While many Kenyans know and talk much about the 1982 coup attempt on President Daniel Moi's government, little is said about another one 11 years earlier on his predecessor, Jomo Kenyatta.
Major General Joseph Ndolo who was the head of the military in 1971 is said to have hatched the plan to overthrow Kenyatta and would have taken over as president had the coup succeeded.
Recruited into the colonial administration King's African Rivals (KAR) in pre-independence Kenya, Ndolo rose quickly through the ranks of newly established Kenya Army which was established after independence.
In 1966 he became Army Commander with British officer Major General Penfold serving as Chief of Defence Staff.
"Although Kenyatta retained a British general as army commander-in-chief for two more years, by the end of 1964, Africans held all of the executive positions in frontline units," Timothy Parsons writes in his book: Military Unrest and National Amnesia in Kenya.
After the coup plot backfired, 12 men were tried and jailed on June 8, 1971, for conspiracy to overthrow the government of Jomo Kenyatta. Interestingly, Ndolo wasn't among them. Why and yet he was the chief plotter?
In an interview with the Daily Nation in 2009, the late Gen Jackson Mulinge, who took over from Ndolo, confessed that he dissuaded Kenyatta from arresting him leave alone jailing him.
He revealed that Ndolo had approached him to back the coup but he turned him down which 'saved' Kenyatta.
"Soldiers are trained to take orders from their superiors. In this case, Ndolo is their commander. To arrest Ndolo, you can’t send some junior officers to do so. You are inviting a mutiny Mr President,” Mulinge is reported to have told Kenyatta according to the Nation.
This could have also informed the decision to charge the jailed 12 plotters for sedition, which carried jail sentence rather than treason, which carried the death penalty. Ndolo was eased from office with full benefits and Mulinge promoted as the head of the armed forces.
The then Yatta MP Gideon Mutiso who was among the plotters claimed during his trial that he had written a proclamation letter which Ndolo would read out after overthrowing Kenyatta which among other reasons would state why the military had staged a coup.
Ndolo would then be sworn in as president by the then Chief Justice Kitili Mwendwa who was also implicated in the coup attempt.
Intense public pressure forced Mwendwa to resign later that year. He returned to public life after Kenyatta's death in 1978 only to die in 1985 in a car accident that was suspected to be an assassination.
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