Baringo icon who got access to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta while in detention dies

From left: Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba, Henry Cheboiwo, Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Moi, Paul Ngei and Fred Kubai in September 1959. Moi, who was a Legco member, was accompanied by Cheboiwo to pay Kenyatta a visit while in prison. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]

He was among the few Kenyans who reached Mzee Jomo Kenyatta when the latter was in prison.

It was an honour not many got, but Henry Cheboiwo was lucky after President Daniel Moi, then a member of Legislative Council representing Rift Valley, picked him to accompany him because he understood English and Kiswahili and had a little background in politics.

Cheboiwo's journey to politics started with this trip to prison in 1959. He later became the Baringo North MP for 22 years.

The former MP died last week at the age of 89. Moi, while recalling the historic journey he and Cheboiwo undertook to Kapenguria to visit Mzee Kenyatta, said his death had greatly saddened him considering how closely the two worked during the struggle for freedom and after independence.

"Cheboiwo will be remembered for his immense contribution to the socio-economic development of Baringo in particular and Kenya as a whole," Moi said.

When The Standard spoke to him before he died, Cheboiwo was a walking history. He witnessed key chapters of Kenya's history unfold.

He was around when the first explorers were still mapping Kenya. He witnessed the violent struggle for freedom, the hoisting of the flag when Kenya became a free country in 1963 and the signing of the new Constitution in 2010. He also saw its implementation, four years on.

Cheboiwo had recalled the first meeting between former President Moi and his predecessor, Kenyatta, when the latter was in detention in Lodwar. During that meeting, Kenyatta passionately appealed to Moi to push the colonial government to have him transferred from the harsh Lodwar environment to a friendlier and more accessible location.

Kenyatta, alongside other political leaders, had been arrested on October 20, 1952, for leading the struggle for self-rule.

The colonial government arrived at a decision to allow Moi visit Kenyatta because Lodwar fell within his jurisdiction as the member of the council for the region. The visit was to later prove fruitful when Kenyatta was transferred to Maralal in Samburu.

Cheboiwo too was instrumental in the first delegation by Kanu members from Rift Valley who went to Gatundu to meet Kenyatta to discuss the merger of the two colonial-era parties, Kadu and Kanu, and the disbandment of the Majimbo system.

Cheboiwo was among the first architects and shapers of Baringo politics when Kanu picked him to contest the 1966 election following the creation of Baringo North constituency. He became the first MP for the constituency.

 

BY-ELECTION

Cheboiwo represented Baringo North until 1979, when he was voted out in favour of Zephania Kipkebut Chepkangor. This however did not augur well with his friend, President Moi, who personally intervened.
The intervention led to a by-election in 1980 in which Chepkong'a relinquished his ambitions for the job after serving for only six months, in favour of Cheboiwo.

Cheboiwo then served Baringo North constituents while doubling up as a minister and assistant minister in the  of Co-operative Development, Health, Environment and Natural Resources ministries until 1988 when he was trounced by his cousin, Willy Kamuren.

Even after retiring from elective politics, Cheboiwo remained an active Kanu delegate in Kabartonjo. The former legislator has also been a mentor to his successors. According to his first-born daughter, Margaret Kaptuiya, Cheboiwo got his early education between 1940 and early 1950s at Kapsabet School for his 'O' levels and later joined Kabete Technical School where he took up training in masonry.

Cheboiwo once told this writer of an incident where he was involved in a road accident near Stem in Nakuru and the first person to come to his rescue was the former President. "Immediately after the accident, the president's motorcade, which was heading to Kabarak stopped by," he said. Moi ordered an evacuation by the military, based at Lanet, to Nairobi for medical attention.

Kaptuiya said her father he had been admitted at Nairobi Hospital since July. He will be buried on Saturday at his home in Tirimionin, Kabartonjo, Baringo.