Women waiting for food in Kolloa. The village witnessed one of the most heinous killings in the country. [Photo: standardmedia.co.ke]
The date? 24th April 1950. The event? The callous murder at Kolloa in Baringo. The players? A Pokot Dini ya Msambwa convert called Lukas Pkech and a young British Administrator called Alan Stevens.By the time the smoke of the guns dissipated that fateful morning, Lucas Pkech, 28 of his converts, 3 British Nationals including Alan Stevens and one unnamed African Askari lay in a pool of blood-dead!History would record this event as the Kolloa Affray. Yet the historians should have been kind enough to just call it a massacre.How the Dini ya Msambwa found its way to East Baringo is not known. It is however clear that Lukas Pkech, a Pokot convert, took the teachings of its founder- Elijah Masinde- so seriously that he used his movement to preach against the colonial government near the Kolloa area. Stevens attempt to curb his influence led to the confrontation on the 24th April 1950 as over 300 Msambwa converts armed with spears confronted the British Administrator leading to the massacre that formed an earlier resistance to British rule by black people.It is after the Kolloa affray that the MAU MAU insurrection emerged in Central Kenya.Elijah Masinde had begun a faith-based insurgency against the British rule by rallying his supporters to return to their African roots and ways of life. He urged them to worship 'Were' and he strongly believed that Mt. Elgon, which lies along the Kenya-Uganda border, was Zion.In 1948, Masinde and two of his followers were arrested and taken to the Island of Lamu where they were held until 1960.By then, Lukas Pkech had taken his teachings so seriously that he began spreading the faith around Kolloa.It was his teachings that would lead to a confrontation that led to the massacre at Kolloa. The then British District Officer at the region, Alan Stevens, could not tolerate the influence of Lukas Pkech and a clash was definitely imminent.Alan Stevens was educated at Brighton Collex in Sussex before he sailed to Kenya around 1948 to take up a post as a District Officer. As we celebrate heroes, we should not forget the man from East Baringo, Lukas Pkech, who resisted British rule in his own small way.