Kenya's New Fireman

By Simon Robinson/Nairobi

The mercurial relationship between Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi and renowned paleoanthropologist and wildlife advocate Richard Leakey has transfixed Kenyans for more than a decade. After first meeting Moi in 1968, Leakey gave occasional advice to the President, and in 1989 Moi made Leakey head of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Then came drama. Leakey quit and helped form an anticorruption opposition party; Moi branded him a neocolonial racist; a state-owned newspaper tied Leakey to the Ku Klux Klan; and progovernment thugs beat him when he attended a colleague's court hearing. "How much of it was deep [hatred] and how much of it was political, who knows?" says Leakey today.

Two months ago, the saga took another twist. In a move that startled Kenyans, the President turned to Leakey for salvation. He named Leakey head of Kenya's civil service and secretary to the Cabinet, presenting him with a power base some insiders say is second only to the President's. "Leakey is recognized as a man of determination and integrity," Moi said in his announcement. "These are attributes which are greatly needed." Leakey, a white third-generation Kenyan, is given the job of overhauling Kenya's corrupt and inefficient public service and jump-starting the country's economy. Moi also hopes Leakey will have better luck loosening the purse strings of foreign donors. Already there is evidence of change, at least on the surface. Last week Moi stated that the number of ministries would be cut from 27 to 15. "What we are trying to do is important and dramatic, and if it works, it will be a real victory," Leakey, 54, told TIME. "It would be very nice to prove that you can turn things around without a bloody revolution."

Born to famed paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary, Leakey spent much of his childhood on his parents' fossil-hunting expeditions, developing a love of the outdoors and a marked independent streak. After leaving school at 16, he at first rejected anything to do with fossils and archaeology for fear of being trapped in his parents' shadow. But by the time Leakey was in his late 20s, his team was making important finds. He wrote books on the origin of mankind and headed the National Museums of Kenya before turning to wildlife conservation.

When he took control of the Kenya Wildlife Service, it was close to collapse. Ivory poachers were killing hundreds of elephants annually, and staff morale was miserable. Leakey sacked corrupt rangers, brought in millions of dollars from international donors and helped enforce a ban on the ivory trade. "He has an ability to wake people up," says Joe Kioko, a deputy director at the Wildlife Service who has worked in Kenya's national parks for 31 years. "If you're good and get results, he'll give you all the support you need. But if you're useless, there's no room for you. He can't stand useless people."

Leakey's powerful personality and outspokenness drew the wrath of government insiders. In 1994, following a series of attacks against Leakey in Parliament and the state-run press, Moi announced an investigation into alleged improprieties at the Wildlife Service. Leakey quit. "I could no longer achieve," he says. "Everything was too combative." The simmering animosity between the two men boiled over a year later, when Leakey helped form an opposition party. Though never a major force, the party attracted enough attention to provoke attacks from the ruling Kenya African National Union party.

Leakey seems to thrive on such tough times. For years he kept a terminal kidney disease secret from everyone but his doctors and wife Meave, until he finally agreed to a lifesaving kidney transplant from his estranged younger brother Philip, a former KANU member of Parliament. In 1993, a single-engine Cessna that Leakey was piloting lost power--many believe it was a result of sabotage--and crash-landed. He lost both legs below the knee but within three weeks was walking again with the help of artificial limbs. "Some people deteriorate under pressure; some people get exhilarated," Leakey said last week. "I think pressure probably suits me."

The new job as de facto leader of what Moi calls Kenya's recovery strategy is Leakey's biggest challenge yet. Kenya was once one of the most successful developing countries in Africa. But its economy and image have deteriorated over the past decade--not in an explosion of violence or at the hands of a military regime, as in other parts of the continent, but through the pathetic slow drip of corruption and inefficiency.

Despite grumblings from within the public-service sector and from some M.P.s--an opposition politician said the appointment was "tantamount to handing the country's leadership back to the British"--most Kenyans seem to respect Leakey. "Race is not an issue," says Peter Kimuyu, acting head of the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research. "It doesn't matter who gives us results as long as we get them."

Leakey promises to improve services, tackle corruption and balance the country's books in the process. "There is cynicism that the bad guys are still in power, but they're not in power," he says. "Delivery of service is now in the hands of the professionals." To help Leakey with the colossal task ahead, Moi has created a kind of shadow ministry by appointing a small team of technocrats as permanent secretaries. As the latest episode in the two-man soap opera unfolds, Leakey and Moi insist their struggles are behind them. "I have little doubt that there will be a number of issues on which we will disagree," says Leakey. "Sometimes he will concede, and sometimes I will concede, but hopefully it will be a concession based on argument, not might." For the sake of the country, Kenyans hope the two can learn to get along.