'Tawala Kenya to Fimbo ya Nyayo': Songs that marked Moi's era

The importance of music goes beyond entertainment and cultural enhancement.

This is a truism that Kenya’s second president, Daniel arap Moi was  conscious of, even before he ascended to the presidency.

He had watched the founding father, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, weave a cult-like following through song and dance both at his Gatundu home and State Houses in Nairobi, Nakuru and Mombasa, where cultural troupes competed for his attention on a weekly basis.

Moi followed Mzee’s Nyayo and perfected the art of exploiting music as a tool of rallying the nation around him.

He crafted the Nyayo philosophy of peace, love and unity around which praise songs were composed and performed.

The music masters and composers of his praise songs were well rewarded to ensure the endurance of his hegemony.

There was also payback to make sure that the Kenyan masses had an outpouring of the Filosofia ya Nyayo from State broadcaster Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, then known as Voice of Kenya.

Moi knew that songs are media messages with wide reach.

Organisations and institutions like the Permanent Presidential Music Commission and the Kenya Music and Cultural Festival worked with clockwork precision so there was no scarcity of patriotic and praise songs.

Then there were gifted individuals like university don Arthur Kemoli, Boniface Mghanga of Muungano National Choir, Darius Mbela of St Stephen’s Choir, David Okuku Salo, Peter Akwabi and the indefatigable Thomas Wasonga.

All these people came up with memorable and sing along songs like Fimbo ya Nyayo, Maziwa ya Nyayo, Enzi Zao, Fuata Nyayo, Tushangilie Kenya and Tawala Kenya Tawala.

These songs ensured that Moi’s presence was felt in every public activity across the country.

To politicians of all shades especially in the 1980s and 1990s, Moi was revered and addressed as Baba Moi.

They awed their audiences in harambees, funerals, weddings and Kanu meetings with greetings from Baba Moi.

The man who some central Kenya politicians had dismissed as a passing cloud when he succeeded Jomo Kenyatta was omnipresent with his fimbo and prominent Kanu cockerel coat lapels.

He was watched on KBC television station and heard on KBC radio on a daily basis preaching, advising and admonishing dissidents beholden to “foreign masters”.

These media stations had signature tunes that belted out Moi and Nyayo beats.

Songs like Naipenda Kenya – Hiyo ndio Filosofia ya Nyayo were even played at military parades.

Wasonga’s composition Tawala Kenya tawala was classic. So was Kemoli’s Fimbo ya Nyayo.

These and many such songs extolled Moism and the virtues of a benign ruler and his achievements.

Anybody with a different perspective was viewed as unpatriotic and a candidate for disciplinary action from the dreaded Kanu disciplinary committee then headed by the likes of James Njiru, Shariff Nassir and Peter Oloo Aringo, the praise master who equated Moi with the Prince of Peace.

These songs were identifiers of Moi’s ideology and philosophy.

Most of their composers believed in the Nyayo philosopher. The doubting Thomases among them still came up with heart-warming beats to gain favour and rewards from the professor of politics.

The likes of Boniface Mghanga and Darius Mbela rose swiftly in their civil service ranks, eventually venturing into politics.

Moism as depicted in the songs was about patriotism, politics,nationalism and Christianity. Those who closely followed him through song found a father figure who demanded attention and acknowledgement from all his subjects.

He was dangerously temperamental to those perceived to deviate from Moism and Nyayoism.

In his ‘How Daniel arap MoU Used Music to Rule’ Kenya essay published in 2008, Fred Mbogo notes that the persuasive nature of organised voices often does smother, soften and warm the heart while cooling the mind.

He says lyrics like Tawala Kenya Tawala and Fimbo ya Nyayo combined the notion of nationalism with Moi as the leading patriot.

They suggested that Moi really cared for the country and that he loved his people. However, the covert message was that any one who seemed to criticise Moi was a dissident and anti-Kenya.

In romanticising Moi’s capacity to lead peacefully and through repeatedly trumpeting his Nyayo “philosophy” of “peace, love and unity” the music created an image of a saint ready to die for the country.

When put into its historical context this ‘patriotic’ choral music also concealed the many ills committed by Moi’s government.

The many incidents of detention without trial, torture, negative ethnicity and the violence that went with it, and notable political assassinations in the Nyayo Era (“Nyayo Error” to detractors) were never sang about.

Instead the complainants were labelled, “wachochezi” and “adui wa maendeleo”.

The songs served as vehicles for the creation of the myth of an all-loving President who needed to be loved back for the sake of the country’s unity and development.

The myth or “philosophy” of Nyayo was presented in romantic terms particularly when constantly replayed during national festivals. Moi became the father of the nation so that when these songs were played the image of the president as a person who cared came to the mind of listeners.

These praise songs following in the pattern of many choral music arrangements had accompaniments such as drums and shakers (kayamba) and sometimes the marimba in a variety of beats drawn from the various Kenyan communities.

The costumes were made to look “African” with the kitenge dominating the clothing. All these elements were to evoke in the audience the idea of “tradition”. They pointed the audience towards accepting Moi and his Nyayo philosophy as part of an African tradition, which ought not be rejected.

How could one therefore run away from the authority of tradition by failing to acknowledge a “philosophy” preaching peace, love and unity?

The Nyayo praise songs made Moi the protector of Kenya’s sovereignty and unity against foreign interference.

But Moi’s style also worked in making these songs come to life as the “rungu” (club or staff) became a symbol of “herding” the country towards a common end. At functions where these performances were featured, the President often joined the singers and danced along while raising his club to the delight of the audience. Composers were often paid during such occasions.

The songs were easy to sing along. They were therefore quite immediate in echoing humorous political statements in praise of President Moi. The praise songs with such lines as hakunakiongozi mwingine (there is no other leader) reinforced the notion of Moi as the only example to follow.

But did these songs lulled the populace into sheepishly being behind Moi. Or were they so enjoyable that they were a therapy of sorts from the ills visited upon the populace by the Nyayo regime?

What is certain is that the songs were enjoyable and could as well have been instrumental in forging an image of an acceptable president, particularly when competing political voices were given limited space by the publicly-funded broadcasting house.