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Saturday March 19, 2016 | SATURDAY NATION

Mau Mau > Two home guards paid Sh3,000 as reward for capturing the rebellion chief

Sick Kimathi surrendered to

authorities to escape death

Fellow freedom ghters

were opposed to their
leaders decision to write
letter to British Governor
BY JOHN NGIRACHU

@JohnNgirachu
jngirachu@ke.nationmedia.com

n October 20, 1956, Dedan

Kimathi Wachiuri arrived at
the decision to leave the rest
of the Mau Mau in the forest and go
and surrender to the colonialists.
He was cornered; unwanted by his
fellow freedom ghters and hunted by
the colonialists and his menials, the
African home guards.
In July 1953, he had fallen out with
his colleagues in the Mau Mau, who
were unhappy with him for writing a
letter to the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring. Although three of his fellow leaders
of the freedom ghters were agreeable
and wanted him to meet the Governor,
the rank and le was not.
Kimathi was told about a plot to
kill him and moved to a hideout with
ve of his friends. There was a second
dispute in February 1954.
That is when I nally split from the
others, he said in documents made
public on Thursday by Chief Justice
Willy Mutunga.
Copies of the documents were
handed to the legends wife and family
last Thursday and provide the ocial
account of the events around his death.
Kenyans will also get an opportunity
to read what the man said in his own
words about his arrest and trial.
That second dispute and split from
his fellow Mau Mau marked the beginning of a lonely and haunted period
for the legend.
I knew that if I came out, either
police or home guards would kill me
in order to get paid. Also, I have been
writing frequently to meet the government because I knew that if I came
out to them I would be shot, he told
the court.
This fear of getting shot and the fact
that he was waiting for replies to his
letters were the principal reasons for
failing to come out of the forest.
On October 20, which incidentally,
was the same date that Jomo Kenyatta
and seven others were arrested for
fomenting agitation against the government and which is now Mashujaa Day,

the man decided to present himself to

the colonial authorities.
I was left all alone and I was ill. I
said to myself: It is better to come out
either to be killed, or if I am lucky to
get to the government. My intention
was to surrender and to give the pistol
and the ammunition to the government
according to the instructions which I
knew, he told the court.
He then started the walk to his destiny towards Kahigaini road, which was
leading from Ihururu in Nyeri, close to
the Aberdares Forest and arrived in the
reserve (village) at 7.50 pm. He had a
watch. But he couldnt go to the home
guards because they would denitely
shoot him.
Kimathi was hungry and went to
look for food in the shambas and
ended up with four maize cobs and
six sugar canes. There was a re in
a shamba and he roasted the maize
but dawn arrived before he could eat
the maize. It would be his last dawn
a free man.
He resumed his walk towards the
Kahigaini Road, then a murram road
into the forest from Nyeri and was in
valley below Thengeraini. The villages
known as reserves were surrounded by
a deep trench that prevented access to
village and forced anybody going in or
out to use a manned gate.
My intention was to come and stop
near the main road and have my food
and then come along the road to Kahigaini where there was a police post.
I had no intention of returning to the
forest. If I had intended to come back
into the forest I would have carried
more maize or potatoes or bananas
or about 20 sticks of sugarcane, more
food supplies, he argued.

The shooting

He was still in the trench when he

heard a gunshot. Ndirangu Mau and
Njogi Ngatia, home guards, had spotted him in the dim dawn light, shouted
at him in English, Who goes there?
Shouted at him in Kikuyu and then
started shooting.
Kimathi dropped the two maize
cobs and the sugarcane and started
running. The shots were coming from
the road he was approaching and so
he turned back and ran. None of the
shots hit him.
He sought refuge under a castor oil
tree and after 20 minutes he was
certain because he looked at the time
on his watch he saw a man going
from West to East in front of him.

Freedom
ghter
Dedan
Kimathi
before
he was
executed
at Kamiti
Maximum
Prison.
FILE |
NATION

Chronology

HOW DEDAN KIMATHI

GOT ARRESTED
Left alone and sick, the Mau
Mau leader decided to surrender
and seek out the government
Fallout with the rebellion left
KImathi feeling alone and haunted
knowing either way he would be
shot by the home guards or the
government
Despite identifying himself to
the guards, KImathi was shot
almost in the groin

After seeing him and noticing that

he had a gun I raised my arms. I did not
know who he was but I noticed he was
wearing a black overcoat and a whitish
cap. I did not know to which group he
belonged, but I thought he was one of
those who kill others, he said.
Kimathi raised his arms, dropped
a stick that was in his hand and said,
It is I Dedan Kimathi. I have come
to surrender. Dont kill me. I have a
pistol.
The man was not less than 10 or
more than 15 yards away. When he
heard me saying that I was DEDAN
KIMATHI. I have come to surrender he
lowered his knee got on to one knee.
He hit me almost in the groin. It came

out above the hip bone, he said.

That marked the start of his arrest
and eventual trial. His shooter was
Ndirangu, the homeguard and their
versions of the circumstances of his
shooting diered. The home guard said
he shot Kimathi in ight, while the
freedom ghter and his lawyer Ralph
Millner argue that the home guard shot
him to get the reward.
Ndirangu and Njogi Ngatia were paid
Sh3,000 as the reward for capturing
the feared ghter. The documents also
debunk the story, repeated over the
decades since Kimathis death, that he
was betrayed to one Ian Henderson, a
British police ocer.
To make it easier to convict him,
Kimathi was charged with illegal possession of a rearm and ammunition
rather than being a member of an
outlawed organisation or even terrorism, which is what the British had put
Sh10,000 bounty on his head.
But it is evident in the records that
the trial and the appeals up to the highest court then, the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council, were predestined
to end in his death. The drip with the
colonialists disdain of the Africans
was evident in the trial. The prosecution quite naturally won and Kimathi
quite naturally lost all his appeals and
at 6am on February 18, 1957, he was
hanged at Kamiti Prison.