Trials and tribulations of Kapenguria Six

By Maore Ithula

On October 9, 1952, Senior Chief Waruhiu of Nyeri was shot and killed by Mau Mau gunmen. He had been tried by Mau Mau leaders in absentia and found guilty of collaborating with colonialists.

At his funeral, Evelyn Baring, the then British Colonial Governor and the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta locked eyes over Waruhiu’s casket in a knowing mental challenge over who between them was in charge of the country’s affairs.

A few days later, Baring signed arrest warrants for the famous Kapenguria Six – Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, Bildad Kaggia and Ramogi Achieng’ Oneko.

The heroes were charged with having jointly managed a proscribed society (Mau Mau) and for conspiring to murder all white residents of Kenya.

They were all found guilty of the two offences and sentenced to long terms in jail complete with permanent restriction.

Kenyatta received a three-year term with hard labour and the younger defendants got seven years each with hard labour.

But the most fascinating part of the Kapenguria Six’s trial is how the colonial Government manipulated the proceedings through outright bribes and intimidation to win the case against the nationalists.

For instance, documented evidence shows Baring, the Governor, offered Ransley Thacker, the judge who presided over the case, an unusually large pension. Witnesses were also suborned, as Baring admitted in a letter to Mr Oliver Lyttelton, the then British Colonial Secretary, saying that “every possible effort has been made to offer them rewards”.

Rawson Macharia, the key witness at the trial, was later to testify he had been offered a university course in public administration at Exeter University College, protection for his family, and a Government job on his return from the UK. Other witnesses were offered land at the Coast.

On the other hand, imprisonment of the six heroes was an opportunity for them to bond and perhaps understand one another for the purposes of either assisting or persecuting one another later in life!

For example, Ngei earned Kenyatta’s undying friendship when, during their imprisonment in Lodwar, Ngei physically stopped a colonial jailer from beating up Kenyatta by seizing the whip and challenging the jailer to beat him (Ngei) first.

Among the six, Ngei was an active politician throughout his productive years. He was the Kangundo MP from 1969 to 1990. He served as a Cabinet minister throughout Kenyatta’s Government from 1964-1978 and in the post-Kenyatta government led by former President Daniel arap Moi from 1978-1990 where he held several ministerial positions.

In 1990, the court ruled him bankrupt and consequently, he had to give up his parliamentary seat. He died in August 2004 at the age of 81 after suffering from diabetes.

The unluckiest of them all was Oneko. After his release from Lodwar jail, Oneko contested and won the Nakuru Town Constituency seat in 1963. Kenyatta appointed him Minister for Information, Broadcasting and Tourism. However, in 1966, he quit the Government and joined the newly-created Kenya People’s Union, a socialist party led by his comrade Oginga Odinga.

In 1969, Oneko was arrested by his former friend, Kenyatta, after an incident in Kisumu in which president’s motorcade was stoned when Kenyatta visited the town. Oneko was released in 1975. He later became the MP for Rarieda in the first multiparty elections held in 1992 on a Ford-Kenya ticket but lost the seat in 1997 and went on retirement. He died three years ago at his home in Kunya village, Rarieda, Bondo. Until his death he was the only surviving member of the Kapenguria Six.

In the 1963 elections, Kaggia won the Kandara seat. He served as a minister in the Kenyatta Cabinet but his denunciations of corruption marked him out as a member of Kanu’s radical tendency. When Kenyatta and Mboya combined to purge the Kanu of leftists, he was one of the victims. Kenyatta even made a trip to Kandara to campaign against him. He joined Odinga’s KPU, but eventually retired from active politics in 1974, after failing to recapture his seat. He died five years ago.

Fred Kubai twice served as MP for Nakuru East – from 1963 to 1974, and from 1983 to 1988 – before his death in June 1996. Kung’u Karumba disappeared in 1975, while in Uganda on a business trip. Up to date no one knows how and where he disappeared to.