Colonialists used a strange tactic while attempting to kill Mzee Jomo Kenyatta when he was in detention in the 1950s, Daily Nation reports.
According to the publication, the British knew that Jomo loved Scotch whisky. He picked up the taste in while staying in London between 1933 and 1937.
As such, they supplied him with up to three bottles of the drink every day hoping that he would die of liver cirrhosis.
A retired police reservist, Tim Symonds, revealed that he once supervised the delivery of crates of alcohol to Jomo's prison cell.
In 1955, when his shift was about to end, he received a message ordering him to return to a police station near Nanyuki.
Upon arriving, Symonds met a white police officer who asked him to take charge of a Land Rover that had been loaded with crates.
A driver was assigned to take him to a secret location to deliver the cargo.
When they arrived at the secret location, which turned out to be a prison, a Kenya police officer asked him to settle down and have a drink.
After finishing, Symonds found out that the cargo had been unloaded from the Land Rover. He later discovered that it was Scotch whisky.
The officer who had invited him for a drink later explained that Jomo Kenyatta was being held in that facility and was being provided with three bottles of Scotch every day to kill him.
However, the plans of the colonial masters did not work. Eight years later, in 1963, Jomo became Kenya’s first black prime minister. Shortly after, he became Kenya’s president. He lived until he was 89.
