy to the presidency, Moi faced a series of challenges to his rule from political rivals. For instance, the Gikuyu elites formed the Change the Constitution Movement in 1976 to bar Moi from taking the presidency, and in 1982, there was an attempted coup d’état by rank-and-file members of the Kenya Air Force (Hornsby, 2012: 324–326, 376–379). Under these political circumstances, Moi sought to neutralize those he perceived as opponents and to centralize and personalize his power to secure his presidency. His regime’s style of patrimonial authoritarianism associated with ‘informalisation of the state and its systematic deployment for predatory activities’ was exercised without regard for human rights considerations (Ajulu, 2000: 133). Individual constitutional rights were suspended through outdated laws, such as the Chief’s Authority Act, the Public Order Act, the Preservation of Public Security Act and the Penal Codes, which were reminiscent of colonial subjugation. Detentions, political trials, torture, arbitrary arrests and police brutality became common during Moi’s tenure (Adar and Munyae, 2001: 6).

In the memories of older generations in Eastlands, the Moi era is often described as ‘a reign of terror’. As the state’s control over its people tightened to maintain the dictatorship, a social climate of fear was generated. According to the interviewees’ testimonies, not only political activists but also the local public were victimized by the repressive measures of the regime:

… it was the Moi administration that brought us to this mess in the city. It didn’t have a common manner. We had no voice. And even at night … those days the boys, maybe 20 to 30 years old, they were always being caught. They came from work, came from school, they were arrested. The arrest, arbitrary arrest. It was like a crime to be a young man. And then they chipped in some money, then they were to be left. You could not send your boy to a shop at seven, eight, or nine. They will be arrested. You have to chip in one thousand bob (Kenyan Shilling). The Moi era, eh! … You couldn’t see boys sitting together and talking. They were to be suspected they were talking about something that was against the government … There was a rule that for over six people gathering, you must get a permit. If you have a family of eight, it was a problem at that time. (Interview B/8, 18 Jan 2012, Maringo) ⁷

The oppressiveness of Moi’s authoritarian rule is depicted by arbitrary arrests and restriction on the freedom of assembly and association that were part of the everyday lives of Eastlands residents. The corrupt police who habitually intimidated local young people were regarded as pawns of the regime. Institutionalized police brutality caused mistrust of governmental authority to peak during the Moi era.

The abuse of power by the police force in the Moi regime is exemplified by the story of Gorofani, a residential estate situated in the middle of Gikomba, the largest second-hand clothes (mitumba) market in East Africa. The residents of Gorofani suffer all day long from the noise and fuss of hundreds of stalls that line the adjoining streets in a disorderly fashion. Although this informal marketplace was established in the colonial period, it maintained a reasonable distance from the residential area, and the houses in Gorofani were spacious and serene compounds until the 1980s. Unprecedented growth of the second-hand clothing trade resulted in Gikomba’s spontaneous and haphazard growth in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, Kenya was experiencing the worst economic downturn in its history, and the formal sector of the economy was unable to employ a sufficient portion of the labour force. As the Moi regime neglected and even encouraged the growth of the informal sector (jua kali), many jobseekers became street vendors and casual labourers in open-air markets such as Gikomba (King, 1996; Macharia, 1992: 229–230). The illegal sprawl in the market accelerated in the 1990s until it intruded into the residential compounds of Gorofani. In 1997, the second-hand clothing trade was legalized (Ndambuki and Robertson, 2000: 68), and the NCC started collecting fees from the stalls of Gikomba. This step can be considered a case of ‘state deviance to erode the institutional capacity of a corrupt city council to enforce its own by-laws’ (Katumanga, 2005: 511). Once it became clear that it was the NCC’s responsibility to manage the market, the tenants of Gorofani’s city council houses acted together to protect their compounds from the intrusion of the stalls. The NCC rejected the residents’ petition, taking coercive measures:

It was the Moi time. I remember one time we had a magistrate … We went and told him that we don’t want such structures being built … So, one time they were issuing letters. ‘If you really want to fight for the compound, just come over. You sign some papers. You chip in some small fees’. We go to the High Court. We go and take a lawyer, [saying] that we don’t want such structures being built. And we got some people who came to put some fences, so that the cars of these people (vendors) shouldn’t come in. You know. I am telling you. The following day the police came. Every man in all these houses was picked. They were laid down there. It was like the thing that would happen in Soweto, like in South Africa. We felt like they were to be shot. And the remaining women were just screaming like that. Then, we were told, ‘If you have any problem with houses, just walk out and leave the house. Because under all circumstances the City Council has decided they are going to build those structures’. So we had to … (Interview B/7, 18 Jan 2012, Gorofani)

Memories of the traumatic experience of that day have lingered in the face of bitter realities among the residents of Gorofani. The irritating hustle and bustle of hawking in their front yard constantly reminds them of the day their effort to defend their compound was foiled by a brutal police attack. This story of coercion provides a stark illustration of injustice in the Moi era and enables the residents to effectively address present hardships. The remembrance of inhumanity in Gorofani is related to the residents’ yearning to improve their present living conditions. Their bitter memories give salience to the fact that the estate has become cluttered under the undue pressure of the authorities.

As observed in the case of Gorofani, memories of the Moi era among the old-timers of Eastlands continue to provide fertile ground for negotiating the community’s relationship between the past and the present. Most of the interviewees I met in Eastlands were distressed by the slumization of their community. Those who had lived there for several decades could remember a time when the estates were functioning and well maintained. Having experienced the deterioration of their living environment, they blamed their hardships on the collapse of urban services:

Their service delivery is not good. It’s not as good as it used to be. They could be collecting garbage. They could be cleaning the areas regularly the way they used to. Previously, it was an everyday affair. By the time we were staying here, if, for example, a cat was running across the road, and a car ran over it in the morning, by ten o’clock that thing would be removed. I remember the trucks which used to come with an old man behind it with a dustbin, so he would come remove the dustbin, put it on the road and off they go with it … They don’t sweep the streets as often as they used to. They don’t repair the roads. These paths used to be tarmacked so regularly … Where did all those go? They would spray houses, so the issue of bed bugs and flies were not there. We never used to have mosquitoes. Any pool of water, they would spray it with something that will make sure there is nothing living in it. They would cut all the grass so there would be no breeding ground for mosquitoes. All those things went down the drain. (Interview A/16, 12 JUL 2011, Maringo)

Under the repressive Moi regime, local authorities in Kenya did not do their jobs effectively. Among the factors that adversely affected their performance were increasing central control and a poor and inflexible resource base (Bubba and Lamba, 1991: 41). Moi presided over and consolidated the ever-expanding executive power while strengthening the local administration, which was governed directly by the President’s Office (Balaton-Chrimes, 2015: 153). His personalized control through the executive branch ‘undermined the importance of institutions to governance, which weakened under the weight of rampant corruption and growing ineffectiveness’ (Schwenke, 2009: 34). Using his own system of patronage, Moi monopolized the distribution of limited ‘state resources from the centre to certain key allies’ (Branch, 2011: 173). Poor delivery of urban services over two decades transformed the landscape of Eastlands into a place of potholes, illegal structures and garbage heaps. The split between memories of regular maintenance and the present dilapidated urban landscape aroused resentment among the old-timers caused by the years of neglect and the decline of the city. Their bitterness has led to regret over the leadership responsible for the regression:

It was very neat and clean. Nowadays, it’s terrible. It started in the 1980s. Partly, it has to do with the change of the government, and even the kind of politics and the policies also which our leaders were making affected us. Things took a drastic change in 1982 after the coup. It was like, everybody for himself. People who were given responsibility, like the local authority … There was nobody to monitor and see how they were running their ministries. So anybody could come and do their own things. We found those who were employed to do maybe things like painting and cleaning up the streets. Somebody could just go there and talk to their bosses and say, ‘OK, I’ve reported to work but allow me to attend to this and that problem that I have’. So that problem continues, and it became a habit. You just go to talk to your boss. You tell your boss that ‘Tomorrow I am not going to be available’. So the area you are supposed to work on is becoming more and more … You know. It just went on like that. That habit took a long time, such that these services were now not attended to. (Interview A/15, 12 JUL 2011, Maringo)

The military coup attempt of 1982, which cost an estimated 600 to 1800 lives in the course of its bloody suppression (Adar and Munyae, 2001: 4), is presented in this testimony as an incident that solidified Moi’s authoritarian rule and signalled the downturn of the country’s administrative ability. The president used the process of ending the coup as an opportunity to marginalize his political dissenters (Branch, 2011: 158). Memories of the failed coup and the subsequent political turmoil remain vivid in the interviewees’ minds because they experienced harsh social changes. With reference to the inadequate provision of urban services that negatively affected the urban poor in Eastlands, a number of the interviewees noted that a lack of discipline among civil servants was prevalent in the Moi era. They felt that people became more self-centred under his leadership and that individuals became hard-hearted during that period of hardship. Increasing corruption and crime in hostile economic conditions were also mentioned as social ills that spoiled the living environment in Eastlands. While the ruling elite prioritized its survival to the detriment of the state, the rampant illegalities at the public and individual levels made the country ‘drift into collective social deviance’ (Katumanga, 2005: 508):

Kutokea uongozi wa rais Moi, watu walipata shida sana hata wakaacha sheria kando kidogo wafanye vile wanafikiria kwa sababu wako na shida tu sana. Hakukuwa na sheria. Sheria iliwekwa kando. Vitu viliharibika na havitengenezwi. Kila mtu anajitetea mwenyewe … Kenya iliharibika tu kuanzia uongozi wa Moi … Watu wana shida. Vijana mpaka wanakasirika, wanaingia kwa manyumba ya watu na wanaenda kubomoa ndiyo wapate pesa yao. Mtoto anatoka shule. Haendi mahali. Anakaa tu nyumbani na amesoma. Na yeye anataka pesa. Anaenda kutangatanga bure tu. Akipata kitu ya mtu, anachukua … Moi akasema, ‘Shauri yenu. Endeni mkaishi’. Wizi kabisa wengi ulifanyika wakati wa Moi. (Interview B/5, 17 January 2012, Uhuru)

From the leadership of president Moi, people had many problems, until they even put aside laws for a while and did as they pleased because they had so many problems. There were no laws. Laws were ignored. Things were destroyed and not repaired. Everyone only cared for themselves … Kenya was spoilt by Moi’s leadership … People have problems. Even the youth get angry, break into people’s houses and destroy them for their money. When a child leaves school, he goes nowhere and stays at home, although he is learned and qualified. And he wants money. He then wastes time roving around. When he sees someone’s property, he takes it … Moi said, ‘It’s your own problem. Go and address it’. Many thefts occurred during the Moi era. ⁸

Several interviewees ascribed the rampant urban insecurity in Eastlands to rising youth unemployment during the Moi era. Crime levels in Nairobi have discernibly risen since the 1980s, ‘a period of rapid growth in the urban population, combined with acute housing shortages, declining economic prosperity, rising urban unemployment and the collapse of many institutions of municipal government’ (Anderson, 2002: 542–543). In addition to the job crunch caused by the economic slowdown, massive layoffs in the public sector, in accordance with the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s, took a heavy toll on the urban working class in Eastlands. The interviewees lambasted the Moi regime for its inability to solve the unemployment problem.

Intensified urban insecurity and youth unemployment together with public authorities’ inability to effectively address those concerns led to the proliferation of organized private violence in Eastlands. Illegal forces, for example, the Mungiki and the Taliban, which were variously classified as ethnic militias, vigilante corps or urban gangs, gradually seized control of services such as managing transport, levying unauthorized taxes and extorting protection money during the Moi era (Anderson, 2002; Kagwanja, 2003; Katumanga, 2005; LeBas, 2013; Oloo, 2010). The areas in which the influx of young migrants was more active, such as Dandora, Kayole, Mathare and Kariobangi, ‘provided both a client base and a recruitment pool’ for the emerging local armed groups (LeBas, 2013: 247). These criminal organizations were often hired and mobilized by politicians from the ruling and the opposition parties alike to intimidate their rivals’ supporters (Anderson, 2002: 547–553; Mueller, 2008: 193–194).

The Moi era has remained a painful memory in the minds of the older generations in Eastlands; it continues to affect them and shape their social and political relations. In particular, memories of authoritarian rule become reignited during periods of heightened political instability. The months leading up to the general election of 2002, which resulted in a change of government, were a period of political ferment in Kenya. While new alliances were emerging among prominent political figures, demonstrations calling for a change of regime were frequently held in the streets of Nairobi. The protesters marched along, invariably shouting, ‘Mambo yote yawezekana bila Moi!’ (All things are possible without Moi). Although Moi was not a candidate in the presidential election, the dominant political sentiment shaped by the public mood was to drive out the leadership associated with him. The presidential nominee of the then-ruling party, the Kenya African National Union, who had been chosen by the incumbent president, lost the election to a candidate approved by an alliance of opposition parties, the National Rainbow Coalition. Negative public attitudes towards the Moi regime were directly reflected in the election results. Across the country, the Kenyan people held wild celebrations to mark the end of the Moi era after the Electoral Commission of Kenya officially announced the election results.

Despite the end of Moi’s rule, memories of the suffering that the marginalized old-timers believe were caused by his leadership are still discussed in Eastlands. The experiences of hardship during Moi’s tenure must be told. In the social act of telling, their narratives become part of the urbanites’ collective voice and public history. By sharing stories of human rights violations, inefficient administration, rising corruption and growing insecurity during the Moi era among themselves and with younger generations who did not experience those times, the residents of Eastlands evolve into a community that has a common understanding of the troubled past. The role of bitter memories resides in their capacity to give meaning to current collective efforts to improve people’s lives through accountable governance. Most of the interviewees regret that their quality of life has not been restored even after the change of government. The damage done during the Moi era is still felt in their everyday lives, and they deplore the fact that better leadership that could address their grievances has yet to be realized:

Uchumi imekuwa mbaya sana. Na hata hiyo uchumi ilianzia kwa Moi, imekuja mpaka Kibaki. Sasa imekuwa ‘worse’ … Uchumi imekuwa mbaya sana, na hatuna uwezo wa kubadilisha … Siasa tena ndiyo imefanya uchumi kuwa mbaya. Siasa ndiyo ilianza. Mtu anaongea vile anataka, na anafanya vile anataka. Ikaenda mpaka kwa watu wa biashara. Mtu wa biashara anauza vitu vyake vile anataka. Hakuna ‘price control’ … Hivyo ndivyo sisi tunakaa. Hakuna msaidizi. Hatuna mtu wa kusema maneno yetu ifanyike. (Interview B/5, 17 January 2012 Uhuru)

The economy has turned so bad. And this [bad] economy all began with Moi until it was passed to Kibaki (the president after Moi). It has become worse … The economy has become so bad, and we do not have the ability to change it … Politics has also made the economy bad. Actually, politics was the starting point. A person talks about what he wants and acts the way he wants. This trend has continued until it has reached business people. A business man sells his things however he wants. There is no price control … This is how we live. There is no help. We do not have anybody who speaks for us to fulfil our needs.

In the testimonies collected, the consequences of Moi’s leadership are interpreted by the community (at least the members who have memories of his reign) as a communal loss. They keep the memory of failed leadership alive to provide a discursive arena in which to assign responsibility for their current marginalized status. The harsh living conditions in Eastlands are repeatedly cited as validating the residents’ historical grievances that arise out of the economic impoverishment caused by the political elite’s incompetence and greed.

Even more than 10 years after the end of the Moi era, the entrenchment of corruption and the marginalization of the urban poor persist in Kenya (Bigsten et al., 2016; Hope, 2014; Obala and Mattingly, 2014; Parks, 2013). The country’s leaders have failed to address issues relating to the rule of law, corruption, government effectiveness and improving the quality of life for Kenya’s poverty-stricken citizens. A devolved form of government, which was introduced in the 2010 constitution and implemented after the election in 2013, was expected to solve the harmful effects of bad governance that resulted from centralized and personalized power, but the constitutional reform did not bring about the ‘dismantling of the neopatrimonial structure of the state’ and subsequent changes in the culture of corruption (D’arcy and Cornell, 2016: 272). Under the current regime, there have been constant reports of unaccountability and corruption, such as the Eurobond and NYC scandals, which involved a few rogue officials at the top (Leftie, 2015; Wafula, 2016).

The collective memory of the Moi era appears to be a political discourse that is central to the community’s contemporary perception of its arduous realities. By bringing such shared experiences into the foreground of public discourse, the community’s collective longing for reliable governance is articulated as a precondition for facing the future. If these residents are to chart a new future with enhanced democracy and accountable leadership, it is imperative that the narratives of suffering and grievance under bad governance find their place in the assembly of remembrance. The poignant memorialization of the legacy of the Moi era acts as a constant reminder of the unfulfilled needs for the frustrated Kenyan urban working class in Eastlands.

Conclusion

Halbwachs (1992) argues that ‘our conceptions of the past are affected by the mental images we employ to solve present problems, so that collective memory is essentially a reconstruction of the past in the light of the present’ (p. 34). The selective perception of history among a group of people relates to the group’s efforts to make sense of the present situation. Through common memories shared by the group’s members, they acknowledge their collective understanding of the past, which underlies the group’s attempts to address its current concerns. Narratives of poor governance in contemporary public discussions of marginalized groups in Africa are reconstructed to demonstrate the injustice of post-independence leadership and to strengthen demands for political and economic rights. Therefore, an analysis of people’s representations of their memories of failed leadership facilitates comprehension of their general grievances and their current political and social struggles.

Eastlands has served as the focal point for emerging urban identities in Kenya. Established as an African quarter in the colonial period, this area became a residential heartland for the urban working class in Nairobi. During the anti-colonial movement and the early post-independence period, nationalist sentiment was promoted among the urbanized migrants in Eastlands, who solidified their socio-economic and political bonds by claiming a legitimate role in the newly independent nation. After a hopeful period in the initial decades of independence, negative developments, such as economic recession, the rise of authoritarian rule, increased corruption and the deterioration of living conditions, led the residents of Eastlands to begin to articulate their disenchantment with the political elite. The urban nationalist sensibility has been overshadowed by criticisms of the excesses and unaccountability of the regime. The slumization of Eastlands, with an overflowing population, rising urban unemployment, increasing insecurity and the collapse of civil services, continued throughout the Moi era. A place once inhabited by urban immigrants who were full of expectations for the prosperity promised by the newly independent state has become a symbol of socio-economic backwardness caused by bad governance. Under these circumstances, public remembrance of the Moi regime’s discursive and coercive controls is a social practice that brings the community’s pressing concerns to life and reinforces unity among its members through not only the sharing of common experiences but also a communal sense of their meaning and relevance.

By telling and sharing stories about the injustices and negligence of Moi’s leadership, the old-timers of Eastlands, who represent the urban poor, can assert their rightful place in the post-independence nation in response to enduring and popular frustrations with their socio-economic marginalization under atrocious governance. In the context of increasing inequality and impoverishment, remembering the Moi era is a means for them to cultivate a shared understanding of the past and to construct political legitimacy for better leadership.