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Young_Turk
Elder Lister
KENYA HISTORY
‘We cannot have a country with 10 billionaires and 10 million beggars, I will fight with all my strength for this’.
Fifty years ago, the influential Kenyan and possible political opponent of President Kenyatta and his potential heir Arap Moi, was assassinated in circumstances that have still not been clarified and have no culprits.
Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, known as JM Kairuki, was a member of parliament. He had been part of the Mau Mau movement that led to the independence of Kenya and later became one of the most important advisors to the father of the nation, Jomo Kenyatta.
But at the beginning of the Seventies their relationship broke down, probably also due to the assassination of Tom Mboya, the ‘Kenyan Kennedy’. Kenya was ‘westernising’ and certain power dynamics were taking precedence over the development and growth of its people as a whole.
Kariuki had taken a stand against corruption, which he believed was already widespread, and had fought for a distribution of land that favoured the poor. This had made him many enemies, but his popularity among the lower and middle classes had increased, and this meant voters.
He was very sure of himself, often went out without bodyguards and on a couple of occasions someone had fired shots at his car.
When, in early March 1975, JM disappeared, he had an appointment with a senior intelligence officer, but he never arrived. The last time he was seen in public was at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, on the evening of 2nd March.
On the morning of the same day, the bus he was supposed to have taken to Mombasa, and which he didn't take due to a mishap, was blown up by a bomb.
On 4th March, his wife called the police and the search began.
Then came the twist: a government spokesman declared that Kariuki was in Zambia on diplomatic business and that witnesses had seen him in a bar in the capital Lusaka.
The family and the public were not convinced by this version of events, given that no one in Lusaka had been able to trace him and that his passport had been found.
A week later, the police confirmed that the politician's body had been found in Ngong Forest, a place infamous for the discovery of dead bodies, shot twice. Not only that, acid had been poured over his face to make identification difficult, and his hands had been cut off.
In Nairobi, students took to the streets to vent their anger and the newspapers headlined that the stability of Kenya was at risk. It was the third time in 10 years that a politician had been murdered. The government set up a commission of inquiry. But before it was published, President Kenyatta asked for the removal of some names close to him.
Kariuki was feared: he was a rich and ambitious man and knew how to talk to people. He loved life, beautiful women and gambling, his biographers wrote, but he had an undoubted charisma that made those in power fearful.
50 years ago in Kenya the still unsolved murder of JM Kariuki
The story of the charismatic and ambitious anti-corruption politician
06-03-2025 by Freddie del Curatolo
‘We cannot have a country with 10 billionaires and 10 million beggars, I will fight with all my strength for this’.
Fifty years ago, the influential Kenyan and possible political opponent of President Kenyatta and his potential heir Arap Moi, was assassinated in circumstances that have still not been clarified and have no culprits.
Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, known as JM Kairuki, was a member of parliament. He had been part of the Mau Mau movement that led to the independence of Kenya and later became one of the most important advisors to the father of the nation, Jomo Kenyatta.
But at the beginning of the Seventies their relationship broke down, probably also due to the assassination of Tom Mboya, the ‘Kenyan Kennedy’. Kenya was ‘westernising’ and certain power dynamics were taking precedence over the development and growth of its people as a whole.
Kariuki had taken a stand against corruption, which he believed was already widespread, and had fought for a distribution of land that favoured the poor. This had made him many enemies, but his popularity among the lower and middle classes had increased, and this meant voters.
He was very sure of himself, often went out without bodyguards and on a couple of occasions someone had fired shots at his car.
When, in early March 1975, JM disappeared, he had an appointment with a senior intelligence officer, but he never arrived. The last time he was seen in public was at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, on the evening of 2nd March.
On the morning of the same day, the bus he was supposed to have taken to Mombasa, and which he didn't take due to a mishap, was blown up by a bomb.
On 4th March, his wife called the police and the search began.
Then came the twist: a government spokesman declared that Kariuki was in Zambia on diplomatic business and that witnesses had seen him in a bar in the capital Lusaka.
The family and the public were not convinced by this version of events, given that no one in Lusaka had been able to trace him and that his passport had been found.
A week later, the police confirmed that the politician's body had been found in Ngong Forest, a place infamous for the discovery of dead bodies, shot twice. Not only that, acid had been poured over his face to make identification difficult, and his hands had been cut off.
In Nairobi, students took to the streets to vent their anger and the newspapers headlined that the stability of Kenya was at risk. It was the third time in 10 years that a politician had been murdered. The government set up a commission of inquiry. But before it was published, President Kenyatta asked for the removal of some names close to him.
Kariuki was feared: he was a rich and ambitious man and knew how to talk to people. He loved life, beautiful women and gambling, his biographers wrote, but he had an undoubted charisma that made those in power fearful.