Just two months after the first anniversary of the 2008 Mwai Kibaki-Raila Odinga peace deal, veteran political activist Wanguhu Ng'ang'a ran to court to challenge it.
The National Accord and Reconciliation Act was enacted on February 28, 2008 following two months of violence that erupted after the 2007 presidential election result was announced.
The violence left at least 1,000 people dead and a further over 600,000 people displaced from their homes.
Intense Kofi Annan-led negotiations birthed the PNU-ODM grand coalition government with Raila Odinga as Prime Minister.
The bloated government had constant power struggles between Kibaki and Odinga.
This forced the Czechoslovakia-trained journalist Ng'ang'a to file a suit on April 28, 2009 seeking an interpretation of the law to settle the power wrangles.
In the petition, the unionist-turned-politician accused the country's political class of bad behaviour that threatened the “the existing constitutional order”.
He argued that the enactment of the Act brought level-headedness in the country after the disputed 2007 polls.
But in the intervening period of the coalition government, partners mainstreamed bickering hence a “court ruling would show the way forward and bring to an end the dispute so that leaders can engage in productive work."
“It is the interest of Kenyans that this matter is adjudicated potentially upon by the High Court to avert a constitutional crisis with divesting political consequences,” his suit papers read.
The veteran politician asked the court to clarify whether the Act superseded any other law including the Constitution in the management of the coalition affairs.
He also wanted the court to determine the limit of the power-sharing matrix and whether it was only limited to Cabinet appointments or the entire government.
"..[the court need to determine] whether the Act overturned the 1963 constitutional dispensation thereby bringing a new norm," he wrote.
He said that the court's interpretation would reign in on the wrangling of the political class that could portend a breakdown of law and order.
This was not all in the life of the controversial politician.
At one point, he attempted to push Jomo Kenyatta, then a sitting president, out of KANU and out power in a botched party coup.
In 1965, just a few years after Independence, Ng'ang'a was seconded to the Lumumba Institute, founded by opposition doyen Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, as among the bosses.
The institute's training was communist leaning, a fact that got the West panicky.
The institute was based in Ruaraka area but it later collapsed at the height of ideological struggle between capitalism and communism.
Jaramogi would later appropriate its land.
In July 1965, Ng'ang'a alongside other communist-leaning radicals staged a momentary coup at the Kanu headquarters at that time situated along Nairobi’s Mfangano Street.
They targeted almost the entire leadership of the party that was West-leaning.
He declared himself Kanu secretary general in place of Tom Mboya, then powerful Cabinet minister.
In the ensuing storm, he and his team barricaded themselves in the party headquarters but eventually never missed the music.
He would be arrested on the orders of Charles Njonjo and thrown into jail for several years.
Ng’ang’a was among the political prisoners that former President Moi released in 1978 after the death of Jomo Kenyatta.
He tried to run to replace Kenyatta in the Gatundu by-election but got thrashed by Ngengi Muigai who polled 41,022, against his 2,377.
The father of Angela, Monalisa, Hannibal and Mariana and father-in-law of Lemmis Murimi died on February 11.
He was the brother of the late Daniel, Margaret, Ruth, Francis, Isabelle, Rose, Ann, Victor, Alex, David and Lydia and stepbrother to Murigi, the late Wanjiru, Wambui, Githirwa, Wainaina, Murunyu and Wangari.
(edited by O. Owino)
