Ngumo wa Nderitu was a former prison guard who participated in the execution of General Tanganyika. He shares experience of the nitty gritty of the history of residence during the turbulent political history in Kenya. Happy reading.
When General Tanganyika was ready to be executed, a Catholic priest by the name of Father Marino offered to baptize him, absolving his sins against the Christian God. Tanganyika, like many Mau Mau freedom fighters, believed that people who die fighting for their country’s freedom live forever and are always remembered and revered by their people and country. Of course, the priest differed. According to Ngumo, he explained to Tanganyika that without baptism and believing in Jesus of Nazareth, heathens and pagans like the Agikuyu, despite their contributions and achievements here on earth, would definitely go to hell after death.
Tanganyika: And those who are baptized and believe in Jesus of Nazareth, where do they go after death?
Priest: They go to heaven to live with God and his Angels and his son Jesus.
Tanganyika: How about the British who are killing us, raping our women and have occupied our country, where do they go after death?
Priest: Well, if they are baptized and confessed their sins, they go to heaven.
Tanganyika: I see…so the British, the killers of our people; go to heaven. Then I do not want to go to heaven. I want to join our heroic ancestors in the next world after I die.
Priest: Your so-called “heroic ancestors” were pagans and devil worshippers, therefore they are not in heaven; they are in hell. Are you sure, that is where you want to go? Think again. You have a few minutes to live.
Tanganyika: Please, you are wasting my time. Go and tell your friends that I am ready.
On July 6, 1956, at midnight, the British imperialists executed General Tanganyika, the 33-year-old Commander-in-Chief of the Kirinyaga KLFA front, in Nairobi Maximum Security Prison (now Nairobi Remand Prison) and buried him in handcuffs in an unmarked grave at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. He never asked for mercy or apologized for his patriotism. Six days after the execution of General Tanganyika, Brigadier Nyoro wa Kiragu was shot and captured and, like General Kago, the British occupiers savagely burnt him alive. The ashes were collected into a huge container, put in an army truck and taken away. The Kenyan people would like to know what the British did with General Kago’s ashes as well as Nyoro’s?
The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 50s and 60s.(Wikipedia)
Kenyans demand the return of all material culture, including Kago’s and Nyoro’s ashes, confiscated or looted by the British imperialist occupiers during the war of national independence.
Despite the execution of General Tanganyika and Brigadier Nyoro, the British colonial regime had problems in containing the onslaught of the KLFA forces in the Kirinyaga region. “After the capture and execution of General Tanganyika,” General Mwariama explains, “the Kirinyaga KLFA forces regrouped, drew up a new strategy and continued with the resistance. From the beginning, we knew that the struggle would involve a long road and some of us would fall in battle, grisly tortured, raped, imprisoned, and killed, but the struggle would continue everyday until our country is liberated.”
