The phone call that saved Kenyatta

One bright morning 39 years ago, as founding President Jomo Kenyatta prepared to preside over a military function, his telephone rang.

The caller, a Kenya Air Force officer, warned him against attending a scheduled military sports parade at Lanet, Nakuru.

And it was that fateful call, from one Lieutenant-Colonel Murgor, that saved Kenyatta and halted a series of events that could have culminated in a military coup against the founding president’s eight-year-old government.

The soldiers had planned to either seize Kenyatta or shoot him as soon as he arrived at the function on March 31, 1971, as part of the coup plot that was initially planned for April 8 that year.

Kenyatta swiftly cancelled the trip and let loose his security machinery on the coup plotters, who included senior politicians, scholars, and military officers.

It was an attempted coup that is little-spoken about, and is overshadowed by the August 1, 1982 attempt against the Government of then President Moi and whose 28 years will be commemorated exactly a week from today.

The coup attempt led to the resignation of the then Chief of Defence Staff Joseph Ndolo, and the late Chief Justice Kitili Mwendwa, whose names were cited in the plot.

Events pieced together by The Standard On Saturday indicate a well-oiled plan that might have plunged the country into a bloodbath. While Kenyans shudder at the mention of the failed 1982 coup, they would be shocked to learn of the 1971 intricate plot that remains sparsely captured in political history.

According to a former officer who was privy to the planned coup, the renegade soldiers toyed with two plots against Kenyatta — either bomb State House using military jets, or shoot him during a military parade.

This view is, however, discounted by one of the coup plotters — a former jet fighter pilot Frederick Omondi, who says they were planning a bloodless coup. He said the initial plot was to arrest and detain President Kenyatta to pave way for a new government.

"The main organising team had no plans to kill Kenyatta. Maybe those who planned this were acting on separate instructions," Omondi told the Standard On Saturday, last week.

He added: "We thought killing Kenyatta would have been counter-productive to our cause since we wanted support from all Kenyans. But it is possible some soldiers wanted to shoot him given the level of discontent in the military then."

But Omondi confirmed that by the time the coup plot was exposed, they had settled on Kenyatta’s successor. They also had a list of Cabinet ministers.

Former Yatta MP Gideon Mutiso was widely cited as the man to succeed Kenyatta due to his popularity inside and outside Parliament. He and former Rangwe MP Joseph Ouma Muga, who was then a university lecturer, were central figures in the revolutionary council that co-ordinated the coup plot. Both were later sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

Mutiso does not deny or confirm his role in the ‘revolution’ bid that was exposed after some of the plotters went to seek support from former Tanzanian President, the late Julius Nyerere.