82 Coup d'état
- Thread starter Meria
- Start date
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli, hanged in 1986 as one of the key actors of the 1982 coup in Kenya.
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli Odera Obedi was on Wednesday 9th February 1983 sentenced to death by a Court Martial sitting at Langata Barracks Nairobi for committing treason during the 1st August 1982 coup attempt in Kenya.
He was an aircraft technician. In the Book by Babatemi A. Badejo “Raila Odinga, An Enigma in Kenya Politics” it is revealed that Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was considered a member of the “Peoples Redemption Council” that comprised of (1) S/pte Hezekiah Ochuka, as chairman, (2) S/sgt Pancras Okumu Oteyo, (3) Sgt Jospeh Ogidi Obuon, (4) Sgt Samuel Opiyo, (5) Sgt Richard Obuon, (6) Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli, (7) Cpl Ombok, (
Capt. Agola.
He was represented at the Court Martial by a state appointed lawyer the Late Nicholas Rabala who hailed from Busia as the defence lawyer.
After the sentence to death on 9th February 1983, Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was incarcerated at Kamiti Maximum Prison and with frequent movements to among other prisons Naivasha Prison before he was hanged in 1986 between July to September at Kamiti Maximum Prison and buried there.
A family member who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact and on the trail of Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli says that he was clandestinely in October 1986 through informal contacts he had at the prison shown Cpl Chesoli’s unmarked grave at the Kamiti Maximum Prison among other nine unmarked graves of the Kenya Air Force 1982 coup architects and central actors.
The official records of who of the 1982 coup leaders and central actors who had been sentenced to hang were hanged and when and where the bodies were buried remains classified but the unofficial accounts point to those hanged as Hezekiah Ochuka, Pancras Oteyo Okumu, Charles Oriwa Hongo, Robert Odhiambo Ndege, Bramwel Injeni Njeremani, Fenwicks Chesoli, Joseph Ogidi Obuon, Charles Mirasi Odawa, Walter Odira Ojode, Edward Adel Omollo, James Odemba Otieno and George Akoth Otila.
It is reported that during his Defence hearing that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli addressed the court martial for one hour or so off the cuff. That he was eloquent, articulate and indeed Colonel Ombewa who was prosecuting him argued in his closing submissions that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli had demonstrated in his defence how influential he was and a key participant in the coup with his charisma and eloquence.
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli’s cousin who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact with him after the sentence through visits as and when he would be allowed by prison authorities stated that at the trial Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli did not show any regrets, that he said the presiding Judge knew the issues that precipitated the coup.
That after the sentence Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli remained convinced that they were fighting for what was right. That he did tell his father (uncle Otella) at the start of the Court Martial that they had weighed the risks involved in the enterprise of change of Government and the consequences and that indeed they would also have tried those who had committed crimes against the people of Kenya if they had succeeded. That the Court Martial was a Kangaroo process, that he did not expect justice, that his fate was sealed and he was prepared for it.
The cousin who was just a young man then says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was highly intelligent. That in primary school, he hovered at position one or two throughout. That he scored a division two and was admitted for form five but due to school fees challenges his uncle who was educating him and had his own school fees burdens for his children asked a relative to secure him a place at the Air Force and that is how he ended up there.
The cousin recounts how the witnesses who testified alleged said that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was Airforce Commander for the short lived period of the coup before it was crushed.
The cousin says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was a very smart man who regularly kept the (parting of) hair line like the youthful Mandela. That he was a replica of his maternal grandfather who was smart and was reputed to, whenever he was walking on the road and a vehicle passed and raised dust he will go off the road and clean any dust and apply Vaseline to restore his smartness.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother mama Tunai Nekesa gazes outside the door of her house as though expecting his son to re-appear after years of pain, of losing her beloved son.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother when interviewed by (the writer) in late July 2011 remembered exactly the date, day and time she gave birth to the bouncing baby son and that was evident in the way she described it:
“I gave birth to Fenwicks on Monday 10th August 1953 at exactly 1pm.”
Fenwicks Chesoli’s father Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga was the youngest brother of Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella. Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella took up the responsibility of educating Chesoli at an early age as his father did not have the means. Chesoli then took up his uncle’s name Otella which during the registration of persons was taken for Odera and the name stuck from Otella to Odera. That the name “Obedi” was Fenwicks Chesoli’s adaptation of his maternal grandfather’s nickname of “Obaddiah” that the old man did not like as it referred to his being bow-legged.
Mzee Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga, the late father of Chesoli who passed on in 2007 is from the Basamo Clan while Mama Tunai Nekesa is from the Bakhwami clan of the Bukusu tribe.
Fenwicks Chesoli was circumcised on 8th August 1966 and belonged to the circumcision age set of the Bukusu called “Ba-Maina namba nne, sia Kerre”. The age set was named “sia Kerre” after Mzee Kerre who in 1963 represented Mt. Elgon Central (now Bumula/Kanduyi Constituency) and on his death it was found out that he had not been circumcised and as decreed by Bukusu Customs that every male member must be circumcised, the late Kerre was circumcised after his death and before he was buried.
According to Chesoli’s mother, his son was hardworking, humble and very obedient. That he started his primary education in 1961 at Kitayi RC Primary School where he attended classes to class two and then transferred to Kimilili FYM at the time commonly called ‘Wa Daniel.’
He sat for his standard seven exams in 1971 and then joined Kimilili Boys Secondary until 1975 when he sat for his O level examination and passed.
Chesoli was to join Friends school Kamusinga for his A level education but due to the financial constraints his father could not afford his fees bearing in mind that he had other children to take to school and look after.
Chesoli later successfully joined the Kenya Air Force after sitting for an interview in Nairobi between 31st August and September 14, 1976. After being successful, together with others, they were taken to Lanet, Nakuru where they trained for a month before they were taken back to Nairobi where they were trained for a whole year.
Fenwicks Chesoli joined the Electronics and instruments section where he worked very hard in hangars and bays according to some of his colleagues whom we managed to talk to but who insisted on anonymity.
Chesoli attended a course in the United Kingdom in 1981 for four months and continued with his normal duties as before.
In February 1982, he returned home on leave which according to information from the family, ended well and he went back to work.
During the 1982 coup, Chesoli was by that time based at Eastleigh in Nairobi. At the time, Chesoli was a close friend of Hezekiah Ochuka and the friendship is said to have been very strong. Ochuka was the Chairman of the Airmen Welfare while Chesoli was his Vice. Ex soldiers who were with them by then recall how powerful and influential the two were especially in championing for the rights of the Kenya Air force and even common citizens mostly on economic and political imbalances among other vices. Besides that Chesoli and Ochuka were age mates having been born the same year.
With Ochuka being born in Nyakach, Kisumu District in August 1953, then Chesoli in Kitayi Bungoma District in August 1953. They joined the Kenya Air force the same year and were placed in the same section.
Some ex-soldiers have since admitted that indeed Chesoli and Ochuka fought for equality only that may be the route that was taken later in August did not please some people. They described Chesoli as a gentleman, humble, obedient, pragmatic, courageous and very firm. At one time one of the senior officers is said to have threatened to demote him from a Corporal an act that made Chesoli remove everything he had and give it to him and said he was ready for anything as long as he was doing the right thing.
Back to the Coup, Chesoli like any soldiers is said to have had information concerning the planned Coup but did not know the exact date when the plan would be executed. However, some of his colleagues say he was in charge of Eastleigh base when the plan was executed.
After the planned Coup failed, it is said Chesoli was supposed to flee together with Ochuka but because he was a bit far Ochuka managed to fly off just with one shoe and they even went the opposite direction of how the flights path to Tanzania. But before Ochuka left, he had to convince his colleagues where he was heading to because he had been trusted so much by his fellow soldiers.
“He told us that he was going to look for reinforcements from other quarters before he left but afterwards we suspected something was amiss,” said one of the ex-officers who was among our sources of information.
After all was clear that Ochuka had fled the country, Air force soldiers decided to surrender by hanging a surrender flag with a solder called Ndambuki leading in raising hands as a sign of surrender. However, the Kenya Army soldiers who had invaded the base began butchering those who had surrendered.
It is said over two hundred soldiers who has surrendered were told to remove all the clothes and sit down several lines. They were later forced to kneel down on murram and raise their hands up. Chesoli who was still at the base after he failed to accompany Ochuka to Tanzania had sneaked and ran up to a family friend at Buruburu. Army soldiers started shooting aimlessly and killed some Air force soldiers whom up to now their exact number has never been known.
Our sources reveal that one Army man whom he could not recall his name was the only one who sympathized with them and stopped his fellow soldiers from killing people who had surrendered had to kneel down until dusk.
In the evening they were thrown in lorries in different layers and were taken to Kamiti Maximum prison where on arriving they were put in a field which was already full of the victims of the attempted Coup with some over bleeding. “You could feel a very warm liquid running down your body and when you check you find it is human blood,” said one of the victims as he narrated his ordeal.
“We were again beaten mercilessly with some people being shot until the prison officers intervened and demanded that we are either left to be under their care or the Army men who had taken us there take us anywhere and kills us,” he added.
They obeyed the order and stopped beating them but later their faces were tied with a black cloth and taken into cells. Screening started followed by separation according to the how one was implicated.
In Buruburu where Chesoli who had hidden at his friend’s house, he was given civilian clothes and later buried the Kenya Airforce clothes. He went on the street but he was spotted by Kenya Army officers who wanted to kill him but he was saved by one officer who knew him. He put him in his vehicle and took him to the Central Police station where he surrendered and later taken to Kamiti prison where he was mixed with other soldiers who had been arrested.
A soldier who was near Chesoli in the cell, recalls how Chesoli told him how he had been betrayed by other soldiers. “Wase babandu bambulile , (my friend people have revealed me),” said Chesoli as quoted by his friend.
They were later taken to Naivasha where most of the ex soldiers we have talked to admit they underwent the worst torture.
In fact, as we were interacting and interviewing these ex officers, you could see tears roll down their cheeks when they talk about what happened in Naivasha.
They were beaten and put into very dark rooms half filled with ice cold water. One was to be put there naked and the reception was that they pour on themselves 20 litres of the ice cold water.
“At meal times no food was offered but instead at every meal time more water was brought so that you pour on yourself. Short calls and long calls were in the same room and was mixed with water which when one was thirsty, he could drink the same water,” recalled the ex soldiers.
Chesoli`s cousin Robert Nyaranga says they used to visit him while at Kamiti as the proceedings were going on but towards the end of 1984, they were stopped completely and told to seek permission from the President before they would be allowed to see him. To Mama Tunai, Chesoli`s mother, that one was an impossibility because she argues they would be killed if they approached the President seeking permission to see their son.
They went back home but luckily at Kamiti, there was a prison officer from Bungoma whom they knew and therefore used him so much to get information on the whereabouts of their son. He used to inform them occasionally how he was progressing together with other five ex officers whom he was sharing a cell with.
Later in 1986, the prison officer from Bungoma went on leave and on going back; he found Chesoli and the other five missing. Bearing on how sensitive their case was, that prison officer could not ask anything but just came back and went straight up to Chesoli`s place at Kitayi and informed his parents and family members that their son had been moved to a different place which he did not know.
Chesoli according to all of our sources was very good at English and he was a great orator a characteristic that resonated with Hezekiah Ochuka who was himself charismatic and that is why he was very close to him. Our sources say it was Ochuka and Chesoli who could boldly face the Chief of the General Staff during their occasional meetings and ask him to look into their problems and solve them.
Chesoli`s father died four years ago without knowing the fate of his son. The family has lived in fear and confusion with most in distress and others leaving school after their only helper went missing. Some children stopped going to school and even those who went to school fear applying for public jobs with the spirit that they might go the same way Chesoli went. Although one of Chesoli`s brother is a police officer, many parents in that clan discourage their children from joining forces claiming what happened to Chesoli might happen to them too.
As of now family members led by Chesoli`s mother Tunai Nekesa are urging the government to give a clear report of where their son went and if he was killed, they would like to be given his remains so that they bury him according to their culture. Tunai says the hanging of her son has traumatized her for long leaving her in great despair despite struggling earlier to educate his son so that she could lead a better life.
The family says at one time they got information that Chesoli and the other five had been jailed outside Kenya and plans were underway to bring them back but it did not happen. As a family they have not conducted any traditional ceremony to bury a banana stem as is the case among the Bukusu tribe when someone dies but his body is not found.
According to the family, they must be sure Chesoli died before they can bury the banana stem for they fear doing so only for him to re-appear later.
Chesoli in 1982 at age 29 had not married by then though some of his friends say he was dating a lady whom he was planning to marry. However it is not clear if Chesoli had any children because some of his friends claim he might have had children.
Mama Tunai Nekesa told us that she was not aware about the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission sittings at Bungoma and also not aware that she could have gone and presented her son’s case to them.
_________________________________________
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli Odera Obedi was on Wednesday 9th February 1983 sentenced to death by a Court Martial sitting at Langata Barracks Nairobi for committing treason during the 1st August 1982 coup attempt in Kenya.
He was an aircraft technician. In the Book by Babatemi A. Badejo “Raila Odinga, An Enigma in Kenya Politics” it is revealed that Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was considered a member of the “Peoples Redemption Council” that comprised of (1) S/pte Hezekiah Ochuka, as chairman, (2) S/sgt Pancras Okumu Oteyo, (3) Sgt Jospeh Ogidi Obuon, (4) Sgt Samuel Opiyo, (5) Sgt Richard Obuon, (6) Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli, (7) Cpl Ombok, (
He was represented at the Court Martial by a state appointed lawyer the Late Nicholas Rabala who hailed from Busia as the defence lawyer.
After the sentence to death on 9th February 1983, Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was incarcerated at Kamiti Maximum Prison and with frequent movements to among other prisons Naivasha Prison before he was hanged in 1986 between July to September at Kamiti Maximum Prison and buried there.
A family member who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact and on the trail of Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli says that he was clandestinely in October 1986 through informal contacts he had at the prison shown Cpl Chesoli’s unmarked grave at the Kamiti Maximum Prison among other nine unmarked graves of the Kenya Air Force 1982 coup architects and central actors.
The official records of who of the 1982 coup leaders and central actors who had been sentenced to hang were hanged and when and where the bodies were buried remains classified but the unofficial accounts point to those hanged as Hezekiah Ochuka, Pancras Oteyo Okumu, Charles Oriwa Hongo, Robert Odhiambo Ndege, Bramwel Injeni Njeremani, Fenwicks Chesoli, Joseph Ogidi Obuon, Charles Mirasi Odawa, Walter Odira Ojode, Edward Adel Omollo, James Odemba Otieno and George Akoth Otila.
It is reported that during his Defence hearing that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli addressed the court martial for one hour or so off the cuff. That he was eloquent, articulate and indeed Colonel Ombewa who was prosecuting him argued in his closing submissions that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli had demonstrated in his defence how influential he was and a key participant in the coup with his charisma and eloquence.
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli’s cousin who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact with him after the sentence through visits as and when he would be allowed by prison authorities stated that at the trial Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli did not show any regrets, that he said the presiding Judge knew the issues that precipitated the coup.
That after the sentence Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli remained convinced that they were fighting for what was right. That he did tell his father (uncle Otella) at the start of the Court Martial that they had weighed the risks involved in the enterprise of change of Government and the consequences and that indeed they would also have tried those who had committed crimes against the people of Kenya if they had succeeded. That the Court Martial was a Kangaroo process, that he did not expect justice, that his fate was sealed and he was prepared for it.
The cousin who was just a young man then says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was highly intelligent. That in primary school, he hovered at position one or two throughout. That he scored a division two and was admitted for form five but due to school fees challenges his uncle who was educating him and had his own school fees burdens for his children asked a relative to secure him a place at the Air Force and that is how he ended up there.
The cousin recounts how the witnesses who testified alleged said that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was Airforce Commander for the short lived period of the coup before it was crushed.
The cousin says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was a very smart man who regularly kept the (parting of) hair line like the youthful Mandela. That he was a replica of his maternal grandfather who was smart and was reputed to, whenever he was walking on the road and a vehicle passed and raised dust he will go off the road and clean any dust and apply Vaseline to restore his smartness.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother mama Tunai Nekesa gazes outside the door of her house as though expecting his son to re-appear after years of pain, of losing her beloved son.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother when interviewed by (the writer) in late July 2011 remembered exactly the date, day and time she gave birth to the bouncing baby son and that was evident in the way she described it:
“I gave birth to Fenwicks on Monday 10th August 1953 at exactly 1pm.”
Fenwicks Chesoli’s father Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga was the youngest brother of Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella. Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella took up the responsibility of educating Chesoli at an early age as his father did not have the means. Chesoli then took up his uncle’s name Otella which during the registration of persons was taken for Odera and the name stuck from Otella to Odera. That the name “Obedi” was Fenwicks Chesoli’s adaptation of his maternal grandfather’s nickname of “Obaddiah” that the old man did not like as it referred to his being bow-legged.
Mzee Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga, the late father of Chesoli who passed on in 2007 is from the Basamo Clan while Mama Tunai Nekesa is from the Bakhwami clan of the Bukusu tribe.
Fenwicks Chesoli was circumcised on 8th August 1966 and belonged to the circumcision age set of the Bukusu called “Ba-Maina namba nne, sia Kerre”. The age set was named “sia Kerre” after Mzee Kerre who in 1963 represented Mt. Elgon Central (now Bumula/Kanduyi Constituency) and on his death it was found out that he had not been circumcised and as decreed by Bukusu Customs that every male member must be circumcised, the late Kerre was circumcised after his death and before he was buried.
According to Chesoli’s mother, his son was hardworking, humble and very obedient. That he started his primary education in 1961 at Kitayi RC Primary School where he attended classes to class two and then transferred to Kimilili FYM at the time commonly called ‘Wa Daniel.’
He sat for his standard seven exams in 1971 and then joined Kimilili Boys Secondary until 1975 when he sat for his O level examination and passed.
Chesoli was to join Friends school Kamusinga for his A level education but due to the financial constraints his father could not afford his fees bearing in mind that he had other children to take to school and look after.
Chesoli later successfully joined the Kenya Air Force after sitting for an interview in Nairobi between 31st August and September 14, 1976. After being successful, together with others, they were taken to Lanet, Nakuru where they trained for a month before they were taken back to Nairobi where they were trained for a whole year.
Fenwicks Chesoli joined the Electronics and instruments section where he worked very hard in hangars and bays according to some of his colleagues whom we managed to talk to but who insisted on anonymity.
Chesoli attended a course in the United Kingdom in 1981 for four months and continued with his normal duties as before.
In February 1982, he returned home on leave which according to information from the family, ended well and he went back to work.
During the 1982 coup, Chesoli was by that time based at Eastleigh in Nairobi. At the time, Chesoli was a close friend of Hezekiah Ochuka and the friendship is said to have been very strong. Ochuka was the Chairman of the Airmen Welfare while Chesoli was his Vice. Ex soldiers who were with them by then recall how powerful and influential the two were especially in championing for the rights of the Kenya Air force and even common citizens mostly on economic and political imbalances among other vices. Besides that Chesoli and Ochuka were age mates having been born the same year.
With Ochuka being born in Nyakach, Kisumu District in August 1953, then Chesoli in Kitayi Bungoma District in August 1953. They joined the Kenya Air force the same year and were placed in the same section.
Some ex-soldiers have since admitted that indeed Chesoli and Ochuka fought for equality only that may be the route that was taken later in August did not please some people. They described Chesoli as a gentleman, humble, obedient, pragmatic, courageous and very firm. At one time one of the senior officers is said to have threatened to demote him from a Corporal an act that made Chesoli remove everything he had and give it to him and said he was ready for anything as long as he was doing the right thing.
Back to the Coup, Chesoli like any soldiers is said to have had information concerning the planned Coup but did not know the exact date when the plan would be executed. However, some of his colleagues say he was in charge of Eastleigh base when the plan was executed.
After the planned Coup failed, it is said Chesoli was supposed to flee together with Ochuka but because he was a bit far Ochuka managed to fly off just with one shoe and they even went the opposite direction of how the flights path to Tanzania. But before Ochuka left, he had to convince his colleagues where he was heading to because he had been trusted so much by his fellow soldiers.
“He told us that he was going to look for reinforcements from other quarters before he left but afterwards we suspected something was amiss,” said one of the ex-officers who was among our sources of information.
After all was clear that Ochuka had fled the country, Air force soldiers decided to surrender by hanging a surrender flag with a solder called Ndambuki leading in raising hands as a sign of surrender. However, the Kenya Army soldiers who had invaded the base began butchering those who had surrendered.
It is said over two hundred soldiers who has surrendered were told to remove all the clothes and sit down several lines. They were later forced to kneel down on murram and raise their hands up. Chesoli who was still at the base after he failed to accompany Ochuka to Tanzania had sneaked and ran up to a family friend at Buruburu. Army soldiers started shooting aimlessly and killed some Air force soldiers whom up to now their exact number has never been known.
Our sources reveal that one Army man whom he could not recall his name was the only one who sympathized with them and stopped his fellow soldiers from killing people who had surrendered had to kneel down until dusk.
In the evening they were thrown in lorries in different layers and were taken to Kamiti Maximum prison where on arriving they were put in a field which was already full of the victims of the attempted Coup with some over bleeding. “You could feel a very warm liquid running down your body and when you check you find it is human blood,” said one of the victims as he narrated his ordeal.
“We were again beaten mercilessly with some people being shot until the prison officers intervened and demanded that we are either left to be under their care or the Army men who had taken us there take us anywhere and kills us,” he added.
They obeyed the order and stopped beating them but later their faces were tied with a black cloth and taken into cells. Screening started followed by separation according to the how one was implicated.
In Buruburu where Chesoli who had hidden at his friend’s house, he was given civilian clothes and later buried the Kenya Airforce clothes. He went on the street but he was spotted by Kenya Army officers who wanted to kill him but he was saved by one officer who knew him. He put him in his vehicle and took him to the Central Police station where he surrendered and later taken to Kamiti prison where he was mixed with other soldiers who had been arrested.
A soldier who was near Chesoli in the cell, recalls how Chesoli told him how he had been betrayed by other soldiers. “Wase babandu bambulile , (my friend people have revealed me),” said Chesoli as quoted by his friend.
They were later taken to Naivasha where most of the ex soldiers we have talked to admit they underwent the worst torture.
In fact, as we were interacting and interviewing these ex officers, you could see tears roll down their cheeks when they talk about what happened in Naivasha.
They were beaten and put into very dark rooms half filled with ice cold water. One was to be put there naked and the reception was that they pour on themselves 20 litres of the ice cold water.
“At meal times no food was offered but instead at every meal time more water was brought so that you pour on yourself. Short calls and long calls were in the same room and was mixed with water which when one was thirsty, he could drink the same water,” recalled the ex soldiers.
Chesoli`s cousin Robert Nyaranga says they used to visit him while at Kamiti as the proceedings were going on but towards the end of 1984, they were stopped completely and told to seek permission from the President before they would be allowed to see him. To Mama Tunai, Chesoli`s mother, that one was an impossibility because she argues they would be killed if they approached the President seeking permission to see their son.
They went back home but luckily at Kamiti, there was a prison officer from Bungoma whom they knew and therefore used him so much to get information on the whereabouts of their son. He used to inform them occasionally how he was progressing together with other five ex officers whom he was sharing a cell with.
Later in 1986, the prison officer from Bungoma went on leave and on going back; he found Chesoli and the other five missing. Bearing on how sensitive their case was, that prison officer could not ask anything but just came back and went straight up to Chesoli`s place at Kitayi and informed his parents and family members that their son had been moved to a different place which he did not know.
Chesoli according to all of our sources was very good at English and he was a great orator a characteristic that resonated with Hezekiah Ochuka who was himself charismatic and that is why he was very close to him. Our sources say it was Ochuka and Chesoli who could boldly face the Chief of the General Staff during their occasional meetings and ask him to look into their problems and solve them.
Chesoli`s father died four years ago without knowing the fate of his son. The family has lived in fear and confusion with most in distress and others leaving school after their only helper went missing. Some children stopped going to school and even those who went to school fear applying for public jobs with the spirit that they might go the same way Chesoli went. Although one of Chesoli`s brother is a police officer, many parents in that clan discourage their children from joining forces claiming what happened to Chesoli might happen to them too.
As of now family members led by Chesoli`s mother Tunai Nekesa are urging the government to give a clear report of where their son went and if he was killed, they would like to be given his remains so that they bury him according to their culture. Tunai says the hanging of her son has traumatized her for long leaving her in great despair despite struggling earlier to educate his son so that she could lead a better life.
The family says at one time they got information that Chesoli and the other five had been jailed outside Kenya and plans were underway to bring them back but it did not happen. As a family they have not conducted any traditional ceremony to bury a banana stem as is the case among the Bukusu tribe when someone dies but his body is not found.
According to the family, they must be sure Chesoli died before they can bury the banana stem for they fear doing so only for him to re-appear later.
Chesoli in 1982 at age 29 had not married by then though some of his friends say he was dating a lady whom he was planning to marry. However it is not clear if Chesoli had any children because some of his friends claim he might have had children.
Mama Tunai Nekesa told us that she was not aware about the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission sittings at Bungoma and also not aware that she could have gone and presented her son’s case to them.
_________________________________________
imei2012
Elder Lister
Stoicism right there!
How many of you know of a coup attempt in 1971
The 1971, coup attempt was organised in threefold . At the top were the elites such as the Chief of General staff, the Chief Justice and Cabinet ministers who were capable of directing instruments of national power.
They gave the plot their blessings but took a dormant position waiting for the opportune time.
At the bottom were commissioned military officers who were to formulate and implement the takeover strategy.
In the middle were intellectuals, trade unionists who were tasked with raising funds and seeking international support. They were mostly people who had connections with Mboya.
Among them were Gideon Mutiso who had served as Mboya's deputy in KFL, Oyangi Mbaja who had served as Mboya's propaganda Secretary in the NPCP, Dennis Akumu who had worked with Mboya in the KFL and as an organiser in the NPCP, Jesse Mwangi Gachago who had also worked as Mboya's deputy in the KFL and Dr Pius Muga.
The fact that this was happening in the aftermath of Mboya's assassination and being that the organisers were his allies and soldiers from his backyard of South Nyanza, gave the plot a "Mboya element."
Towards the end of 1970 Mutiso had written to Irving Brown an American trade unionist with strong CIA connections , informing him about the plot and requesting him for funds.
Brown who was the founding executive director of AFL-CIO's African American Labour Centre was a great friend of Mboya and had funded most of his political and trade union activities. Together with Lovestone they had been accused of aiding the CIA in the Guyana coup.
His friendship with Mboya was so much resented by the Gatundu group that when US Vice President Hubert Humphrey included him in his delegation to Kenya in 1968, the US ambassador under pressure from the Gatundu group wrote to Humphrey advising him against the idea. Humphrey ignored the advice after consulting the AFL-CIO and travelled to Kenya with Brown.
But with regards to Mutiso's 1970 letter asking for funds for the coup, he refused to reply.
Meanwhile Professor Pius Muga who was tasked with soliciting support from regional leaders approached Julius Nyerere and asked for his backing.
According to DPP Charles Karugu who prosecuted the case against the plotters, Nyerere replied:
"Not against Mzee's government. If it was Malawi I would think about it. But not Kenya, and definitely not while Mzee is still alive."
Unfortunately the plot was discovered before it could materialise. The elites were relieved of their duties without being charged, while the military officers, intellectuals, trade unionists and politicians were sentenced to between 7 and 10 years in prison.
Jesse Mwangi who survived would later be arrested and jailed under trumped up charges of smuggling coffee. When he was released Njonjo warned him to stop linking him with the murder of Mboya since that was the reason of his jailing.
Although Kenyatta downplayed the plot terming as "noise of a frog", warning shots had been fired.
The 1971, coup attempt was organised in threefold . At the top were the elites such as the Chief of General staff, the Chief Justice and Cabinet ministers who were capable of directing instruments of national power.
They gave the plot their blessings but took a dormant position waiting for the opportune time.
At the bottom were commissioned military officers who were to formulate and implement the takeover strategy.
In the middle were intellectuals, trade unionists who were tasked with raising funds and seeking international support. They were mostly people who had connections with Mboya.
Among them were Gideon Mutiso who had served as Mboya's deputy in KFL, Oyangi Mbaja who had served as Mboya's propaganda Secretary in the NPCP, Dennis Akumu who had worked with Mboya in the KFL and as an organiser in the NPCP, Jesse Mwangi Gachago who had also worked as Mboya's deputy in the KFL and Dr Pius Muga.
The fact that this was happening in the aftermath of Mboya's assassination and being that the organisers were his allies and soldiers from his backyard of South Nyanza, gave the plot a "Mboya element."
Towards the end of 1970 Mutiso had written to Irving Brown an American trade unionist with strong CIA connections , informing him about the plot and requesting him for funds.
Brown who was the founding executive director of AFL-CIO's African American Labour Centre was a great friend of Mboya and had funded most of his political and trade union activities. Together with Lovestone they had been accused of aiding the CIA in the Guyana coup.
His friendship with Mboya was so much resented by the Gatundu group that when US Vice President Hubert Humphrey included him in his delegation to Kenya in 1968, the US ambassador under pressure from the Gatundu group wrote to Humphrey advising him against the idea. Humphrey ignored the advice after consulting the AFL-CIO and travelled to Kenya with Brown.
But with regards to Mutiso's 1970 letter asking for funds for the coup, he refused to reply.
Meanwhile Professor Pius Muga who was tasked with soliciting support from regional leaders approached Julius Nyerere and asked for his backing.
According to DPP Charles Karugu who prosecuted the case against the plotters, Nyerere replied:
"Not against Mzee's government. If it was Malawi I would think about it. But not Kenya, and definitely not while Mzee is still alive."
Unfortunately the plot was discovered before it could materialise. The elites were relieved of their duties without being charged, while the military officers, intellectuals, trade unionists and politicians were sentenced to between 7 and 10 years in prison.
Jesse Mwangi who survived would later be arrested and jailed under trumped up charges of smuggling coffee. When he was released Njonjo warned him to stop linking him with the murder of Mboya since that was the reason of his jailing.
Although Kenyatta downplayed the plot terming as "noise of a frog", warning shots had been fired.
It's Me Scumbag
Elder Lister
A student of Marcus Aurelius huyu @imei2012 ...
Ask him for the meaning before we call in the experts.
imei2012
Elder Lister
Interesting read Maria... When i lived in kasa (when we met at that watering joint!) My Caretaker was a quiet man with a huge afro said little apart from pleasantries and occasional hallo. One day I brought a gin to the roof top as i checked on my dishes at that time i was tracking es'hail (good old days za bein) I invited him and as we gulped I mentioned I was in service, his look changed and almost dropped his glass. I asked him why he seemed disturbed at first he didn't want to talk but after several tots he opened up. He was in the airforce and on the fateful day he was on leave what followed was literally stuff nightmares are made of, for once i got an insight on how the events unfolded. That incident broke alot of men and btought trauma that they will have to carry to their graves.... Wherever you are friend i hope you find peace.....
Leonard Mambo Mbotela in a cold morning was picked by the officers from his house at Government Quarters in Ngara and was taken to Voice of Kenya (now KBC) studios long Harry Thuku road.
At gunpoint, he was ordered to read a script that declared that Moi’s government had been overthrown.
Well, for a baby born on that morning of the 1st day of August, it will be exactly 38 years since its shriveling cries pierced the air of a country that was facing a coup attempt.
38 years since Kenya Air force officers attempted a coup against President Daniel Moi’s government.
While Kenyans were synonymous with Leonard Mambo Mbotela’s assuring baritone timbre on the Voice of Kenya, the situation would take a nasty dive.
Chants of “power, power” from university students soaked the air with revolt that Sunday morning.
What followed was chaos in Nairobi city as loyalists officers battled with pro-coup offices.
The end result was tragic: Death of hundreds, shops in the city looted, women raped, hundreds arrested.
While the ‘madness’ lasted for only a few hours, the impact of the coup would last for over two decades.
At gunpoint, he was ordered to read a script that declared that Moi’s government had been overthrown.
Well, for a baby born on that morning of the 1st day of August, it will be exactly 38 years since its shriveling cries pierced the air of a country that was facing a coup attempt.
38 years since Kenya Air force officers attempted a coup against President Daniel Moi’s government.
While Kenyans were synonymous with Leonard Mambo Mbotela’s assuring baritone timbre on the Voice of Kenya, the situation would take a nasty dive.
Chants of “power, power” from university students soaked the air with revolt that Sunday morning.
What followed was chaos in Nairobi city as loyalists officers battled with pro-coup offices.
The end result was tragic: Death of hundreds, shops in the city looted, women raped, hundreds arrested.
While the ‘madness’ lasted for only a few hours, the impact of the coup would last for over two decades.
Why the 1982 coup failed
Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, the Air Force Senior Private is remembered as the man who masterminded the 1982 coup attempt.
The 29-year-old was a Grade 1 – the second lowest rank in the military.
The coup was however thwarted after only six hours due to a number of mistakes by Ochuka.
For starters, no Air Force anywhere in the world has ever overthrown a government single handedly.
Kenya could have been the first. Indeed, only one Air Force officer in Africa managed the fete – Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings, President from 1993 to 2001.
Ochuka’s poorly planned equivalent was disastrous where more than 100 soldiers and 200 civilians died.
It would appear that the known plotters were pawns in a wider conspiracy borne of ethnic and political disaffection with the Moi regime.
The “stupid fellows who had no manners” as Charles Njonjo called the key plotters included Senior Private Protas Oteyo Okumu, Corporals Charles Owira, Walter Odira Ojode and Bramwel Injeni Njereman.
The ‘angry ambitions’ of Hezekiah Ochuka- Kenya’s ‘President’ for six hours saw him hanged at Ka-Stick Maximum Prison in 1987.
Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, the Air Force Senior Private is remembered as the man who masterminded the 1982 coup attempt.
The 29-year-old was a Grade 1 – the second lowest rank in the military.
The coup was however thwarted after only six hours due to a number of mistakes by Ochuka.
For starters, no Air Force anywhere in the world has ever overthrown a government single handedly.
Kenya could have been the first. Indeed, only one Air Force officer in Africa managed the fete – Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings, President from 1993 to 2001.
Ochuka’s poorly planned equivalent was disastrous where more than 100 soldiers and 200 civilians died.
It would appear that the known plotters were pawns in a wider conspiracy borne of ethnic and political disaffection with the Moi regime.
The “stupid fellows who had no manners” as Charles Njonjo called the key plotters included Senior Private Protas Oteyo Okumu, Corporals Charles Owira, Walter Odira Ojode and Bramwel Injeni Njereman.
The ‘angry ambitions’ of Hezekiah Ochuka- Kenya’s ‘President’ for six hours saw him hanged at Ka-Stick Maximum Prison in 1987.
Had the 1982 Coup Succeeded
Kenya would have been led by an air force private had an attempted coup on Aug. 1 succeeded, according to testimony in a Tanzanian court by another air force man seeking political asylum there.
The testimony of Sgt. Pancras Oteyo Okumu at extradition hearings yielded the first indication of the identities of the leaders of the attempted coup, and provided a first-hand account of the degree of disorganization surrounding the attempt to overthrow President Daniel arap Moi.
It did not, however, illuminate the reasons for President Moi's subsequent dismissal of senior police officers. And neither did it explain why President Moi's still-jittery Government has, in the wake of the attempted coup, begun an apparent purge of prominent figures that suggests that support for the rebellion went beyond his initial description of it as an extreme act of hooliganism.
Sergeant Okumu identified the leader of the rebellion as Senior Pvt. Hezekiah Ochuka, who had assumed the title of chairman of a socalled People's Redemption Council that planned to replace President Moi.
At 3 A.M. on Aug. 1, the sergeant said on Thursday, the attempted coup got underway with the takeover of Eastleigh air base just outside Nairobi, and by 4 A.M. the nearby Embakasi air base had also fallen.
At 6 A.M. Private Ochuka and Sergeant Okumu, who was also said to be a member of the Redemption Council, appeared at the Voice of Kenya radio station in central Nairobi where they broadcast in English and Swahili that the military had taken power, the sergeant testified.
By 10 o'clock, however, the Government counterattack was under way, the sergeant said, but he was not sure who was involved. ''I sent someone to find out and order resistance,'' he said. ''I heard shooting and then I was informed that it was the army infantry.''
At this point he lost touch with Private Ochuka, he continued, so he went back to Eastleigh where he found the private trying, in vain, to call in air strikes against Government forces from the base at Nanyuku, north of here, which had joined the revolt.
Then, by the sergeant's account, a degree of confusion set in. Helicopter gunships appeared over the horizon, but the rebels were unsure whose side their pilots were on. He and Private Ochuka decided to flee and found two pilots ready to fly them. But the cupboards containing the pilots' head-sets and the keys to the Buffalo transport plane they were planning to use were locked. So they had to be broken open with gun-butts before the plotters could make good their escape. An Uncertain Destination
Even then, the sergeant said, he was not sure where they were going. As they came into land at Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, to the south, ''I thought we were in Mogadishu,'' the Somali capital to Kenya's north, he said. Both he and Private Ochuka are seeking political asylum in Tanzania. Kenya wants their extradition.
In testimony Friday, Private Ochuka gave a similar version of events on Aug. 1, asserting that the rebels ''actually overthrew'' President Moi's Government for a short while before the loyalist forces regained control.
It remains unclear whether the officers who flew the two lowranking men out were involved in the rebellion or had been prevailed upon at gunpoint to head for Tanzania, a leftist-governed country that has strained relations with capitalist-oriented, pro-Western Kenya.
The impression from Sergeant Okumu's testimony was one of lowranking air force personnel botching a coup. The Government's reaction to it, however, has raised speculation among Kenyans that there are other aspects to the attempted ouster, involving more senior figures whom President Moi has termed ''big men,'' whose identities have not been made public or are being covered up.
President Moi's response has also been marked by the same controntational style that his Government displayed before the attempt to overthrow it and which probably, in the view of Western diplomats and Kenyan analysts, contributed to the passions that fueled the air force revolt. Air Force Disbanded
In recent public speeches President Moi has threatened to deal ''ruthlessly'' with those deemed to be dissidents, ''even if it were my own mother.'' In practice the policy has meant the disbanding of the air force, the continued detention, incommunicado, of most of its 2,100 members, and the confiscation of eight passports belonging to prominent political figures.
Leaders of the students who supported the revolt have also reportedly been detained, the University of Nairobi remains indefinitely closed and the Government, while relaxing a curfew enforced on Aug. 1, evidently does not feel secure enough to lift it altogether. Neither have roadblocks, manned by the paramilitary General Service Unit and by uniformed policemen, disappeared.
In a shake-up of the military and paramiliary units under his command, President Moi has dismissed Police Commissioner Ben Gethi and the General Service Unit commander, Peter Ndogo Mbuthia. The deputy army commander, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Mohammed, who led the Government counterattack on the radio station, has been appointed to head a new air force, while there has been no word on the fate of the former commander, Maj. Gen. P.K. Kariuki.
A further impact of the attempted overthrow has been a continuing nervousness among members of Kenya's large Asian community, many of whose businesses and stores were looted and ransacked by both rebels and loyalists.
According to press accounts published here, at least 30 Asian women were raped either during the disorder on Aug. 1 or later by Government troops conducting house-to-house searches for rebels and looted property.
The Asians in Kenya hold a virtual monopoly on retail trading and their wealth has long been resented by other Kenyans.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 29, 1982, Section 1, Page 20 of the National edition with the headline: LEADER OF KENYAN COUP ATTEMPT SAID TO HAVE BEEN A PRIVATE.
Kenya would have been led by an air force private had an attempted coup on Aug. 1 succeeded, according to testimony in a Tanzanian court by another air force man seeking political asylum there.
The testimony of Sgt. Pancras Oteyo Okumu at extradition hearings yielded the first indication of the identities of the leaders of the attempted coup, and provided a first-hand account of the degree of disorganization surrounding the attempt to overthrow President Daniel arap Moi.
It did not, however, illuminate the reasons for President Moi's subsequent dismissal of senior police officers. And neither did it explain why President Moi's still-jittery Government has, in the wake of the attempted coup, begun an apparent purge of prominent figures that suggests that support for the rebellion went beyond his initial description of it as an extreme act of hooliganism.
Sergeant Okumu identified the leader of the rebellion as Senior Pvt. Hezekiah Ochuka, who had assumed the title of chairman of a socalled People's Redemption Council that planned to replace President Moi.
At 3 A.M. on Aug. 1, the sergeant said on Thursday, the attempted coup got underway with the takeover of Eastleigh air base just outside Nairobi, and by 4 A.M. the nearby Embakasi air base had also fallen.
At 6 A.M. Private Ochuka and Sergeant Okumu, who was also said to be a member of the Redemption Council, appeared at the Voice of Kenya radio station in central Nairobi where they broadcast in English and Swahili that the military had taken power, the sergeant testified.
By 10 o'clock, however, the Government counterattack was under way, the sergeant said, but he was not sure who was involved. ''I sent someone to find out and order resistance,'' he said. ''I heard shooting and then I was informed that it was the army infantry.''
At this point he lost touch with Private Ochuka, he continued, so he went back to Eastleigh where he found the private trying, in vain, to call in air strikes against Government forces from the base at Nanyuku, north of here, which had joined the revolt.
Then, by the sergeant's account, a degree of confusion set in. Helicopter gunships appeared over the horizon, but the rebels were unsure whose side their pilots were on. He and Private Ochuka decided to flee and found two pilots ready to fly them. But the cupboards containing the pilots' head-sets and the keys to the Buffalo transport plane they were planning to use were locked. So they had to be broken open with gun-butts before the plotters could make good their escape. An Uncertain Destination
Even then, the sergeant said, he was not sure where they were going. As they came into land at Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, to the south, ''I thought we were in Mogadishu,'' the Somali capital to Kenya's north, he said. Both he and Private Ochuka are seeking political asylum in Tanzania. Kenya wants their extradition.
In testimony Friday, Private Ochuka gave a similar version of events on Aug. 1, asserting that the rebels ''actually overthrew'' President Moi's Government for a short while before the loyalist forces regained control.
It remains unclear whether the officers who flew the two lowranking men out were involved in the rebellion or had been prevailed upon at gunpoint to head for Tanzania, a leftist-governed country that has strained relations with capitalist-oriented, pro-Western Kenya.
The impression from Sergeant Okumu's testimony was one of lowranking air force personnel botching a coup. The Government's reaction to it, however, has raised speculation among Kenyans that there are other aspects to the attempted ouster, involving more senior figures whom President Moi has termed ''big men,'' whose identities have not been made public or are being covered up.
President Moi's response has also been marked by the same controntational style that his Government displayed before the attempt to overthrow it and which probably, in the view of Western diplomats and Kenyan analysts, contributed to the passions that fueled the air force revolt. Air Force Disbanded
In recent public speeches President Moi has threatened to deal ''ruthlessly'' with those deemed to be dissidents, ''even if it were my own mother.'' In practice the policy has meant the disbanding of the air force, the continued detention, incommunicado, of most of its 2,100 members, and the confiscation of eight passports belonging to prominent political figures.
Leaders of the students who supported the revolt have also reportedly been detained, the University of Nairobi remains indefinitely closed and the Government, while relaxing a curfew enforced on Aug. 1, evidently does not feel secure enough to lift it altogether. Neither have roadblocks, manned by the paramilitary General Service Unit and by uniformed policemen, disappeared.
In a shake-up of the military and paramiliary units under his command, President Moi has dismissed Police Commissioner Ben Gethi and the General Service Unit commander, Peter Ndogo Mbuthia. The deputy army commander, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Mohammed, who led the Government counterattack on the radio station, has been appointed to head a new air force, while there has been no word on the fate of the former commander, Maj. Gen. P.K. Kariuki.
A further impact of the attempted overthrow has been a continuing nervousness among members of Kenya's large Asian community, many of whose businesses and stores were looted and ransacked by both rebels and loyalists.
According to press accounts published here, at least 30 Asian women were raped either during the disorder on Aug. 1 or later by Government troops conducting house-to-house searches for rebels and looted property.
The Asians in Kenya hold a virtual monopoly on retail trading and their wealth has long been resented by other Kenyans.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 29, 1982, Section 1, Page 20 of the National edition with the headline: LEADER OF KENYAN COUP ATTEMPT SAID TO HAVE BEEN A PRIVATE.
TITUS ADUNGOSI.
A young soul that perished in the hands of ruthless politics.
In 1982, the late Titus Adungosi was a third-year student in the Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Development at the University of Nairobi and the first Chairman of the University of Nairobi Students Organization (SONU) before he was arrested and convicted by the then Chief Magistrate Mr. Abdul Rauf for 10 years imprisonment for sedition on the September 24, 1982 after the failed Kenyan military coup of August 1, 1982 attempt against the former President Moi’s regime.
His imprisonment was widely covered by the media and the AP ran his story under the headline: ‘Kenya Jails Student Leader’ published on September 25, 1982.
The story read: “NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept. 24 — A student leader at the University of Nairobi was imprisoned for a 10-year term on sedition charges today, becoming the first civilian convicted in connection with the Aug. 1 coup attempt. Titus Adungosi Oloo, 22 years old, was found guilty of demonstrating in support of air force rebels who seized several areas of the capital. Prosecutors said that during the seven-hour uprising Mr. Oloo addressed students and slum dwellers from a hijacked city bus.”
According to the family, he was first imprisoned at the Kamiti Maximum Prison before being transferred to the Naivasha maximum prison where he fell ill and died at the Kenyatta National Hospital.
The family further says family members used to visit the late Adungosi at the Naivasha prison and that he was fine and in good health. They say the last time they visited him was towards the Christmas season of 1988 and he had assured them that he would be freed in two months time.
Adungosi`s half brother Fredrick explains that as a family they have never come to understand what really happened to the late immediately the family members who had visited him in prison left because what followed afterward was the news of his death.
The family spokesman Maskini Odero says:
“We suspect there was a foul play in the death of Adungosi because nobody has ever brought to the limelight what happened,” adding that the family of Tito Adungosi still remains optimistic that the government will help it uncover the truth surrounding his incarceration and death to ensure that justice prevails.
The family says it has never even got any information from the University of Nairobi relating to the controversial demise of their son.
He added, “A police barrier was set up at the entrance to the home of Adungosi to bar locals from entering the home after the burial and have since said it is meant to safeguard the border, but we know it is meant to curtail the freedom of this family.”
Adungosi’s mother Mariciana reveals that the family was not allowed to perform the traditional Iteso cultural rites to Tito during his burial and the family was barred from neither taking photographs nor keeping any for his remembrance.
She says in a mourning mood that her life changed immediately her son passed on and she has had to go through rough times especially when she remembers how she laboured so hard to have her son excel in life.
She argues that if Adungosi was a live, the family status would not be the way it is now because her son had set a very good foundation for the success of the family.
She further blames many people especially politicians who have been visiting Adungosi`s place and promising to assist the family but later on disappearing without extending any helping hand.
The Teso Community still remember him as a tough-minded leader who fought for changes besides advocating for education in the community.
Copied directly from the internet for purposes of authenticity and originality.
A young soul that perished in the hands of ruthless politics.
In 1982, the late Titus Adungosi was a third-year student in the Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Development at the University of Nairobi and the first Chairman of the University of Nairobi Students Organization (SONU) before he was arrested and convicted by the then Chief Magistrate Mr. Abdul Rauf for 10 years imprisonment for sedition on the September 24, 1982 after the failed Kenyan military coup of August 1, 1982 attempt against the former President Moi’s regime.
His imprisonment was widely covered by the media and the AP ran his story under the headline: ‘Kenya Jails Student Leader’ published on September 25, 1982.
The story read: “NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept. 24 — A student leader at the University of Nairobi was imprisoned for a 10-year term on sedition charges today, becoming the first civilian convicted in connection with the Aug. 1 coup attempt. Titus Adungosi Oloo, 22 years old, was found guilty of demonstrating in support of air force rebels who seized several areas of the capital. Prosecutors said that during the seven-hour uprising Mr. Oloo addressed students and slum dwellers from a hijacked city bus.”
According to the family, he was first imprisoned at the Kamiti Maximum Prison before being transferred to the Naivasha maximum prison where he fell ill and died at the Kenyatta National Hospital.
The family further says family members used to visit the late Adungosi at the Naivasha prison and that he was fine and in good health. They say the last time they visited him was towards the Christmas season of 1988 and he had assured them that he would be freed in two months time.
Adungosi`s half brother Fredrick explains that as a family they have never come to understand what really happened to the late immediately the family members who had visited him in prison left because what followed afterward was the news of his death.
The family spokesman Maskini Odero says:
“We suspect there was a foul play in the death of Adungosi because nobody has ever brought to the limelight what happened,” adding that the family of Tito Adungosi still remains optimistic that the government will help it uncover the truth surrounding his incarceration and death to ensure that justice prevails.
The family says it has never even got any information from the University of Nairobi relating to the controversial demise of their son.
He added, “A police barrier was set up at the entrance to the home of Adungosi to bar locals from entering the home after the burial and have since said it is meant to safeguard the border, but we know it is meant to curtail the freedom of this family.”
Adungosi’s mother Mariciana reveals that the family was not allowed to perform the traditional Iteso cultural rites to Tito during his burial and the family was barred from neither taking photographs nor keeping any for his remembrance.
She says in a mourning mood that her life changed immediately her son passed on and she has had to go through rough times especially when she remembers how she laboured so hard to have her son excel in life.
She argues that if Adungosi was a live, the family status would not be the way it is now because her son had set a very good foundation for the success of the family.
She further blames many people especially politicians who have been visiting Adungosi`s place and promising to assist the family but later on disappearing without extending any helping hand.
The Teso Community still remember him as a tough-minded leader who fought for changes besides advocating for education in the community.
Copied directly from the internet for purposes of authenticity and originality.
The Army Mutiny Of 1964
During the last week of January of 1964, the armies of Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya staged mutinies as if in synchronized succession.
The three armies had one thing in common. They had all emerged from the King’s African Rifles.
But they also had grievances in common. Soldiers demanded higher pay, and the removal of expatriate British officers from their ranks.
In Kenya, members of Lanet-based 11th Battalion of the Kenya Rifles broke into the armoury. They demanded to air their grievances through Prime Minister Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in person.
Although the armies made no real attempt to seize power, the three East African governments required British assistance to help quell the mutinies. In Uganda and Tanzania, matters were handled smoothly. Pay was increased and grievances addressed quickly.
It was in Kenya where things were a bit dicey. Troops had laid a siege on the armoury. Of the three EA countries, the Kenyans staged a mutiny last, and did not want to be the only ones in East Africa left with their grievances unaddressed.
Anyway, let’s look at the situation in the country and armed forces at the time when the mutiny took place.
By early 1964, a vast majority of the troops in Kenya had received no further than a primary school education. About 75% of the entire military comprised of servicemen drawn from minority tribes, viz. the Kalenjin, Kamba, Samburu, Maasai and Northern Frontier pastoral communities.
It was not easy to rise to officer ranks if one did not have a secondary school education. Moreover, KANU politicians, a majority of whom were themselves considered to hail from “non-martial” ethnic groups, pressed the army to broaden its recruiting base to reflect more accurately the ethnic makeup of Kenya.
Unlike Nyerere and Obote of Tanzania and Uganda respectively, Mzee Kenyatta knew that he was dealing with a mutiny staged by soldiers from minority communities. Yet one of Mzee’s stated priorities was to build a strong, cohesive state.
Just before the mutiny, some media reports said that Mzee had been advised that troops had faith in neither the British military officers, nor in the army’s new civilian masters.
What was the beef that African troops had with white officers serving in the nascent army? They were perceived to stand in the way of promotions for the African soldiers.
Meanwhile, early 1964 was also the time around when disillusioned ex-Mau Mau fighters, who felt they were not granted their “share of the spoils of independence”, were threatening to return to the forests.
The economic inflation and introduction of graduated poll tax in Kenya wasn’t helpful either. The African troops expected that the new regime would be sympathetic to their plight and raise wages. A pay raise had been granted in 1962. But rising inflation and the graduated poll tax had wiped out much of the increment.
Morale in the military was low.
As Prime Minister of a newly independent republic, Mzee Kenyatta was finding it tough to navigate the country through the various storms. And now he faced mutineers who had much expectation, considering that their counterparts from Uganda and Tanzania had been granted handsome wishes after staging sit-ins.
In fact, it can be stated that the mutiny by members of the 11th battalion of the Kenya Rifles had been inspired by the mutinies in Uganda and Tanzania.
In these two other countries, their armies threatened violence, in effect holding their political leaders hostage. Improved pay was granted immediately. Expatriate British military officers were also quickly dismissed. All eyes were now on Kenya, which put all its three battalions on emergency alert.
The Commanding Officer of the 11th Kenya Rifles was Lt. Col. G.W. Stead. When his troops started lamenting about their work conditions, he moved in quickly to cool down tempers. He opted for open, baraza-like discussions.
Instead, he found himself drawn into talks about how well soldiers in Uganda and Tanzania had been rewarded. The KAR's old radio network was still intact, and members of the 11th battalion had monitored the events in Uganda and Tanganyika with great interest.
Soon afterwards, British intelligence warned Lt. Col. Stead that things were not well. It was then that he decided to call on members of the 3rd regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA), part of Britain’s remaining strategic military reserve in Kenya, to keep watch on the Lanet armoury.
On the evening of Friday, 24th January 1964, a number of askaris gathered at Lanet to listen to Mzee Kenyatta’s speech on the radio. They hoped the Prime Minister would address the matter of their wages. He did not. In fact, he made absolutely no reference to the military.
Angered, the askaris turned rebellious and insubordinate. That very evening, a group of them broke into the Lanet armory and dragged the rest of the battalion out of bed to join the protest.
Alerted by sentries posted in the camp, the RHA quickly surrounded the Lanet Barracks while other British units secured strategic points in and around far away Nairobi.
By early morning, 25th January 1964, the RHA had captured the outer sections of Lanet and isolated the rebellious soldiers. Any askari who attempted to slip through his lines was fired upon by RHA gunners. One of them, who turned out to be the only casualty of the mutiny, attempted to make a dash to join his colleagues at the armoury. His name was Private Simon Kiprop, an army pay clerk. He was shot dead.
Elsewhere, British and loyalist African officers drove around in Land Rovers, warning askaris through loudspeakers that the Royal Horse Artillery would sweep the camp with "maximum force" unless they put down their arms. Throughout the episode, Mzee Kenyatta was kept abreast of goings-on.
But unlike his counterparts in Uganda and Tanzania, he refused to negotiate with the mutineers. He issued the following statement to the media that very Saturday.
“Those who took part in the Lanet incident have gravely broken military discipline and must be dealt with firmly. They will be dealt with according to military law. There will be no compromise on this, and I do not intend to meet them or to allow any of my Ministers to negotiate with them.... I must warn all our people most firmly whether they be in the Army, Police, youth wing, members of Parliament, or just members of the public, that the Government will deal most severely with any breaches of the peace or acts of disloyalty and destruction....”
Mzee was also concerned that some politicians would take advantage of the disturbances to make political capital. So he refused to acknowledge - publicly, at least, that the soldiers had genuine grievances. Bizarrely, Home Affairs Minister Oginga Odinga thought that Mzee’s Statement to the media was partially meant for him. Why? Because, by Odinga’s account, Mzee had called him and asked him to stay home.
So Oginga denied he had anything to do with the Lanet incident, instead blaming “malicious” British intelligence for creating a wedge between him and the Prime Minister.
As it turned out, Mzee’s statement to the media took the wind out of the sails of the mutiny. Fearing that they would be shot, most askaris offered to lay down their arms on condition that the British soldiers withdraw from the camp.
A few, numbering about twenty, however threatened to shoot their way out of the armoury, by which time reinforcements had arrived from Nairobi. They surrendered after RHA stormed the camp in ferret armored cars. The media reported that Mzee had personally authorized “extreme actions” by the British Army if the situation warranted it.
As calm slowly returned, Oginga sensationally claimed that expatriate British officers had deliberately provoked the mutiny to create an opportunity for British forces to intervene, thereby strengthening their influence and involvement in the Kenyan Army. The British charged back, suggesting to Mzee Kenyatta that Oginga and leftists in KANU were part of the conspiracy to topple the government.
This event alone, I have to say, somewhat created suspicions between Mzee Kenyatta and Mr. Oginga.
And although the Prime Minister downplayed the disturbances at Lanet, military investigators moved in to probe the mutiny. Men of the battalion were placed under one of three categories, depending on the extent to which they were involved.
The investigators classified 99 servicemen in the “red” category, whilst 158 were included in the “yellow” category. Those in the “green” category numbered 340, and they were all absorbed into the brand new 1st Kenya Rifles, the battalion that was created after the mutiny to replace the disbanded 11th KR.
These pioneer “green” soldiers are perhaps the reason, as I understand it, the motto of 1KR is “green fire”.
Anyway, of the 99 servicemen in the “red” category (76 of these were privates, the lowest rank in the military), about a third of them were convicted in court martials held in April and May of that year.
The soldiers were represented by the late lawyer Byron Georgiadis, a Kenyan of Greek extraction, and one of Kenya’s most respected legal minds. Faced with the problem that there were no African commanders to preside over a court martial, Prime Minister Mzee Kenyatta promoted Joe Ndolo to serve as President of the Court.
Interestingly, Ndolo (pictured atop Land Rover with Mzee), who later rose to be Army commander, would himself be dishonorably discharged from the military years later after being implicated in a failed 1971 coup plot.
I cannot conclude without pointing out something: that whereas Mzee Kenyatta refused to give in to the whims of the mutineers, Uganda readmitted nearly all mutineers into the army. Some military scholars aver that this imprudent move helped cement involvement of the Ugandan army into the country’s politics, and attribute Uganda’s tumultuous Idi Amin and military rule days to that blunder.
During the last week of January of 1964, the armies of Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya staged mutinies as if in synchronized succession.
The three armies had one thing in common. They had all emerged from the King’s African Rifles.
But they also had grievances in common. Soldiers demanded higher pay, and the removal of expatriate British officers from their ranks.
In Kenya, members of Lanet-based 11th Battalion of the Kenya Rifles broke into the armoury. They demanded to air their grievances through Prime Minister Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in person.
Although the armies made no real attempt to seize power, the three East African governments required British assistance to help quell the mutinies. In Uganda and Tanzania, matters were handled smoothly. Pay was increased and grievances addressed quickly.
It was in Kenya where things were a bit dicey. Troops had laid a siege on the armoury. Of the three EA countries, the Kenyans staged a mutiny last, and did not want to be the only ones in East Africa left with their grievances unaddressed.
Anyway, let’s look at the situation in the country and armed forces at the time when the mutiny took place.
By early 1964, a vast majority of the troops in Kenya had received no further than a primary school education. About 75% of the entire military comprised of servicemen drawn from minority tribes, viz. the Kalenjin, Kamba, Samburu, Maasai and Northern Frontier pastoral communities.
It was not easy to rise to officer ranks if one did not have a secondary school education. Moreover, KANU politicians, a majority of whom were themselves considered to hail from “non-martial” ethnic groups, pressed the army to broaden its recruiting base to reflect more accurately the ethnic makeup of Kenya.
Unlike Nyerere and Obote of Tanzania and Uganda respectively, Mzee Kenyatta knew that he was dealing with a mutiny staged by soldiers from minority communities. Yet one of Mzee’s stated priorities was to build a strong, cohesive state.
Just before the mutiny, some media reports said that Mzee had been advised that troops had faith in neither the British military officers, nor in the army’s new civilian masters.
What was the beef that African troops had with white officers serving in the nascent army? They were perceived to stand in the way of promotions for the African soldiers.
Meanwhile, early 1964 was also the time around when disillusioned ex-Mau Mau fighters, who felt they were not granted their “share of the spoils of independence”, were threatening to return to the forests.
The economic inflation and introduction of graduated poll tax in Kenya wasn’t helpful either. The African troops expected that the new regime would be sympathetic to their plight and raise wages. A pay raise had been granted in 1962. But rising inflation and the graduated poll tax had wiped out much of the increment.
Morale in the military was low.
As Prime Minister of a newly independent republic, Mzee Kenyatta was finding it tough to navigate the country through the various storms. And now he faced mutineers who had much expectation, considering that their counterparts from Uganda and Tanzania had been granted handsome wishes after staging sit-ins.
In fact, it can be stated that the mutiny by members of the 11th battalion of the Kenya Rifles had been inspired by the mutinies in Uganda and Tanzania.
In these two other countries, their armies threatened violence, in effect holding their political leaders hostage. Improved pay was granted immediately. Expatriate British military officers were also quickly dismissed. All eyes were now on Kenya, which put all its three battalions on emergency alert.
The Commanding Officer of the 11th Kenya Rifles was Lt. Col. G.W. Stead. When his troops started lamenting about their work conditions, he moved in quickly to cool down tempers. He opted for open, baraza-like discussions.
Instead, he found himself drawn into talks about how well soldiers in Uganda and Tanzania had been rewarded. The KAR's old radio network was still intact, and members of the 11th battalion had monitored the events in Uganda and Tanganyika with great interest.
Soon afterwards, British intelligence warned Lt. Col. Stead that things were not well. It was then that he decided to call on members of the 3rd regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA), part of Britain’s remaining strategic military reserve in Kenya, to keep watch on the Lanet armoury.
On the evening of Friday, 24th January 1964, a number of askaris gathered at Lanet to listen to Mzee Kenyatta’s speech on the radio. They hoped the Prime Minister would address the matter of their wages. He did not. In fact, he made absolutely no reference to the military.
Angered, the askaris turned rebellious and insubordinate. That very evening, a group of them broke into the Lanet armory and dragged the rest of the battalion out of bed to join the protest.
Alerted by sentries posted in the camp, the RHA quickly surrounded the Lanet Barracks while other British units secured strategic points in and around far away Nairobi.
By early morning, 25th January 1964, the RHA had captured the outer sections of Lanet and isolated the rebellious soldiers. Any askari who attempted to slip through his lines was fired upon by RHA gunners. One of them, who turned out to be the only casualty of the mutiny, attempted to make a dash to join his colleagues at the armoury. His name was Private Simon Kiprop, an army pay clerk. He was shot dead.
Elsewhere, British and loyalist African officers drove around in Land Rovers, warning askaris through loudspeakers that the Royal Horse Artillery would sweep the camp with "maximum force" unless they put down their arms. Throughout the episode, Mzee Kenyatta was kept abreast of goings-on.
But unlike his counterparts in Uganda and Tanzania, he refused to negotiate with the mutineers. He issued the following statement to the media that very Saturday.
“Those who took part in the Lanet incident have gravely broken military discipline and must be dealt with firmly. They will be dealt with according to military law. There will be no compromise on this, and I do not intend to meet them or to allow any of my Ministers to negotiate with them.... I must warn all our people most firmly whether they be in the Army, Police, youth wing, members of Parliament, or just members of the public, that the Government will deal most severely with any breaches of the peace or acts of disloyalty and destruction....”
Mzee was also concerned that some politicians would take advantage of the disturbances to make political capital. So he refused to acknowledge - publicly, at least, that the soldiers had genuine grievances. Bizarrely, Home Affairs Minister Oginga Odinga thought that Mzee’s Statement to the media was partially meant for him. Why? Because, by Odinga’s account, Mzee had called him and asked him to stay home.
So Oginga denied he had anything to do with the Lanet incident, instead blaming “malicious” British intelligence for creating a wedge between him and the Prime Minister.
As it turned out, Mzee’s statement to the media took the wind out of the sails of the mutiny. Fearing that they would be shot, most askaris offered to lay down their arms on condition that the British soldiers withdraw from the camp.
A few, numbering about twenty, however threatened to shoot their way out of the armoury, by which time reinforcements had arrived from Nairobi. They surrendered after RHA stormed the camp in ferret armored cars. The media reported that Mzee had personally authorized “extreme actions” by the British Army if the situation warranted it.
As calm slowly returned, Oginga sensationally claimed that expatriate British officers had deliberately provoked the mutiny to create an opportunity for British forces to intervene, thereby strengthening their influence and involvement in the Kenyan Army. The British charged back, suggesting to Mzee Kenyatta that Oginga and leftists in KANU were part of the conspiracy to topple the government.
This event alone, I have to say, somewhat created suspicions between Mzee Kenyatta and Mr. Oginga.
And although the Prime Minister downplayed the disturbances at Lanet, military investigators moved in to probe the mutiny. Men of the battalion were placed under one of three categories, depending on the extent to which they were involved.
The investigators classified 99 servicemen in the “red” category, whilst 158 were included in the “yellow” category. Those in the “green” category numbered 340, and they were all absorbed into the brand new 1st Kenya Rifles, the battalion that was created after the mutiny to replace the disbanded 11th KR.
These pioneer “green” soldiers are perhaps the reason, as I understand it, the motto of 1KR is “green fire”.
Anyway, of the 99 servicemen in the “red” category (76 of these were privates, the lowest rank in the military), about a third of them were convicted in court martials held in April and May of that year.
The soldiers were represented by the late lawyer Byron Georgiadis, a Kenyan of Greek extraction, and one of Kenya’s most respected legal minds. Faced with the problem that there were no African commanders to preside over a court martial, Prime Minister Mzee Kenyatta promoted Joe Ndolo to serve as President of the Court.
Interestingly, Ndolo (pictured atop Land Rover with Mzee), who later rose to be Army commander, would himself be dishonorably discharged from the military years later after being implicated in a failed 1971 coup plot.
I cannot conclude without pointing out something: that whereas Mzee Kenyatta refused to give in to the whims of the mutineers, Uganda readmitted nearly all mutineers into the army. Some military scholars aver that this imprudent move helped cement involvement of the Ugandan army into the country’s politics, and attribute Uganda’s tumultuous Idi Amin and military rule days to that blunder.
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli Odera Obedi was on Wednesday 9th February 1983 sentenced to death by a Court Martial sitting at Langata Barracks Nairobi for committing treason during the 1st August 1982 coup attempt in Kenya.
He was an aircraft technician. In the Book by Babatemi A. Badejo “Raila Odinga, An Enigma in Kenya Politics” it is revealed that Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was considered a member of the “Peoples Redemption Council” that comprised of (1) S/pte Hezekiah Ochuka, as chairman, (2) S/sgt Pancras Okumu Oteyo, (3) Sgt Jospeh Ogidi Obuon, (4) Sgt Samuel Opiyo, (5) Sgt Richard Obuon, (6) Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli, (7) Cpl Ombok, (
Capt. Agola.
He was represented at the Court Martial by a state appointed lawyer the Late Nicholas Rabala who hailed from Busia as the defence lawyer.
After the sentence to death on 9th February 1983, Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was incarcerated at Kamiti Maximum Prison and with frequent movements to among other prisons Naivasha Prison before he was hanged in 1986 between July to September at Kamiti Maximum Prison and buried there.
A family member who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact and on the trail of Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli says that he was clandestinely in October 1986 through informal contacts he had at the prison shown Cpl Chesoli’s unmarked grave at the Kamiti Maximum Prison among other nine unmarked graves of the Kenya Air Force 1982 coup architects and central actors.
The official records of who of the 1982 coup leaders and central actors who had been sentenced to hang were hanged and when and where the bodies were buried remains classified but the unofficial accounts point to those hanged as Hezekiah Ochuka, Pancras Oteyo Okumu, Charles Oriwa Hongo, Robert Odhiambo Ndege, Bramwel Injeni Njeremani, Fenwicks Chesoli, Joseph Ogidi Obuon, Charles Mirasi Odawa, Walter Odira Ojode, Edward Adel Omollo, James Odemba Otieno and George Akoth Otila.
It is reported that during his Defence hearing that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli addressed the court martial for one hour or so off the cuff. That he was eloquent, articulate and indeed Colonel Ombewa who was prosecuting him argued in his closing submissions that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli had demonstrated in his defence how influential he was and a key participant in the coup with his charisma and eloquence.
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli’s cousin who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact with him after the sentence through visits as and when he would be allowed by prison authorities stated that at the trial Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli did not show any regrets, that he said the presiding Judge knew the issues that precipitated the coup.
That after the sentence Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli remained convinced that they were fighting for what was right. That he did tell his father (uncle Otella) at the start of the Court Martial that they had weighed the risks involved in the enterprise of change of Government and the consequences and that indeed they would also have tried those who had committed crimes against the people of Kenya if they had succeeded. That the Court Martial was a Kangaroo process, that he did not expect justice, that his fate was sealed and he was prepared for it.
The cousin who was just a young man then says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was highly intelligent. That in primary school, he hovered at position one or two throughout. That he scored a division two and was admitted for form five but due to school fees challenges his uncle who was educating him and had his own school fees burdens for his children asked a relative to secure him a place at the Air Force and that is how he ended up there.
The cousin recounts how the witnesses who testified alleged said that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was Airforce Commander for the short lived period of the coup before it was crushed.
The cousin says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was a very smart man who regularly kept the (parting of) hair line like the youthful Mandela. That he was a replica of his maternal grandfather who was smart and was reputed to, whenever he was walking on the road and a vehicle passed and raised dust he will go off the road and clean any dust and apply Vaseline to restore his smartness.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother mama Tunai Nekesa gazes outside the door of her house as though expecting his son to re-appear after years of pain, of losing her beloved son.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother when interviewed by (the writer) in late July 2011 remembered exactly the date, day and time she gave birth to the bouncing baby son and that was evident in the way she described it:
“I gave birth to Fenwicks on Monday 10th August 1953 at exactly 1pm.”
Fenwicks Chesoli’s father Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga was the youngest brother of Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella. Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella took up the responsibility of educating Chesoli at an early age as his father did not have the means. Chesoli then took up his uncle’s name Otella which during the registration of persons was taken for Odera and the name stuck from Otella to Odera. That the name “Obedi” was Fenwicks Chesoli’s adaptation of his maternal grandfather’s nickname of “Obaddiah” that the old man did not like as it referred to his being bow-legged.
Mzee Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga, the late father of Chesoli who passed on in 2007 is from the Basamo Clan while Mama Tunai Nekesa is from the Bakhwami clan of the Bukusu tribe.
Fenwicks Chesoli was circumcised on 8th August 1966 and belonged to the circumcision age set of the Bukusu called “Ba-Maina namba nne, sia Kerre”. The age set was named “sia Kerre” after Mzee Kerre who in 1963 represented Mt. Elgon Central (now Bumula/Kanduyi Constituency) and on his death it was found out that he had not been circumcised and as decreed by Bukusu Customs that every male member must be circumcised, the late Kerre was circumcised after his death and before he was buried.
According to Chesoli’s mother, his son was hardworking, humble and very obedient. That he started his primary education in 1961 at Kitayi RC Primary School where he attended classes to class two and then transferred to Kimilili FYM at the time commonly called ‘Wa Daniel.’
He sat for his standard seven exams in 1971 and then joined Kimilili Boys Secondary until 1975 when he sat for his O level examination and passed.
Chesoli was to join Friends school Kamusinga for his A level education but due to the financial constraints his father could not afford his fees bearing in mind that he had other children to take to school and look after.
Chesoli later successfully joined the Kenya Air Force after sitting for an interview in Nairobi between 31st August and September 14, 1976. After being successful, together with others, they were taken to Lanet, Nakuru where they trained for a month before they were taken back to Nairobi where they were trained for a whole year.
Fenwicks Chesoli joined the Electronics and instruments section where he worked very hard in hangars and bays according to some of his colleagues whom we managed to talk to but who insisted on anonymity.
Chesoli attended a course in the United Kingdom in 1981 for four months and continued with his normal duties as before.
In February 1982, he returned home on leave which according to information from the family, ended well and he went back to work.
During the 1982 coup, Chesoli was by that time based at Eastleigh in Nairobi. At the time, Chesoli was a close friend of Hezekiah Ochuka and the friendship is said to have been very strong. Ochuka was the Chairman of the Airmen Welfare while Chesoli was his Vice. Ex soldiers who were with them by then recall how powerful and influential the two were especially in championing for the rights of the Kenya Air force and even common citizens mostly on economic and political imbalances among other vices. Besides that Chesoli and Ochuka were age mates having been born the same year.
With Ochuka being born in Nyakach, Kisumu District in August 1953, then Chesoli in Kitayi Bungoma District in August 1953. They joined the Kenya Air force the same year and were placed in the same section.
Some ex-soldiers have since admitted that indeed Chesoli and Ochuka fought for equality only that may be the route that was taken later in August did not please some people. They described Chesoli as a gentleman, humble, obedient, pragmatic, courageous and very firm. At one time one of the senior officers is said to have threatened to demote him from a Corporal an act that made Chesoli remove everything he had and give it to him and said he was ready for anything as long as he was doing the right thing.
Back to the Coup, Chesoli like any soldiers is said to have had information concerning the planned Coup but did not know the exact date when the plan would be executed. However, some of his colleagues say he was in charge of Eastleigh base when the plan was executed.
After the planned Coup failed, it is said Chesoli was supposed to flee together with Ochuka but because he was a bit far Ochuka managed to fly off just with one shoe and they even went the opposite direction of how the flights path to Tanzania. But before Ochuka left, he had to convince his colleagues where he was heading to because he had been trusted so much by his fellow soldiers.
“He told us that he was going to look for reinforcements from other quarters before he left but afterwards we suspected something was amiss,” said one of the ex-officers who was among our sources of information.
After all was clear that Ochuka had fled the country, Air force soldiers decided to surrender by hanging a surrender flag with a solder called Ndambuki leading in raising hands as a sign of surrender. However, the Kenya Army soldiers who had invaded the base began butchering those who had surrendered.
It is said over two hundred soldiers who has surrendered were told to remove all the clothes and sit down several lines. They were later forced to kneel down on murram and raise their hands up. Chesoli who was still at the base after he failed to accompany Ochuka to Tanzania had sneaked and ran up to a family friend at Buruburu. Army soldiers started shooting aimlessly and killed some Air force soldiers whom up to now their exact number has never been known.
Our sources reveal that one Army man whom he could not recall his name was the only one who sympathized with them and stopped his fellow soldiers from killing people who had surrendered had to kneel down until dusk.
In the evening they were thrown in lorries in different layers and were taken to Kamiti Maximum prison where on arriving they were put in a field which was already full of the victims of the attempted Coup with some over bleeding. “You could feel a very warm liquid running down your body and when you check you find it is human blood,” said one of the victims as he narrated his ordeal.
“We were again beaten mercilessly with some people being shot until the prison officers intervened and demanded that we are either left to be under their care or the Army men who had taken us there take us anywhere and kills us,” he added.
They obeyed the order and stopped beating them but later their faces were tied with a black cloth and taken into cells. Screening started followed by separation according to the how one was implicated.
In Buruburu where Chesoli who had hidden at his friend’s house, he was given civilian clothes and later buried the Kenya Airforce clothes. He went on the street but he was spotted by Kenya Army officers who wanted to kill him but he was saved by one officer who knew him. He put him in his vehicle and took him to the Central Police station where he surrendered and later taken to Kamiti prison where he was mixed with other soldiers who had been arrested.
A soldier who was near Chesoli in the cell, recalls how Chesoli told him how he had been betrayed by other soldiers. “Wase babandu bambulile , (my friend people have revealed me),” said Chesoli as quoted by his friend.
They were later taken to Naivasha where most of the ex soldiers we have talked to admit they underwent the worst torture.
In fact, as we were interacting and interviewing these ex officers, you could see tears roll down their cheeks when they talk about what happened in Naivasha.
They were beaten and put into very dark rooms half filled with ice cold water. One was to be put there naked and the reception was that they pour on themselves 20 litres of the ice cold water.
“At meal times no food was offered but instead at every meal time more water was brought so that you pour on yourself. Short calls and long calls were in the same room and was mixed with water which when one was thirsty, he could drink the same water,” recalled the ex soldiers.
Chesoli`s cousin Robert Nyaranga says they used to visit him while at Kamiti as the proceedings were going on but towards the end of 1984, they were stopped completely and told to seek permission from the President before they would be allowed to see him. To Mama Tunai, Chesoli`s mother, that one was an impossibility because she argues they would be killed if they approached the President seeking permission to see their son.
They went back home but luckily at Kamiti, there was a prison officer from Bungoma whom they knew and therefore used him so much to get information on the whereabouts of their son. He used to inform them occasionally how he was progressing together with other five ex officers whom he was sharing a cell with.
Later in 1986, the prison officer from Bungoma went on leave and on going back; he found Chesoli and the other five missing. Bearing on how sensitive their case was, that prison officer could not ask anything but just came back and went straight up to Chesoli`s place at Kitayi and informed his parents and family members that their son had been moved to a different place which he did not know.
Chesoli according to all of our sources was very good at English and he was a great orator a characteristic that resonated with Hezekiah Ochuka who was himself charismatic and that is why he was very close to him. Our sources say it was Ochuka and Chesoli who could boldly face the Chief of the General Staff during their occasional meetings and ask him to look into their problems and solve them.
Chesoli`s father died four years ago without knowing the fate of his son. The family has lived in fear and confusion with most in distress and others leaving school after their only helper went missing. Some children stopped going to school and even those who went to school fear applying for public jobs with the spirit that they might go the same way Chesoli went. Although one of Chesoli`s brother is a police officer, many parents in that clan discourage their children from joining forces claiming what happened to Chesoli might happen to them too.
As of now family members led by Chesoli`s mother Tunai Nekesa are urging the government to give a clear report of where their son went and if he was killed, they would like to be given his remains so that they bury him according to their culture. Tunai says the hanging of her son has traumatized her for long leaving her in great despair despite struggling earlier to educate his son so that she could lead a better life.
The family says at one time they got information that Chesoli and the other five had been jailed outside Kenya and plans were underway to bring them back but it did not happen. As a family they have not conducted any traditional ceremony to bury a banana stem as is the case among the Bukusu tribe when someone dies but his body is not found.
According to the family, they must be sure Chesoli died before they can bury the banana stem for they fear doing so only for him to re-appear later.
Chesoli in 1982 at age 29 had not married by then though some of his friends say he was dating a lady whom he was planning to marry. However it is not clear if Chesoli had any children because some of his friends claim he might have had children.
Mama Tunai Nekesa told us that she was not aware about the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission sittings at Bungoma and also not aware that she could have gone and presented her son’s case to them.
He was an aircraft technician. In the Book by Babatemi A. Badejo “Raila Odinga, An Enigma in Kenya Politics” it is revealed that Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was considered a member of the “Peoples Redemption Council” that comprised of (1) S/pte Hezekiah Ochuka, as chairman, (2) S/sgt Pancras Okumu Oteyo, (3) Sgt Jospeh Ogidi Obuon, (4) Sgt Samuel Opiyo, (5) Sgt Richard Obuon, (6) Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli, (7) Cpl Ombok, (
He was represented at the Court Martial by a state appointed lawyer the Late Nicholas Rabala who hailed from Busia as the defence lawyer.
After the sentence to death on 9th February 1983, Cpl Fenwicks Chesoli was incarcerated at Kamiti Maximum Prison and with frequent movements to among other prisons Naivasha Prison before he was hanged in 1986 between July to September at Kamiti Maximum Prison and buried there.
A family member who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact and on the trail of Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli says that he was clandestinely in October 1986 through informal contacts he had at the prison shown Cpl Chesoli’s unmarked grave at the Kamiti Maximum Prison among other nine unmarked graves of the Kenya Air Force 1982 coup architects and central actors.
The official records of who of the 1982 coup leaders and central actors who had been sentenced to hang were hanged and when and where the bodies were buried remains classified but the unofficial accounts point to those hanged as Hezekiah Ochuka, Pancras Oteyo Okumu, Charles Oriwa Hongo, Robert Odhiambo Ndege, Bramwel Injeni Njeremani, Fenwicks Chesoli, Joseph Ogidi Obuon, Charles Mirasi Odawa, Walter Odira Ojode, Edward Adel Omollo, James Odemba Otieno and George Akoth Otila.
It is reported that during his Defence hearing that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli addressed the court martial for one hour or so off the cuff. That he was eloquent, articulate and indeed Colonel Ombewa who was prosecuting him argued in his closing submissions that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli had demonstrated in his defence how influential he was and a key participant in the coup with his charisma and eloquence.
Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli’s cousin who attended the Court Martial and kept in contact with him after the sentence through visits as and when he would be allowed by prison authorities stated that at the trial Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli did not show any regrets, that he said the presiding Judge knew the issues that precipitated the coup.
That after the sentence Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli remained convinced that they were fighting for what was right. That he did tell his father (uncle Otella) at the start of the Court Martial that they had weighed the risks involved in the enterprise of change of Government and the consequences and that indeed they would also have tried those who had committed crimes against the people of Kenya if they had succeeded. That the Court Martial was a Kangaroo process, that he did not expect justice, that his fate was sealed and he was prepared for it.
The cousin who was just a young man then says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was highly intelligent. That in primary school, he hovered at position one or two throughout. That he scored a division two and was admitted for form five but due to school fees challenges his uncle who was educating him and had his own school fees burdens for his children asked a relative to secure him a place at the Air Force and that is how he ended up there.
The cousin recounts how the witnesses who testified alleged said that Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was Airforce Commander for the short lived period of the coup before it was crushed.
The cousin says Corporal Fenwicks Chesoli was a very smart man who regularly kept the (parting of) hair line like the youthful Mandela. That he was a replica of his maternal grandfather who was smart and was reputed to, whenever he was walking on the road and a vehicle passed and raised dust he will go off the road and clean any dust and apply Vaseline to restore his smartness.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother mama Tunai Nekesa gazes outside the door of her house as though expecting his son to re-appear after years of pain, of losing her beloved son.
Fenwicks Chesoli’s mother when interviewed by (the writer) in late July 2011 remembered exactly the date, day and time she gave birth to the bouncing baby son and that was evident in the way she described it:
“I gave birth to Fenwicks on Monday 10th August 1953 at exactly 1pm.”
Fenwicks Chesoli’s father Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga was the youngest brother of Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella. Mzee Thomas Nyaranga Otella took up the responsibility of educating Chesoli at an early age as his father did not have the means. Chesoli then took up his uncle’s name Otella which during the registration of persons was taken for Odera and the name stuck from Otella to Odera. That the name “Obedi” was Fenwicks Chesoli’s adaptation of his maternal grandfather’s nickname of “Obaddiah” that the old man did not like as it referred to his being bow-legged.
Mzee Joseph Munjaru Nyaranga, the late father of Chesoli who passed on in 2007 is from the Basamo Clan while Mama Tunai Nekesa is from the Bakhwami clan of the Bukusu tribe.
Fenwicks Chesoli was circumcised on 8th August 1966 and belonged to the circumcision age set of the Bukusu called “Ba-Maina namba nne, sia Kerre”. The age set was named “sia Kerre” after Mzee Kerre who in 1963 represented Mt. Elgon Central (now Bumula/Kanduyi Constituency) and on his death it was found out that he had not been circumcised and as decreed by Bukusu Customs that every male member must be circumcised, the late Kerre was circumcised after his death and before he was buried.
According to Chesoli’s mother, his son was hardworking, humble and very obedient. That he started his primary education in 1961 at Kitayi RC Primary School where he attended classes to class two and then transferred to Kimilili FYM at the time commonly called ‘Wa Daniel.’
He sat for his standard seven exams in 1971 and then joined Kimilili Boys Secondary until 1975 when he sat for his O level examination and passed.
Chesoli was to join Friends school Kamusinga for his A level education but due to the financial constraints his father could not afford his fees bearing in mind that he had other children to take to school and look after.
Chesoli later successfully joined the Kenya Air Force after sitting for an interview in Nairobi between 31st August and September 14, 1976. After being successful, together with others, they were taken to Lanet, Nakuru where they trained for a month before they were taken back to Nairobi where they were trained for a whole year.
Fenwicks Chesoli joined the Electronics and instruments section where he worked very hard in hangars and bays according to some of his colleagues whom we managed to talk to but who insisted on anonymity.
Chesoli attended a course in the United Kingdom in 1981 for four months and continued with his normal duties as before.
In February 1982, he returned home on leave which according to information from the family, ended well and he went back to work.
During the 1982 coup, Chesoli was by that time based at Eastleigh in Nairobi. At the time, Chesoli was a close friend of Hezekiah Ochuka and the friendship is said to have been very strong. Ochuka was the Chairman of the Airmen Welfare while Chesoli was his Vice. Ex soldiers who were with them by then recall how powerful and influential the two were especially in championing for the rights of the Kenya Air force and even common citizens mostly on economic and political imbalances among other vices. Besides that Chesoli and Ochuka were age mates having been born the same year.
With Ochuka being born in Nyakach, Kisumu District in August 1953, then Chesoli in Kitayi Bungoma District in August 1953. They joined the Kenya Air force the same year and were placed in the same section.
Some ex-soldiers have since admitted that indeed Chesoli and Ochuka fought for equality only that may be the route that was taken later in August did not please some people. They described Chesoli as a gentleman, humble, obedient, pragmatic, courageous and very firm. At one time one of the senior officers is said to have threatened to demote him from a Corporal an act that made Chesoli remove everything he had and give it to him and said he was ready for anything as long as he was doing the right thing.
Back to the Coup, Chesoli like any soldiers is said to have had information concerning the planned Coup but did not know the exact date when the plan would be executed. However, some of his colleagues say he was in charge of Eastleigh base when the plan was executed.
After the planned Coup failed, it is said Chesoli was supposed to flee together with Ochuka but because he was a bit far Ochuka managed to fly off just with one shoe and they even went the opposite direction of how the flights path to Tanzania. But before Ochuka left, he had to convince his colleagues where he was heading to because he had been trusted so much by his fellow soldiers.
“He told us that he was going to look for reinforcements from other quarters before he left but afterwards we suspected something was amiss,” said one of the ex-officers who was among our sources of information.
After all was clear that Ochuka had fled the country, Air force soldiers decided to surrender by hanging a surrender flag with a solder called Ndambuki leading in raising hands as a sign of surrender. However, the Kenya Army soldiers who had invaded the base began butchering those who had surrendered.
It is said over two hundred soldiers who has surrendered were told to remove all the clothes and sit down several lines. They were later forced to kneel down on murram and raise their hands up. Chesoli who was still at the base after he failed to accompany Ochuka to Tanzania had sneaked and ran up to a family friend at Buruburu. Army soldiers started shooting aimlessly and killed some Air force soldiers whom up to now their exact number has never been known.
Our sources reveal that one Army man whom he could not recall his name was the only one who sympathized with them and stopped his fellow soldiers from killing people who had surrendered had to kneel down until dusk.
In the evening they were thrown in lorries in different layers and were taken to Kamiti Maximum prison where on arriving they were put in a field which was already full of the victims of the attempted Coup with some over bleeding. “You could feel a very warm liquid running down your body and when you check you find it is human blood,” said one of the victims as he narrated his ordeal.
“We were again beaten mercilessly with some people being shot until the prison officers intervened and demanded that we are either left to be under their care or the Army men who had taken us there take us anywhere and kills us,” he added.
They obeyed the order and stopped beating them but later their faces were tied with a black cloth and taken into cells. Screening started followed by separation according to the how one was implicated.
In Buruburu where Chesoli who had hidden at his friend’s house, he was given civilian clothes and later buried the Kenya Airforce clothes. He went on the street but he was spotted by Kenya Army officers who wanted to kill him but he was saved by one officer who knew him. He put him in his vehicle and took him to the Central Police station where he surrendered and later taken to Kamiti prison where he was mixed with other soldiers who had been arrested.
A soldier who was near Chesoli in the cell, recalls how Chesoli told him how he had been betrayed by other soldiers. “Wase babandu bambulile , (my friend people have revealed me),” said Chesoli as quoted by his friend.
They were later taken to Naivasha where most of the ex soldiers we have talked to admit they underwent the worst torture.
In fact, as we were interacting and interviewing these ex officers, you could see tears roll down their cheeks when they talk about what happened in Naivasha.
They were beaten and put into very dark rooms half filled with ice cold water. One was to be put there naked and the reception was that they pour on themselves 20 litres of the ice cold water.
“At meal times no food was offered but instead at every meal time more water was brought so that you pour on yourself. Short calls and long calls were in the same room and was mixed with water which when one was thirsty, he could drink the same water,” recalled the ex soldiers.
Chesoli`s cousin Robert Nyaranga says they used to visit him while at Kamiti as the proceedings were going on but towards the end of 1984, they were stopped completely and told to seek permission from the President before they would be allowed to see him. To Mama Tunai, Chesoli`s mother, that one was an impossibility because she argues they would be killed if they approached the President seeking permission to see their son.
They went back home but luckily at Kamiti, there was a prison officer from Bungoma whom they knew and therefore used him so much to get information on the whereabouts of their son. He used to inform them occasionally how he was progressing together with other five ex officers whom he was sharing a cell with.
Later in 1986, the prison officer from Bungoma went on leave and on going back; he found Chesoli and the other five missing. Bearing on how sensitive their case was, that prison officer could not ask anything but just came back and went straight up to Chesoli`s place at Kitayi and informed his parents and family members that their son had been moved to a different place which he did not know.
Chesoli according to all of our sources was very good at English and he was a great orator a characteristic that resonated with Hezekiah Ochuka who was himself charismatic and that is why he was very close to him. Our sources say it was Ochuka and Chesoli who could boldly face the Chief of the General Staff during their occasional meetings and ask him to look into their problems and solve them.
Chesoli`s father died four years ago without knowing the fate of his son. The family has lived in fear and confusion with most in distress and others leaving school after their only helper went missing. Some children stopped going to school and even those who went to school fear applying for public jobs with the spirit that they might go the same way Chesoli went. Although one of Chesoli`s brother is a police officer, many parents in that clan discourage their children from joining forces claiming what happened to Chesoli might happen to them too.
As of now family members led by Chesoli`s mother Tunai Nekesa are urging the government to give a clear report of where their son went and if he was killed, they would like to be given his remains so that they bury him according to their culture. Tunai says the hanging of her son has traumatized her for long leaving her in great despair despite struggling earlier to educate his son so that she could lead a better life.
The family says at one time they got information that Chesoli and the other five had been jailed outside Kenya and plans were underway to bring them back but it did not happen. As a family they have not conducted any traditional ceremony to bury a banana stem as is the case among the Bukusu tribe when someone dies but his body is not found.
According to the family, they must be sure Chesoli died before they can bury the banana stem for they fear doing so only for him to re-appear later.
Chesoli in 1982 at age 29 had not married by then though some of his friends say he was dating a lady whom he was planning to marry. However it is not clear if Chesoli had any children because some of his friends claim he might have had children.
Mama Tunai Nekesa told us that she was not aware about the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission sittings at Bungoma and also not aware that she could have gone and presented her son’s case to them.
In the early hours of 1 August, 1982, exactly 39 years ago today, Kenyans woke up to a coup attempt by junior rebel officers of the Kenya Air Force against the government of then president Daniel arap Moi.
More than 100 soldiers and 200 civilians died, including two (West) Germans, an Englishwoman, and a Japanese male tourist and his child. Two Asian women committed suicide after being raped, and the economic damage kissed the Sh500 million ceiling.
The madness lasted less than 12 hours, but the damage is still with us. The mastermind, Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, was Kenya’s “president” for less than six hours, but the adverse ripple effects of the abortive coup lasted more than two decades.
Yet the poorly planned coup could have been nipped in the bud.
Lieutenant Leslie Kombo Mwamburi of the Kenya Air Force, Nanyuki, had informed his superiors about the impending revolt, even giving the date and time of the onslaught. Mwamburi had taken oath of allegiance to the coup but had a change of heart and sold out the plot, as he later testified during the court martial that followed at the Lang’ata Barracks.
Also, a month to the coup, Peter Ngare Kagume, the acting commander of the Kenya Air Force, Nanyuki, informed commanding officer Colonel Felix Njuguna of the plot. Nothing was done.
At Nairobi’s Moi Air Base, where the coup was plotted by the swimming pool, Air Force commander Major General Peter Mwagiru Kariuki had been informed about the coup plans. The Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Joseph Mulinge, asked Major General Kariuki to ensure that the informer was arrested and made to give the details and names.
Major General Kariuki, despite pleading that he had been misled by the military intelligence that a coup was impossible, was later discharged from the army and jailed for four years in January 1983 for failing to suppress the mutiny.
The Special Branch too, which had infiltrated the military, knew about the coup and even had the names of the perpetrators-to-be. Indeed, two days to the coup, James Kanyotu, the then spy chief, had asked President Moi for permission to arrest, among others, Sergeant Joseph Ogidi (who had tried to recruit Mwamburi), Corporals Charles Oriwa, Walter Ojode, Bramwel Injene Njereman, and Senior Privates Protas Oteyo Okumu and Hezekiah Ochuka.
But the President did not deem it fit that the police should get embroiled in military arrests as that would have been tantamount to insubordination. The matter, he said, would be dealt with internally on Monday, 2 August.
But alas! At midnight on August 1, the coup, which envisaged seizing control of the Voice of Kenya, the Kenyatta International Airport’s control tower, the Wilson Airport, the General Post Office, and the Central Bank of Kenya “to protect people’s money”, besides blowing up State House Nairobi, JKIA, and President Moi’s home in Kabarak, started in earnest.
Retired President Moi was never the same again after surviving the coup by “stupid fellows who had no manners”, as Charles Njonjo termed them.
Here is how the failed 1982 military coup affected Kenyans, directly and otherwise:
Era of political repression
President Moi once told Ronald Ngala to “take it easy, our time will come”. Ngala was then wondering why Moi allowed himself to be cold-shouldered and demeaned by hirelings in the Kenyatta administration.
Well, the attempted coup provided him with an arsenal to settle old scores and assert himself by systematically instituting an oppressive one-man state through consolidation, centralisation, and personalisation of power while neutralising disloyal elements, real and imagined.
In his book, African Successes, David Leonard notes that the coup attempt was “a piece of good luck” for Moi. The attempt legitimised Moi’s reorganisation of the command structure of the armed forces and the police. Once the attempt had been made and suppressed, he was able to remove leaders from positions that were most threatening. The armed forces and the police “were neutralised”.
Ben Gethi, the Commissioner of Police, for instance, was detained at Kamiti and later retired “in public interest”. Moi also eliminated Kikuyu and Luo officers from the military and put in Kalenjin and non-ethnic challengers. For instance, he named General Mahmoud Mohammed — an ethnic Somali — the army chief of general staff.
With the disciplined forces in the hands of handpicked loyalists, the political structure was next. President Moi had a Bill enacted that granted him emergency powers, and the provincial administration and civil service came under the Office of the President, for the first time in post-independence Kenya. In effect, a DC could stop an MP from addressing his constituents.
Next was Parliament, whose privilege to access information from the Office of the President was revoked, thus subordinating it to the presidency. The Legislature could only rubber-stamp — not check — the excesses of the Executive. That is how, in 1986, it imposed limitations on the independence of the Judiciary, where Joseph Kamere, Attorney General at the time of the coup, was replaced with Cecil Miller.
Two expatriate judges — Derek Schofield and Patrick O’Connor — resigned, lamenting that the judicial system was “blatantly contravened by those who are supposed to be its supreme guardians”.
Parliament also gave police powers to detain critics of Moi’s authoritarian regime. Detention without trial, which had been suspended in 1978, was reintroduced through a constitutional amendment: George Anyona, Koigi Wamwere, Gitobu Imanyara, John Khaminwa, Gibson Kamau Kuria, Kiraitu Murungi, Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia, among others, were detained in inhumane conditions. Many fled the country afterwards. Others died.
It did not end there. The freedoms of the press, expression, association, and movement were curtailed.
In effect, Kenya became a police state.
Omnipresent head of State
President Moi ensured that his presence was felt everywhere; he stared at you from the currency in your wallet and mandatory portraits in every business premise. Streets, schools, a stadium, university, airport, and monuments were named after him. He gobbled half the news time on radio and TV, where he was always the first bulletin item.
Ministers wore lapel pins with his photo on them. Indeed, one Cabinet minister in the Moi government was said to have had a dozen suits, each with its own pin lapel… just in case he forgot and wore the wrong suit!
Moi was felt in the education system, in which students recited a loyalty pledge, learnt about the Nyayo philosophy in GHC, and drank Nyayo milk. In the remotest parts of the country, the local chief was the president’s eyes and ears.
Comical ‘mlolongo’ system
Kanu replaced the secret ballot with a system where voters lined up behind candidates in 1986. Parliamentary candidates who secured more than 70 per cent of the votes did not have to go through the process of the secret ballot in the General Election in what was more or less a “selection within an election”.
In case of disputed polling over a head-count, a repeat was not possible. Kenyans lost their right to vote for parliamentary candidates of their choice, with ridiculous consequences.
Take the case of Kiambu coffee picker Mukora Muthiora. He “defeated” the late Njenga Karume for the Kanu sub-branch chairmanship.
Karume was then a former assistant minister for Cooperative Development. Provincial Commissioner Victor Musoga declared Muthiora the winner, yet he never participated in the election.
‘The den of dissidents’
The coup provided Moi with the opportunity to crack down on lawyers, authors, activists, scientists, and (especially) university lecturers perceived to be critical of his authoritarian rule. Most were detained for what the State called “over-indulgence in politics” and having “Marxist leanings”. Among these were Prof Edward Oyugi and Mukaru Ng’ang’a.
Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, then a University of Nairobi law lecturer, had earlier been detained for having “seditious” literature purportedly advising “J M Solidarity. Don’t be fooled. Reject these Nyayos”.
Other university lecturers did not fare any better, such as Mau Mau historian Maina wa Kinyatti, Al-Amin Mazrui, Kamonji Wachira, Prof Micere Mugo, and Dr Kimani Gecau, who fled to Zimbabwe.
The University of Nairobi, which Moi called a “den of dissidents with foreign backing”, was closed for almost a year after the coup. It was never the hotbed of “intellectual pyrotechnics” again.
People’s Redemption Council sought ‘equality’
Every uprising, bloodless or otherwise, has triggers. The 1982 coup attempt was precipitated by, among others, official corruption, abuse of power, and economic degradation. Turning Kenya into a single-party state, besides the more apparent poor conditions in the armed forces — particularly the lack of recognition for non-commissioned officers — also fuelled discontent within the forces.
The Kenya Air Force officers who were implicated in the coup were predominantly from the Luo community, which James Waore Diang’a, the mastermind of the revolt, said was under-represented in the army and politically shortchanged. The Moi Cabinet at the time of the coup, Diang’a noted in his book, 1982, had only three Luos.
He had recruited Hezekiah Ochuka in 1981, but his plot was discovered by intelligence moles. Diang’a was arrested on 15 January that year and charged with treason. But the court martial concluded that since his accomplices could not be traced, it was impossible for one man to overthrow the government. He was accused of “planning an act of sedition” and jailed for three years at Kamiti.
But his bloody dream never faded.
The charismatic Ochuka took it over in March and recruited members of the People’s Redemption Council, mostly from the Air Force bases in Nairobi and Nanyuki, with him as chairman. The Czechoslovakia-trained John Odongo Langi would link the plotters through transport and logistics.
That done, setting a date for the coup was next. Sunday had minimal activity, and thus minimal collateral human damage. The army was out in Lodwar for military games and the top nabobs were at the opening of the ASK show in Nyeri by the president that Friday, 30 August.
Rumours that the Kikuyu were planning to overthrow Moi and instal Kibaki forced the plotters to fast-track the coup date to 1 August. But forces loyal to President Moi helped crush the uprising.
More than 100 soldiers and 200 civilians died, including two (West) Germans, an Englishwoman, and a Japanese male tourist and his child. Two Asian women committed suicide after being raped, and the economic damage kissed the Sh500 million ceiling.
The madness lasted less than 12 hours, but the damage is still with us. The mastermind, Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, was Kenya’s “president” for less than six hours, but the adverse ripple effects of the abortive coup lasted more than two decades.
Yet the poorly planned coup could have been nipped in the bud.
Lieutenant Leslie Kombo Mwamburi of the Kenya Air Force, Nanyuki, had informed his superiors about the impending revolt, even giving the date and time of the onslaught. Mwamburi had taken oath of allegiance to the coup but had a change of heart and sold out the plot, as he later testified during the court martial that followed at the Lang’ata Barracks.
Also, a month to the coup, Peter Ngare Kagume, the acting commander of the Kenya Air Force, Nanyuki, informed commanding officer Colonel Felix Njuguna of the plot. Nothing was done.
At Nairobi’s Moi Air Base, where the coup was plotted by the swimming pool, Air Force commander Major General Peter Mwagiru Kariuki had been informed about the coup plans. The Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Joseph Mulinge, asked Major General Kariuki to ensure that the informer was arrested and made to give the details and names.
Major General Kariuki, despite pleading that he had been misled by the military intelligence that a coup was impossible, was later discharged from the army and jailed for four years in January 1983 for failing to suppress the mutiny.
The Special Branch too, which had infiltrated the military, knew about the coup and even had the names of the perpetrators-to-be. Indeed, two days to the coup, James Kanyotu, the then spy chief, had asked President Moi for permission to arrest, among others, Sergeant Joseph Ogidi (who had tried to recruit Mwamburi), Corporals Charles Oriwa, Walter Ojode, Bramwel Injene Njereman, and Senior Privates Protas Oteyo Okumu and Hezekiah Ochuka.
But the President did not deem it fit that the police should get embroiled in military arrests as that would have been tantamount to insubordination. The matter, he said, would be dealt with internally on Monday, 2 August.
But alas! At midnight on August 1, the coup, which envisaged seizing control of the Voice of Kenya, the Kenyatta International Airport’s control tower, the Wilson Airport, the General Post Office, and the Central Bank of Kenya “to protect people’s money”, besides blowing up State House Nairobi, JKIA, and President Moi’s home in Kabarak, started in earnest.
Retired President Moi was never the same again after surviving the coup by “stupid fellows who had no manners”, as Charles Njonjo termed them.
Here is how the failed 1982 military coup affected Kenyans, directly and otherwise:
Era of political repression
President Moi once told Ronald Ngala to “take it easy, our time will come”. Ngala was then wondering why Moi allowed himself to be cold-shouldered and demeaned by hirelings in the Kenyatta administration.
Well, the attempted coup provided him with an arsenal to settle old scores and assert himself by systematically instituting an oppressive one-man state through consolidation, centralisation, and personalisation of power while neutralising disloyal elements, real and imagined.
In his book, African Successes, David Leonard notes that the coup attempt was “a piece of good luck” for Moi. The attempt legitimised Moi’s reorganisation of the command structure of the armed forces and the police. Once the attempt had been made and suppressed, he was able to remove leaders from positions that were most threatening. The armed forces and the police “were neutralised”.
Ben Gethi, the Commissioner of Police, for instance, was detained at Kamiti and later retired “in public interest”. Moi also eliminated Kikuyu and Luo officers from the military and put in Kalenjin and non-ethnic challengers. For instance, he named General Mahmoud Mohammed — an ethnic Somali — the army chief of general staff.
With the disciplined forces in the hands of handpicked loyalists, the political structure was next. President Moi had a Bill enacted that granted him emergency powers, and the provincial administration and civil service came under the Office of the President, for the first time in post-independence Kenya. In effect, a DC could stop an MP from addressing his constituents.
Next was Parliament, whose privilege to access information from the Office of the President was revoked, thus subordinating it to the presidency. The Legislature could only rubber-stamp — not check — the excesses of the Executive. That is how, in 1986, it imposed limitations on the independence of the Judiciary, where Joseph Kamere, Attorney General at the time of the coup, was replaced with Cecil Miller.
Two expatriate judges — Derek Schofield and Patrick O’Connor — resigned, lamenting that the judicial system was “blatantly contravened by those who are supposed to be its supreme guardians”.
Parliament also gave police powers to detain critics of Moi’s authoritarian regime. Detention without trial, which had been suspended in 1978, was reintroduced through a constitutional amendment: George Anyona, Koigi Wamwere, Gitobu Imanyara, John Khaminwa, Gibson Kamau Kuria, Kiraitu Murungi, Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia, among others, were detained in inhumane conditions. Many fled the country afterwards. Others died.
It did not end there. The freedoms of the press, expression, association, and movement were curtailed.
In effect, Kenya became a police state.
Omnipresent head of State
President Moi ensured that his presence was felt everywhere; he stared at you from the currency in your wallet and mandatory portraits in every business premise. Streets, schools, a stadium, university, airport, and monuments were named after him. He gobbled half the news time on radio and TV, where he was always the first bulletin item.
Ministers wore lapel pins with his photo on them. Indeed, one Cabinet minister in the Moi government was said to have had a dozen suits, each with its own pin lapel… just in case he forgot and wore the wrong suit!
Moi was felt in the education system, in which students recited a loyalty pledge, learnt about the Nyayo philosophy in GHC, and drank Nyayo milk. In the remotest parts of the country, the local chief was the president’s eyes and ears.
Comical ‘mlolongo’ system
Kanu replaced the secret ballot with a system where voters lined up behind candidates in 1986. Parliamentary candidates who secured more than 70 per cent of the votes did not have to go through the process of the secret ballot in the General Election in what was more or less a “selection within an election”.
In case of disputed polling over a head-count, a repeat was not possible. Kenyans lost their right to vote for parliamentary candidates of their choice, with ridiculous consequences.
Take the case of Kiambu coffee picker Mukora Muthiora. He “defeated” the late Njenga Karume for the Kanu sub-branch chairmanship.
Karume was then a former assistant minister for Cooperative Development. Provincial Commissioner Victor Musoga declared Muthiora the winner, yet he never participated in the election.
‘The den of dissidents’
The coup provided Moi with the opportunity to crack down on lawyers, authors, activists, scientists, and (especially) university lecturers perceived to be critical of his authoritarian rule. Most were detained for what the State called “over-indulgence in politics” and having “Marxist leanings”. Among these were Prof Edward Oyugi and Mukaru Ng’ang’a.
Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, then a University of Nairobi law lecturer, had earlier been detained for having “seditious” literature purportedly advising “J M Solidarity. Don’t be fooled. Reject these Nyayos”.
Other university lecturers did not fare any better, such as Mau Mau historian Maina wa Kinyatti, Al-Amin Mazrui, Kamonji Wachira, Prof Micere Mugo, and Dr Kimani Gecau, who fled to Zimbabwe.
The University of Nairobi, which Moi called a “den of dissidents with foreign backing”, was closed for almost a year after the coup. It was never the hotbed of “intellectual pyrotechnics” again.
People’s Redemption Council sought ‘equality’
Every uprising, bloodless or otherwise, has triggers. The 1982 coup attempt was precipitated by, among others, official corruption, abuse of power, and economic degradation. Turning Kenya into a single-party state, besides the more apparent poor conditions in the armed forces — particularly the lack of recognition for non-commissioned officers — also fuelled discontent within the forces.
The Kenya Air Force officers who were implicated in the coup were predominantly from the Luo community, which James Waore Diang’a, the mastermind of the revolt, said was under-represented in the army and politically shortchanged. The Moi Cabinet at the time of the coup, Diang’a noted in his book, 1982, had only three Luos.
He had recruited Hezekiah Ochuka in 1981, but his plot was discovered by intelligence moles. Diang’a was arrested on 15 January that year and charged with treason. But the court martial concluded that since his accomplices could not be traced, it was impossible for one man to overthrow the government. He was accused of “planning an act of sedition” and jailed for three years at Kamiti.
But his bloody dream never faded.
The charismatic Ochuka took it over in March and recruited members of the People’s Redemption Council, mostly from the Air Force bases in Nairobi and Nanyuki, with him as chairman. The Czechoslovakia-trained John Odongo Langi would link the plotters through transport and logistics.
That done, setting a date for the coup was next. Sunday had minimal activity, and thus minimal collateral human damage. The army was out in Lodwar for military games and the top nabobs were at the opening of the ASK show in Nyeri by the president that Friday, 30 August.
Rumours that the Kikuyu were planning to overthrow Moi and instal Kibaki forced the plotters to fast-track the coup date to 1 August. But forces loyal to President Moi helped crush the uprising.
The Photo shows A GSU officer patrolling Huruma shanties in the aftermath of the 1982 coup attempt in Kenya.
Below is a related account...
It is troops that wage war and the Generals take the credit, so goes a common adage.There is one former military general who did both - he led from the front on the ground, and got credit for the victory.
The story of Gen. Mohamed, who retired as Chief of General Staff, cannot be told without talking about the small 'disturbances' that erupted in 1982.
I am talking about the 1982 coup attempt by junior officers of the Kenya Air Force.
The casual manner in which the coup was planned makes it a laughing stock at any military academy on the planet.
The junior officers' body of plans made a perfect blueprint of how not to stage a coup.
But let's start from the beginning....
...sometime in 1981, Kenya's spy chief Kanyotu and top soldier Gen. Mulinge became aware of plans to stage a mutiny in the military - and mostly in the Air Force. Morale in some sections was low and there were allegations of tribalism.
Gen. Mulinge realized how grave matters were when he accompanied President Moi in inspecting a guard of honour later in 1982.As they filed past the Kenya army guard and onto the Air Force "quarter guard", Mulinge noticed something about the airmen that bothered him immensely. The junior air force personnel made mocking faces at their commander in chief.
Later that day, Gen. Mulinge updated Kanyotu on the development. Moi was also reportedly shocked and sought to know if all was well with the military.
Whilst it is not known what answer Moi got from Gen. Mulinge, one thing was clear - things were not well.
Meanwhile, as Kenyans came to learn later, covert meetings started taking place away from the barracks between junior air force personnel and individuals perceived to be dissidents.
Some sections of the Air Force started scheming for a coup.Come July, both the special branch and military intelligence had confirmed that there were advanced plans to stage a coup.
In an interview with veteran scribe Roy Gachuhi, former army commander Lt. Gen. (Rtd) Humphrey Njoroge laid out never disclosed details about the coup plot, and the counter-action that ensued, spearheaded by mostly infantrymen.
A few days before the coup, Kanyotu sought authority from President Moi to arrest junior officers of the Air Force among them Sgt. Joseph Ogidi, Cpl. Walter Ojode, Cpl. Charles Oriwa and Cpl. Bramwel Njeremani, among others.
Moi's was an unusual cautious approach. At the time, the Special Branch was a division of the Kenya Police. Moi didn't want to create an impression that policemen had been sent to arrest military men.He preferred that the military police handle the matter themselves the following week, which coincided with the start of August.
What Moi didn't realize was that the coup attempt was just simmering. The Air Force men were also aware that most of the army formations were in Lodwar for war games. The timing was perfect.
On the eve of the coup, junior airmen got into an orgy of drinking. This was on Saturday night leading to Sunday, 1st August 1982.
The first bursts of rebel gunfire were heard from the air force base inside the old Embakasi airport. The gunfire, however, wasn't aimed at anyone in particular.
Rather, the drunk Air Force NCOs, who were awaiting word from their leaders on when to kick off the coup, foolishly started bursts of loud machine gun fire aimed skywards.
So loud and intense was the gunfire that Embakasi police heading to the scene in response to calls from terrified civilians had to turn back.Scared, the police radioed headquarters, saying that the intensity of gunfire they heard was like nothing they had ever responded to. The source of the gunfire, they reported, was the military base inside the airport.
At this time, the whereabouts of both President Moi and Gen. Mulinge were unknown.By midnight, the Air Force men had already surrounded and taken over Voice of Kenya, announcing on the airwaves that the government was in the hands of the military.
At the same time, three independent loyalist teams were already scheming on how to scuttle the coup - the army, special branch and the police.A team of senior officials led by army commander Lt. Gen. Sawe and his deputy Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Mohammed were summoned in the dead of night for a meeting to plan a counter.
Lt. Gen. (Rtd) Njoroge, then an army major, was among them. Being the junior-most officer present, his was to take notes of the meeting. According to Njoroge, Mohammed didn't have the patience at that meeting of an elaborate plan.That army units were far off inching towards Nairobi from the war games in Lodwar was a concern. A rapid counter-execution was required.
Mohammed asked his boss, Lt. Gen. Sawe, that he be allowed to take charge of the operation to take out the airmen and restore sanity.
Perhaps inspired by the boldness of his deputy - a streetwise, ill-educated but battle-hardened (Mohammed served in the Ogaden war) man who had joined the army in the 1950s, Sawe granted him the go-ahead.
It must have been past 3am when Mohammed marched off to execute his orders. At around the same time, Chief Secretary Jeremiah Kîereînî rushed to Vigilance Hours to join GSU Commandant Ben Gethi.From here, for the next 24 hours without food or drink, the duo would frantically coordinate responses to quell the coup.
Gethi would later - to his shock, be among officers purged after the coup.
Meanwhile, from a safe house location, away from Nyati House, then the famous headquarters of the Special Branch, Kanyotu and his men were about to throw the airmen into disarray.From this secret location, Kanyotu started coordinating the jamming of Air Force signals for much of the duration of the coup.
By daybreak, Mohammed had gathered a few men from 1KR and 7KR. It wasn't time to storm the Voice of Kenya yet. He felt he still needed more men.So he devised a plan that he only shared with then Maj. Njoroge. A plan that was largely based on deceit.
Meanwhile, far away in Nanyuki, three jet fighter pilots - Baraza, Mugwanja and Mutua - were about to pull off a different kind of deceit at Laikipia Air Base.Earlier, as the three pilots relaxed at home with their families, rebel servicemen at the airbase loaded armaments and high explosive bombs onto three fighter planes.They later rounded up the three pilots at gunpoint and ordered them to suit-up.
The rebels were acting under instructions of the coup leader, Snr. Pvt. Hezekiah Ochuka, who wanted both State House and GSU Headquarters blown into smithereens.They wanted the two F-5s and one strike master jet to do the job.
Occupying the rear seat, Cpl. Bramwel Njeremani boarded Mutua's 2-seat F-5 jet fighter and commandeered him at gunpoint.Similarly, the other two pilots were under instructions to obey the instructions or else get themselves or Mutua killed.
But Mutua and his co-aces had a plan. They knew Njeremani had no prior jet-flying experience and that the F-5 jet acrobatic manouvres would throw him off-balance and possibly even kill him.
Lt. Gen. Njoroge described to Roy Gachuhi what happened:
"Mutua knew that Njeremani wasn’t going to survive these pressures. After the first run, the gun dropped out of his hand.
To ensure that Njereman was enduring maximum discomfort, Mutua kept asking him questions such as: 'What can you see? Where is that?' The exposure to so much g-forces was taking a heavy toll on Njereman but Mutua kept talking to him to tire him further.
After three runs, the gunman could barely speak. It was safe to make the trip home.For a bomb dropped from an aircraft to explode, the pilot must first arm it before releasing it from the plane’s under-wing hold. If he releases it unarmed, it will simply drop to the ground like a stone.That procedure is called dumping. Njeremani had no way of knowing that the bombs earmarked for State House and GSU HQs had been dumped at Mt Kenya forest.
Back at the Base, he looked dizzy and confused as he staggered out of the jet. He announced to other servicemen that they had bombed Nairobi.But by that time, the Army was closing in on the Base.Gen. Mohammed was busy coordinating units taking over Embakasi and Eastleigh air bases. If I recall correctly, it was Laikipia and Embakasi that fell in that order. The battles of Eastleigh and VoK, the takeover of which Mohammed was leading, were far from over.
Below follows an account based on Roy's interview with Lt. Gen (RTD) Njoroge:
"In those days, he who called the shots at KBC, then known as Voice of Kenya, owned the country. Unlike what's the case today, then there were no other source of instant information.The first target for all African coup makers was the national broadcaster and Kenya’s rebel airmen were working to script.The convoy was readied and Njoroge took his seat in the first Land Rover. Mohammed took his in the second one and the others lined up.
Then the convoy rolled out of Army Headquarters and headed for Argwings Kodhek Road. It then turned left at the Silver Springs Hotel round-about and joined Valley Road.The operation to save Moi from his own catastrophic error had begun.The convoy cruised down Valley Road, getting into Uhuru Highway, then University Way and onto Harry Thuku Road where they headed for KBC. Other vehicles followed. All over town were rebel soldiers and university students shouting “Power!”.
Says Njoroge: “Whenever we encountered them, we shouted “Power!” and punched the air with our fists. A lot of looting was taking place already. There were huge celebrations by university students around Broadcasting House, and there was loud music.
Just outside the Norfolk Hotel, they stopped and Njoroge, resplendent in his doctor’s coat, stepped out of his vehicle and went straight to the VoK gate. Everybody else remained behind.
He recalls: “There were very many rebels there and they were armed. I identified a man who wore a general’s ranks on both his shoulders. On one shoulder was air force insignia and on the other army insignia. It was a bit dark.”
He approached that “officer” and told him: “We are from Memorial. We are here to help you.” He was referring to the Armed Forces Memorial Hospital and made sure the “officer” saw the line of ambulances parked outside the gate.The officer looked pleased and said: “Good. Carry on.” The encounter lasted less than five minutes but that was all Njoroge needed to survey the field. He walked briskly back to the Land Rovers.
He says: “I have reason to believe the man I spoke to was Ochuka. I did not know him and neither did he know me.I will never be sure, but something told me I had just spoken to the coup leader who from later accounts turned out to be there at that time. There was something in his demeanour that made him stand out from the rest.”
Back to where the Land Rovers were, Njoroge told Mohammed: “Sir, we cannot attack them. They are too many and they are well armed. Even if we succeed in overpowering them, we do not have an exit corridor. We cannot leave and no reinforcement can reach us. We shall be trapped here.”
He suggested they go to Kahawa Garrison and seek reinforcements.
He also said they should contact the Embakasi-based 50 Air Cavalry Battalion to create a corridor when it was time to withdraw.
Mohammed asked him: “Are you sure this is what we should do?” Njoroge affirmed and remarked: “Mohammed is a good senior officer who listens to good advice. He is not opinionated. He just said, ‘OK, let’s go.’”The convoy headed to the Globe Cinema round-about and took Murang’a Road and drove to Kahawa Garrison where it arrived around 6.30am.
At the gate, they learned that Sawe had issued firm instructions that nobody should be allowed in or out of all military bases in the country. They were thus stopped by the sentries and flatly denied entry.A furious Mohammed walked up to Cpl Halake, the sentry in charge and asked him whether he knew who he was. Halake politely told him yes, he knew he was the Deputy.His instructions from Gen Sawe, he told Mohammed, did not exempt anybody, sorry sir.
Mohammed cocked his gun and thundered: “I am going to shoot you!”Looking at the angry boss and perceiving the company he was in, the sentry relented and opened the gate. There isn’t any doubt in Njoroge’s mind that Mohammed meant his threat.The convoy rolled in. Garrison Commander Col Njiru was holed up in a meeting with his officers while the troops were in their quarters.Mohammed took charge of the meeting. There were two officers from his previous command at 1KR whom he particularly liked and wanted to accompany him - Maj Wanambisi and Maj Kithinji.Two others, Maj Cheboi and Maj Kiritu from Langata, would also play crucial roles in his scheme of things.
The convoy then headed back to the city through Thika Road, Forest Road, past Parklands Secondary School, Forest Lodge before finally stopping at the Museum Hill round-about.That is where the final briefing took place and it is where the troops were finally told what their mission was.
Said Mohammed: “Tunaenda VoK na tunaenda kufa.” (“We are going to VoK and we are going to die”).
Instinctively, he let out a burst of machine gun fire that felled the airman and several others standing near him. At that point, the plan changed. It became a full scale assault.
Abandoning their vehicle after their final briefing, Mohammed’s troops inched towards the broadcasting station slowly, the crack shots taking out drunken air force servicemen one after the other.
When it became apparent that they were under siege, one airman exclaimed: “Kwanini GSU wanatupiga?” (“Why are the GSU overpowering us?”)Coupled with the fact that the southern entrances to the city were blocked by airmen from Embakasi, he was sure these troops, coming from the direction of Westlands, could only be GSU personnel.
.
The Army force from Kahawa numbered less than 30. But it exacted a huge toll among the drunken airmen, who were partying with university students. The actual number who died in the assault may never be known, but it was reliably estimated to be between 100 and 200.
At that time, there was no perimeter wall around the broadcasting complex. The invaders were therefore able to enter from Uhuru Highway.The first soldiers to reach the radio studios killed five rebels inside there.They then went back and told Mohammed, who was close behind, that the route to the studio was clear and Leonard Mambo Mbotela, the famed broadcaster who had been kidnapped from his house and forced to announce Moi’s ouster, was still inside.
Mohammed strode in, Njoroge with him.
“I am General Mohammed,” he told Mambo, “I want you to announce that Nyayo forces have retaken the country.” Njoroge, who kept taking notes of every detail of the operation, then gave Mambo a list of officers whose names he was to broadcast as being at the station.These were Maj-Gen Mohammed, Maj Wanambisi, Maj Kithinji, Maj Kiritu, Maj Cheboi, Maj Mulinge and himself, Maj Njoroge.He then went to the library and fetched a gramophone record, Safari ya Japan by Joseph Kamaru. “Play this,” he told Mambo, who did. The record and the composition of the list of soldiers were meant to reassure soldiers everywhere that Nyayo was indeed back in the saddle.
“It was a psychological ploy,” he says. “Not all the officers whose names I gave Mambo to read were at Broadcasting House.”
Outside the station, the assault had turned into a chase and mop up operation. Airmen were fleeing in numbers. But Ochuka, Njoroge was to learn later, was still insisting he was Commander-in-Chief.
It was not until about 3pm that the invading party was relieved from Defence headquarters. Accompanied by Njoroge, Mohammed then went to DoD to find Mulinge, Sawe and a few other senior officers.The gathering embarked on mop-up plans. But first they had to get a devastated Moi, who had been brought to town in an armoured convoy from Kabarak led by Maj Gen Musomba, to announce to Kenyans that he was back as President. Few Kenyans who watched him on TV that evening will forget the crushed look in his face.
Moi was not to be the same man again. Following a court martial, Ochuka and a number of coup plotters were hanged in 1987, by which time a massive purge of the Kenya Air Force had been undertaken.
Gen. Mohamed was moved from the army to head the new Airforce outfit. Later on, in 1986, he was appointed Chief Of The General Staff.
The Rest Is History.
Below is a related account...
It is troops that wage war and the Generals take the credit, so goes a common adage.There is one former military general who did both - he led from the front on the ground, and got credit for the victory.
The story of Gen. Mohamed, who retired as Chief of General Staff, cannot be told without talking about the small 'disturbances' that erupted in 1982.
I am talking about the 1982 coup attempt by junior officers of the Kenya Air Force.
The casual manner in which the coup was planned makes it a laughing stock at any military academy on the planet.
The junior officers' body of plans made a perfect blueprint of how not to stage a coup.
But let's start from the beginning....
...sometime in 1981, Kenya's spy chief Kanyotu and top soldier Gen. Mulinge became aware of plans to stage a mutiny in the military - and mostly in the Air Force. Morale in some sections was low and there were allegations of tribalism.
Gen. Mulinge realized how grave matters were when he accompanied President Moi in inspecting a guard of honour later in 1982.As they filed past the Kenya army guard and onto the Air Force "quarter guard", Mulinge noticed something about the airmen that bothered him immensely. The junior air force personnel made mocking faces at their commander in chief.
Later that day, Gen. Mulinge updated Kanyotu on the development. Moi was also reportedly shocked and sought to know if all was well with the military.
Whilst it is not known what answer Moi got from Gen. Mulinge, one thing was clear - things were not well.
Meanwhile, as Kenyans came to learn later, covert meetings started taking place away from the barracks between junior air force personnel and individuals perceived to be dissidents.
Some sections of the Air Force started scheming for a coup.Come July, both the special branch and military intelligence had confirmed that there were advanced plans to stage a coup.
In an interview with veteran scribe Roy Gachuhi, former army commander Lt. Gen. (Rtd) Humphrey Njoroge laid out never disclosed details about the coup plot, and the counter-action that ensued, spearheaded by mostly infantrymen.
A few days before the coup, Kanyotu sought authority from President Moi to arrest junior officers of the Air Force among them Sgt. Joseph Ogidi, Cpl. Walter Ojode, Cpl. Charles Oriwa and Cpl. Bramwel Njeremani, among others.
Moi's was an unusual cautious approach. At the time, the Special Branch was a division of the Kenya Police. Moi didn't want to create an impression that policemen had been sent to arrest military men.He preferred that the military police handle the matter themselves the following week, which coincided with the start of August.
What Moi didn't realize was that the coup attempt was just simmering. The Air Force men were also aware that most of the army formations were in Lodwar for war games. The timing was perfect.
On the eve of the coup, junior airmen got into an orgy of drinking. This was on Saturday night leading to Sunday, 1st August 1982.
The first bursts of rebel gunfire were heard from the air force base inside the old Embakasi airport. The gunfire, however, wasn't aimed at anyone in particular.
Rather, the drunk Air Force NCOs, who were awaiting word from their leaders on when to kick off the coup, foolishly started bursts of loud machine gun fire aimed skywards.
So loud and intense was the gunfire that Embakasi police heading to the scene in response to calls from terrified civilians had to turn back.Scared, the police radioed headquarters, saying that the intensity of gunfire they heard was like nothing they had ever responded to. The source of the gunfire, they reported, was the military base inside the airport.
At this time, the whereabouts of both President Moi and Gen. Mulinge were unknown.By midnight, the Air Force men had already surrounded and taken over Voice of Kenya, announcing on the airwaves that the government was in the hands of the military.
At the same time, three independent loyalist teams were already scheming on how to scuttle the coup - the army, special branch and the police.A team of senior officials led by army commander Lt. Gen. Sawe and his deputy Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Mohammed were summoned in the dead of night for a meeting to plan a counter.
Lt. Gen. (Rtd) Njoroge, then an army major, was among them. Being the junior-most officer present, his was to take notes of the meeting. According to Njoroge, Mohammed didn't have the patience at that meeting of an elaborate plan.That army units were far off inching towards Nairobi from the war games in Lodwar was a concern. A rapid counter-execution was required.
Mohammed asked his boss, Lt. Gen. Sawe, that he be allowed to take charge of the operation to take out the airmen and restore sanity.
Perhaps inspired by the boldness of his deputy - a streetwise, ill-educated but battle-hardened (Mohammed served in the Ogaden war) man who had joined the army in the 1950s, Sawe granted him the go-ahead.
It must have been past 3am when Mohammed marched off to execute his orders. At around the same time, Chief Secretary Jeremiah Kîereînî rushed to Vigilance Hours to join GSU Commandant Ben Gethi.From here, for the next 24 hours without food or drink, the duo would frantically coordinate responses to quell the coup.
Gethi would later - to his shock, be among officers purged after the coup.
Meanwhile, from a safe house location, away from Nyati House, then the famous headquarters of the Special Branch, Kanyotu and his men were about to throw the airmen into disarray.From this secret location, Kanyotu started coordinating the jamming of Air Force signals for much of the duration of the coup.
By daybreak, Mohammed had gathered a few men from 1KR and 7KR. It wasn't time to storm the Voice of Kenya yet. He felt he still needed more men.So he devised a plan that he only shared with then Maj. Njoroge. A plan that was largely based on deceit.
Meanwhile, far away in Nanyuki, three jet fighter pilots - Baraza, Mugwanja and Mutua - were about to pull off a different kind of deceit at Laikipia Air Base.Earlier, as the three pilots relaxed at home with their families, rebel servicemen at the airbase loaded armaments and high explosive bombs onto three fighter planes.They later rounded up the three pilots at gunpoint and ordered them to suit-up.
The rebels were acting under instructions of the coup leader, Snr. Pvt. Hezekiah Ochuka, who wanted both State House and GSU Headquarters blown into smithereens.They wanted the two F-5s and one strike master jet to do the job.
Occupying the rear seat, Cpl. Bramwel Njeremani boarded Mutua's 2-seat F-5 jet fighter and commandeered him at gunpoint.Similarly, the other two pilots were under instructions to obey the instructions or else get themselves or Mutua killed.
But Mutua and his co-aces had a plan. They knew Njeremani had no prior jet-flying experience and that the F-5 jet acrobatic manouvres would throw him off-balance and possibly even kill him.
Lt. Gen. Njoroge described to Roy Gachuhi what happened:
"Mutua knew that Njeremani wasn’t going to survive these pressures. After the first run, the gun dropped out of his hand.
To ensure that Njereman was enduring maximum discomfort, Mutua kept asking him questions such as: 'What can you see? Where is that?' The exposure to so much g-forces was taking a heavy toll on Njereman but Mutua kept talking to him to tire him further.
After three runs, the gunman could barely speak. It was safe to make the trip home.For a bomb dropped from an aircraft to explode, the pilot must first arm it before releasing it from the plane’s under-wing hold. If he releases it unarmed, it will simply drop to the ground like a stone.That procedure is called dumping. Njeremani had no way of knowing that the bombs earmarked for State House and GSU HQs had been dumped at Mt Kenya forest.
Back at the Base, he looked dizzy and confused as he staggered out of the jet. He announced to other servicemen that they had bombed Nairobi.But by that time, the Army was closing in on the Base.Gen. Mohammed was busy coordinating units taking over Embakasi and Eastleigh air bases. If I recall correctly, it was Laikipia and Embakasi that fell in that order. The battles of Eastleigh and VoK, the takeover of which Mohammed was leading, were far from over.
Below follows an account based on Roy's interview with Lt. Gen (RTD) Njoroge:
"In those days, he who called the shots at KBC, then known as Voice of Kenya, owned the country. Unlike what's the case today, then there were no other source of instant information.The first target for all African coup makers was the national broadcaster and Kenya’s rebel airmen were working to script.The convoy was readied and Njoroge took his seat in the first Land Rover. Mohammed took his in the second one and the others lined up.
Then the convoy rolled out of Army Headquarters and headed for Argwings Kodhek Road. It then turned left at the Silver Springs Hotel round-about and joined Valley Road.The operation to save Moi from his own catastrophic error had begun.The convoy cruised down Valley Road, getting into Uhuru Highway, then University Way and onto Harry Thuku Road where they headed for KBC. Other vehicles followed. All over town were rebel soldiers and university students shouting “Power!”.
Says Njoroge: “Whenever we encountered them, we shouted “Power!” and punched the air with our fists. A lot of looting was taking place already. There were huge celebrations by university students around Broadcasting House, and there was loud music.
Just outside the Norfolk Hotel, they stopped and Njoroge, resplendent in his doctor’s coat, stepped out of his vehicle and went straight to the VoK gate. Everybody else remained behind.
He recalls: “There were very many rebels there and they were armed. I identified a man who wore a general’s ranks on both his shoulders. On one shoulder was air force insignia and on the other army insignia. It was a bit dark.”
He approached that “officer” and told him: “We are from Memorial. We are here to help you.” He was referring to the Armed Forces Memorial Hospital and made sure the “officer” saw the line of ambulances parked outside the gate.The officer looked pleased and said: “Good. Carry on.” The encounter lasted less than five minutes but that was all Njoroge needed to survey the field. He walked briskly back to the Land Rovers.
He says: “I have reason to believe the man I spoke to was Ochuka. I did not know him and neither did he know me.I will never be sure, but something told me I had just spoken to the coup leader who from later accounts turned out to be there at that time. There was something in his demeanour that made him stand out from the rest.”
Back to where the Land Rovers were, Njoroge told Mohammed: “Sir, we cannot attack them. They are too many and they are well armed. Even if we succeed in overpowering them, we do not have an exit corridor. We cannot leave and no reinforcement can reach us. We shall be trapped here.”
He suggested they go to Kahawa Garrison and seek reinforcements.
He also said they should contact the Embakasi-based 50 Air Cavalry Battalion to create a corridor when it was time to withdraw.
Mohammed asked him: “Are you sure this is what we should do?” Njoroge affirmed and remarked: “Mohammed is a good senior officer who listens to good advice. He is not opinionated. He just said, ‘OK, let’s go.’”The convoy headed to the Globe Cinema round-about and took Murang’a Road and drove to Kahawa Garrison where it arrived around 6.30am.
At the gate, they learned that Sawe had issued firm instructions that nobody should be allowed in or out of all military bases in the country. They were thus stopped by the sentries and flatly denied entry.A furious Mohammed walked up to Cpl Halake, the sentry in charge and asked him whether he knew who he was. Halake politely told him yes, he knew he was the Deputy.His instructions from Gen Sawe, he told Mohammed, did not exempt anybody, sorry sir.
Mohammed cocked his gun and thundered: “I am going to shoot you!”Looking at the angry boss and perceiving the company he was in, the sentry relented and opened the gate. There isn’t any doubt in Njoroge’s mind that Mohammed meant his threat.The convoy rolled in. Garrison Commander Col Njiru was holed up in a meeting with his officers while the troops were in their quarters.Mohammed took charge of the meeting. There were two officers from his previous command at 1KR whom he particularly liked and wanted to accompany him - Maj Wanambisi and Maj Kithinji.Two others, Maj Cheboi and Maj Kiritu from Langata, would also play crucial roles in his scheme of things.
The convoy then headed back to the city through Thika Road, Forest Road, past Parklands Secondary School, Forest Lodge before finally stopping at the Museum Hill round-about.That is where the final briefing took place and it is where the troops were finally told what their mission was.
Said Mohammed: “Tunaenda VoK na tunaenda kufa.” (“We are going to VoK and we are going to die”).
Instinctively, he let out a burst of machine gun fire that felled the airman and several others standing near him. At that point, the plan changed. It became a full scale assault.
Abandoning their vehicle after their final briefing, Mohammed’s troops inched towards the broadcasting station slowly, the crack shots taking out drunken air force servicemen one after the other.
When it became apparent that they were under siege, one airman exclaimed: “Kwanini GSU wanatupiga?” (“Why are the GSU overpowering us?”)Coupled with the fact that the southern entrances to the city were blocked by airmen from Embakasi, he was sure these troops, coming from the direction of Westlands, could only be GSU personnel.
.
The Army force from Kahawa numbered less than 30. But it exacted a huge toll among the drunken airmen, who were partying with university students. The actual number who died in the assault may never be known, but it was reliably estimated to be between 100 and 200.
At that time, there was no perimeter wall around the broadcasting complex. The invaders were therefore able to enter from Uhuru Highway.The first soldiers to reach the radio studios killed five rebels inside there.They then went back and told Mohammed, who was close behind, that the route to the studio was clear and Leonard Mambo Mbotela, the famed broadcaster who had been kidnapped from his house and forced to announce Moi’s ouster, was still inside.
Mohammed strode in, Njoroge with him.
“I am General Mohammed,” he told Mambo, “I want you to announce that Nyayo forces have retaken the country.” Njoroge, who kept taking notes of every detail of the operation, then gave Mambo a list of officers whose names he was to broadcast as being at the station.These were Maj-Gen Mohammed, Maj Wanambisi, Maj Kithinji, Maj Kiritu, Maj Cheboi, Maj Mulinge and himself, Maj Njoroge.He then went to the library and fetched a gramophone record, Safari ya Japan by Joseph Kamaru. “Play this,” he told Mambo, who did. The record and the composition of the list of soldiers were meant to reassure soldiers everywhere that Nyayo was indeed back in the saddle.
“It was a psychological ploy,” he says. “Not all the officers whose names I gave Mambo to read were at Broadcasting House.”
Outside the station, the assault had turned into a chase and mop up operation. Airmen were fleeing in numbers. But Ochuka, Njoroge was to learn later, was still insisting he was Commander-in-Chief.
It was not until about 3pm that the invading party was relieved from Defence headquarters. Accompanied by Njoroge, Mohammed then went to DoD to find Mulinge, Sawe and a few other senior officers.The gathering embarked on mop-up plans. But first they had to get a devastated Moi, who had been brought to town in an armoured convoy from Kabarak led by Maj Gen Musomba, to announce to Kenyans that he was back as President. Few Kenyans who watched him on TV that evening will forget the crushed look in his face.
Moi was not to be the same man again. Following a court martial, Ochuka and a number of coup plotters were hanged in 1987, by which time a massive purge of the Kenya Air Force had been undertaken.
Gen. Mohamed was moved from the army to head the new Airforce outfit. Later on, in 1986, he was appointed Chief Of The General Staff.
The Rest Is History.