• Kibati, well aware that if he was seen buying a coffin tongues would start wagging, decided to pull a trick out of his cloak and dagger trade’s rule book. He bought not only one but three coffin - including one for a child for a good measure.
• As the decoy made its way along the town’s thoroughfare, the real hearse with Mboya’s body weaved its way along Nakuru’s backstreets and was on the clear when the angry mourners were realizing the deception.
On the day Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died at Mombasa State House, Coast provincial intelligence officer Bart Kibati received a phone call from the PC Eliud Mahihu.
The administrator relayed the sad news to the sleuth and then went ahead to ask him to look for a coffin in which they would transport the head of state’s body to Nairobi. A Kenya Air Force plane was on standby.
Kibati, well aware that if he was seen buying a coffin tongues would start wagging, decided to pull a trick out of his cloak and dagger trade’s rule book. He bought not only one but three coffin - including one for a child for a good measure.
The retired spy chief reveals in his tell-all biography ‘Memoirs of a Spymaster’ that this was not the first time he was involving himself in subterfuge following a high profile death.
Just under a decade earlier he was the provincial director of intelligence when the celebrated Cabinet minister Tom Mboya was assassinated. On the day Mboya’s body was passing through Nakuru, Kibati came up with a hearse decoy.
This was to avert violence that was in the offing pitting Luos versus Kikuyus and a few skirmishes had been witnessed in the town days before.
As the decoy made its way along the town’s thoroughfare, the real hearse with Mboya’s body weaved its way along Nakuru’s backstreets and was on the clear when the angry mourners were realizing the deception.
Back to the Kenyatta death: Kibati’s idea seemed to have worked because Kenyatta’s body was safely deposited at Nairobi State House and then the sad news was broken to the nation.
A lot has been written about this period but it is perhaps a stroke of luck or divine intervention that when Kenyatta took the final bow, it was those supporting his deputy, Vice President Daniel arap Moi, to succeed who were close to the levers of power.
Moi himself must have looked back with a heart full of gratitude considering the many political storms- including humiliations - he went through in his bid to succeed Kenyatta.
Kenyatta’s death, many believe, could have easily led the country to a messy succession period. It was no secret in Kenyatta’s kitchen cabinet that the old man was not in the best health.
With the unbridled - and at times insensitive - ambition that is unique to the political class, the power jostling around Kenyatta went a notch higher when the two factions fighting for the soul of Kenya’s presidency locked horns.
On the one side were those supporting Moi and vowed to stand by him no matter what political headwinds they faced. The chief strategist for this camp was Attorney General Charles Njonjo. The man was hawkish in his defence of Moi.
When at one point the anti-Moi brigade started discussing Kenyatta’s health - and death - openly, Njonjo who was notoriously thin-skinned to criticism came up with a clause in the law that made it treasonous for one not only to talk of, but even to imagine, the president’s death.
A lot has been said as to what drove Njonjo to offer rabid support to Moi. One school of thought holds that in Moi, Njonjo and his coterie of supporters saw an unsophisticated country bumpkin who would hold the presidency on a transitional basis even as Njonjo schemed to take the top prize for himself.
Arraigned against Njonjo was the bullish and maybe reckless gang that called itself ‘Change the Constitution’. It was mainly composed of super rich - and largely semi-literate - Kikuyu politicians who had made their money during Kenyatta’s rule.
The face of this group was the quarrelsome Nakuru politician Kihika Kimani and Njenga Karume from Kiambu. To this group, the presidency was a Kikuyu birthright and in their warped thinking, if Kenyatta passed on, it was only logical- nay godly ordained- that another Kikuyu should take over.
It was during this charged season that a group called Ngoroko came into being. In practice it was supposed to be a specialized force to counter the cattle rustling menace which was - still is - rampant in sections of the vast Rift Valley region.
It was later to emerge that this group was formed with the sole purpose of eliminating - if it came to that - Moi in the event of Kenyatta’s death. Clearly they never succeeded and Moi went on to be the president for a record-breaking 24 years.
In his book, Kibati rubbishes these rumours and maintains that the group was meant to fight cattle rustling. As with many details surrounding Kenyatta’s succession, we may never get to learn the full truth of this one too.