logo
ADVERTISEMENT

Auma: Teacher, thespian with passion for activism still going strong 18 years later

Says in his 18 years as an activist, he has been threatened and forced to flee the country for safety.

image
by BY BRIAN OTIENO @Yobramos4

Coast03 May 2024 - 09:16
ADVERTISEMENT

In Summary


  • He and other fellow activists have been labelled terrorist sympathisers and had their (Muhuri and Haki Africa) accounts frozen for almost a year.
  • It was one of the most difficult moments of his life because they had to go without pay for a year.
Muhuri rapid response officer Francis Auma.

There are only about 10 true human rights activists in Kenya, he says.

It takes heart, sweat and blood to be one.

After 18 years in the service, 48-year-old Francis Auma says it is not for the faint-hearted.

He has been threatened and forced to flee the country.

Several times he has contemplated quitting. But the bug keeps calling him back.

“I can say it is inborn. The journey started way back when I was a little child,” he says, his face a strange mixture of sadness and satisfaction.

“My father was hacked by thugs as he was coming home from work one night in Makupa, Mombasa,” he recalls.

It was in 1986, while he was just a child, but he made sure to always inquire about the status of the case, which was reported at Makupa police station.

The attack left his father with complications to which he succumbed in 1989, while he was only in Class 4. 

His death left him a bitter man. No one was arrested for the attack and he held the police partly responsible for his death.

“I was not very conversant with the law because I was young but I knew the police had to do something. I kept on bothering the officers stationed there wanting to know why no one was arrested for the attack and eventual death of my father,” Auma, popularly known as Gamba, said.

“I wanted to know who killed my dad because I felt for my mum. After dad’s death, we went to live in Likoni and had to be moved from one school to another including Makupa, Serani and Changamwe primary schools.” 

All the while, he kept asking himself who killed his dad and why.

Unknowingly, the activism seed had been planted in him and he was naturally attracted to actions of other veteran rights defenders, including Khelef Khalifa, Maina Kiai, Willy Mutunga and Munir Mazrui, among others.

“It inspired me. Activism is a call. It is not easy work, something one just decides they want to become. It is not an 8-5 job. You find yourself always in confrontation with authorities wanting to know why justice has not been served,” Gamba says.

He says he has had to wake up at 2am to respond to calls from strangers in distress.

“You have to have a good grasp of the law and be fearless. You will be intimidated, arrested, beaten up, set up and have other despicable things done to you because more often than not, you will be stepping on people’s toes."

He has been involved in more than 200 major demonstrations throughout his activism journey, one that has seen him organise such demonstrations both within the country and internationally.

“I have organised and led a demonstration even in the UK, something few can do,” he says.

There is no specific school where one will be taught how to be an activist, he says.

It all depends on one’s aggressiveness in wanting to know and this leads one to always be updated on current affairs, both locally and internationally.

His daily work is not without risks.

“During the Mpigs demonstration in Nairobi, I had to enter the kitchen of a restaurant and take off all my clothes because the police had identified and singled me out,” he recalls.

Luckily, a friend he was with in the demonstration, who had followed him as he was escaping the police batons and possible bullets, knew the owner of the restaurant.

“The restaurant staff wanted to kick us out because they felt we were risking their lives and endangering the restaurant’s property.

“But the friend made frantic calls and the owner made a call to the restaurant’s management and made arrangements to have clothes brought to us. The ones we had on were drenched in animal blood which we heard taken from a slaughter house in Nairobi. We were stinking,” Auma says.

But why is he always the most vocal one in demonstrations?

His act has been complimented by his acting skills, which he developed and sharpened after high school.

“After Form 4, we formed the Kizingo Arts Troupe, a group of thespians who performed skits and plays in schools across the country together with my late friend who became a brother, James Osoo,” Auma says. 

His acting skills exposed him to the world and helped him develop public speaking skills and knowledge of the Swahili language.

Today, most of his speeches are laced with humour, capturing the attention of the audience, thus getting his messages across easily.

However, few know that Auma is a trained teacher and communication expert trained in mass communication, majoring in the BBC model of radio communication.

“Not many people know this but I have been a teacher who has taught in primary school in Meru for six years. I taught social studies and arts in general,” he says.

After six years at Meru Junior School, he resigned and was employed by Global Fund, an NGO that dealt with advocacy through arts.

They were articulating issues of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis across the Coast region.

He then joined other thespians at Little Theatre where he met other activists in Nolly, before taking a break to study mass communication.

After graduation, he got a job at Muslims for Human Rights and was deployed as a paralegal officer stationed at Kilifi prison in Bofa, where he spent another six years.

“After the stint I got a promotion and was taken to England to study activism and law,” Auma says.

His activism journey has seen him help author a book titled “We’re Tired of Taking You to Court: Human Rights Abuses by Kenya's Anti-Terrorism Police Unit”.

He is now specialised in cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, a matter that has seen him cross lines with Kenya’s Anti-Terror Police Unit officers.

“It is an off-again-on-again kind of relationship because we differ and agree most of the times. They hate it when I am on their case but again they appreciate me for surrendering some of their targets to them,” Auma says.

He says the Coast region is one of the worst when it comes to extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances.

“I have been forced to visit different morgues across the country looking for missing persons and sometimes the images of corpses in morgues stick for a long time. You can’t sleep at times and nightmares are the order of the day,” the activist says.

He has watched post-mortems being conducted.

“That is not for the faint-hearted. You watch as a human corpse is dissected and intestines removed only to look for a bullet, which you must be alert to because that is when sometimes games are being played and cases compromised,” he says.

Challenges have been immense during his journey.

He and other fellow activists have been labelled terrorist sympathisers and had their (Muhuri and Haki Africa) accounts frozen for almost a year.

It was one of the most difficult moments of his life because they had to go without pay for a year.

“That is when friction with my family escalated. I could not provide even the basic needs for my family after six months because I had depleted my savings,” he says.

That is when his family were on his neck, trying to get him to quit.

“I was under a lot of pressure. I contemplated quitting, but my conscience could not let me. I felt if I quit I would have let down many people whose rights have been and would be trampled on,” he says.

At one time, at the height of radical extremism in Mombasa, leaflets were spread across the streets calling for his head.

“It was terrifying. The chilling words on the leaflets are still with me to date. ‘We want Francis Auma. His head is our right’. My family was terrified and demanded that I quit." 

He was convicted alongside four other colleagues and a tout, for demonstrating against the theft of Covid-19 funds, and was sentenced to six months’ probation.

But he says it is the price he has to pay for standing for justice.

“Real activists, those true to the course, are very few in the country. We are less than 15, just about 10, I can say,” Auma says. 

Most of the upcoming activists, he says, are mostly keyboard warriors and will flinch at the first roar of police boots and bullets.

“My fear is our mentors, the Khelef Khalifas, Willy Mutungas and Maina Kiais are fading into the horizon and I see no upcoming ones that will take up their places to mentor the next generation.”

He says today, there is little or no coordination among activists. All want to do their own work and mostly for the pay.

“There will be a gap which will be hard to fill. These mentors are aging and there is need for a new breed to come up. When you see us out there, we always have consulted them for one or two tips,” the activist says. 

He says once fear sets in, activism dies and impunity reigns.

“The biggest human rights abusers are always people in government or have connections in government."

“I am lucky I have travelled the world because of my work. I have done lectures in the US, UK, The Gambia, Ghana, and many other countries both in Europe and Africa,” Auma says. 

But with all his challenges, the battled-hardened activist is a humorous family man, and his wife and three children are what keeps him going.


ADVERTISEMENT

logo© The Star 2024. All rights reserved