Note: You can ignore the part in blue if you wish. That part describes the Aga Khan’s ties to Kenya; interesting but not crucial to understanding the piece.
by Gerry Loughran.
When the $3 million Serena Hotel in Nairobi was opened on 16 February 1976, there came a moment when four men found themselves together: the president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta; the leader of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims worldwide, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan; and two Kenyan businessmen, Udi Gecaga and Ngengi Muigai. According to an executive on the fringe, Kenyatta addressed the Aga Khan: ‘This is my nephew, Mr Muigai. He has just come back from America and I was wondering if it was possible to find a position for him in your newspapers.’ The Aga Khan appeared taken aback but replied politely that he was sure that would be possible, but he would have to make enquiries. Gecaga and Muigai looked unhappy at this guarded response, but the Kenyan president nodded and the group split up.
In a dark suit, with an orchid in his buttonhole and a fly whisk dangling from his wrist, the revered father of the nation unveiled a plaque opening Nairobi’s most elegant hotel, and then at the celebratory luncheon graciously acknowledged a toast by the Aga Khan to his continued good health and long life. The chic guests amidst the flowering jacaranda and bougainvillea were not to know that Kenyatta’s twilight years were approaching their end and that the prospect of his demise had already begun to influence the course of national politics, to which the cameo on the Serena terrace would add a sig- nificant footnote. Indeed, the meeting set in train a course of events which had an important impact on Kenya’s constitutional development and long- lasting effects on freedom of expression and the future of democracy.
C H A PT E R
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The new 400-bed hotel on the edge of Uhuru Park was an investment by the Aga Khan’s Tourism Promotion Services Ltd, an offshoot of Industrial Promotion Services (IPS), which he established in 1963 as a catalyst for Third World development in partnership with private institutions and global agen- cies. The newspapers to which Kenyatta referred were an earlier Aga Khan personal initiative, a publishing stable named the Nation Group comprising two English-language titles, the Daily Nation and the Sunday Nation, the Kiswahili daily Taifa Leo and Taifa Weekly. The group started in 1959 with the purchase for £10,000 of a tiny Kiswahili weekly, Taifa (meaning ‘Nation’), from Charles Hayes, a former District Commissioner in the colonial admin- istration, and his business partner, Althea Tebbutt. Taifa was quickly turned into a daily, an English-language Sunday paper was launched in March 1960 and the Daily Nation appeared in October the same year. The first African editor-in-chief, Hilary Boniface Ng’weno, was appointed in 1964. After investing more than £1 million in the venture (at least £12 million at today’s rates), the Aga Khan saw the group move into profit in 1968, and just a year later the daily overhauled its long-established rival, the East African Standard.1 In 1973, the group became a public company, with more than 8,000 mostly Kenyan shareholders, reducing the Aga Khan’s shareholding to 60 per cent. This was later lowered to 44.73 per cent ownership and in 2003 the founder transferred his 23.9 million personal shares to the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), which worked to bring jobs and services to poor countries. At the time of the Serena opening, the Nation was selling more than 70,000 copies a day, double that of its rival, and the group was the unchallenged industry leader in East Africa. It was easy to see why the Nation was an attractive proposition for a young man with commercial or political ambitions in 1976.
The Aga Khan’s personal association with Kenya was a long one. During World War II, his father Prince Aly Khan was based in Cairo with the Free French forces and fought the German Axis armies in the North African desert. Prince Karim and his younger brother, Amyn, were sent to safety in Kenya and lived in a house belonging to their grandfather, the then reigning Aga Khan, Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah. The house in suburban Nairobi had a metal roof, and when the boys lay in bed at night they could hear the rain pattering overhead and occasionally the growls of lions prowling outside. Returning to Switzerland, the country of his birth, Karim attended Le Rosey private school for nine years, then began reading for a Bachelor’s degree in engineering, switching later to Islamic History at Harvard University in the USA. He was aged 20 and half-way through his course when his grandfather
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died in 1957. By tradition, the Aga Khan exerts his personal choice to name a successor. When the will was read the day after his death, it stated:
[LEFT][SIZE=4]
In view of the fundamentally altered conditions in the world in very recent years, I am convinced that it is in the best interests of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslim community that I be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years in the midst of the new age and who will bring a new outlook on life to his office of Imam. For this reason, I appoint my grandson Karim, son of my son Aly Salomone Khan, to succeed to the title of Aga Khan and be the Imam and Pir of all my Shia Ismaili followers. [/SIZE][/LEFT]
Thus, to widespread surprise, the young Prince Karim became the 49th Imam in direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed through his daughter Fatima, and leader of some 15 million Ismaili Muslims in 25 countries.2
One of the largest of these communities was in Kenya, and the new Aga Khan broke off his studies to visit the local leaders and take part in his enthronement ceremony in the course of a world tour to meet his followers. Young, handsome and athletic – he skied for Iran at a Winter Olympics and was a member of the Harvard soccer team – the new Imam was received with delight by Ismailis. But already he was looking beyond the ceremonial and pondering the future in East Africa. Independence, he believed, was inevitable. Though by no means imminent, he considered British Colonial Office talk of ten and 15 years as unrealistic, and was already pondering how majority rule, when it came, would affect Ismailis and the other immigrant communities. They were mostly merchants and thus vulnerable to the future entry of African businessmen into their field. How would they inte- grate into a new type of society? Could he assist in a peaceful transition from colonial rule and if so, how? The Aga Khan returned to Harvard to complete his studies – he received an honours degree in Islamic History – with much to think about. (In 2008, Harvard bestowed on him an Honorary Doctorate of Laws.) Repeatedly, he urged Ismailis to take citizenship in the new African-led nations and participate in the drive for development. He hired financial experts, and on their recommendation formed IPS to assist in industrialisation and thereby demonstrate his commitment to the new Africa in concrete financial terms. Quite unexpectedly, he also announced he wanted to start a newspaper.
Michael Curtis was Fleet Street’s youngest editor, aged 34, when he took over Charles Dickens’ old chair at the News Chronicle in London in 1954. He
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had been with the newspaper as editorial writer and deputy editor since 1946, but came into conflict with the ownership on two fronts. In the face of weakening circulation, he argued for a change in the paper’s format, sug- gesting, far ahead of current thinking, a restrained tabloid with serious con- tent, as favoured by some European industry leaders. The Cadbury family, which owned the Chronicle, was not convinced. More importantly, Curtis disagreed strongly with the British government’s policy over Egypt’s nation- alisation of the Suez Canal and said so in his columns. The proprietors felt he should support the government, and in 1957 Curtis resigned. A family connection put him in touch with the Aga Khan and he accompanied the new Imam on his enthronement tour as his press advisor. Curtis recalled in an interview for this book that
the Aga Khan was obviously interested in newspapers during that tour but it was only when he got back to Harvard that he raised the idea. I said to him, ‘Look, I better go, I don’t think this PR stuff is really my métier and I want to get back to journalism.’ He then said, ‘Well, how about starting a newspaper in Kenya?’ This was a complete surprise to me but also an attractive proposition, the prospect of actually starting a newspaper, which a lot of journalists long to do. I made it very clear that I could not be involved if he wanted a newspaper for the Ismaili community and he said immediately, ‘No, no, that’s the last thing I want. I want a completely independent paper.’ He always said that and he stuck to it and some of the community in fact were unhappy that this paper employed no Ismailis. He never used the paper in the Ismaili interest. What he wanted was a newspaper to give a voice to Kenya’s nationalists, who were not being heard in the political debate.
On his 1957 tour, the Aga Khan made note of what Curtis called ‘the abysmal quality of newspapers in Kenya and Uganda and all these old British Empire places where the papers were quite simply the mouthpieces of the colonial government’. Encouraging him to go into the business were the young African nationalists of the time: ‘It was basically his idea but cer- tainly he was pressed in Kenya by politicians, particularly Tom Mboya. They were pushing all the time, saying “Let’s open up, this is going to be the new East Africa.’” Mboya and colleagues such as Dr Julius Kiano and James Gichuru would occasionally meet with the Aga Khan for lunch or dinner in London or Switzerland as the hectic pace of independence negotiations quickened.
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Although Kenyatta at the Serena encounter had referred only to a ‘posi- tion’ for Muigai with the Nation, it soon became apparent that the position he had in mind was the top one, chairman of the holding company, Nation Printers and Publishers Ltd (NPP). Albert Ekirapa, a Nation manager and former civil servant who was scheduled to take over as NPP executive chair- man, was at the Serena opening. In an interview, he recalled, ‘Gecaga and Muigai were not satisfied with the meeting with the Aga Khan, who was due to fly out the next day and they wanted an announcement immediately.’ The two turned to Peter Hengel, an influential Nation director and the man whose financial expertise dragged the company back from the brink when it over-extended unwisely in the early 1960s. Ekirapa recalled, ‘They got hold of Peter but Hengel said he wasn’t sure that the Aga Khan wanted to make an immediate announcement.’ Next day, the Aga Khan met with Muigai and Gecaga at Nairobi International Airport during a VIP lunch when the feasi- bility, methodology and timing for Muigai’s ascent to the chairmanship was broached. According to the memories of participants, the meal was an uncomfortable affair. The Aga Khan said he could not announce a new chairman without warning, since such a move would create a major upset and have a questionable impact upon shareholders. He suggested a meeting between Muigai and Gecaga and NPP’s directors in April, in two months’ time, and said meanwhile he would write to the President. In other words, he would communicate directly with Kenyatta and not through Gecaga and Muigai. Ekirapa said, ‘The Aga Khan had promised the President he would do something’, but the precise nature of the commitment was open to ques- tion. ‘The management view of Muigai at the helm was very, very negative’, Ekirapa said, ‘and it was my job to tell the Aga Khan so’.
Nation managers were worried by what seemed to be a ‘company raider’ mentality by the two men. They were even more concerned about the polit- ical implications. The two had close ties to the ‘royal court’ at Kenyatta’s Gatundu home, a Kikuyu power centre which appeared to wield more power than Kenya’s elected cabinet; they were also members of the head of state’s own family – Muigai was a nephew of Kenyatta, Gecaga a son-in-law. Gecaga was also chairman of Lonrho East Africa Ltd, owners of the Standard, the Nation’s chief rival. It did not help that his father, Mareka, was a long-serving director of NPP.
On leaving Nairobi, the Aga Khan travelled to Pakistan, where he had the opportunity to observe the deleterious effects of a government-controlled press, while in Kenya, the Nation’s top people canvassed opinion on the Muigai proposal from a wide range of contacts. On his return to Europe, the
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Aga Khan called NPP directors and senior managers to a series of meetings in St Moritz, Switzerland. Ekirapa recalled, ‘We expressed our criticism in no uncertain terms.’ The view of Editor-in-Chief George Githii was sought. The controversial Githii was a politically-minded editor whose two periods at the helm of the Nation made the newspaper as much a topic of public debate as the events it reported. Recalled Ekirapa, ‘Githii was very, very forthright, more forthright than any of us. He believed there was no way this merchant group should be allowed to get anywhere near the Nation.’ The managing director (MD) of the newspaper company, Gerry Wilkinson, was asked to prepare a list of ‘banana skins’, possible repercussions if the eventual deci- sion was badly received at Gatundu.
After a weekend break, Gecaga and Muigai arrived. Said Ekirapa:
They looked surprised to see us there. The Aga Khan turned to Muigai and said words to the effect that ‘These are my directors, they are the people who make decisions on my behalf. Perhaps you would like to tell them what role you believe you can play in our group.’ They were taken aback. We had heard that they had already been telling people they were going to get part of the Nation, it was just a matter of signing on the dotted line. Muigai was so taken aback, he didn’t have anything to say. But Gecaga was very smart. He kept saying the Nation needed an injection of business acumen, new blood and so on. The Aga Khan said, ‘I really wanted Mr Muigai to answer but since you have spoken up, how would you feel if I suggested that I would nominate somebody to the board of Lonrho?’ Gecaga said, ‘That’s different, I am not here as a representative of Lonrho, I’m here in my personal capacity.’ The Aga Khan said, ‘I don’t see where the divide is. Could I also nominate somebody for you?’ It became like a game and in the end the Aga Khan said, ‘We will discuss with the board what contribution you might make to our group and we will let the President know.’ So they left, obviously very disappointed, since this was not what they had expected.
The Aga Khan and his directors were confronted with an extremely awkward situation. It was impossible to reject President Kenyatta’s expressed wishes out of hand without risking severe and far-reaching consequences. But to put Muigai in as chairman would be to surrender the Nation’s hard-won reputation for independence and label it a blatant sell-out. With Udi Gecaga at the Standard, such a move would effectively submit the national print
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media to the control of a single political faction, and the Nation leadership was never in doubt that the Muigai initiative was intended to place control of the domestic editorial output in the hands of the Gatundu circle. One solution would be to sell the newspaper to the government. Such an offer had been made once before, in 1965, when the Nation was being given a tor- rid time by the then information minister, Achieng Oneko. Recalling that period, Director Peter Hengel said, ‘It had become increasingly difficult to manage the paper. The government was exceedingly touchy and giving us lots of problems and I recall being at a function when Kenyatta scolded Githii for being too critical of the government. He said, “I know your mother very well and she would not have approved”.’
Hengel also said:
With all these problems, the Aga Khan decided to force their hand and he sent me to Nairobi to see Kenyatta to see if the government wanted to buy the Nation. His reasoning was that either the government should let the press be free and leave us in peace or let them take the paper. When I put the situation to Kenyatta, he said no, no, no, he didn’t want to buy the Nation. I think at that time they had in mind to launch their own government paper, but we were relieved because it cleared up the situation. We had loyally offered the government a chance to buy or just take the paper and they didn’t want to.
The deal that Hengel offered Kenyatta was an out-in-the-open transaction in which ownership and editorial stance would be publicly acknowledged. To accept, ten years later, factional control as represented by Muigai, while still ostensibly an independent newspaper, would deprive the Nation of its credibility and shroud it in public suspicion and ill-will.
The St Moritz meetings pondered the way ahead. The easy option was to accept Muigai as chairman of NPP, though this would destroy the Group’s credibility and risk a mass exodus of key personnel; there was also the like- lihood that the Gatundu family rule would collapse with Kenyatta’s eventual demise and the Nation would be exposed to retribution from a new leader- ship. A second course was to sell off the newspaper company, Nation Newspapers Ltd (NNL), with a management contract going to NPP. The paper’s loss of independence would not then sully the group’s image. Legally, however, this would be almost impossible; what’s more, it would deprive the group of its major revenue source. A third and harder option was to offer Muigai the chairmanship of NNL, perhaps altering the Articles of
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Association to limit the appointment to one year. If he insisted on the NPP job, consideration would be given to selling the group. The hardest course of all would be simply to say no to Kenyatta.
The consultations were extraordinary in their thoroughness, including examination of how a Muigai-headed Nation would be affected by any change of regime in Kenya. A three-page analysis typed on the notepaper of the Crystal Hotel, St Moritz, was headed ‘Plan of action in the event of a sud- den transition of power’. There had been no overt moves against the ageing Kenyatta, but the succession issue was an obsession with Kenya’s politicians. The St Moritz paper noted that change in Kenya could come in three ways: through a constitutional accession to power by the vice-president (VP), Daniel arap Moi, followed by elections; by the temporary accession of the VP followed by his removal; or by the forced accession to power of a group with the support of the security forces. In the first case, the paper said, the Nation would have to cover the run-up to the elections ‘and under the new chairman this would be the area of danger with an obvious desire for a bias against the vice-president’. If the constitutional process was halted, criticism by the Nation could lead to closure, but since the ‘non-constitutional party would likely be the group represented by our chairman, the avenue of attack on the regime would obviously be closed’. In the third case, ‘the forced and immedi- ate accession to power by an individual supported by the security forces would come from … the parties represented by our chairman, or some other section’. If the former, the newspaper would be lined up against the chair- man’s friends, and if the latter, it would most probably be closed immediately. In either case, the Nation would be in the anti-constitutional camp.
After the first round of St Moritz consultations, the Aga Khan sent a let- ter to Kenyatta saying he had had ‘serious second thoughts’ since their meet- ing at the Serena. ‘There is no doubt’, he wrote, ‘that if Mr Muigai were to become chairman of NPP, the press in Kenya would be, to all intents and purposes, under the control of one group of individuals with a consequent monolithic outlook (and) whatever may be the actual facts of the case, pub- lic opinion in Kenya would be likely to regard the new chairmanship as an act of government to create a press monopoly’. He added that if circulation declined because the public considered the paper had become part of a state monopoly, the 2,000-plus Kenyan shareholders in NPP would suffer. (The total of shareholders grew to close on 8,000 in 1988 with a second offering.) The letter also pointed to the Gecagas’ relationships with the Nation and the Standard respectively. ‘I consider this sort of situation to be potentially very unhealthy’, the letter said. ‘If, within the next few months, it becomes known
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that our new chairman is closely related to the controlling interests of the Standard group in Kenya, I expect that a number of questions will be raised at our General Assembly [AGM] and that they will have a substantial impact on our readership.’
The Aga Khan added that he had just returned from Pakistan, where he had been dismayed to find the vast majority of the media under govern- ment control:
The government there itself now feels that this is not a satisfactory situation. Among the many reasons for their dissatisfaction were a substantial deterioration in editorial quality, failure by foreign governments and organisations to give serious consideration to the national media and the latter’s considerable financial troubles.
The letter concluded:
I think that it would be in the best interests of Kenya that while NPP clearly remains loyal to you and the government, it also remains independent of Lonrho… I would truly request you to reconsider the suggestion that Mr Muigai become the chairman of NPP.
What started as a polite response to a request from the head of state – ‘a vague promise’ as Hengel put it – had somehow become a critical part of the political power struggle. Though entirely unknown to the general public, the implications of the Muigai affair were not lost on leading politicians, partic- ularly those outside the Gatundu circle, and a number of them made per- sonal appeals to the Aga Khan not to proceed with the appointment. They included VP Moi, Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki and Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, who called at the Nairobi home of Sir Eboo Pirbhai, the astute and influential leader of the Ismaili community in Kenya, during a visit by the Aga Khan and put their case directly to him. A witness recalled a number of government limousines flying national flags parked outside Eboo’s house.
Over several weeks, in his typically systematic way, the Aga Khan con- sulted his directors, the Nation’s top managers, his lawyers and a wide range of Kenyan opinion. The consensus was that he had no other course than to meet with Kenyatta. The Aga Khan was an eloquent and persuasive advocate and Kenyatta was known to be a rational listener. The publisher–investor flew to Nairobi, travelled 100 miles north to Nakuru town and met Kenyatta at the State House there. His argument was simple: he loved Kenya, he said,
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he had spent his boyhood there; he was a good friend of the country as his extensive investments and welfare initiatives proved. But he did not think it would be in the interests of Kenya if his, Kenyatta’s family, should effectively control the two largest newspapers in the country. He believed sincerely that upholding the independence of the media should become part of the Kenyatta legacy. If the President wished, he would sell the newspaper to the government, but he did not wish to proceed with the appointment of Mr Muigai. The two men had met many times and held each other in mutual respect. Kenyatta, pragmatic master of the political terrain, saw no advan- tage in promoting conflict. No, he said, the government did not want to buy the Nation, and as for Mr Muigai, while he found it difficult to go back on his promise, he would accept the Aga Khan’s judgment on the matter. They parted amicably and the Aga Khan returned to Europe the same day. The crisis was over.
Chapter one of Birth Of A Nation by Gerry Loughran
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