Former Kenyan President, Arap Moi is dead.
President Uhuru Kenyatta announced his death, saying the nation had lost a “great man”.
Mr. Moi was Kenya’s longest-serving president. He was in office for 24 years, until intense pressure forced him to step down in 2002.
His critics saw him as an authoritarian ruler who oversaw rampant corruption, but his allies credited him for maintaining stability in the country.
In 2004, Mr. Moi asked for forgiveness from “those he had wronged”.
President Kenyatta has declared a period of mourning, including the flying of flags at half-mast, until a state funeral is held for Mr. Moi. No date has been set for the funeral.
Mr. Kenyatta said the continent was “immensely blessed by the dedication” of the late president, who spent “almost his entire adult life serving Kenya and Africa”.
Raila Odinga, who was detained by the Moi regime for campaigning for multi-party democracy, praised him for introducing “incremental” reforms.
He had reconciled with Mr. Moi following their sharp differences in the 1980s and 1990s, and in retirement the former president had “conducted himself with complete dignity befitting an elder statesman”, Mr. Odinga added in a statement.
The BBC reports that Mr. Moi died with his son Gideon at his bedside at a private hospital in the capital, Nairobi, of an unspecified illness.
“He passed away peacefully,” Gideon Moi said.
The former president had been in and out of hospital in recent months with breathing problems.
“I have seen a steady decline. His decline was very worrying. He has been hospitalized since October 10th 2019 and has never left hospital,” Mr. Moi’s former press secretary Lee Njiru told Kenya’s privately owned Citizen TV.
Until the introduction of multi-party politics, Mr. Moi was elected unopposed as president in 1983 and 1988.
He survived a coup attempt in 1982, which led to a brutal crackdown on his opponents. He also scrapped the entire air force, whose members had taken part in the foiled coup.
He appeared to dominate almost every aspect of life, an impression aided by the state-run media.
His critics see his rule as the lost years, a time when Kenya was bedevilled by corruption, ethnic conflicts and human rights abuses.
They say he stymied economic progress by personalising the state, using government resources to reward loyalists and withholding them to punish those who did not toe the line.
For example, roads and factories were seen as gifts to be given and rewards for communities if their top politicians worked with the ruling party, Kanu. This entrenched a culture of political patronage that has become part of Kenyan politics.
But defenders of Mr. Moi’s legacy point to his often-repeated line that he kept Kenya “peaceful”, while several African countries were experiencing strife.
He ruled over a one-party state from 1978 until 1991, when he was forced to adopt a multi-party system of government following mass protests and diplomatic pressure from Western powers.
He won two subsequent elections, which were marred by allegations of rigging.
Constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office, he agreed to a peaceful transfer of power to Kenya’s third President, Mwai Kibaki, in 2002.
