Bruce McKenzie was perhaps one of the most if not the most forward thinking politician in Jomo Kenyatta’s government.
After Kenyatta survived a heart attack in 1968, and seeing how the whole establishment had been thrown into confusion, McKenzie decided that measures had to be put in place incase of the president’s death.
It didn’t matter whether Kenyatta lived for over 100 years, the contingency measures for his funeral had to be laid down albeit in great secrecy, otherwise according to McKenzie, the government would be caught off guard.
Without the knowledge of other government ministers he flew to London where he discussed the matter with the Foreign Office. He would later rope Njonjo, Moi and Mungai into the plan.
A coffin was secretly shipped to Kenya and kept at Kahawa barracks, an embalmer was kept on standby in London, contingency security measures were put in place and plans to swear in the vice president to take over were made. Imagine people secretly discussing your funeral without you knowing!!
It was because of Mackenzie’s foresight that Kenyatta’s funeral went on smoothly ten years later in 1978. The irony is that he died before Kenyatta.
This is not the only incident that highlights Mackenzie’s foresight. In 1964, prompted by the Lanet mutiny, coups and the assassinations that were taking place in Africa, McKenzie made his own decision that Kenyatta needed special bodyguards specially selected and given commando training.
Subsequently on 21 May, 1964, he met General Freeland and Sir Richard Catling, the Commissioner of Kenya Police in Nairobi . During this meeting it was decided that those to be trained as special bodyguards should not be drawn from the Army but from the police, specifically the GSU, and they should be all Kikuyus numbering around 60 for trust purposes.
By then Egypt had already made a proposal to the Kenya government to train paratroopers, commandos and police. Israel got hold of this information and leaked it to the British who couldn’t just allow the Soviet allied Egypt to undertake such a security venture in one of their strategic former colonies.
So when McKenzie came up with the proposal to train commandos to protect Kenyatta, the British took it with open arms. Instructors from elite British military unit SAS, were consequently tasked with training Kenyatta’s bodyguards.
However, for security reasons the instructors had to conduct the training in Kenya. And this is how the presidential guards, which is a company within the GSU, was born.
Even though initial recruits were all Kikuyus, the following year it was decided additional 15-20 GSU officers from different tribes should be recruited into the presidential guards unit. However all of them had to be picked by ministers loyal to Kenyatta for trust purposes.
To date, GSU officers are tasked with protecting Kenyan President as opposed to military officers in some countries.
By Newshub