The arrest of celebrated economist Dr David Ndii last week was condemned by many Kenyans who feared the country could be hurtling back to the dark days of the Kanu era.
Ndii, a Kikuyu, is the chief Nasa strategist who has stood by Nasa presidential flagbearer Raila Odinga in ways that have puzzled President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee supporters in Central Kenya.
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After his arrest, his wife, the feisty Mwende Gatabaki, came out fighting, saying her family had a right to be left in peace by the Jubilee administration. She added that she didn’t understand what happened to Uhuru the ‘gentleman’ she once knew.
But behind this spat and the bile and disquiet that her husband’s association with the Opposition has caused Jubilee supporters, what many don’t know is that the lives of Ndii, Mwende, Raila and Uhuru are intertwined in interesting ways through marriage, politics and more importantly, detention.
Ndii and Raila were once incarcerated in the 1980s by the Kanu regime at Nyayo House, meaning they’re ‘alumni of the torture chambers.’
In We Lived to Tell: The Nyayo House Story published in 2003, Mwangi David Ndii is listed as having been detained but released without charges, while Raila was tortured before being sent to the coolers where he ‘cooled porridge’ for nine years.
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Nyayo House alumni in Kenya have kept tabs on each other and it’s little wonder that Ndii found a home in Nasa. His secession ideas have gained political traction following testing of the waters through his column in a local daily, where he breaks complex economics into a language accessible to the guy at a mjengo.
Richtopia, a free digital platform providing content on finance and economics, ranks him 30th among the 100 most influential economists in the world. His biting criticism of the ruling Jubilee government has endeared him to the Opposition and put him in the crosshairs of the Uhuru Kenyatta administration.
He has been a vocal critic of the government’s economic agenda, pointing out at corruption and plunder of public resources, especially in mega infrastructure projects, such as the Standard Gauge Railway and the Eurobond.
Ndii was last week appointed by Nasa to chair the People’s Assembly National Steering Committee that includes among others Oduor Ong’wen, another Nyayo House alumni.
His wife, Mwende Gatabaki, is the other cog in the wheel of the man born in Karia village, Ikinu division of Githunguri constituency, Kiambu County.
She returned to Kenya from the African Development Bank in Tunisia at the request of President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2014 when she was tapped to help in the presidential digital transformation of the country.
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As a special adviser to the First Vice-President of Africa Development Bank (AfDB), based in Tunis, Mwende was among the senior-most Kenyans employed by the continental bank.
The mathematics and computer science alumnus of Kenyatta Univeristy and Salford University (UK) hails from the influential family of the late Senior Chief Peter Gatabaki of Thakwa, Githunguri, whose children are the influential siblings James Gatabaki, an architect; Kung’u Gatabaki who has chaired the Capital Markets Authority since 2011; Dr Sam Gatabaki, a real estate developer; and Njehu
Gatabaki, the fearless publisher of Finance magazine and former Githunguri MP who had run-ins with the Kanu regime for his scathing attacks on the government.
Njehu’s daughter, Natasha Gatabaki, is married to Njee Muturi, Kenya’s Solicitor General and the long-time serving personal assistant to Uhuru Kenyatta before he became president.
Thus, it is ironical that in harassing Ndii and his family, the Jubilee administration and police were terrorising relatives of the Solicitor General!
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, called for the release of Ndii on a Sh10, 000 police bond.
