One of Kenya’s best known government administrators, Mohamed Yusuf Haji, died recently aged 88, still actively engaged in public service as both senator and chairman of a constitution revision team.
Born in Garissa in 1940, Haji was a beneficiary of the pre-independence colonial initiative to identify young talents to fill the shoes of departing British colonial administrators. He joined the administrative service as a District Officer in 1960.
In that year, Britain called the first Lancaster House Conference to determine Kenya’s future. It decreed that ‘natives’ would rule. Officials then intensified recruitment of potential African administrators and bureaucrats.
Simeon Nyachae, another long serving administrator wrote in his autobiography that new recruits were trained to take over Kenya’s administration at independence.
According to family members, the senator was flown to Turkey in December and returned to the country on Saturday night and admitted to the hospital.
In September last year, the legislator underwent a five-hour operation at the same hospital after he slipped and dislocated his hip while at home in Garissa.
Mr Haji was the chairperson of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task force and is the father of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Yusuf Haji.
Mr Haji joined Kenya’s provincial administration in 1960 as a district officer (DO) and rose through the ranks to become one of the country’s most powerful provincial commissioners.
Garissa Senator Mohamed Yusuf Haji dies at 80
Monday February 15 2021
Garissa Senator Mohamed Yusuf Haji who has died at the Aga Khan Hospital on February 15, 2021. FILE PHOTO | NMG
By Amina Wako
He was aged 80.
Mr Haji was also the chairperson of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task force.
Mr Haji joined Kenya’s provincial administration in 1960 as a district officer (DO) and rose through the ranks to become one of the country’s most powerful provincial commissioners.
He retired from the provincial administration in 1998.
In 2002, he was nominated to Parliament and in 2007, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Ijara Constituency on a Kenya African National Union (Kanu) ticket.