Death by instalments: The Aida Muturia story
She was a leading television journalist in her heyday who rose through the ranks to become a star business news anchor at KTN. Then fame and fortune crept up on her, sending her on a spiral of alcoholism, infidelity and depression.
In this penultimate instalment of a special, four-part series, Aida Muturia reveals how she became an employee by day, alcoholic by night. And as the law of cause and effect would have it, she attracted more of the same.
Enter Sebuleni and her company of ‘friends’, who were on their own miserable, perilous paths, who came dressed as her fairy guardians and angels, drank and partied with her from Sunday to Sunday! She, of the tag of the prestigious Central Bank, of the wallet bleeding liquidity, who entertained freely, swiped the credit card, threw house parties, heavily borrowed to keep the party going, backslid into a torrent of bingeing, hangovers, and blackouts. Names have been changed to protect the identities of individuals.
****
Before Sebuleni happened, an old friend called Dada came knocking at the door of my flat. She had noticed I seldom went out. We knew each other at arm’s length as we were both journalists. She worked for a rival TV station. We met at all sorts of events — press conferences and briefings and randomly during social functions. She was now working at a public relations agency.
We lived in the same block of apartments, and I used to see her go out, but we never really exchanged anything other than greetings or pep talk. She didn’t know much about my story except that I had been out of circulation for a while and mostly stayed indoors.
She asked if I was interested in a job. I hadn’t worked for a day since I resigned from KTN. Actually, I had tried getting back into the media game despite my decadent lifestyle, but it seemed my reputation had doomed me.
A number of media houses turned me down. I did not necessarily apply for jobs organically because I had accumulated a number of contacts over the years, so it was easy to just call and ask if there were openings.
Media houses were a close knit syndicate at the time. Everyone knew everyone. There was nowhere to hide or escape. My credentials were out in the open. But so was my tainted reputation.
I had targeted a female honcho of a popular radio station, an editorial director of a reputable newspaper, and a newsroom manager of a broadcast house. They all told me more or less the same thing. I remember the radio station boss, Sophia, asking me what had happened in my previous employ, her intonation coming through as if she already knew something about the incident.
Compassionate leave
The incident had happened a few weeks after we’d buried mum. There was a thing called compassionate leave, can’t remember exactly how long it was at the time, but I had exceeded its threshold. I had texted my immediate boss, Majimbo, to request some extra days to ‘mourn’ and ‘settle’ mum’s affairs. I don’t even know what that meant, I guess I was just staggering time, plus, there was nothing really incentivising about going back to this boss who had incessantly vetoed my promotion.
He’d responded that I needed to apply for this ‘officially’, which meant travelling five hours to the city from my village. I simply ignored him.
I turned up, perhaps two weeks later. On my work desk lay a white envelope addressed with my name. I opened it passively. It was a warning letter calling out my unsolicited leave and mentioned something about disciplinary action. But that wasn’t the problem. Some particular words jumped off the sheet onto my eyeballs with unimaginable disbelief.
“You’re not the first person to lose a relative and you won’t be the last!”
“What???” Molten lava spiked through my heart.
“My mum has now become - A Relative???”
I sprang up.
“Where is Majimbo?” I roared.
Can’t remember exactly who spoke. Or what they said. Faintly, I heard ‘boardroom’.
I stormed like a raging bear from the newsroom into the winding corridors of the 20th floor of Nyayo House to the farthest wing where the boardroom was located. I flung the door open. There must’ve been ten or thirteen of them.
I saw the Managing Director and Thahabu somewhere as I rolled my blood-hungry eyes, scouting for my prey. I zoomed in on him and coursed round the boardroom table, screeching to a halt where Majimbo sat. I shoved the letter right into his face, kneading it forcefully!
“That’s what you get for calling my mum A Relative!”, I screamed.
“F*** you!”, I cursed as I marched back to the door, opened it, then turned sharply.
“I don’t care if you fire me. Do whatever the hell you want! Rot in hell!” I stomped out, slamming the door shut behind me.
Former KTN journalist Aida Muturia.
Puffed and parched
I woke up on my newsroom desk. Must’ve been the chill. It was dark. There was nobody. It was past midnight. My eyelids could hardly unglue from the eyeballs and my eyes felt puffed and parched. I was wiped out from crying. That’s the last thing I remember. I must’ve wept myself to sleep after the debacle.
I knew I’d really, really screwed up as I trembled violently through the corridors to my desk the next morning. I was the spotlight of the cataclysmic event that had never happened in this corporate's history. Everyone’s eyes were on me. I wanted to die.
I was summoned to the finance manager’s office. Zuri also doubled as the Head of Human Resources. She was the coolest lady I knew in this part of town. Stylish, feisty, smart, suave. And extremely charming. Her skin always glowed astonishingly and her hair a tone of auburn, was always funky! She loved her miniskirts and when she glided in the hallways, everybody drooled. I had just committed the ultimate felony, but sitting in front of her, I felt some degree of ease. She was like that.
She asked me if I was aware of what I’d done. I said yes. She pep talked me about knowing where I was coming from with what had just happened in my life and the consequent emotional disruption and suggested that there was help available. She handed me a letter proposing I seek psychiatric help for anger management and return to work with a letter certifying that my anger was under control.
Poignant letter
I went home that day and drafted, on a foolscap, a poignant letter listing a host of issues I had piled up over a period of time – everything except addressing what had just happened – and on the last paragraph, regretted that because of it, “I resign.” And of course, I didn't see no shrink. “How can they equate grieving with going loony???”
What a stupid girl I was! Or was it the reckless shell left of me, now completely mangled by bereavement, that had pushed me to the ledge, incapacitating my already shredded cognitive faculties and stomping on what was left of my reasoning capacity.
I didn’t as much as pick up a pencil, or personal document or any other paraphernalia I’d accumulated in my seven years on the business desk. And I never went back to that building, not even for my pension — which I received but can’t remember how — or whatever other exit process or formalities that needed to be done.
I left numerous government documents and identification cards, educational certificates, my birth certificate and other things I later realised were crucial to carrying out various other transactional procedures in the country. I applied for each document afresh, as if it were lost — anything but go back to KTN. And just like that, I threw away by journalism career.
“I have been informed that you are not reliable,” Sophia said in our meeting.
Too broken
After the initial responses, I perceived other attempts to secure a job as futile. Or maybe I gave up. At the same time, I did not wish for the limelight anymore. I was too embarrassed. Too broken.
In my quest to find a place that would accept me, I landed a stint at a religious TV station, Family Media, and intimated to the proprietor that I did not wish to be on TV and just needed to lay low. It seemed he had another agenda as I remember the station was on a fundraising drive and the timing of my entry couldn’t have been more impeccable.
He threw me right into the heart of the campaign, on the screen, doing the promos! He must’ve thought perhaps sooner or later, I would realize how much I missed being on TV. He saw the opportunity to still use what was left of my influence. Several days later, I resigned.
So when Dada asked me if I was interested in a job, my confidence level was well below great and I just wanted to hide from the world.
Reluctantly, I agreed to meet her boss, Lula. She was Australian by origin, living and working in Kenya.
Sympathetic
Her reaction on seeing me seemed sympathetic, as I was a pale reflection of my former self. I was ill-groomed and somewhat timid. Lula took a chance on me, started me off on a three-week grace period to see if I would catch on and perhaps build myself as an asset for her agency.
Three weeks turned into three months. I buried myself in the job, clocked in first before anyone showed up, and almost always, was the last to leave. I worked long hours and also offered myself up for most of the weekends. Lula pushed me up three notches on the organisational hierarchy within a very short period. I became directly answerable to her and she put me in charge of a small team.
On the fourth month, what I perceived at the time as the opportunity of a lifetime came knocking at my door. Another connection, just like Dada, only this time it was an ex-boyfriend, from my high school and before my university days, Thahabu, who was now a big official in the government.
He was formerly the Head of News at my former media house and first-hand witness to my undoing after mum’s episode.
He had always had my back over the years. I think it was more than that, but I will never know for sure since we lost touch over the years and if we did connect, it was a bit clinical and dispassionate.
Stamp of approval
The opportunity was with the country’s financial sector regulator, the Central Bank of Kenya. My immediate mission was to set up a communications unit within the organisation which was previously unavailable and manage the reputational aspects of the regulator, which was heavily skewed on the negative side going by the media coverage at the time. The bank and its stakeholders were mostly at loggerheads — and CBK was the bad guy. That Thahabu thought me fit for the role, I’d say, was a huge stamp of approval.
I remember the excitement leading up to stepping into that role and the fear that overcame me when I knew I had to break the news to Lula. I had genuinely grown fond of her and loved working for her. God knows, it was too short to just leave.
I remember being so conflicted and questioning whether it was really the right move given I hadn’t gained much experience, let alone nurtured my skill set in this new phase of my career. This was a huge leap, maybe too soon.
At the same time, how could I disappoint Thahabu. Who, of all people in the world that he could pick, settled on me?
But, the promise of a hefty, need I mention, double pay check and the perks that came with it quickly settled my mind. What had to be done, had to be done.
Worst career move
Turns out I was making my worst career move and committing career suicide. I recall my time there as a nightmare.
The first two years were profoundly rewarding. I had immense support from the top management, so setting up the communications apparatus was fluid, almost effortless. Everything was allocated, except for funds. What I mean is, any effort or action taken towards building the function was purely a theoretic, unmonetised activity. Proposals to install a proper operational and human infrastructure were quietly dismissed or stalled, with promises to expand ‘later’.
It wasn’t the governor. No. He was deeply appreciative and supportive of my work. He listened to me attentively. He penned generous and approving notes all over my proposals and any other documents that required ‘my’ office’s advice, comments or feedback.
He almost loved me like a daughter. Our relationship felt like that. I passionately loved working under him and even charmed the media into falling in love with him – at least for a while. Even the hard critics, two senior editors who scored a handful of prime exclusives, such as the first and probably only time – to my knowledge – a journalist was accorded access to the enormous and highly securitised old oak-stenched underground strong rooms, witnessing a money museum in its full glory.
The governor’s boldness and involvement was intense and unmistakable. He shattered the ivory tower and demolished the red-tape of a long held and kept secret culture and replaced it with a softer human faced approach. Because of it, I made a whole lot of enemies.
It was a preserve of the ageing and archaic, a stone-cold public service turf where more than half of its staff were aged 50 and above, with those my age bracket and below at the time accounting for less than 14 per cent.
Trotting on a treadmill
Basically, I became a lone, one-woman show! Any traction in terms of building the function was equivalent to trotting on a treadmill.
The third year and henceforth turned into a devastating debacle that was to induce a monumental meltdown, one I wonder how I recovered from to this day. I was easily at the lowest point of my life — and I thought mum’s death was the lowest.
I wasn’t prepared for the surprises that were coming and the slide back into the rabbit hole of depression. It would later lead me to discover a path I had brushed with, but inadvertently failed to discern. Life had packaged despair in a way that would bring me face to face with myself.
The aftermath of an overthrow of the governor of the regulatory authority at the time led to the abrupt shutting down of my communications function by the acting governor appointed to step in during the transitory period.
She authorised the deferment of my confirmation as a permanent employee of the bank and covertly cast me into a mishmash of isolation, harassment and abrupt transfers that deflated my spirit, maimed my confidence, and thwarted my potential for other progressive roles.
My competitive edge had gradually blunted, given the duration of time I stayed without an active role and therefore the narrowing of bargaining leverage for other professional engagements. It was what I’d heard being labelled as career suicide.
Alcoholic by night
The tab of alcohol flowed ceaselessly. I became an employee by day, alcoholic by night. And as the law of cause and effect would have it, I attracted more of the same.
Enter Sebuleni and her company of ‘friends’, who were on their own miserable, perilous paths, who came dressed as my fairy guardians and angels, drank and partied with me from Sunday to Sunday! I, of the tag of the prestigious Central Bank, of the wallet bleeding liquidity, who entertained freely, swiped the credit card, threw house parties, heavily borrowed to keep the party going, backslid into a torrent of bingeing, hangovers, and blackouts.
I was basically buying company for money. The monster fed my void so well I couldn’t have imagined the snowball that would eventually have me end up by myself, again. An unsparing climax.
The last five years I was posted to the Kenya School of Monetary Studies, KSMS, which bore the notorious reputation as the den of rejects. Most who’d fallen out with outgoing regimes were dumped here.
The whole bank was like that, depends on which arm of the political octopus you wagged. But favour soon fell on me, albeit briefly, with the then Executive Director who elevated my position to a quotient of what it used to be in terms of my skill set and now I had an iota of influence in the runnings of the School’s not-so-official communication function.
I earned a few premium perks such as international trips to South Africa and the Netherlands and also scored a seat at the management table. There were at times cozy out of towners at exclusive resorts plus choice trainings and I also notched up prime responsibilities at some aspects of the bank’s backbone events.
Falling-out
But my fairy tale comeback soon disintegrated as I fell out with him on grounds I have never understood, to date, despite an authentic – I think – attempt at unearthing the reason.
It wasn’t surprising anyway. The gossip mill in this institution was legendary. I really liked him as a boss though. He was super smart, funny and scary at the same time. He made staff freak out whenever he walked past. But when you were in his inner circles, then you got to see his easy going, deeply enchanting persona and amazing heart-deep laughter, not to mention a dazzling sense of humour. The School had never come under such authentic and visionary leadership in my opinion.
I had the best of jobs, an endeared and admired broadcast journalism and communications career, yet it all seemed jinxed. Everything disintegrating.
I resigned from the Central Bank nine years later, subsequently assuming the position of an Executive Assistant to the CEO at an experiential events agency called Trueblaq where I took an almost 40 per cent salary cut. I had met the CEO — may he continue to rest in peace — almost a year prior through a residential event I’d organised for CBK in a coastal resort where he delivered some training and we’d kept communication since. What he didn’t remember is that I knew him from childhood.
Magnetic presence
We shared the same neighbourhood when we were kids. He was one of those cool guys who had an incredible worship worthy kind of magnetic presence and the kids in the hood would always flock around him.
That quality had magnified exponentially when I met him those many years later.
Trueblaq was his company. It was struggling a lot at the time — cash flow issues and all, but I had no idea. We met at a popular filling station around the area I lived and he mentioned that he urgently needed an EA and if it’d interest me. I was sold on the spot as I had reached saturation level with the Bank. So all other considerations, including commensurate emoluments to what I could offer and what I was previously earning were off the table.
I just wanted out, at whatever cost! I might as well have been cleaning floors! I had this quirky idea that it was a temporary situation, that I would mark time there until something else came.
Trueblaq was in and out of financial difficulties and salaries were faltering. I was struggling to be there. The CEO had been unwell for some time, in and out of hospital and his sister, the General Manager was holding fort as best as she could, as far as I can assume.
At some point, I fell out with him based on, well, rightfully, performance issues and was given a chance to resign. It was one of those implicit situations. He didn't fire me but his body language already had. The atmosphere was thick with the intonations. It had been long coming anyway and I was grossly unhappy. I was fed up with the entire employment-scape as I had been there now almost 16 years.
Network marketing
I then ventured, on my own, into the space of network marketing, initially, with quite the flamboyant travel club based in the US — Dream Trips. It was great for a while, especially the travel, but I was sinking in 80 per cent in expenses and only making 30 per cent or less. I ended up using a chunk of my savings to sustain the business and ultimately sold my car and a few other assets to keep up with my rents, bills, and lifestyle in general.
Any semblance of income generating activity from hence seemed untenable. One such — as if it could even deserve a designation — was a jumbo-sized scandal of a pyramid scheme that stretched for a year with little, if any, authenticity from my inceptive research, going by the brand, D9, and originating from and involving a Brazilian scammer, Danilo Santana. I knew, we all knew, intuitively that it was a time bomb, but everyone was minting money out of it. I looked the other way for a while but since I hadn’t been doing well financially for some time, I gave in for whatever it was worth.
The scheme started vacillating and collapsed at the same exact time I had deluded myself into believing that it was leaning towards success.
Talk about stupidity and greed in one blow! I suffered a financial loss running into thousands of dollars, mine and other people’s hard earned incomes and savings, in what seemed like the bat of an eye. Anything I had invested in using the proceeds of that scam shifted like pudding. I grabbed, but I couldn’t grasp.
In a matter of six months, I was seriously broke. I doused down another gulp of suicide.
“How did I get here?”
As my entire life and savings went down the drain, and strangers and people I knew, alike, bombarded my cell phone with calls demanding for their money, threats included, I felt pressed down by the multitude of issues and frustrations and concerns that felt like they were bigger than my capacity to handle them.
Contemplating suicide
I remember, for the first time in my life, contemplating suicide. Not just as a fleeting thought. I Googled obsessively about the quickest way to die. The dying kicks before I’d finally left the home that we’d shared with Saraswati, I had turned into some sort of dark, attention seeking, extortionist vixen.
In my desperation not be kicked out, I’d started locking myself in the bathroom for hours on end, seated in the empty bathtub, drinking cheap booze and arbitrarily slashing my wrists. At first I’d thought I wanted to kill myself but even the anaesthetic effect of the alcohol wasn’t enough to propel me to cut deep into the veins.
I’d settled for the thrill of the pain of injuring myself continuously, again and again, with a kitchen knife. I would never allow it to heal. But nobody paid attention. Not even empathy. Nobody raised the alarm or sought help. Nothing.
This one was the real deal. I wanted to die. But I didn’t want pain. No knives, no ropes, or polythene bags! Just a painless end to my misery, please! I gave my house helper as well as the security guards at the apartment entrance strict instructions not to allow anyone into my home.
Then I locked myself in my bedroom, drew the curtains and burrowed there almost permanently. It was self-contained, but I hardly showered unless I couldn’t stand my own stench. My good ol’ stress buster, Johny Walker or whoever was available at the right price, was welcome here as I frantically skimmed through my death options day and night. My phone was off by now, indefinitely. No more interruptions. No more world. Just me at my almost end! BY DAILY NATION
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