The day Kenyatta caught his trusted minister drinking
From Kitchen toto to Ambassador, which has been written by Phillip Gitonga, Gichuru’s former Under Secretary and a man who later became an ambassador to India, Japan, South Korea, West Germany and later Netherlands. PHOTO | NATION
Without going into details, the former Lari MP narrates how he bumped into some coup plotters in 1971 who were having a “goat-eating session” at Army Commander General JM Ndolo’s home. Those present included Chief Justice Kitili Mwendwa, Yatta MP Gideon Mutiso “and a lady who was introduced to me as Mrs Obote.”
Rising from a kitchen toto, a househelp, in the house of Nelly Grant, the mother of Elspeth Huxley – author of Flame Trees of Thika – Gitonga’s story illuminates the colonial and post-colonial Kenya from a personal perspective.
The meeting with Jomo Kenyatta was to be held in the morning at State House, Nakuru.
James Gichuru, then Defence minister, had accompanied his Permanent Secretary Jeremiah Kiereini and Deputy Secretary Philip Gitonga to brief mzee, as Kenyatta was fondly referred, on certain issues concerning the country’s defence.
