Tom Mboya the best Kenyan President who never was.
NAHASHON NJENGA ~ THE STORY OF BULGARIA-TRAINED MBOYA ASSASSIN
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(Part II of my previous post).
Upon return, Njenga immersed himself into Nairobi’s fast life. He rented a house in Ofafa Jericho in Plot No U3, House number 4486. He also had another house in Banana Hill, on Limuru Road.
In Nairobi’s Victoria Street (ironically, now Tom Mboya Street), Njenga had a private office in Lombard House’s Room 27 and a secretary, Esther Ngugi. From here, he ran his businesses that included second hand car sales, Kemco Motors, located on University Way. His car, a Simca registration number KGR 250, was always parked there or at the Princess Hotel where he used to drink even during the day.
On the day that he shot Mboya, as the minister stepped out of Government Road’s (Moi Avenue today) Chhani’s Pharmacy, Njenga had spent part of the day at a bar in Ngara. It was here that he met a Kamiti prison’s cleaner, Mary Njeri Munyuiri and he remarked: “Mboya is a bad man”.
Before Kanu’s formation, Njenga was a member of Mboya’s Nairobi People's Convention Party (NPCP) with Ms Munyuiri and another youth winger, Muigai Lumumba. Actually, Njenga told the trial court that he had been helped by Mboya to go to Bulgaria: “He helped me to buy clothes. And when I returned I used to go to his office for any help which I needed…”
Mboya had once offered Njenga a job but he declined: “I told him I did not want any because I had my own business,” he would later say.
Why Mboya had fallen out with his two ex-youth wingers Lumumba and Njenga, was never made clear. But what we know from police statements was that Lumumba wanted to vie for the Kamukunji seat held by Mboya. That Wednesday, three days before Mboya died, Njenga had told Ms Munyuiri that he would go look for Mboya and shoot him.
“Njenga told me he would go to look for Mboya. And, after seeing him, he would shoot him. He told Lumumba not to fire his gun until he (Njenga) fired three bullets.” He then said: “Tom is in Ethiopia and he will come tomorrow.” He said that “my pocket is full” – Munyuiri later confessed to police.
That Saturday, Lumumba, Njenga and Ms Munyuiri had a lunch time date at Princess Hotel but only Lumumba showed up. At the junction of Ronald Ngala (then Duke Street) and Victoria Street (now Tom Mboya), Njenga met Ms Munyuiri, a mother of seven, who had come to the City from Kamiti prisons, where she worked, to pick up some medicine for a heart condition. “Mboya will not stand in Nairobi again,” Njenga again remarked to her.
KILLER WEAPON
On the Saturday that Mboya was assassinated, Njenga parked his car outside Gill House, Nairobi. He claimed to have gone to River Road, “where my clothes are made” and then went to Top Life Bar and later to Silver Bar. “I started to drink as other people were doing. I stayed there for a long time. I think when I left it was about 2 pm.” It was a lie, as the Court found out.
What Njenga never denied was that he was found in possession of the killer weapon which he claimed to have been given to keep by a longtime friend who was with him at the Bulgaria military school.
It was around 12.30pm. How he knew where Mboya was is not known although the late minister was known to frequent the chemist on Saturdays before they closed. Witnesses say Njenga also knew that Mboya had flown in from Ethiopia on Friday.
On the day he was shot, Mboya’s white Mercedes Benz registration KME 627 was parked on the yellow line outside Chhani’s Pharmacy.
The proprietors, Mr and Mrs Chhani, were Mboya’s family friends and although they were about to close for the weekend, the minister had called asking them to wait for him to purchase some drugs. On the morning of Saturday July 5, 1969, The East African Standard had carried a photograph of Mboya taken at Embakasi Airport the previous day.
It was his last alive. Resplendent in a business suit, he was striding briskly across the tarmac towards the camera. The men accompanying him were not identified in the caption, but one could easily recognise his Permanent Secretary Philip Ndegwa and Mboya’s brother Alphonce Okuku. The Mboya team was coming from an Economic Commission of Africa meeting in Addis.
Had he wanted to, Mboya could have stayed at the airport and boarded the next plane to London. He had been invited to attend a conference at the University of Sussex on “The Crisis of Planning”, due to begin on Monday July 7.
But Mboya had gracefully declined the invitation, citing pressure of work. At 9.30am, he arrived at his office at the Treasury Building, Harambee Avenue. With his private secretary Otieno Nundu by his side, he became immersed in official paperwork. But he also made time to finish writing a seven-page letter to William Scheinman, “dealing frankly and rather worriedly with current politics”, according to David Goldsworthy, his biographer.
Goldsworthy said that Mboya was concerned about the forthcoming round of Kanu primary elections. His enemies, he wrote, had raised a great deal of money to fight the primaries and he would need at least half as much — a minimum of £50,000 or $140,000 (about Sh10 million) — to ensure his supporters were secure.
Those were the elections that Njenga was openly talking about as the campaigns continued.
“I am unable to appeal to any foreign government nor do I think that I should do this. Ironically, people who receive money from foreign sources have levelled accusations against me. Ever since my trade union days and the students airlift, I have lived with a label of help from America. Sometimes I wish this were true!” Mboya wrote.
At midday, Mr J.D. Otiende, minister for Health, passed by to say goodbye before he left for an overseas trip.
Shortly before 1pm, Mboya and Nundu left the office. Down in the Treasury car park, Mboya told his driver to go home, got into his car and drove off alone. A few minutes later, he pulled up on Government Road, outside Chhani’s Pharmacy.
As he stepped out, with his purchase, gunshots rang. And the man with a hat and a briefcase vanished into the crowd.
Mboya, one of Kenya’s most charismatic leaders was dead.
Sixteen days later, as riots rocked Nairobi and Kisumu, Njenga was charged with the murder of TJ Mboya. He had been found with the murder weapon.
Whether Mboya had actually helped to train his killer was never known.
RIP Tom Mboya.
______________________________
(Part II of my previous post).
Upon return, Njenga immersed himself into Nairobi’s fast life. He rented a house in Ofafa Jericho in Plot No U3, House number 4486. He also had another house in Banana Hill, on Limuru Road.
In Nairobi’s Victoria Street (ironically, now Tom Mboya Street), Njenga had a private office in Lombard House’s Room 27 and a secretary, Esther Ngugi. From here, he ran his businesses that included second hand car sales, Kemco Motors, located on University Way. His car, a Simca registration number KGR 250, was always parked there or at the Princess Hotel where he used to drink even during the day.
On the day that he shot Mboya, as the minister stepped out of Government Road’s (Moi Avenue today) Chhani’s Pharmacy, Njenga had spent part of the day at a bar in Ngara. It was here that he met a Kamiti prison’s cleaner, Mary Njeri Munyuiri and he remarked: “Mboya is a bad man”.
Before Kanu’s formation, Njenga was a member of Mboya’s Nairobi People's Convention Party (NPCP) with Ms Munyuiri and another youth winger, Muigai Lumumba. Actually, Njenga told the trial court that he had been helped by Mboya to go to Bulgaria: “He helped me to buy clothes. And when I returned I used to go to his office for any help which I needed…”
Mboya had once offered Njenga a job but he declined: “I told him I did not want any because I had my own business,” he would later say.
Why Mboya had fallen out with his two ex-youth wingers Lumumba and Njenga, was never made clear. But what we know from police statements was that Lumumba wanted to vie for the Kamukunji seat held by Mboya. That Wednesday, three days before Mboya died, Njenga had told Ms Munyuiri that he would go look for Mboya and shoot him.
“Njenga told me he would go to look for Mboya. And, after seeing him, he would shoot him. He told Lumumba not to fire his gun until he (Njenga) fired three bullets.” He then said: “Tom is in Ethiopia and he will come tomorrow.” He said that “my pocket is full” – Munyuiri later confessed to police.
That Saturday, Lumumba, Njenga and Ms Munyuiri had a lunch time date at Princess Hotel but only Lumumba showed up. At the junction of Ronald Ngala (then Duke Street) and Victoria Street (now Tom Mboya), Njenga met Ms Munyuiri, a mother of seven, who had come to the City from Kamiti prisons, where she worked, to pick up some medicine for a heart condition. “Mboya will not stand in Nairobi again,” Njenga again remarked to her.
KILLER WEAPON
On the Saturday that Mboya was assassinated, Njenga parked his car outside Gill House, Nairobi. He claimed to have gone to River Road, “where my clothes are made” and then went to Top Life Bar and later to Silver Bar. “I started to drink as other people were doing. I stayed there for a long time. I think when I left it was about 2 pm.” It was a lie, as the Court found out.
What Njenga never denied was that he was found in possession of the killer weapon which he claimed to have been given to keep by a longtime friend who was with him at the Bulgaria military school.
It was around 12.30pm. How he knew where Mboya was is not known although the late minister was known to frequent the chemist on Saturdays before they closed. Witnesses say Njenga also knew that Mboya had flown in from Ethiopia on Friday.
On the day he was shot, Mboya’s white Mercedes Benz registration KME 627 was parked on the yellow line outside Chhani’s Pharmacy.
The proprietors, Mr and Mrs Chhani, were Mboya’s family friends and although they were about to close for the weekend, the minister had called asking them to wait for him to purchase some drugs. On the morning of Saturday July 5, 1969, The East African Standard had carried a photograph of Mboya taken at Embakasi Airport the previous day.
It was his last alive. Resplendent in a business suit, he was striding briskly across the tarmac towards the camera. The men accompanying him were not identified in the caption, but one could easily recognise his Permanent Secretary Philip Ndegwa and Mboya’s brother Alphonce Okuku. The Mboya team was coming from an Economic Commission of Africa meeting in Addis.
Had he wanted to, Mboya could have stayed at the airport and boarded the next plane to London. He had been invited to attend a conference at the University of Sussex on “The Crisis of Planning”, due to begin on Monday July 7.
But Mboya had gracefully declined the invitation, citing pressure of work. At 9.30am, he arrived at his office at the Treasury Building, Harambee Avenue. With his private secretary Otieno Nundu by his side, he became immersed in official paperwork. But he also made time to finish writing a seven-page letter to William Scheinman, “dealing frankly and rather worriedly with current politics”, according to David Goldsworthy, his biographer.
Goldsworthy said that Mboya was concerned about the forthcoming round of Kanu primary elections. His enemies, he wrote, had raised a great deal of money to fight the primaries and he would need at least half as much — a minimum of £50,000 or $140,000 (about Sh10 million) — to ensure his supporters were secure.
Those were the elections that Njenga was openly talking about as the campaigns continued.
“I am unable to appeal to any foreign government nor do I think that I should do this. Ironically, people who receive money from foreign sources have levelled accusations against me. Ever since my trade union days and the students airlift, I have lived with a label of help from America. Sometimes I wish this were true!” Mboya wrote.
At midday, Mr J.D. Otiende, minister for Health, passed by to say goodbye before he left for an overseas trip.
Shortly before 1pm, Mboya and Nundu left the office. Down in the Treasury car park, Mboya told his driver to go home, got into his car and drove off alone. A few minutes later, he pulled up on Government Road, outside Chhani’s Pharmacy.
As he stepped out, with his purchase, gunshots rang. And the man with a hat and a briefcase vanished into the crowd.
Mboya, one of Kenya’s most charismatic leaders was dead.
Sixteen days later, as riots rocked Nairobi and Kisumu, Njenga was charged with the murder of TJ Mboya. He had been found with the murder weapon.
Whether Mboya had actually helped to train his killer was never known.
RIP Tom Mboya.
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