Moi Cabinets: Meet daredevil Ngei and powerman Moses Mudavadi

 Paul Ngei opening a housing scheme in Nakuru in1968. [Standard, Archive]

In what would become his trademark as a daredevil character, Paul Joseph Ngei, a descendant of the legendary Kamba Chief Masaku, had a heated argument with a white colonial officer and did the unthinkable: he punched him in the face, earning himself a three-month jail term. The three months turned into a long and nightmarish prison detention when it overlapped with that of the other members of the ‘Kapenguria Six’, who were rounded up and detained at the Kapenguria detention camp following the declaration of the State of Emergency.

This daredevil character was honed in prison where Ngei, the youngest and most educated of the prisoners, often came to fellow detainee Jomo Kenyatta’s aid whenever other prisoners threatened to beat him up. Kenyatta’s relationship with Ngei blossomed even more when he stopped a colonial jailer from caning the old man and instead offered himself for the caning. Little wonder that when they were all released nine years later, in 1961, the two developed a strong personal and political bond that made them almost inseparable. Both carried fly whisks and wore matching black leather jackets.