The muted return of Baba Yao and the enduring lesson of politics and accountability

My heart goes out to Ferdinand Waititu aka Baba Yao, the rambunctious former Kiambu Governor who has been in the cooler for corruption, for a couple of months. The actual jail term is 12 years, and Baba Yao could head back in if his appeal is not successful.

Without a doubt, this is a remarkable crash for a man whose raucous character endeared himself to many, hence the moniker of Baba Yao, meaning the patriarch. The anti-graft agency, EACC, on the other hand, told the court that Baba Yao was the godfather of corruption, and delivered tomes of evidence to show how the politician orchestrated scams to reward himself, his family and his cronies.

From those proceeds of crime, Baba Yao reportedly acquired assets that have since been frozen by the State. But that’s not the most interesting part of Baba Yao’s resounding fall. None of the chaps that he regarded as “friends” picked his calls—I didn’t know calls are permissible from the prison—while the “friends” who visited Baba Yao in prison, he reported, went there to try solicit cash from him to help “negotiate” his freedom.

I get the logic at play, dawa ya moto to moto, meaning that you fight fire with fire. So, if the man was faced with corruption charges, the best way out was to use corrupt means to secure his release. The trouble is that there was no guarantee that this method would work, or that the funds would be returned if the move failed.

In any case, Baba Yao’s smelt a rat and sought his freedom using the formal route, assuring the court that he’d secure a bank guarantee of Sh53 million as bail.

This proved a gargantuan task and Baba Yao sat in prison for months attending Christian services and praying and waiting for help from above. It is no exaggeration to impute things will never be the same again for Baba Yao.

By the same token, I believe some good has come out of his short incarceration—it could be longer. His case is a fitting reminder that all Kenyans are equal before the law. All too often, politicians forget that.