Kenya’s founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta ruled for 15 years and faced many challenges some personal such as many health complications.
According to various reports, his failing health was due to many factors, among them, his advanced age.
In his book, Walking in Kenyatta’s Struggles: My Story, Duncan Ndegwa notes that Kenyatta on various occasions slipped into a coma only to recover after several hours or days.
Ndegwa served in Kenyatta’s regime as the Kenya’s first Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of Civil Service.
All these health scares, Ndegwa writes, were kept as a top secret by Kenyatta’s aides led by powerful Kiambu politician Njoroge Mungai who served as his personal physician.
In his memoir, he recalls a day the Head of State suffered a blackout at his Mombasa Tiririka residence, and remained in a coma for three days.
He said the three days were full of uncertainty and disclosed that when Kenyatta he came out of it he was among the first people to visit him.
“I asked him what had happened. He replied that he had visited what he called Weru wa Mukaaga, meaning an expansive plain where he was all alone. Kenyata recalled that one could not see the end of that serene plain, where he had been at complete peace and where the sun never set… Kenyatta toured Weru wa Mukaaga on other occasions, but the final one was on August 22, 1978, when he went, never to return,” he writes.
Ndegwa reveals that Kenyatta allies engaged in a fierce jostling for power within government during the 3 days he faced blackout.
He referred to Mungai and his powerful Cabinet colleagues from Kiambu; Mbiyu Koinange and Charles Njonjo- the Attorney General.
By Nairobi