Never-Before Published Information On Pio Gama Pinto's Last Weeks And The Origins Of Impunity

Pio Gama Pinto was warned by Mboya

Kumekucha Exclusive

The other day I had a terrifying ordeal. I got lost somewhere in the dark Kenyan countryside as I was on my way to see a friend. I had been to the place at least twice before but always during the day. In my younger more reckless days I have walked in corners of Nairobi at ungodly hours and gotten away with it but it was still a scary ordeal knowing how unsafe even the remotest corners of our motherland can be sometimes, especially at night. But the point I want to make is that for me to find my way I had to go back to where I started. I retraced my steps to the small shopping center which I knew well and my hosts came to pick me up.

Many young folks have never understood why going back to the past will help our future. They are yet to grasp the truism that to understand the present and future, you must know the past thoroughly.
Pio Gama Pinto: Mystery of his assassination solved by Kumekucha informant

Ever since I launched this blog in May 2005, I have always believed that Kenya’s turnaround will start when the killers of one Tom Mboya (and others like JM and Robert Ouko) are brought to book. In fact the main man responsible for Mboya's assassination is still very much alive (more on that later). And so since 2005 I have consistently maintained the hobby of researching the murder of this great Kenyan and constantly seeking new evidence wherever it can be found. It has been a fulfilling and fascinating experience. You see we live in very exciting times popularly referred to as the information age. Information is much easier to find that it has ever been in history. So fascinating stuff has cropped up on the web and at other times from very unexpected quarters. You see people get old and their conscience starts disturbing them and all of a sudden they start revealing stuff. That is exactly what happened for me to come across the explosive information I am about to publish. This information has never been published before.

But before I do, let me also say that I love investigative detective shows on Television. But none more than Cold Case. It fascinates me that detectives can actually gather evidence from a crime scene 20 years after the crime was committed. The assassination of Tom Mboya one lunch time on July 5th 1969 remains a cold case because the main perpetrators have never been arrested. The guy who supposedly hung for the crime, only pulled the trigger.

Well here is the information I recently came across. It sheds new light into the assassinations of two great Kenyans.

• Both Tom Mboya and Pio Gama Pinto feared for their lives and suspected that they would be killed a few weeks before their deaths.

Fascinatingly, a week before Pinto’s murder Mboya warned Pinto that he would be assassinated, according to my impeccable source. This information shocked me because Pinto’s murder has always been a mystery and Mboya’s name has even been mentioned as one of the people in the then powerful Kanu Kenyatta camp that sanctioned the assassination.

My source says that Mboya told Pinto that despite their ideological differences Pinto needed to get out of the country because he was going to be killed. Mboya said that it was not in his power to prevent this happening. Pinto’s response was to ask Mboya why he was warning him. Mboya then said that he could not keep quiet about such a thing. Sadly Pinto did not believe that Kenyatta's inner circle were capable of murder. He told Mboya that his assassination would cause too much of an uproar in the country. Mboya insisted that they were still going to do it.

Dr Njoroge Mungai: Free as a bird in quiet, prosperous retirement as Mboya family agonizes.

• But even more shocking are revelations of a confrontation between Pinto and Kenyatta in parliament buildings shortly before Pinto was warned by Mboya. (Few people know that Pinto and Kenyatta had a long history. Right from the days when Kenyatta was detained, Pinto used to run errands for him and fund raise for him as well). Pinto had discovered that Kenyatta had allocated himself a total of 50 farms in Central province and Rift valley. Some of the farms had poor Kikuyu squatters who were to be evicted. Others were farms that had been owned by whites and sold back to the Kenyan government. Pinto was incensed by this and despite making overtures to Kenyatta not to go ahead with the evil he was doing, Kenyatta adamantly stuck to his guns. Pinto decided to move a vote of no confidence in Kenyatta. Kenyatta confronted him within the precincts of parliament and challenged him over the no confidence vote. When Pinto refused to back down Kenyatta called him a bastard to which Pinto immediately responded by telling Kenyatta in front of witnesses and other cabinet ministers that he (Kenyatta) was also a bastard. A stunned friend pulled Pinto aside and asked him how he could call Kenyatta a bastard to which Pinto retorted, ‘he called me one first’. It was shortly after this incident that the decision was made to kill Pinto.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga had arranged for Pinto to hide in Mombasa and if necessary sneak out of the country from there. However Joseph Murumbi (who was to be appointed Vice President later that year) heard about this and said it was not possible for Kenyatta to kill Pinto. He promised to speak to Kenyatta himself and diffuse the situation. He told Odinga to put Pinto on the train back to Nairobi and pick him up from the station.

• The day of Pinto’s death he was to move the motion in the afternoon session. Two fiat cars drew up at his house that morning. They were both taxis. The drivers had been paid kshs 7,000 each to do the job. There were plain clothes CID officers with them in car to ensure their escape. Pinto was killed in cold blood. It has never been revealed before but it was the realization that Pinto’s assassination had been carried out by Kenyatta insiders that led to the resignation of Joseph Murumbi as Vice President.

• Some months later a friend of Pinto’s got a phone call from a man who claimed he knew Pinto’s killers. They agreed to meet. The man said he was a taxi driver and knew who had pulled the trigger. They (Pinto’s friend and the taxi driver) then went to a brothel where the man said the killer frequented. He said he always wore a red shirt. Some time later the man came out of the brothel somewhere in Westlands. The man surprisingly admitted to being the killer. He said that some CID officers had approached him for a job and had paid him KShs 7,000. He argued that it was so much money for a poor man that he quickly agreed.

• On Tom Mboya, my source just confirmed information I already have. Mboya too had been warned by his American friends that Kenyatta was planning to kill him. They offered him body guards to which Mboya refused. Mboya’s assassination was organised by Njoroge Mungai who was the “Mr Fix it” in Kenyatta’s inner circle. The dirty man in Kenyattas inner circle, my source calls him. Charles Njonjo’s job was to protect him. My source also calls Njoroge Mungai the ‘organiser’.