In two or three instances Mzee Kenyatta's body was exhumed from parliament for embalming in city mortuary, Lieutenant General (Rtd) Daniel Opande was one of few officers who witnessed.
Mzee Kenyatta was buried in parliament but since then, the place is closely guarded by the military with only few people allowed to access it.
In his book, In pursuit of peace in Africa, the former military officer recalls that the casket of Mzee Kenyatta was quite heavy and during exhuming of the body, three months after the burial, they struggled.
Perhaps, this coincides with British records that preparations for Kenyatta's burial started a decade earlier, where the coffin was made in London.
“We entered the mausoleum and with the help of a handful of soldiers set out to take out the casket. It was quite heavy and tricky to remove but we managed to bring it out successfully. It was immediately transferred to the waiting military ambulance for the journey to the City Mortuary.”
Upon arrival at the mortuary, Opande says that the body was placed on the large table, wrapped in a white sheet as he carefully watched. He says it appeared well preserved.
“On arrival at the mortuary,” Lt-Gen Opande recalls, “We transferred the casket inside. The pathologist, Dr Rao, and his assistants who were on standby quickly opened the casket and carefully removed the body and placed it on a large table draped with a clean white sheet. I watched carefully as they cleaned the remains that appeared very well-preserved.”
Thereafter, the body was taken back to the mausoleum. Kenyatta died aged 89 according to pieces of information gathered from him.
“Within an hour, the body was placed back into the casket for transportation back to the mausoleum. Later that night, my task accomplished, I called Gen Mulinge and informed him of the success of our mission,” he writes in the book published last week by East African Educational Publishers.
Opande would later serve as Army Commander before he was deployed as head of Kenya's peace keeping missions in Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone among other countries.