Nyerere saved Kenyatta from being overthrown

By Amos Kareithi

When a group of conspirators dispatched a former soldier to Tanzania on a secret mission, they expected to be received with open arms by their host, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

Top on the mission was Joseph Daniel Owino. The African motor Safari Rally was fast approaching and he desperately needed a cache of arms and loads of money to accomplish his mission.

Tanzania’s President Julius Nyerere feared retaliation.

Owino, who was accompanied by another man, got the shock of his life when after explaining their mission and wish to Nyerere, they were handcuffed and deported.

Owino had been kicked out of the army for organising the 1963 mutiny.

In the scheme of things, Kenyatta was supposed to have been overthrown immediately after the Safari Rally that was scheduled for April 8, 1971, but his old foe, Nyerere, came to his rescue.

The coup plotters had imagined since Kenyatta and Nyerere did not see eye to eye because of ideological differences, it would follow that the Tanzanian president would back their mission.

But according to Timothy Parsons, in his book, The 1964 Army Mutinies and Making of Modern East Africa, the coup plotters of 1971, made a serious miscalculation by pegging their hopes on Nyerere’s support.

The plotters forgot Nyerere, too, had survived a mutiny on January 20, 1964, and again in 1969. He loathed such military upheavals that he could not wish them even on his worst enemy.

Kenyatta’s security agencies had a field day grilling Owino as they gleaned all the salient facts from the plotter.

To convince Nyerere the planned coup had backing from powerful politicians, Owino who had flown to Tanzania in March, was carrying a parliamentary card of the fire-spitting Yatta, MP Gideon Mutiso.

This is the same card he had used to convince Ouma Muga the Chief of Defence, Major General Joseph Ndolo, was backing the coup.

While recruiting Prof Muga, Owino said Ndolo would make sure the navy backed the coup 100 per cent.

The Kenya Army, then under Jackson Mulinge, was backing the coup 80 per cent, or the renegades, who viewed the Kenyatta administration as irredeemably corrupt, were telling prospective recruits.

It is for this reason Kenyatta was to be hanged for political murders and corruption and the public would be informed of these and other reasons through a statement prepared by Mutiso and approved by Ndolo.

Instead of returning home with power, arms and bags of money, the recruiter returned in shackles as investigators danced around him, encouraging him to sing like a canary about the details of the coup.

The security agencies milked the arrest to their own advantage, as they kept Owino’s capture a secret so as not to alert the other conspirators.

Obote’s hand

Parson, who has extensively researched on the subject, says at the time, Africa was reeking of coups. Governments had been topped in Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Mali Upper Volta, Central Africa Republic, Congo, and Burundi.

Amin, who at one time had worked and trained in Kenya, had violently overthrown Milton Obote who was now cowering in Tanzania, plotting a return.

Obote disliked Kenya for recognising Amin’s government and was now in contact with the plotters aiming to overthrow Kenyatta.

Milton Obote had a bone to pick with Kenyatta and supported the plan.

Although Parsons believes the coups succeeded because there was weak civil society over armed forces, a retired military officer who talked on condition of anonymity believes the British who drilled officers during their two-year course at Sandhurst, instigated the coup.

It is said the coup had been earlier scheduled to take place in January, at the time Amin took over but it was changed as several British Infantry soldiers were in Kenya for an annual training exercise and could have interfered.

Again, the expected help from the army commander was not forth coming. Ndolo and his few conspirators hand little chances of success.

Confident that they had fixed all the loose ends, the security forces then arrested the ringleaders Owino had mentioned.

When they caught up with Mutiso, who was the ‘revolutionary’ committee chairman, the Yatta MP, too, confessed his role and even pleaded for leniency from Kenyatta.

Mutiso’s confession in court entreated: "I have come to you mzee as your lost son. Accept me as such mzee and let everyone at home rejoice once more for the lost son has returned."

To forestall further falling out in the military from soldiers loyal to Ndolo, Kenyatta quietly eased him off, scrapping his post of Chief of Defence. He promoted Mulinge who would shed light on the coup three decades later.

"Had the plotters succeeded many leaders and citizens would have died, as there was never a violent coup without bloodshed. Staging military coups means relying on junior soldiers to succeed who would want power in turn. It is an endless power game whose end result is death and more deaths," said Mulinge was quoted in an interview 10 years ago.

Jomo Kenyatta

Retired Major General Musomba believes Mulinge saved the country from a bloody confrontation when he declined to join Ndolo.

"If Mulinge, who has publicly admitted he had been approached by Ndolo backed the coup, Kenya would have travelled through a very violent path. He is a man who is owed so much by so many," Musomba says.

Parsons writes: " It is extremely difficult to find accurate sources of information on the 1971 coup. Many of the key participants are dead, and many of those who are still alive offer conflicting and self- interested justification for their actions."

Military experts attribute the failure to Ndolo’s ambition.

"Although, he was in charge of all the armed forces, the real power was with his nemesis, Jackson Mulinge, who was commanding the army. The two men were not very close. This worked against the coup," Musomba says.

Other military sources indicate that the frosty relations between the two big guns started in 1964, after the outgoing British military officers bypassed Mulinge for calling for hasty Africanisation.

Although Mulinge had been promoted before Ndolo, the latter had the last laugh when he was made deputy army commander under Brigadier Hardy and had the first shot at the big seat after independence.

Ndolo was a man who was at the right place at the right time. Though he was not very educated he rose though the rank to the top most echelons of the military in just seven years although ordinarily this takes about 30 years.

Because of his rapid rise, power got into his head and was easily influenced especially by politicians who flattered him.

He had a loose tongue and could leak a secret without knowing it," recalls Musomba.