Thread by @HistoryKE

#HistoryKeThread: At one time in our history, a firebrand politician bestrode the politics of a part of Kenya like a colossus.

Some called him Mashamba.

No, not the one you may be thinking of.

In the Kamba language, his fellow Kamba called him Munyambu wa Kenya, the literal translation of which is “the lion of Kenya”.

Paul Ngei was a long serving Kamba politician and former member of the famous Kapenguria Six detainees that also comprised of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Achieng Oneko, Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba and Fred Kubai.

At the dawn of Kenya’s independence, few if any politicians were more vocal that Ngei in calling for the forceful repossession of European settler farms in Kenya.

That is how he earned the nickname “Mashamba”.

In the pre-independence 1960s, Paul Ngei was indignant that KANU leaders were not according him the respect he was entitled to.

He had a large community, the Kamba people, that he was “bringing to the table”. The population of the Kamba then - 1962, that is - was 800,000.

Surely those numbers were good enough for him to land a national KANU seat, he insisted.

But KANU leaders were not listening.

So Ngei in November of 1962 quickly convened a meeting of KANU leaders from his Kamba community. At the meeting, he griped about KANU not showing him respect.

He announced, to a thunderous cheer from the throng of supporters, that he was forming a new party - African Peoples Party (APP).

As the meeting went on, police stormed the venue in riot gear. Someone had tipped them off that Ngei was up to no good.

The police arrived moments after Ngei’s followers had noisily tore up their KANU membership cards and chanted in support of their new party, APP.

Ngei would later disband APP and rejoin KANU as Kenya’s independence approached. Under KANU, he was elected MP for Kangundo, a seat he occupied for nearly two decades.

Force, abrasiveness. These were synonymous with Ngei.

Little wonder, too, that the new party had a clenched fist as its symbol.

It could as well have been Ngei’s personal symbol.

In 1968, in the presence of policemen and media crew, Ngei and Asst. Minister William Malu traded blows over control of the Machakos KANU office.

The story has also been told about how, as a cabinet minister in the 70s, Ngei stormed a car showroom in the city (Nairobi) and asked to test drive one of the luxury car models.

The car impressed “Mashamba” during the test-drive. The minister drove off in it, and didn’t pay a cent. As he drove off, he reminded bewildered officials at the dealership that he had fought for independence and that, for all he cared, they could invoice State House for the car.

Ngei was also suspected to have had an affair with Captain Judy Angaine of the Kenya Army, daughter of former cabinet minister and “King of the Ameru”, Jackson H. Angaine.

Sometime in March of 1978, Capt. Angaine was found dead at her residence in, well, Nairobi’s Ngei Estate (fortuitously, the estate was named after Ngei when he was in charge of the Housing docket).

Police suspected that she had been strangled to death. The main suspect was her boyfriend, Major Kimeu Kisila, who was subsequently put on trial.

On the eve of the day her body was discovered, Capt. Angaine was said to have been seen in the company of Paul Ngei at an exclusive members-only club in Nairobi.

When asked by the defence attorney during the murder trial what he was doing with her, Ngei had, well, everything to hide!

Literally.

He told the lawyer that a man should not be asked what he was doing in the company of a beautiful woman.

Such was the brazen attitude of the man who, according to several leaders of his time, enjoyed excellent rapport with, and special protection of, first president Mzee Kenyatta.

Ngei served in various capacities as a minister in Mzee Kenyatta’s cabinet, and later under Moi until 1990, when he was declared bankrupt by the courts.

He thereafter led a quiet life. For several years he was unwell and was confined in a wheelchair. He died in 2004.