Colonial Officer takes guard of Africans during the colonial period. [Photo/ SoftKenya.com]Flashback to the year 1900. The theatre of resistance? An outpost on a place called Riwo which is present-day Kolow. The main actor? A white colonial administrator from Uganda called Hyde Baker. There is a deliberate attempt to subjugate the Marakwet by establishing a colonial outpost on the Eastern banks of Kerio River at present-day Kolowa.Hyde Baker is short of grains for his workers. The Endo of Marakwet have persistently promised to give Hyde Baker the grains, but they do not fulfill their promise. Annoyed, Baker sends his sergeant with a band of 42 Nubian askari to forcefully take the grains from the stubborn Endo.As fate would have it, they arrive in the area near Chebilil to find the Marakwet in the middle of a wedding feast. The generous Marakwets welcome them to partake in merrymaking and beer drinking. The Nubian askaris drink themselves silly as the beer flowed freely. As soon as they were all drunk, the Endo people lay siege on them and massacre all except one who escaped.Soon, with the help of the Suk of Cheptulel, the Marakwet from Endo lay siege on Hyde Baker at Kolowa.They are however repulsed when some Njemp assist the colonial government. Soon after that, the colonial government sends a white man called Gorges to lead a reprisal attack on Marakwet and Suk.It is however soon clear to the colonial government that the outpost at Kolowa had to be closed.Moral lesson for NASA? It is not good to start a war you cannot finish.Secondly, resistance requires strategy.

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