MP’s strange trip to India, fake doctor’s jab and sudden death

Campaign for the Dagoretti parliamentary seat turned out to be the most acrimonious in the 1974 General Election.

It pitted powerful Foreign Affairs minister Njoroge Mungai against newcomer Johnstone Muthiora. Though hitherto unknown, the latter had powerful backers, chiefly Attorney General Charles Njonjo and Vice President Daniel arap Moi.

An unusual thing in the campaign was that the Nation newspaper, through Editor-in-Chief George Githii, broke the rules and openly campaigned for Dr Muthiora.

Though unstated, the reason for the do-or-die (no pun intended) contest in Dagoretti was succession of then ageing First President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

That Dr Mungai, the Foreign Affairs minister and the sitting Dagoretti MP, nursed ambition to be the next president of Kenya after old Jomo was an open secret.

BAD TRAITS

To him it was not just ambition but a consuming obsession. At Parliament’s bar, he would order the most expensive whiskey and ask MPs to toast to his imminent presidency.

Broke MPs knew the easiest way to get a drink from him was to flatteringly refer to him as “Mr Prime Minister”.

At his home on the expansive Magana flower farm on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway, Dr Mungai had constructed a “presidential” dais as sign of the things to come. He was also an arrogant man.

When abroad with Vice President Moi, he would ignore protocol and behave like he was the head of the delegation, to the great humiliation of his senior, the VP.

His disrespect for Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki also had senior officials at the Treasury conspire to clip his wings by cutting the Foreign Affairs ministry budget.

To cap it all, Dr Mungai had an untamed zip and would foam in the mouth at the sight of “any passing skirt”.

POLL LOSER

Come the 1974 General Election a decision had been made that Dr Mungai had to be cut to size.

The Njonjo-Moi axis fished Dr Muthiora from obscurity, gave him enough cash and unleashed him on Dr Mungai. Losing his parliamentary seat meant the latter would not be

appointed to the Cabinet, unless he first got nominated.

But President Kenyatta was not happy with his minister and would not mind seeing him fry in his own fat.

Consequently, the battle for Dagoretti turned out the most bruising, hitting the headlines almost on daily basis. When the ballots were finally counted, Dr Mungai was out and Dr Muthiora in.

In the colloquial Nairobi language, Dagoretti voters had told Mungai “to go drying”. President Kenyatta did not reappoint him to the Cabinet.

But for consolation, his sister, Mrs Jemima Gecaga (grandmother of former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s aide Jomo Gecaga) was nominated MP. She later resigned, and Dr Mungai was picked to replace her.

TRIP TO INDIA

A few weeks after the election, the new MP, Dr Muthiora, was notified by the ministry of Foreign Affairs of an invitation for a private visit to India.

It was a strange offer because he was the only MP to be so “honoured”. Also unusual was that the invitation did not extend to Dr Muthiora’s spouse!

On March 27, 1975, the MP was seen off at then Embakasi Airport (now JKIA) by his family and the Indian High Commissioner to Kenya, Mr Arjan Singh.

The journey started well and for one week, the MP had the time of his life: seeing the best of India’s tourist attractions, including the famous architectural wonder of Taj Mahal in New Delhi.

But one night in the second week while visiting the southern India town of Madras, he felt a sudden sharp pain in the shoulder.

He alerted the hotel management, who tried to raise the hotel doctor on phone but in vain. The hotel receptionist reached for another doctor who immediately came.

STRANGE INJECTION

Even to Dr Muthiora's untrained eye, this man was not a medical doctor. He appeared strange. He was carrying some paraphernalia wrapped in an old newspaper.

On mixing some concoctions, the “doctor” injected the MP with what he called a painkiller.

The MP would later say he only accepted to be injected because he was in such great pain and desperate for anything that would ease his suffering.

The pain stopped, to be sure, but when the hotel doctor finally came, he was not impressed at the “treatment” given to the Kenyan visitor. He however left it at that.

Two days later, the MP complained of an even sharper pain and was taken to a heart specialist who gave him medication but recommended further check-up.

KIDNEY FAILURE

At that point, the MP cut short his journey and returned home, where he was admitted to Nairobi Hospital.

Once there, his eyes turned yellow and he started complaining about exhaustion and difficulty in passing urine.

His condition worsened and he was moved to the intensive care unit. On the second day, his kidneys failed and started vomiting blood.

Specialists flown in from London said he was suffering from septicaemia (blood poisoning), and decided to have the MP undergo a massive blood transfusion.

Among the blood donors for the emergency exercise were AG Njonjo and VP Moi. But that could not help either. He went into a coma. Then he died.

OPEN CASE

Everybody cried foul. Mark you, it was only a month after another MP, JM Kariuki, had mysteriously vanished from the Hilton Hotel, only for his bullet-ridden and partially decomposed body to be picked from the bushes.

In the ensuing by-election, Dr Mungai’s family members prevailed upon him not to contest as all fingers pointed at him as the person who may know something about the trail of events leading to death of his bitter political rival.

To this day, the mystery of the MP death’s has never been resolved.

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