Kenyan Ambassador To Scandinavia Ends Her Term.

Ambassador Purity Muhindi has left the building. Madame Ambassador, as Kenyans fondly called her Excellency, left the country (Sweden) for Kenya last week where she will await her next assignment.

Though the embassy’s home page does not report on her departure, reliable sources at the embassy confirmed that the ambassador left on Monday the 4^th of February 2013. No replacement has taken place and that will most likely happen after the next general elections scheduled for March 4^th of this year.

Mrs Muhindi, wife to Dr Joe Muhindi and a mother managed to endear herself to a good majority of Kenyans whom she came to contact with or interacted with while on her service to the mother land. She was appointed to the task, as Kenya’s ambassador to Scandinavia with its main offices and residence in Stockholm Sweden, in 2008 and took over from the more socially advantaged former ambassador Mr Mukiri Kinyanjui.

Mrs Muhindi came to Sweden at a time when Kenyans in Sweden were heavily polarised and divided along tribal lines and/or inclined towards political party affiliations after the chaos that followed the last general election. With the two opposing sides, ODM and PNU to a great extent represented in Sweden, the shameful norm of your tribe and my tribe as seen in Kenya had taken root in Sweden though some may find that debatable.

The former ambassador thus did not find the same welcoming committee as her predecessors who were mainly men and more accessible to Kenyans as such.

She has been concocted with some of the worst scandals to ever hit the embassy and Kenya house, as the residence is commonly known, though such cases aired mainly over the internet were never fairly concluded. Occasionally, and especially to those who really cared about the real issues, she was exonerated and her name refurbished.

At the time of her arrival, she found in progress the building of the foundation for a cordial relationship between the embassy and the Kenyans in Sweden. The friendly relationship was chiefly attributed to two former members of the staff, diplomats George Kinyua who was the 1^st secretary or charg’e d’affaires and the late Mr James Kiboi.

Mr James Kiboi died in 2007 in a fire accident while on official duty in Oslo. Prior to his death Mr Kiboi had established a solid friendly relationship with Kenyans in Sweden that saw to the birth of the now dormant social organisation, Kenya Social Forum In Sweden, KESOFO. Mr George Kinyua relocated to Canada before returning back to Kenya where he is currently running a religious ministry. 

The ill fated organisation, KESOFO, soon went dodo and has since been forgotten. Though no one has ever given the explanation for its demise, political differences are rumoured to have imparted its end.

When Mrs Muhindi or Purity, as the ambassador is popularly known among Kenyans in Sweden, set her foot in Sweden, she found a volcano about to explode. Soon the scandals started to make their way through the newly found platform, the blogs.

Some of the most outrageous scandals involved a certain employee at the ambassador’s residence, Mr Paul Njenga, who then accused the ambassador of discrimination, indecent treatment, humiliation and abuse of his human rights.

Mr Njenga was also the “whistle blower” about a “grabbed piece of the land” at the residence of the ambassador which was said to have been sold to a neighbour. After the matter came to the public sphere and to the knowledge of the now former ambassador, the piece of land was returned. The matter was declared a misunderstanding and brought to rest. The ambassador had not been aware of the ‘mishap in fencing’ but “after investigations she authorised its return” to quote Njenga.

The most comical accusation, albeit grievously inhuman, was the purported mistreatment of Paul Njenga. Mr Njenga had narrated to the main Kenyan news outlet in Sweden, the blogs, how he “was denied simple human facilities like the toilet or a coffee room.” Mr Njenga alleged that he was forced to use “plastic bags when nature called and had to drink his coffee and eat his lunch in the car garage.”

In the Njenga accusations, Njenga who was employed as a gardener and keeper, summed it all up with the third account, alleging that the embassy had refused to pay him his wages even after all the “mistreatment”. Though no one seemed to be communicating with the ambassador to verify the serious allegations, the blogs had a field day painting the newly commissioned ambassador most deviously.

Mr Njenga shortly after found himself on the wrong side of the Swedish law and was incarcerated. It was during the lawful confinement, or the “campus” as Njenga himself preferred, that he saw the light. After he was born again Paul decided to open up and clear the good name that he had helped to smear. That of one ambassador Purity Muhindi.

Njenga, through a hand written letter to this writer, withdrew all the accusations he had levelled at the ambassador explaining each account and how the “good hearted” ambassador had worked to solve the issues. Mr Njenga also sort and made a friendly relationship with the ambassador who he candidly said was helping him a lot.

In the letter which was addressed to Kenyans in Stockholm through me, Njenga said, “I read all the happenings in Stockholm through the blogs, but there is one thing I would like to tell you, Madam Purity the ambassador is honest, kind and transparency is her policy”

“Madam Purity is clean to all those accusations. She has helped me so much here in “rehab” and to say the least, she wrote a letter for me to be allowed calling my queen in Kenya” he enunciated in the letter.

Though the Njenga wind passed, the ambassador did not get a deserved break from her detractors. The “scandals” aimed not only to the ambassador but also to her appointing authority, the president of the republic of Kenya, His Excellency Mwai Kibaki, continued.

What is clear to this day is that those who had set their minds to make her stay as unwelcome as hell were not satisfied with the justifications. It is also clear that they would prefer someone else in her place for whatever reasons and obviously the war against her for some went to a personal level as they on and on wangled accusations endlessly. 

Among these was the controversial case about the deportation of a sick diplomat which made news all the way to Kenya. The diplomat, Mr Raphael Cheruiyot was at the time in hospital after falling seriously ill during his term at the embassy. After Kenyans learned of the intended “deportation” a demonstration was staged at the hospital and the “deportation” was thwarted.

Below is an extract of the reporting on the Standard newspaper:

Kenyans living in Sweden held a demonstration to protest an alleged deportation attempt of an embassy official. The ailing official has been fighting attempts to repatriate him for the last one month, The Standard learnt.

Mr Raphael Cheruiyot, 40, a career diplomat, suffers from myasthenia gravis, a disease that attacks the muscles and paralyses its victim.

Kenyans residing in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries took to the streets of Stockholm in the protest led by a Ms Ruth Bundotich, Mr Tarus, Mr Nahashon Mbugua, Mr Clay Onyango and Ms Caroline Kosgei.The embassy is also accredited to the Kingdom of Denmark, the Republic of Finland, Iceland and the Kingdom of Norway.

They said deporting Cheruiyot would be inhuman because he needs specialised treatment, which can only be found abroad. A story posted on jamii.wordpress.com website alleged a plot “to pluck Cheruiyot” from Karolinska Hospital’s Rheumatology Care Unit on November 29 and put him on a Nairobi-bound plane at Arlanda Airport.

The report says Cheruiyot, a third secretary at the embassy, has been fighting a long-drawn-out battle with the embassy and the Government since his hospitalisation in April. Apparently, the report says, the Government got a doctor from Kenya to go and authorise the discharge of the officer from the hospital.

“Swedish authorities had refused to release the patient if he could not be accompanied by a doctor and had we not protested, he would have been put on a plane home on November 29,” Ms Bundotich said in an interview with The Standard.

A physician, Dr Patrick Juma, told The Standard the disease is genetic and can be controlled by immune modulators, which reverse the attack of the muscles by anti-bodies.

Cheruiyot’s family, his wife and a boy, 10, have been thrown out of the embassy house. The boy has since dropped out of school.

His mother, Mrs Esther Cheruiyot, who travelled to Sweden to be with her son spoke of the pain of seeing her first-born sick and bed-ridden.

She said on telephone from Stockholm, “I have left it all to God, my son lives in perpetual pain.”

But Mrs Purity Muhindi, the Kenyan ambassador, has denied that the embassy wanted to deport Cheruiyot.

“Cheruiyot’s tour had ended and as is with all civil servants they are recalled home for redeployment,” said Muhindi in a telephone interview. Cheruiyot has been in Sweden for five years.

“I have no authority and capacity to deport anyone, all of us are the employees of the Government. Nothing secretive, nothing unprocedural was done. He had to vacate his residence to give way for his replacement.”

Muhindi says by that time, Cheruiyot had been taken ill and admitted to hospital and his travelling back home was delayed.

The Foreign Affairs office in Nairobi has denied that there was a plan to evacuate Cheruiyot. Ms Hellen Gichuhi the Head of Press and Publicity said Cheruiyot was recovering at his residence. Gichuhi said the Government was aware of the case but said there were no plans for evacuation. “The issue has been misreported the information we have is that the man is not in the ICU as has been indicated but is recuperating at home,” Gichuhi said. “He is at home and he is unwell but he is not going to be deported the issue has been blown out of proportion.”

Muhindi said the Government last month decided to evacuate Cheruiyot, but with authority from the Swedish doctors “who said he could recuperate at home”.

“But the true situation is that Nairobi took over the issue from the time his tour ended,” she said. She confirmed that the Government had sent a doctor from Nairobi. It was not clear why the Government wanted to evacuate the official.

Bundotich said Cheruiyot’s illness had been diagnosed and the doctors had just put him on medication when the planned deportation was to be carried out.

He has sought asylum on medical grounds.

Though she was alleged to have been the architect behind the botched “deportation” this extract clearly shows her hands were clean.

According to the embassy staff and indeed the ambassador herself, there had been a mutual understanding between them and Mr Cheruiyot about his repatriation and he had even dropped by the embassy to bid them farewell before his “intended deportation”.

Unfortunately, Kenyans never got to hear Mr Cheruiyot’s side of the whole saga nor how he is progressing. He was said to have been granted asylum on humanitarian grounds.

But all these did not stop the strong willed ambassador from carrying out her duties. And though they may have isolated her from some Kenyans in a minimal level, the service of the embassy to her people and for Kenya continued unabated.

Madam Ambassador candidly disclosed to me during an off-record interview, that she kept pace with what was going on and at most times found her self oddly disadvantaged where Kenyans expected her reaction while she was bound by her office’s protocol and marital status. She explained that she was regrettably not a politician and could not answer every issue raised by Kenyans through the blogs.

Her staff, though do not wish to be named as they are not authorised to comment about embassy matters, know her as “great to work with” “dedicated” and “highly qualified”. We might not know exactly what good deals Mrs Muhindi made for Kenya in her former capacity but one thing is for sure, she was humble, disciplined, caring, devoted, generous, friendly, diligent and very Kenyan. These she displayed lastly by personally calling me, and a few other Kenyans to say goodbye and thank us for our support during her term.  

She was with us when the Kenyan football team in Sweden severally lost the annual international tournaments, at Kenya House hosting us in national celebrations or at five star hotels toasting to a national holiday or achievement, I wish that her mantra, Umoja Pamoja, would revive. We thank her for the service and wish her luck in her new endeavours.

Ambassador Muhindi's Exit; What I Said Then.

P Bryan Njoroge.