The Jomo Kenyatta night mystery at the mausoleum.

***thread***

Three months after Mzee Kenyatta died, in November of 1978, his mausoleum played host to unusual visitors one Sunday night.
What is known is that Lt. Gen (Rtd) Daniel Opande, then a Lieutenant Colonel, received a call from Kenya’s military chief, Gen. Mulinge. The latter wanted to know who was the commanding officer of the army unit responsible for guard duties at the mausoleum.
Mulinge instructed Opande that the Director of Medical Services,Dr. Eric Mngola,would call to provide details for the retrieval of the body of Kenyatta.Opande was to oversee execution of the request.He was further ordered to report back to Mulinge as soon as the exercise was over
Shortly after Gen. Mulinge’s call, Dr. Mngola telephoned Opande. The doctor asked to meet with Opande at the mausoleum the following night (Sunday).

I should point out that Dr. Mngola had previously served as Mzee’s personal doctor.
At 9.30pm on the material Sunday night,Dr. Mngola met with Lt. Col. Opande and a Major Kamiti,the Commanding Officer of the Company responsible for military guard duties at the mausoleum

They watched as soldiers spent time meticulously retrieving Mzee’s casket from the mausoleum
It was then placed in a waiting military ambulance and rushed to the City Mortuary, where there were attendants on standby.

They were led by a pathologist, one Dr. Rao.
Opande watched from a distance as the attendants removed Mzee’s body from the casket and, according to him, placed it on “a large table draped with a clean white sheet”.
“I watched carefully as they cleaned the remains that appeared very well maintained....”, Opande wrote in his autobiography.

Beyond the above description, Opande doesn’t provide further detail about what happened at the mortuary that night.
According to The Standard, Mzee Kenyatta’s mausoleum consists of solid granite walls. There was a Bill in Parliament in 2018 seeking to have this and other monuments made accessible to the public for a fee.

Who knows what happened to this Bill?

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with KENYAN🇰🇪 HISTORY🇰🇪

KENYAN🇰🇪 HISTORY🇰🇪 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @historykenya101

25 Apr
Today, a billionaire, or let's say a Mheshimiwa, could have landed in our village, but covid has happened.

His multimillion Eurocopter 2019 would land at a primary sch grounds.

There is a KDA 111 Lexus 570 already waiting to transport him to the local church, 750 meters away. Image
I just met the police officers who arrested me days ago, for "flouting covid rules".they are here to provide security to Mheshimiwa & his chopper.Villagers are experienced thieves, they can steal it & disappear like Malaysian plane

Mkubwa will contribute 1M to buy church chairs.
The primary school head teacher has organized special chairs and tables for Mkubwa and Honorable guests, they will be having lunch at his school. In fact they’ve reserved one classroom for this purpose, wametoa desks na kuficha nyuma ya class.
Read 8 tweets
23 Apr
The most inspiring letter ever written by a man who held his Country at heart.

Dedan Kimathi
C/O H.M Prison (i.e. Her Majesty’s Prison)
17th February 1957

Father Marino
Catholic Mission
P.O. Box 25
Nyeri

Dear Father. Image
It is about one O’clock night that I have picked up my pencil and paper so that I may remember you and your beloved friends and friends before the time is over.

I am so busy and so happy preparing for heaven tomorrow the 18th February 1957.
Only to let you know that Father Whellam came in to see me here in my prison room as soon as he received the information regarding my arrival. He is still a dear kind person as I did not firstly expect. He visits me very often and gives me sufficient encouragement possible.
Read 11 tweets
12 Apr
The Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga marriage that didn't last beyond the honeymoon.

Often, you've always heard that Kibaki betrayed the MoU that was agreed by NAK and LDP

Let's look at the betrayal, the deals and the 2002/2003 political intrigues that happened behind closed doors.
In 2002, 13 Kenyan opposition parties joined under one umbrella and formed the NARC coalition. The coalition was kenya's second "party" that was truly a nationalistic party, after KANU, simply because it had massive membership from every part of the country.
But before then, in the weeks before the Uhuru park rally where they came together to form an alliance on October 14th 2002, the opposition leaders met during several sessions to ponder who among them, would be best suited to battle it out with Uhuru Kenyatta of KANU.
Read 46 tweets
9 Apr
BIG AND SMALL NAMES THAT DEFIED THE ORDER.
The people who stood up against president Moi. Some who the govt of Moi even tried to eliminate, others who were allegedly killed by the govt operatives for speaking out against govt evils.

The struggle still lives on

***THREAD***
June 16, 1982 University of Nairobi lecturer David Mukaru Ng'ang'a is picked by police from a bar in Thika.tortured during solitary confinement where he was kept naked immersed in cold water. Ng’ang’a died in 1997 in a Swedish hospital while on self-exile
nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/mukaru-fa… Image
Bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge

Muge, who is remembered for being an ardent critic of bad governance and champion of justice, died in unclear circumstances on the Eldoret-Busia highway in 1990. Image
Read 50 tweets
23 Mar
We seem to be missing the point about NHIF. It's no use saying it should pay all our outpatient bills. It cant. And it wont. The money isnt enough to cover our greed.

***Thread***
NHIF is money that comes from only 2 million Kenyans by force, and a few more conscientious ones. It cannot cover 40 million Kenyans. But that isnt the real problem. The real problem is a neoliberal one.
What is neoliberalism? It's the belief that government should not offer social services like health, and instead, it should pay private sector to do it. Neoliberalism is the evil twin of capitalism, because if capitalists are to be believed, private hospitals should ....
Read 16 tweets
9 Mar
The handshake that flopped.

Did you know apart from the golden handshake between Raila Odinga & Mwai kibaki in 2008 & the March 9th 2018 handshake between Raila Odinga & Uhuru Kenyatta,there was another attempted handshake of 1978 that failed?

***thread***
After Kenya gained self rule in 1964, nobody imagined of a bitter divorce between the founding fathers of the nation Mzee jomo Kenyatta and his old friend jaramogi Oginga Odinga. The bitter fallout was caused by several factors that were precipitated by external forces.
Publicly it was known that Jomo and Oginga differed sharply on ideological differences in the line of capitalism and communism respectively. But apart from this there were deep propaganda information fed to Jomo.
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!