Kenyatta’s death caused by neglect, says ex press chief

• Njiru paints a disturbing picture of Mzee Kenyatta as too sick to govern in a close-typed five-page statement released to the press on Saturday.
• He says there was no resident physician or cardiologist at his side at the time of Kenyatta's death.
• his is probably the first time Mr Njiru is issuing a statement without Mr Moi’s authority.

Asked why he was revealing this now, Mr Njiru said the Official Secrets Act binds civil servants to keep secrets for 30 years and the period had elapsed and he was now free to share what he knows.

After having been with Mzee every day for two years, Mr Njiru said: “Kenyatta did not have a classmate and no one knew when he was born. The people around him were moving around this country like rogue elephants let loose on a maize plantation.”

He added: “He was more in the company of wolves and hyenas than he was in the company of his loving family. Kenyatta would be in Nakuru or Mombasa for up to two months and it was up to the State to take care of him... I was there every day, everywhere as part of my job and it would be unfair for me not to release this information.”

The statement was issued on official note paper and when asked if the former president had approved it, Mr Njiru said he had not asked Mr Moi’s opinion of it.

If that is so, media observers said, this is probably the first time Mr Njiru is issuing a statement without Mr Moi’s authority.

Mr Simeon Nyachae, who is mentioned in the statement, could not be reached for comment.

Mzee’s nephew and one-time physician Dr Njoroge Mungai declined to comment, saying he needed to see Mr Njiru’s statement first. Efforts to get comment from Mzee’s family, which has traditionally been guarded with the press, were equally fruitless.

The following is an excerpt of Mr Njiru’s statement:

“Now that Kenyans have marked the 30th anniversary of President Jomo Kenyatta’s death, it is prudent for them to understand the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his passing on.

During this hour of need, Mzee Kenyatta was abandoned and neglected by his aides and top advisors whose unbridled greed for power, property and money was their propulsion force.

These fellows, consumed by rapacity greater than that of desert locusts let loose on green foliage, could not be objective about Kenyatta’s needs and separate those needs from their own.

To start with, Mzee should not have been allowed to travel to Msambweni on August 21, 1978 to be subjected to the indignity of collapsing in a washroom.

As a young information officer, I had been from 1977 assigned to cover all the official functions of Mzee.

This critical day, he had lunch will all the Kenyan envoys abroad. This was at State House, Mombasa. I could see the concern of the envoys as Mzee’s speech was a worrying incoherent stutter.

The then Minister of State in the Office of the President, Mr Peter Mbiyu Koinange, was at the high table. I cast a furtive glance at him to see his reaction and noticed he was not bothered.