Word: kenyatta
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Many believed that Arap Moi would be controlled by Kenyatta's old cronies. Indeed he did retain nearly all of Kenyatta's ministers. Gradually, however, he began moving out on his own-literally. Casting himself as a circuit-riding populist, he visited villages throughout the country; in the past year, Arap Moi has logged more miles than Kenyatta did during all of his 15 years in power...
More important, the new President attacked the ills that took root in Kenya's government during Kenyatta's later years. As part of his "footstep" program to root out corruption, he publicly denounced five M.P.s for illegal practices, launched an investigation of contracts awarded by the Ministry of Works, and started a probe of the Lands Ministry...
Arap Moi also virtually eliminated the illegal killing of game and the smuggling of ivory and coffee long tolerated by Kenyatta. Says one villager from Jomo's home town of Gatundu: "Everyone likes the President because he has stopped the outlaws, the poachers and coffee smugglers. In Kenyatta's day, you could see a big man with a number of jobs. Nowadays it is one man, one job, and we are all equal...
Arap Moi has also set about to diminish the power of Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe, which, though it accounts for only 20% of the 15.5 million population, exercises near total control over Kenya's 40 other tribes. In last week's election many members of the tribe's political arm, the GEMA Party, were defeated; in Nairobi only three of the eight M.P.s affiliated with the tribal party were reelected...
Among the defeated was Kenyatta's righthand man and brother-in-law, Mbi-yu Koinange, who got through the 1974 election by locking up his opponent before voting day and releasing him afterward. The President has also begun to chip away at the large business and land holdings of the Kenyatta family by quietly authorizing repossessions of property by unpaid creditors and pressing for payment of back taxes. The total wealth is staggering; Jomo Kenyatta's estate alone is estimated to be worth more than $200 million...