Monday, March 02, 2009

What’s Coming: Fall Out Will Cause Some “To Sing Like Birds”

JM Kariuki, Kenya Remembers You

Today is March 2nd. On a day like today in 1975, the then popular MP for Nyandarua North, called Josiah Mwangi Kariuki or JM Kariuki was murdered. The man was killed in such a gruesome way that I suggest if you are eating while reading this, you should finish eating before reading the next paragraph. Or stop eating to read on.

JM Kariuki, one of the first whistleblowers in Kenya. He paid for it with his life on a day like this one in March 1975.

There were signs of torture, like cigarette burns but what is more, the MPs private parts had been cut off and stuffed into his mouth. The body was then soaked in acid to prevent it ever being recognized again. Still the body was found because wild animals cannot eat a body doused in acid. And then one of his wives was able to identify the badly disfigured and burnt body from a mark or scar of sorts on his inner thigh (where the acid did not reach, obviously it was mainly concentrated on his face).

Despite strong leads developed by a parliamentary select committee (led by the late Elijah Mwangale) that investigated his grisly murder, those responsible for this most heinous crime have never been brought to book to date.

But what I want to bring to your attention today my dear friends is a particular aspect of this popular legislator’s life that most writers have ignored when analyzing this assassination. JM was extremely wealthy. So where and how did he make his money?

A few clues. JM was President Jomo Kenyatta’s very first press secretary. There is no doubt that he experienced first hand the colossal land-grabbing and corruption right when it started at the heart of Kenyatta’s very first administration. It is also quite possible that he shared in some of "the loot" that came in those early days.

The human conscience is a strange thing and for some people it haunts them into confessing what they did and into also “selling out” their partners in crime.

JM Kariuki grew to become an extremely vociferous voice against land grabbing and the rapid creation of millionaires within the Kenyatta kitchen cabinet at the expense of the masses. Hence his popular quote of "I don’t want to see a Kenya of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars.” Insiders in Kenyatta’s government must have been puzzled how somebody who had benefited from the system had so suddenly turned against it.

Indeed JM will go down as one of the first real voices of opposition to corruption in the Kenyatta regime. It seems that many times whistle blowers are usually bad guys turned good who actually once participated in the evil they feel so compelled to expose.

Fast forward to 2008. Constable Kirinya participated in the execution of numerous Kenyans until his conscience gave in and he decided to run for his life and spill the beans. (His story was first told here in Kumekucha.) Because of his brave action, we are able to understand much more clearer how the police were involved in mass murder of the very citizens they took an oath to protect. Amongst the guilty who were gunned down and murdered, you can be sure that hundreds of innocent, mostly povery stricken Kenyans lost their lives in the process.

My whole point is that it is looking like the prayers of many ordinary Kenyans are being answered and what we are now witnessing is the conscience of some individuals giving in and spilling the beans of what is exactly happening. In some cases we are seeing former allies falling out and selling out each other. The best example here is what seems to be happening between Agriculture minister William Ruto and his former mentor Cyrus Jirongo. Information reaching this blogger indicates Jirongo got wind of an evil plot by Ruto to heap all the blame on Jirongo for the maize scandal and thus divert attention completely away from himself. And yet it is believed that Jirongo and Ruto acted together in the maize scandal. So what Jirongo did was spill the beans on the meetings that took place between Ruto and Martha Karua. This was simply a warning salvo to Ruto that he should not even think about selling out Jirongo. Well it seems to have worked like magic. because Ruto is so quiet now and the whole matter has dissapeared from the news.

Just carefully watch what happens in Kenya next. I can guarantee that people will fall out and others will be betrayed and the result will be that some parties will start to “sing like a bird” (to quote the famous Mafia expression). Songs of freedom because they will reveal the truth which will set Kenya free from the stranglehold of the political class.

21 comments:

  1. chris I really pity you most of the times. I hope you have something else to do apart from this blog. Kenyan politics is so rotten and the actors on its stage are beyond repair. Ours is a country rolling down a valley to its final destruction.
    Nobody among these current actors can stand on a moral platform and attempt to lead the country to posperity. If only we could get a crop of right thinking kenyans who are ready to go back to the basics. But still, who tells you they too will not repeat the same mistakes!
    Kanoo

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  2. Chris,
    Will ever come a time you stop looking at the past and look into the future?
    The future is bright Chris, but you cannot see it unless you stop re-visiting what already belongs to the grave. I like visionary people chris, people with ideas about our country, but you, my friend, you are lost.

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  3. JM Kariuki tribute:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOvPqLS4ZwY&feature=related

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  4. Chris, i think your sources are letting you down, you never say anything concrete these days just analysis after analysis, no news at all!!

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  5. Mai ma nguku,

    When it comes to JM Kariuki I agree with Chris that we need to stare into our history and learn something. JM was obviously fabolously wealthy for his age but he was also a kick-ass business person even in those days.
    Perhaps we need to look closer to modern times and see how conscience turnaround is ahppening in business circles. Bill Gates,formerly worlds wealthiest person has turned over most of his fortune to do philantropic work. Sir Richard Branson, your modern day quintessential rober baron is more involved in searching for cleaner fuels rather than fighting for a piece of fossil fuel in Iraq.

    My point is we need to look into our history to understand the dynamics of the present. Quite frankly the character who I find most interesting in these conscience turnarounds is Kamlesh Pattni (Sorry now he saw the light, he is Paul) and if he and others were to sing like canaries we would be begin to fully understand the quagmire we are in economically.

    Chris, who else is gonna sing? Wambui Mwai? Raila Odinga? KIfaki? If conscience ever catches up with these ones we would begin to celebrate.

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  6. Mai ma Nguku,

    Kweli wewe ni MAVI YA KUKU. I agree with Chris that we need to face our history honestly, learn from it and not repeat the same mistakes that were made then.

    However you, MAVI YA KUKU, would prefer that we do not do this. My feeling is that this past somehow makes you feel guilty and ashamed and that is why you would prefer us to "move on" and forget it. This, of course, would be of "benefit" to you: "your" ugly past would be "forgotten." Kwenda huko!!

    It's time that we faced our history honestly, warts and all, because the same mistakes that were being done in the 1960's and 1970's are being repeated today. In the '70's there was the KENREN SCANDAL and many others. In the 2000's there was ANGLO FLEASING and many others.... the list is of history repeating itself is long but let me stop there.

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  7. http://kumekucha.blogspot.com/2006/07/ben-gethi-was-more-powerful-than-most.html

    you said ben gethi was behind this:


    That is the place where JM Kariuki was last seen alive in the company of the then GSU commandant Ben Gethi. The two men entered a car and drove away. We now know that they went to Kingsway House where JM was tortured and shot in the arm in a curious incident. It is reliably said that JM lost his temper when he was being questioned about some cash donated to the Mau mau that was entrusted to him. The MP happened to be carrying a firearm on him (even in the interrogation room) which he drew but Ben Gethi was faster on the draw and got to his weapon first and fired at JM’s arm to disarm him. The MP did not lose consciousness but started bleeding profusely from the gunshot wound on his arm.

    Later he was dismembered, and dumbed on the edge of the Ngong Forest in the outskirts of Nairobi where a Maasai herdsboy found the body days after he had been reported missing

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  8. Chris,

    I agree with you that political fallout has a tendency of providing clues to past mysteries. However, I do not think that we can depend on just that to find answers to weighty questions like who killed JM. If that was the case, all stones left unturned would have been turned over by now. All you have to think about is the many types of fallout we have witnessed in the past years.

    Raila fell out with Moi. Kibaki fell out with Moi. Raila fell out with Kibaki. Kalonzo fell out with Raila. The list is long. While they may have issued tit bits of crucial information at the height of their numerous fallouts, they were never meant to solve any past mysteries….rather they were threats and counter threats…just like Jirongo’s.

    We must remember that our politicians are intertwined in the most indivisible way. Theirs is a family affair and they are not about to really let each other down.

    Now about Kirinya; in my books, the guy died a martyr. He would have died a messiah if he videotaped the killings by cell phone and prepared what we have come to know as ‘damning dossiers’. Instead of his video testimony, we should be reading about high profile incriminating conversations on the BBC. I’m sure he would have got safe passage to Brito.

    I’m not saying he didn’t do enough, but seriously, if you are a policeman yourself and you are going to really spill the beans about the police and their killing machine, will you go to Maina Kiai for protection? Yaani, you are going to provide documentary evidence against Maj. Ali and his boys implicating them in the killing of hundreds of ‘innocent’ youth and you find solace with the KNCHR?

    How about you just walk into the American Embassy with your family?

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  9. Kalamari, r u kikuyu?

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  10. Kalamari, what does your name stand for? In the part of the world I live it is sought of Greek cuisine. But anyway, it doesn't matter what its stand for, you made a mistake by returning back to Kenya.
    One thing I know about living abroad is you can be whatever you want to be. In Kenya you can only dream and the dream ends there.

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  11. Senior Counsel Nzamba Kitonga and a daughter of a former Chief Justice, Atsanga Chesoni, have been elected to lead a team of experts who will spearhead the Constitution review process.


    MY QUESTION FOR CHESONI'S DAUGHTER BEING A RELATIVE ?? WILL SHE FOLLOW HER FATHERS FOOT-STEPS?? CHESONI WAS PAID BY MOI TO MESS UP - FOLLOW CHESONI'S SWISS ACCOUNT PAYMENTS FROM FORMER PRESIDENT MOI....
    Atsanga Chesoni is aware of her father taking bribes from Moi- she enjoyed this money... will she follow her fathers foot-steps of being bribed by the government????? let her answer to KENYANS....

    http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/540652/-/u31kbb/-/index.html

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  12. Chris aka Chris,
    not so long ago when i was a teenager fresh out of sunday school we used to sing a very popular hymn song at the time that said "shetani weh baki nyuma mi naenda na yesu" (repeat X2)
    unfortunately i think Satan had already taken that advice literally and needed no urging to continue setting base and making camp in Kenya.

    "rich pauper" JM met his fate at the hands of the same "devil" we are still dancing with today-impunity-back then it was the political elite today we know it as the political elite and tomorrow it will be.....

    Interesting to note though you said JM suped from the same plate with the devil before he turned into a crusader for justice. aren't we seeing the same shenanigans in front of our very eyes today? how else can you explain an electorate that's suppossedly hungry and angry polled by Steadman et al saying they'd still give their vote to one or more of the current political players

    Kenyans...we are our own worst enemy

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  13. Joe,

    The hottest jig in town is the waltz with the devil himself.

    When it gets too hot, the bright ones just jump in the water but try to avoid swimming with the fishes.

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  14. RAW AS MASAI GENE IS PATENTED IN THE USA- WITH FULL SUPPORT OF KMERI INSTITUTE KENYA !!(posted in the USA and in daily nation of kenya)


    YES NOW I CAN ADMIT THAT KENYANS ARE FOOLISH -STUPID AND HAVE NO CLUE

    WHAT MOST KENYANS KNOW BEST IS CORRUPTION


    BEING FROM EUROPE AFTER READING THIS I WAS SHOCKED THAT KENYANS ARE NOT SCREAMING ON TOP OF THEIR VOICES ... WHEN SOME GOONS FROM THE USA ARE TRYING TO PATENT THEIR COUNTRIES GENE.

    CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME THE KENYANS FRAME WORK?

    SHAMEFUL.

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  15. this is the same system that caused Professor Obama Snr to be fired from University of Nairobi...

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  16. Are we any different from the "same system" that fired the late Obama snr?

    What imrpovements if any have we brought about, initiated or engineered in our respective viullages, locations, divisions, districts, provinces and country?

    It is become so fashionable to blame or rather scapegoat "the same system" for our own current failures in 2009.

    When will you stop the blaming game and become the type of real change that you want to see around the country?

    As for the J.M. Kariuki's memorials, I am just fed up of seeing people who pull his name out of their memory bags for whatever reasons, and then put him back for the rest of the year.

    When are we going to raise funds and build a Josiah Mwangi Kariuki University or J.M. Kariuki Memorial Hospital in any one of the three big cities, thirty four years since his brutal death took place?

    A university is western Kenya was renamed after Masinde Muliro, so, why not extend the same gesture in memory of J.M. Kariuki and in any other part of country?

    What are we waiting for? Land? Location? Funds? General Elections? Or are we still waiting for the next twenty years before we can learn how to properly honour own fallen brothers and sisters in true word and deeds?

    BTW, if Ben Gethi and other senior police officers were responsible for J.M. Kariuki's untimely demise, then how about we rename Kiganjo Police College in his memory as a lesson to future senior Kenya police officers - circa 2040?

    I have another good idea, how about we rename the Willson airport and call it J.M.K.A, as in Josiah Mwangi Kariuki Airport?

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  17. If you work in Kenya, you know that being bright is always a negative, especially if people get to know that you are bright. This is a trait across Kenya, from the west to the south to the north to the east. Most of us had to play blond in order to keep a job. That is the reality and that is why mediocrity has taken root. Look at all the blonds we have leading us, just because they were good at boot licking the powers that be. God bless Kenya

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  18. yes I worked in a kenyan bank where the clerks did all the work and the corrupt manager earning 25 times the salary took all the bribes....and the clerks were told off for being 5 min late!!!

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  19. @6:29 AM
    lol
    "took all the bribes" that were initiated by the junior clerks.

    lol
    stop being overly hypocritical. kwani where do live?

    yaani you have not heard or read about the $900,000,000 that were paid out as bonuses to top kahunas by various financial institutions in the UK, Canada and America?

    ubs dished hefty bonuses to their top dogs as well.

    kenyan bank managers are just small time players, call them financial crooks in the dark .... of africa if you will.

    welcome to the bulls' and bears' games on wall street.

    stick to j.m. kariuki's memorial topic pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!

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  20. It was very interesting for me to read the blog. Thanx for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I definitely want to read more soon.

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  21. You know what, buy Wifi jammer to jam all secret transmitters in your home or office.

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