Mr Gedion Munyao Mutiso, the first MP for Yatta Constituency who died earlier this week aged 91, shocked the country when he confessed to participating in the 1971 coup attempt.
The MP who was a firebrand government critic and revolutionary in his hey days, gave a voluntary confession in an open court, while facing treason charges.
In his characteristic unrepentant style, Mr Mutiso was perhaps the only leader who publicly confessed to plotting to overthrow the government of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, without caring the consequences of such admission.
He had been arrested in 1971 among thirteen coup plotters who were tried and convicted on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government of Kenya by unlawful means.
His confession in court shocked the country, after he explained his distaste for Jomo Kenyatta’s style of leadership pushed him to participate in coup plans.
The former MP told the trial magistrate S. K. Sachdeva that on many occasions, he had been meeting with General Joseph Ndolo, the then Chief of General Staff to discuss the coup plans, prompting the military chief to lose his job.
According to various legal journals which documented the treason case, his trial took only a day after he pleaded guilty to the coup plotting charges and was jailed for nine and half years in prison.
The then deputy public prosecutor James Karugu described Mr Mutiso as “the pivot around which the whole conspiracy to overthrow Kenyatta government revolved”.
His confession which exposed several top officials within government also led to the resignation of the then Chief Justice Kitili Mwendwa.
After his conviction, he subsequently lost his Yatta parliamentary seat, which was taken over by Simon Kitheka Kiilu.
After serving his decade long prison term, the late Mutiso contested and recaptured his Yatta seat in the 1983 general elections, and served for three uninterrupted terms until 1997 wgen he lost the seat.
With advancing age and having served a record five terms as MP, he decided to quit elective politics to venture into farming and private business.
According to his son Frank Mutiso, his father was released from prison in 1981 three months to the end of his jail term by former President Daniel Moi, but he was put under house confinement for some months.
"He was released from prison through presidential pardon but the confinement continued as he wasn't allowed to interact with anyone" the young Mutiso explained to the Nation in an interview.
The son revealed that the MP wrote a letter to President Moi in 1983 pleading to be allowed to vie for Yatta parliamentary seat through KANU, the only political party then.
In the letter, the son explains that he assured Moi that he will be completely loyal to his government, and that he had reformed.
"Luckily for my dad, Moi accepted his request to be readmitted back to ruling party KANU and also allowed him to rejoin elective politics. He then contested and recaptured the Yatta seat during the 1983 snap elections" the Mutiso son said.
He served for three consecutive terms becoming one the KANU's most influential pillars in Ukambani, especially during the advent of Multi party democracy, where he was easily reelected on the party's ticket.
Former cabinet minister Mutua Katuku mourned the late Mutiso describing as a gifted debator who together with the likes of the late Martin Sikuku, the late George Anyone made parliament lively with their contributions
"Mutiso wa Yatta as he was fondly known was an honest and selfless Kenyan leader who made major contribution in expanding democratic space, through agitation for good governance" said Mr Katuku, the leader of Peoples Trust Party and former MP for Mwala.
Being the longest serving MP for Yatta Constituency, Mr Katuku said Mutiso is credited with improving the welfare of his people through many development projects.
The late MP who passed on while undergoing treatment at MP Shah Hospital in Nairobi was a pioneer trade unionist, politician and a revolutionary. He was thrust to the helm of the pre-independence labour movement as a result of the infighting among the trade unionists.
Both in politics and in the labour movement, he was a close ally of former minister Tom Mboya who led the Kenya Federation of Labour (KFL). In 1959, he was elected Mboya’s deputy and went on to become one of his most reliable political allies.
Just before the elections to usher in internal self-government in June 1963, Mr Mboya knowing very well the influence Paul Ngei's Akamba People’s Party had in Ukambani , made a deal with Mr Mutiso who stood very little chance of winning the Yatta seat on a KANU ticket.
The deal involved Mr Mutiso vying on an APP, but working with KANU after elections. He won, but tables turned when APP went on to join KANU after Mr Ngei agreed to work with Jomo Kenyatta.
After independence, Mr Mutiso served as an Assistant Minister for Education. In 1965, before falling out with Kenyatta after Tom Mboya’s assassination in 1969.
Mr Mutiso became one of the harshest critics of Jomo Kenyatta both inside and outside parliament, until 1971, when he was among those who were arrested and detained for planning to overthrow the government.
