How NRM’s Miguna got the scar on his head

Many Kenyans have for years grappled with the question why National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) Miguna Miguna always rocks his signature white cap.

Miguna’s critics including politicians like Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko have in the past joked over his cap.

Last year in July during the Nairobi gubernatorial debate, Sonko claimed the cap was hiding some dark past in the lawyer’s life.

The Governor claimed Miguna wears the cap to hide the marks of his head that he got in the past when he was a burglar.

In Miguna's book published in 2012, Peeling Back the Mask: A Quest for Justice in Kenya, the lawyer revealed how he got the scar on his head.

“When I was about eight years old I nearly died twice. One day, I went to herd our cattle between the river Nyando and its tributary Wailes with a boy from Magina called Ouma Nyakongo. He used to call himself John Kirk, a name he borrowed from a European explorer in the Kenyan history books. As we herded, Ouma decided that he wanted to make a club from a fig tree branch.

“He had carried a sharp machete with which to accomplish the intricate job. He climbed up the fig tree and asked me to hold the branch as he cut. Unfortunately, when he finally managed to cut the branch, the machete went through it and landed on my forehead.

“I lost consciousness immediately and came to as Ouma was frantically washing off the gushing blood from the wound on my head with the brown Nyando water,” reads an excerpt from Miguna’s book.

According to the fiery lawyer, he didn’t exactly understand what had happened to him until his friend Ouma revealed it.

Ouma pleaded with Miguna to keep it a secret because he was afraid of being reprimanded and punished for being irresponsible.

“I pretended that nothing had happened and for a few minutes even joined my sisters in playing hop-scotch. Suddenly, I heard a shriek from my sister Auma. She was pointing at me and screaming. She had seen the swelling on my forehead. Obwongo! Obwongo!

“She screamed. Apparently, she saw something white on my head and thought my brain was coming out. It was my skull. By then my head had swollen to such an extent that it was submerging my eyes. I felt dizzy and collapsed.

“When I woke up, I was in a hospital, but I didn’t know where it was. I later learnt that it was called Russia (now New Nyanza General Hospital). The deep cut on my head had been washed and stitched. That explains the fairly large scar on my head just above the forehead,” Miguna says in his book.

The High Court on Tuesday ordered the immediate release of Miguna, who has been in police custody since Friday last week.

Orders by High Court Judge Luka Kimaru were that Miguna should be set free on an anticipatory bail of Sh 50,000 as granted by court last week and should appear before the Kajiado Resident Magistrate Court on February 14.

The judge also directed that other charges preferred against Miguna would be contrary to the law, adding that he would not leave the courthouse until Miguna is brought before him.