Gatundu South Member of Parliament (MP) Moses Kuria on Tuesday night, June 2, shared two puzzling messages that alluded to his life being in danger.
In the two posts shared on his official Facebook account, the vocal legislator compared himself to leaders who had allegedly been assassinated by previous regimes.
However, Mr. made it clear that he is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the country.
“Kungu Karumba, Dr Johnstone Muthiora, Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, JM Kariuki. The take-home message of the day, the sword never went back without meat. Lord Hear Us.
“So what after you kill me? Am I the last one who will speak the truth to you and your power?” his statement reads.
Interestingly, his reference to a sword came on the very day President Uhuru Kenyatta used a sword story during the Jubilee Parliamentary Group meeting held at State House.
“My father taught me that sometimes you unleash the sword, but always remember to secure it in its sheath,” the president stated.
A look at the assassinated leaders that the Gatundu South legislator shows a tale of mysterious deaths that left the nation with more questions than answers.
The Five Deaths
Kung’u Karumba
His death remains unresolved to date as he was technically declared dead after his body was never found 7 years into his disappearance.
A close friend of Kenya's first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Kung’u met his death after pretending to be his brother in Uganda.
He had travelled to the neighbouring country to collect a Ksh 19,000 debt from a woman, Margaret, who had taken goods from him and promised to pay later. On arriving at her shop, a heated exchange ensued and Margaret threatened to report Kung'u to her husband in the military.
There and then, Margaret dialed a number and spoke in Luganda: “Nguudi jaree? Bwaja mugambe muita (Is he there? Tell him I am calling him)."
Early the following day, a barmaid visited the house where Kung'u had been hosted to inform them about drunk soldiers who were celebrating killing 'Kenyatta's brother' and dumping his body in Mbira Forest. His body was never found.
Dagoretti MP Johnstone Muthiora
His death is also unresolved to date, with many theories claiming that it was politically motivated.
After a bruising campaign and win in the Dagoretti parliamentary seat in the 1974 General Election, pitting him against Njoroge Mungai - grandfather to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s aide Jomo Gecaga, Muthiora died a year later.
The new MP, Dr Muthiora, was notified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of an invitation for a private visit to India, which sadly turned out to be his last.
While touring the vast country, Muthiora started complaining of sharp pain on his shoulder. However, the doctor who was called in to treat him was described as suspicious.
It is claimed the doctor was carrying some paraphernalia wrapped in an old newspaper, and upon mixing some concoctions, the ‘doctor’ injected the MP with what he purported was a painkiller.
The MP was then flown back to Kenya and admitted at the Nairobi Hospital where his condition worsened. Despite blood donations from the Attorney General at the time Charles Njonjo and Vice President Daniel Arap Moi after doctors stated that the legislator’s blood was poisoned, he went into a coma and died.
Pio Gama Pinto
The vocal activist who had the eerily similar belief to American freedom fighter, Malcolm X largely accused the Kenyan government of land-grabbing, which included Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta.
Pinto, a Goan, was a member of the ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu), headed by Kenyatta, but ideologically he was closer to Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first vice-president.
He was often threatened and even a month before his death was aware of the plot to kill him by prominent politicians. Although upset about the plot, he carried on as normal until his assassination.
“Pio was murdered to silence him and put an end to his dream to implement socialism, the ideals for which the people of Kenya had formed government,” his brother Rosario wrote in the tribute titled Pinto, My Brother.
Tom Mboya
Mboya’s 1969 assassination outside Chhanni's Pharmacy on Government Road (now Moi Avenue) is well documented, yet the identity of his killer remains a mystery to date.
Police launched the biggest manhunt in Kenya's history, with over 400 police assigned to the case. As riots swept across Nairobi, a suspect –Nahashon Isaac Njenga was arrested and he went on to plead guilty.
However, during his arrest, he issued a single statement that has become the subject of heated debate over the decades.
"What about the big man?" he asked as he was being arrested. This riddle is yet to be resolved to date.
Josiah Mwangi (JM) Kariuki
His untimely death is also well documented. Despite miraculously surviving a bombing, he was killed the next day in March 1975.
Nation reported that the first person to alert JM of the price on his head was fellow Cabinet colleague and namesake GG Kariuki, who told him a strategy was already in place to murder him and advised that he seeks an audience with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta before the worst happened.
His friend Elizabeth Koinange anonymously booked two tickets for her and JM to travel down to the coast as he waited for an audience with the president.
On the day they were supposed to travel, another of JM's friends disclosed to the politician that he was being secretly followed and his phone monitored, therefore he should not travel to Mombasa.
He agreed and shelved the plan. Moments after, the OTC bus he was to travel in left Nairobi and a bomb exploded inside killing 27 of the passengers.
JM must have thought that he had survived an assassination attempt but unknown to him, he was kidnapped tortured and eventually killed and dumped at Ngong' Forest, all within 48 hours of the bomb explosion.
His famous quote “Kenya had become a country of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars!” seemed to have rubbed some people the wrong way and his death came soon after, with his killers yet to be identified to date.
Moses Kuria’s decision to pick out these five mystery murders seems to have been well thought out. All five victims had a common thread and none of their killers was ever identified to this date.
