My new car, “Omega”, came at a time when being a cabbie had become completely natural to me. I didn't get lost anymore and I no longer got intimated by my passengers. Every day was exciting for me. I looked forward to meeting new people and learning about what they do. I could get diverse information ranging from banking to astrology, for free from my clients. I also got to visit many places in Nairobi and also away in the country side. I was finally comfortable and happy with my job – new car, new places, new people, what more could I ask for? What I didn't realize then, was that I had such a limited time there.
There is an organization known as the Kenya Human Rights Commission and as the name implies, it deals with rights issues. KHRC as its known in short has a transport contract with our company. This meant that we handled a lot of their staff and visitors on many occasions. It was on one such assignment for the KHRC that I got the chance to drive the current Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. At that time he was working with the KHRC and they had a group of visitors from different. I recall them discussing the famous Kenyan detention without trial and one of the visitors asked Mutunga how long he was detained. He casually replied, “Eighteen months”. They were so shocked that somebody could be imprisoned for so long but the CJ added, “That is a short time by Kenyan standards”. Nobody had the heart for that discussion again and they started talking about easier subjects.
Around the same time, the KHRC has just completed preliminary findings that showed that the British government had violated the rights of the MAU MAU guerillas. All they needed now was some hard evidence to support their case. They got three young professionals. These were recent graduates and were bubbling with energy. Two were ladies who had just been admitted to the bar as advocates, and the other one was a young man who was had just graduated from the school of journalism. The trio was charged with collecting as much information as possible from as many MAU MAU war veterans as they could find. To do this they had to go to the one place in Kenya with the highest concentration of the former freedom fighters. This as it turns out, happened to be in what is in present day Nyeri county. Our company chose Omega for the assignment and it was going to be on my shift.
I was excited on the morning we left since a trip out of the congested city was always welcome. Apparently somebody had done a pre-visit and discovered dense clusters of the senior citizens in the areas of Othaya and Mukurweini. Consequently, all our forays were going to be in these two areas. We were early and by 8 am, we arrived at the first major town of Nyeri, a place known as Karatina. We took our breakfast there as we bought time, ostensibly to give the old guys time to wake up and congregate at a predetermined venue. After breakfast we drove off and an hour later we arrived at Othaya. There was already a big crowd of very old men and women gathered outside an old hall which was yet to be opened. I couldn't wait to hear their story.
Once everybody was settled inside, the video camera, voice recorder, and note books were put at the ready. It was going to be a long day since the old people talk extremely slowly. The story was long but interesting. I came to realize that some of the people were more willing to talk than others. The ones who were hesitant to talk were those who the others said had been senior-most within the MAU MAU rankings. They were the generals and they had the most to tell but they were not talking. We urgently needed to find out what was wrong. We came to learn that there is an oath of secrecy that was administered to all those who fought in the war. This oath was in levels with the highest being the sixth. Apparently, the higher the level, the deeper the secrecy. All was not gloom though because at Othaya, we got to meet the former president Kibaki's sister who had also been a MAU MAU fighter.
The next day we went to Mukurweini and the story was the same. The people who were at the heart of the action were not talking. They were acting as if they were senile and they would say things that did not make sense. We still got our story though from those who had taken less than three oaths, but getting it from the horse's mouth proved to be a tall order.
I was happy to hear the old men getting compensated some weeks ago but we shall probably never get to know the whole story of what really transpired in those dark days. Only God knows.
There is an organization known as the Kenya Human Rights Commission and as the name implies, it deals with rights issues. KHRC as its known in short has a transport contract with our company. This meant that we handled a lot of their staff and visitors on many occasions. It was on one such assignment for the KHRC that I got the chance to drive the current Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. At that time he was working with the KHRC and they had a group of visitors from different. I recall them discussing the famous Kenyan detention without trial and one of the visitors asked Mutunga how long he was detained. He casually replied, “Eighteen months”. They were so shocked that somebody could be imprisoned for so long but the CJ added, “That is a short time by Kenyan standards”. Nobody had the heart for that discussion again and they started talking about easier subjects.
Around the same time, the KHRC has just completed preliminary findings that showed that the British government had violated the rights of the MAU MAU guerillas. All they needed now was some hard evidence to support their case. They got three young professionals. These were recent graduates and were bubbling with energy. Two were ladies who had just been admitted to the bar as advocates, and the other one was a young man who was had just graduated from the school of journalism. The trio was charged with collecting as much information as possible from as many MAU MAU war veterans as they could find. To do this they had to go to the one place in Kenya with the highest concentration of the former freedom fighters. This as it turns out, happened to be in what is in present day Nyeri county. Our company chose Omega for the assignment and it was going to be on my shift.
I was excited on the morning we left since a trip out of the congested city was always welcome. Apparently somebody had done a pre-visit and discovered dense clusters of the senior citizens in the areas of Othaya and Mukurweini. Consequently, all our forays were going to be in these two areas. We were early and by 8 am, we arrived at the first major town of Nyeri, a place known as Karatina. We took our breakfast there as we bought time, ostensibly to give the old guys time to wake up and congregate at a predetermined venue. After breakfast we drove off and an hour later we arrived at Othaya. There was already a big crowd of very old men and women gathered outside an old hall which was yet to be opened. I couldn't wait to hear their story.
Once everybody was settled inside, the video camera, voice recorder, and note books were put at the ready. It was going to be a long day since the old people talk extremely slowly. The story was long but interesting. I came to realize that some of the people were more willing to talk than others. The ones who were hesitant to talk were those who the others said had been senior-most within the MAU MAU rankings. They were the generals and they had the most to tell but they were not talking. We urgently needed to find out what was wrong. We came to learn that there is an oath of secrecy that was administered to all those who fought in the war. This oath was in levels with the highest being the sixth. Apparently, the higher the level, the deeper the secrecy. All was not gloom though because at Othaya, we got to meet the former president Kibaki's sister who had also been a MAU MAU fighter.
The next day we went to Mukurweini and the story was the same. The people who were at the heart of the action were not talking. They were acting as if they were senile and they would say things that did not make sense. We still got our story though from those who had taken less than three oaths, but getting it from the horse's mouth proved to be a tall order.
I was happy to hear the old men getting compensated some weeks ago but we shall probably never get to know the whole story of what really transpired in those dark days. Only God knows.
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