When Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died in 1978, several things happened behind the scenes, with the bureaucrats keen to ensure smooth succession.
By the time he succumbed, only few senior government officials were aware of the development and a few military officials.
Air Force Commander Dedan Gichuru, who flew to Mombasa to pick the body, issued instructions to little known Warrant Officer II (Rtd) Amonde Oyugi, to prepare an ambulance at Eastleigh's Moi Airbase.
By the time he loaded the body to the ambulance, Amonde told the Standard in the recent interview, he wasn't aware that it was Mzee Jomo Kenyatta's body.
“Drive straight to State House. Don’t stop and don’t speak to anyone,” he remembers Gichuru telling him.
“I confirmed it was Kenyatta when we reached State House after a tense journey. I was shocked. We opened the coffin and placed the body on a bed. I started wondering why I had been picked to do the job. But I also felt like a hero,” he says.
Amonde, 79, who has since retired to Homa Bay, says the mission was so secretive that only Mama Ngina, Mzee Daniel Moi and Maj Gen (Gichuru) were around.
“So secretive was the movement from Eastleigh Air Base to State House that many senior government and military commanders were not in the picture,” he says.
He managed to realise that he was ferrying the body of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta where he saw Mama Ngina weeping through the mirror of the ambulance.
“Moi sat pensively besides me, peering straight ahead and lost in thought. Through the mirror, I could see Mama Ngina sobbing," he adds.
After delivering the body at State House, Amonde says, he was asked to take the coffin to City mortuary where he donated it for public use.