Mzee Daniel T. Arap Moi, former Kenyan president dies at 95

Former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, who rose to power promising to end tribalism and corruption and to make his country a Cold War bulwark against communism but who brutally crushed political opposition, deepened ethnic tensions and enriched himself at the public’s expense, died Feb. 4 at a hospital in Nairobi. He was 95.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the death but did not provide a specific cause.
Mr. Moi was one of the last of Africa’s so-called Big Men, who presided over their countries in increasingly despotic ways. During 24 ruinous years in power, he curtailed political freedom, presided over the stagnation of Kenya’s economy and encouraged patronage politics. He enshrined his name on currency, schools, an international airport and other prominent sites throughout the East African country.
Despite condemnation by human rights groups and allegations that he had stolen millions of dollars in aid money, Mr. Moi’s ties to the United States remained strong because of Kenya’s staunch anti-communism and relative stability in a region ravaged by war and by leaders who were even more erratic.
“We’ve been having peace for 39 years,” Mr. Moi told a crowd before he stepped down in 2002. “Sometimes when I hear all the criticism, I ask myself, ‘Are you tired of peace?’ I wish people would go to the neighboring countries and then speak.”
That year, Transparency International, an anti-corruption group, called Kenya one of the most corrupt countries in the world, assailing the nation’s police and judges as among the worst offenders.
Kenya remained a desperately impoverished nation. Many people lived in vast slums, where families huddled under thin sheets of metal and where small, hungry children and their grief-stricken parents struggled to survive. Its capital city, Nairobi, was nicknamed Nairobbery.
