Charles Mugane Njonjo, the Senior Chief Josiah Njonjo’s son, was born on January 23, 1920, in Kabete, Kiambu, into a household consisting of four brothers and four sisters. There are three sisters still living.
The former Attorney-General rejects the accusations made against him by those who see Njonjo as the man who hates all things African and has a colonial hangover.
He narrates, “I enjoyed spending evenings at our grandmother’s hut with our cousins and listening to her folk stories.” I occasionally even stayed the night in her smoky shack, which had a goat-strong odor. She lavished us with what we considered to be the best cuisine. We relished the independence that a grandma may grant us in her position. She had a particular place in her heart for me. I was called after her husband (my maternal grandpa) since I was my father’s eldest son, and she frequently referred to me as such.
Njonjo’s lack of playmates among the village boys was partly due to the fact that he was the son of a chief from the colonial era. However, his numerous cousins more than made up for it. Njonjo began attending Gwa Giteru, the home of the large bearded man, in Lower Kabete. It got its name from its connection to the bearded pastor of the neighboring Protestant church, now known as the ACK Mother Church, Kabete, Canon Leakey.
Richard Leakey’s grandfather, Canon Leakey, got his nickname because it was uncommon to see men in the church, especially white males, with thick beards in those days, according to Njonjo. Njonjo attended Alliance High School with Jeremiah Nyagah, a future Cabinet colleague. Alliance was an eye opener, but it was also quite difficult for a youngster accustomed to the luxuries of a colonial chief’s house. “We used cold water to shower, and the students didn’t wear shoes.” I had my first taste of ugali here,” he recollects.
Merely consuming meat twice a week was insufficient for the son of a leader. He hated the chilly months of June and July when the guys would go to the parade ground every morning and stand on the wet grass in their bare feet. “I guess those with jiggers on their feet suffered even more, but I don’t know how we survived with just khaki shirts and shorts,” he remarks. Furthermore, Njonjo was a real royal. He took a horse to school and back. “My father had a horse, and he would send a servant to bring it to Alliance early in the morning on weekends when we had off,” the speaker clarifies. In the evening, I would take it home and return to school.
Over the weekend, Njonjo returned home to spend time with his parents, eat an abundance of “kuku” (chicken) and chapati, and then take some with him to school. He would occasionally bring a bunch of lads to his Kibichiku house so they could have his mother’s homemade delicacy.
He enrolled in King’s College, Budo, Uganda, in 1939 to complete a two-year pre-university program. Frederick Mutesa, who went on to become the Kabaka (King) of Baganda, was a classmate of his. His father wanted him to continue his education in the UK after Budo. However, this was not achievable. Rather, he enrolled in South Africa’s Fort Hare University.
In addition to sociology, administration, and “some South African criminal law” classes, he studied Latin, which he claims benefited him later on in his legal studies. Because of apartheid, Njonjo claims that life in South Africa was “terrible”: “I would travel from Durban to Fort Hare and there would be only one uncomfortable compartment for natives (blacks) in the entire train.”
We were not permitted to enter the dining car, so we even brought our own food. One had to round the train station in order to enter or leave, as it was forbidden for white people to cross their route.
Despite the fact that black South Africans were prohibited from entering some areas during the apartheid era, Fort Hare was a black college, and Cape Town was more liberal than other regions of the nation. For three years, the man who would eventually become Kenya’s AG worked in Fort Hare. Before enrolling in a postgraduate public management program at Exeter University in England, he spent a month returning to Kenya.
“This was a month of celebrations,” he remarks. Numerous guests came to our house for multiple occasions where they were presented to the degree bearer. He continues by saying that graduates were uncommon back then.
Njonjo attended the London School of Economics from 1950 till he finished his studies at Exeter in 1947. He spent four years studying law at Gray’s Inn before being admitted to the bar. According to Njonjo, he had to undertake menial labor, such as dishwashing, to pay for education since “my father could not afford my college fees,” which is why he spent a lot of time in the UK. However, living in the UK was far better than living in South Africa: “We moved and mingled freely and we even had (white) girlfriends,” a possibility that was illegal in colonial Kenya. “Except for accommodation because some people did not want to house people of color,” the author writes.
A subsequent Njonjo colleague in the Kenyatta administration said that in the 1950s, a photo of the bearded Njonjo holding a white girl was taken and appeared on the main page of the East African Standard, a daily published at the time by white settlers. “The beard enraged his father more than the white girlfriend did when he saw the picture. He begged his pals back home in the UK to get his kid to shave his beard. However, Njonjo was so obstinate that he maintained the beard for an additional half-year, according to the former minister.
Njonjo’s lengthy stay in the UK is responsible for the British manner and way of life that have been linked to him throughout the years, including his love of dogs and other pets, bowler hats, and black striped suits finished with gold chain watches. Njonjo would subsequently be known as Sir Charles, the Duke of Kabeteshire, as a result of his inclinations.
Upon his return from Britain in 1954, he was employed by the colonial administration in the Coast region as a High Court registrar. After that, he received a promotion to Registrar-General and was appointed Senior Crown Counsel in the Attorney-General’s office. He was elevated to the influential post of Deputy Public Prosecutor one year prior to independence, putting him just a stone’s throw away from Attorney-General. “I was appointed Attorney-General when Mzee (Jomo Kenyatta) became Prime Minister, and I became an ex-officio Member of Parliament and the Cabinet when Kenya became a Republic in 1964,” he clarifies.
Njonjo was an extremely prominent guy both inside and outside the government. He had President Kenyatta’s ear, frequently traveled in the state car, and was frequently consulted. Njonjo was so close to Kenyatta that it is said that, following Joseph Murumbi’s resignation, he recommended Moi to take over as Kenya’s third vice president. Kenyatta accepted the recommendation. “One day, after Murumbi had resigned as vice president, Mzee pondered aloud aloud who he would pick to succeed Murumbi as we rode in the presidential limousine from some town in the Rift Valley. Then I was questioned, “Whom do you have?” by Kenyatta. In response, I said, “How about moi?” Njonjo remembers. He claimed that Kenyatta nominated Moi as vice president the next day because he was so happy with this.
As Attorney General, Njonjo oversaw criminal investigations, law formulation, and civil and public prosecutions. Changing discriminatory colonial regulations was the greatest obstacle at first, particularly those that prohibited Africans from owning land in specific regions and from attending the same clinics and schools as Europeans.
Many constitutional modifications were made in Parliament during his term, establishing the position now known as the imperial president. Njonjo encountered strong resistance in Parliament when he attempted to push through the changes and carry out the difficult decisions made by the government. These included the seven young Members of Parliament that he dubbed the “Seven Bearded Sisters,” which are Koigi wa Wamwere, Mwashengu wa Mwachofi, James Orengo (currently the Lands Minister), Chelagat Mutai, Abuya Abuya (who later joined the Electoral Commission), Onyango Midika, and Lawrence Sifuna.
Njonjo describes his interactions with the gang as follows: “We had folks that felt they could get away with anything, and sometimes it was funny to watch. But I took them on directly. For instance, I made light of a group of seven radicals who were also exceptionally intelligent young guys by calling them the “Seven Bearded Sisters.” They were smart, but I could not let them bully everyone else about with their knowledge.
One day, the former Attorney General, who claims that his authority came from a strong presidency, may hurry a constitutional revision through Parliament, enabling Kenyatta to pardon Paul Ngei, who was legally disqualified from running in a by-election after committing an electoral offense. Despite the requests of other MPs to the President, Njonjo continues to obstinately support their prosecution.
This was the case when his office investigated and prosecuted Jesse Gachago and Muhuri Muchiri for smuggling coffee from Uganda in the 1970s. He explains: “They were involved in smuggling coffee from Uganda at the height of the magendo (black market) coffee trade. Despite their pleas to Mzee, I maintained that they had to face the full force of the law. We could not afford to have a selective system of justice and I set an example by putting the two behind bars.”
To those who followed the law, Njonjo was an armour of protection, but those who broke it trembled at the very mention of his name. He, therefore, did not have many friends among politicians, apart from Moi, Assistant Minister G.G. Kariuki and Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki (with whom he differed during the Moi presidency). However, he worked closely with top civil servants Geoffrey Kareithi and Jeremiah Kiereini and spy chief James Kanyotu, who was also his business partner.
Njonjo is adamant that he followed the constitutional route regarding the Kenyatta succession. The Vice-President was required by the Constitution to assume office for ninety days prior to new elections. Some individuals tried to sabotage this by refusing to make Mzee’s passing public. However, I refused, and as soon as the body was transported from Mombasa to Nairobi, we made the announcement of the death and Moi was named interim president,” he says.
Njonjo claims that the killings of J.M. Kariuki in 1975 and Mboya in 1969 traumatized him. However, he laments the involvement of politicians in the inquiries. “I told them to let the CID, that was under my docket, investigate, but they insisted on leading the investigations,” Njonjo said of the Parliamentary Committee Elijah Mwangale led to look into JM’s murder. Could you picture these individuals questioning me, the Vice-President, and myself back when I was Attorney General and the CID was under my jurisdiction? We would have learned the truth about this situation if the CID had been given the freedom to carry out appropriate investigations.
At the age of fifty-two, Njonjo tied the knot on November 20, 1972. He claims that he was “married to his work” and that’s why he married late. He says, “I enjoyed my job as Kenya’s Attorney General, put in long hours that would have discouraged a spouse, and for a long time, I did not consider getting married. I considered my interests, which I truly loved outside of work, to be sufficient.
However, his parents did not give up. President Kenyatta was constantly curious about the duration of a bachelor’s advice to him. Wairimu, Njonjo’s mother, also desired grandkids. The former Attorney General is a staunch, if contentious, member of the Anglican Church of Kenya, and it was the church that eventually granted him a spouse. He saw a girl in the choir at church services at Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral early in the 1970s. She and he occasionally shared a pew. “I would think to myself, ‘Now, that there is a nice girl,’ as I looked at her.”
In 1976, a group of politicians from Central, Rift Valley and Eastern provinces began what came to be called the Change-the-Constitution crusade intended to ensure that Moi did not take over as acting President for 90 days should Kenyatta die. But Njonjo took a firm pro-constitution and pro-Moi position. An ally of Moi, he rejected the group’s proposals and actually accused them of “imagining the death of the President”, which he said was treasonable. “You do not change the Constitution by the roadside. I told the group to stop imagining the death of the President and instead take an amendment to Parliament if they had a genuine cause instead of playing the tribal card,” Njonjo recalls his message to the likes of Njenga Karume, Kihika Kimani, Paul Ngei and Jackson Angaine.
He went to the President and informed him that the group was talking about him as if he had passed away after they disregarded his warning. Kenyatta ended the discussion by calling a meeting. Subsequently, Njonjo issued a succinct statement cautioning that discussing or even speculating on the President’s demise would be illegal.
