Questions linger as top Nyayo-era cop gets final salute
Noah Arap Too. PHOTO | FILE
On April 6, 1987, Kiambu farmer Stephen Mbaraka Karanja was arrested by the police – never to be seen again. An affidavit sworn by former Criminal Investigation Director, Noah arap Too, stated that Karanja was shot dead as he escaped and that his body was buried at an Eldoret cemetery.
When Too is buried tomorrow at his Kenegut farm in Kericho, many people will not remember the Karanja case. But the late Too was almost jailed by Justice Derek Schofield for contempt of court over the case.
It is a story that summarises his career at the police outfit – the epicentre of human rights abuse in Kenya in the 80s. When Karanja disappeared, his wife Naomi went to court demanding his release in a habeas corpus application that was heard by Mr Justice Schofield, a British judge on contract.
But Too in an affidavit filed in court said he was not in a position to bring Karanja to court since he had been shot dead and buried!
A member of Gray’s Inn – having been called to the Bar in 1970 – Justice Schofield had arrived in Kenya in 1974 hoping to build a career and reputation. Too and the Karanja case now stood in the way of his quest as the attention of the international community turned on him.
The judge refused to buy the tale that the farmer was shot and buried and ordered Too to exhume the body and take it to the mortuary for identification. The order grabbed international attention as human rights groups, fed up with President Moi’s crackdown on dissidents, torture and detention without trial, demanded the release of Karanja.
The Karanja saga puzzled Too. Over the years, the state had gotten used to prosecuting dissidents with the help of pliant judges. Those who could not be prosecuted were detained.
That February, lawyer Gibson Kamau Kuria had been detained without trial for filing torture cases involving his colleagues David Mukaru Ng’ang’a, Mirugi Kariuki and Wanyiri Kihoro who were in detention. The other detainee was Raila Odinga.
A man who hardly spoke in public, Too and his Special Branch counterpart, the late James Kanyotu, ran a Gestapo-style system that sustained the Nyayo regime as it violated human rights and terrorised alternative voices.
It was during the height of this rule – and a few months after Kanu set up a disciplinary committee – that Karanja disappeared. The only hitch was that the Karanja habeus corpus application had gone to the wrong judge who had no time for the impunity exhibited by the CID.
Justice Schofield ordered Too to appear before him (he didn’t) and explain why he should not be jailed for contempt of court. But just as the contempt proceedings were to start, the judge was summoned by Chief Justice Cecil Miller and told to disqualify himself from the case “on the orders of President Moi” – as he later put it.
He dropped out of the case and fled the country. Too survived and as Justice Schofield would later write: “The chief justice and some of the judges saw it as their duty to assist the President (Moi) and the government . . . Thus the superior courts tended to support the government and particularly the President (Moi) grew to expect compliance with his wishes.”
Paul Amina, a journalist who had been filing the stories for the BBC and Reuters was arrested outside the High Court by the CID as he attended the Karanja case and was detained at the Kamiti Maximum Prison for a year. It was later revealed that Karanja was shot and his body burned to ashes in a thicket in Eldoret.
Those who don’t know Noah Nordin arap Too say he “served with dedication and distinction” as Deputy President William Ruto eulogised him.
Too had taken over the leadership of the CID in 1985 after Moi neutralised Charles Njonjo and his henchmen within the outfit, who included Joginder Singh Sokhi, a CID assistant commissioner and the Nyeri-born Ignatius Nderi, during whose term JM Kariuki, a populist MP and businessman was assassinated in 1975.
Nderi did not manage to track down the killers of JM after investigations pointed to senior policemen and politicians – including himself.
By this time, Too was a chief inspector of police. He was promoted to superintendent in 1976 and rose fast within the ranks, earning the confidence of vice president Daniel arap Moi. The death of President Kenyatta in 1978 saw significant changes in the security docket and witnessed the meteoric rise of Too.
In a span of four years, Too had been promoted from a senior superintendent to assistant commissioner of Police (1980), senior assistant commissioner of Police (October 1982) to deputy commissioner of Police in September 1984.
Although he was briefly dropped after the June 1983 police shake-up that followed the fall of Njonjo, Too resurfaced at a senior rank. Njonjo – and the CID reported to him – had in 1984 been taken through a commission of inquiry that investigated career-ending allegations against him. He was found guilty by a commission headed by Justice Miller, the man who later saved arap Too from Justice Schofield.
His tenure also witnessed the death of Foreign Affairs minister Robert Ouko who had been a great defender of the Nyayo regime and its atrocities. The death of Ouko, like that of JM Kariuki — as Too would later admit— was “complex, sophisticated and planned by criminals.”
During the judicial inquiry into Ouko’s disappearance, Too was accused of mooting the suicide theory together with permanent secretary Hezekiah Oyugi and then Police Commissioner Philip Kilonzo. In the Troon Report, which followed the investigations, Too was adversely mentioned.
Although he later left the police force for politics, Too only served for only one term (2002-2007). In 1999, President Moi had appointed him to the Public Service Commission.
It was these failings during his 15-year career as director of CID that many would like to gloss over – even bury.
Ndegwa Muhoro, the current head, mourned Too as a brilliant, innovative and dedicated officer, who unified the unit. “He was instrumental in many ways in the years he served as a CID boss.”
