Former President Daniel Arap Moi has always been regarded to be one of the most feared leaders in the history of Kenyan politics as he ruled the country for 24 years with an iron fist.
This has largely been attributed to his handling of critics and those who opposed his administration and was even accused of torturing some of them and forcing others into exile.
However, according to a report by Daily Nation on January 1, 2017, one man who served as an assistant minister in Jomo Kenyatta and Moi's own governments once took the former head of state head-on forcing him and other ministers to flee from Parliament.
John Keen was known to be one of the boldest politicians who was never shy of drama and controversy during his political career which lasted more than thirty years.
In 1975, former Nyandarua North member of parliament Josiah Mwangi Kariuki famously known as JM Kariuki went missing and his mutilated body would be later discovered at the city mortuary.
On the day his decomposed body was discovered and the matter reached Parliament, MPs went into a rage, forcing cabinet ministers, including then-Vice President Daniel Moi, to flee Parliament Buildings with flags removed from their official cars.
It was alleged that the MPs had been led by Keen who was extremely furious forcing the VP to run for safety.
The following day, the assistant minister is said to have carried a gun into the National Assembly concealed in his breast-pocket vowing to fight in case anyone tried to arrest him.
“I carried my gun with me just in case somebody wanted me to disappear JM's way. Should that happen, I thought I should go down fighting,” he once narrated.
The government was forced to form a commission of inquiry into the death of the legislator but the report tabled was shot down by Keen and his group stating that “there’s no collective responsibility in murder!”
This was not the first time Keen was getting into trouble having proposed overthrowing of the Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian governments as the only way to have the three nations become one - an idea he had frequently advocated for.
Following the remark, he was arrested by police and detained without trial for close to nine months as being the major hindrance to the unification of the East African Community.
The former journalist expressed dismay that Moi actually appointed him assistant minister in the Office of the President after he ascended to power in 1978.
“Somehow, Moi trusted me. Though hot-headed, I was honest with him. I was one of the very few people who could tell him to his face what he didn’t want to hear,” he recalled.
After dozens of years of lighting political fireworks, Keen who was former Kajiado MP, died on December 25, 2016, and was later buried at his home in Namanga, Kajiado County.
The Standard on December 27, 2016, reported that during his school days, Keen was known as “Mr Rebellion” for questioning all the ideas that were proposed by his teachers at Alliance High School in the colonial era.
The late Kajiado North MP was reported to have never set foot in a church or identify with any religion citing among other reasons, the depiction of Jesus and the angles as white men, but the devil a black man.
