It now emerges that founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta would not have been the president had Charles Njonjo and Tom Mboya had their way.
According to Kenyatta's lawyer Fitz De Souza, a plan had been hatched to make Mboya president immediately after Kenya became a republic, with Njonjo being the chief schemer.
In his book dubbed Forward to Freedom published earlier in the year, Fitz reveals how Njonjo disliked Kenyatta and began his plot by trying to scuttle his support base.
His first target was youthful freedom fighter of Goan origin Pio Gama Pinto. Ironically, he attempted to use Fitz in an attempt to sabotage his own boss by sending him to Pinto.
Fitz, also a Goan, narrates how he was summoned by Njonjo to a tea meeting, where he had already begun referring to Mboya as 'president', and sent him to Pio.
"I arrived to find Tom there also. "Fitz, I have something very serious to say to you," announced Charles. "Tell your friend not to back that old man as President of Kenya." By ‘my friend’ I knew he meant Pio Gama Pinto, and the ‘old man’ was Kenyatta," he says.
"Why?" I asked. "Because," replied Charles in his lordly tone, "he is totally incompetent; he’s senile." "But who could you put in his place?" "He’s sitting right here; Tom is the man," narrates Fitz in his book.
In the plot he says had been in the making before independence, Fitz says that Njonjo was not sure of his fate in Kenyatta's leadership, hence his Mboya choice.
On the other hand, he says, Mboya was assured that sticking with the heavily polished and lordy Njonjo would see him take over from the British when the time finally came.
“What Tom (Mboya) saw in Charles Njonjo was an opportunity. Like Bruce (Mackenzie), he realised that Charles’s bearing, outward intelligence and ability to express himself could be used for political gain. He also assumed that Charles had no ambitions,” he says.
However, the plot never succeeded though the British preferred Jaramogi Oginga Odinga to be the President.
Fitz did his best to ensure that the slot went to Kenyatta, then a detainee in Kapenguria.
Mboya ended up being the Labour and Economic Planning Minister in Kenyatta's leadership until his assassination in 1969, while Njonjo retained his seat.