The United States of America business community in Nairobi in 1963 gave President Jomo Kenyatta three expensive cars.
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta rolled around town in a white Lincoln Continental, a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes 300SE.
On the first Madaraka Day celebration in 1963, Mzee Kenyatta, in the company of Prince Philip (Queen Elizabeth's husband), stepped out in the Lincoln Continental which is the most controversial of the three.
According to a publication by Owaah the sleek convertible was seen in public a couple of times before it seems to have disappeared completely.
[caption caption=" Mzee Kenyatta in the company of Prince Philip"]
[/caption]
Additionally, the ownership and story behind this heavy machine is still unclear and remains a mystery to date.
The other recorded use of the car was when he went to Nairobi Airport to pick up his friend Dudley Thompson.
Mr Thompson was a Jamaican lawyer and famous Pan-Africanist, who had been one of the key lawyers at Mzee Kenyatta’s trial in 1952.
The affluence of the three cars was the subject of one of the earliest corruption stories in independent Kenya’s history.
A famous Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, in his biography Artur Domoslwaski, wrote about one of the articles “The Ruling Elite” that caused havoc in 1963.
[caption caption=" Mzee Kenyatta's Rolls Royce"]
[/caption]
Kapuscinski wrote: “Over a nine-month period in 1963, Kenya’s Prime Minister Kenyatta acquired three of the most expensive limousines in the world (a Lincoln Continental, a Mercedes 300 SE and a Rolls Royce-the price of these totals $55, 000).”
$55, 000 is today’s equivalent of Sh16,720,000 Million.
The article was discussed in the Cabinet and the Ministers wanted the journalist deported. However, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga defended him asking “Has this Polish journalist written anything that isn’t true?”
The convertible disappeared raising questions as to whether it was sold, or it could still be in the State House basement.
Questions also arose since just five months after that Madaraka Day, US President John F Kennedy was killed in Dallas in a similar blue 1961 Lincoln Continental.
[caption caption="The Lincoln Continental"]
[/caption]
