When the angel of death swooped on us after a homecoming in Busia

 Martha Karua and retired Chief Justice Willy Mutunga during her book launch. [Courtesy]

Martha Karua has littered her memoires with nuggets of wisdom life has taught her. 

Among the lessons life has thrown her way is the necessity of listening to the inner voice that is always guiding, and firing us up from within. “It reveals your authentic self, and helps you to stand with courage of your conviction,” she says.

 The tide, she adds, may be strong, but so too is the resolve of those who choose to go against it. 

In 2003, the angel of death swooped on Karua and her colleagues in Busia, as they took to the skies. 

Today, few remember that she survived a plane crash that killed her cabinet colleague Ahmed Khalif, and the two pilots Sammy Mungai and Abdikadir Kuto. 

Her friend Wanjiru Kihoro remained in a coma for years, and eventually died from the injuries.

After the naming of the Cabinet in 2003, and with the Rainbow euphoria still in the air, the NARC team, especially the Cabinet ministers started holding victory celebrations that came to be known as “homecoming” parties. 

One such homecoming was in Busia County near the Kenya-Uganda border to celebrate the victory of Mr Moody Awori, the newly appointed Minister for Home Affairs, whom we fondly referred to as Uncle Moody on account of his amiable personality and relatively advanced age. 

The celebration was slated for Friday, January 23, 2003. We travelled on a chartered flight from Wilson Airport in Nairobi to Busia Airstrip, landing on a dusty and rarely used runway. 

We had trouble landing due to the large number of people who had thronged the airstrip to meet us and who proved difficult to control. We had to circle the airstrip several times as we waited for the police to push back the surging crowds. 

We finally landed safely and had a great day at Uncle Moody’s home followed by a victory rally nearby. When time to leave came, we were driven back to the airstrip. Martha Koome and I accompanied the then-long-serving Attorney-General Amos Wako in his car. Mr Wako had requested that we stop by his mother’s house. His mother, a pioneer in nursing and women’s empowerment, had expressed her wish to meet me. 

I obliged and we had a brief but pleasant chat with Mr Wako’s mother, who has since passed on, bless her soul. From there, Mr Wako suggested we pass by his house briefly, which was along the way, and we again obliged. When we finally arrived at the airstrip, we found our colleagues already on board, waiting for us.

I apologised for delaying them but was informed that Labour Minister Ahmed Mohamed Khalif, was yet to arrive. Mr Khalif arrived shortly thereafter, and the crew quickly got the plane ready for takeoff. 

I distinctly remember the Information Minister, Raphael Tuju, who was on board, asking the pilot if the runway was not too short for the aircraft. The pilot assured us that the plane had a mechanism for accelerated take-off, which he would deploy. 

Soon, the engines were revving, and we were ready for take-off. I was seated on the right side of the plane, a few rows from the front, a seat which I jokingly referred to as “first class”. 

Before take-off, I moved to the second row on the left, immediately behind Mr Khalif, with whom I was engaged in a conversation. I asked why he had kept us waiting in the sweltering heat, and he answered that he had been at a nearby mosque for prayers. 

In 2003, the angel of death swooped on Martha Karua and her colleagues in Busia, as they took to the skies. [Courtesy]

With a light touch, I expressed my hope that he had prayed for us all. He then extended an invitation to me for his own homecoming, which was scheduled for the coming Sunday at his home in Wajir. 

This was, however, too close to the one for Mr Odinga, the Roads Minister, which was slated for the next day, a Saturday, in Siaya County, more than a thousand kilometres away from Wajir. 

Our plan as we took off was for the plane to take a detour to Kisumu Airport to drop off those of us who intended to proceed to Mr Odinga’s Bondo home, where his wife Ida had invited us to spend the night. 

I asked Mr Khalif if he could postpone his homecoming possibly to the following weekend so that we could also attend.

“We must take the Rainbow to Wajir, in style,” I remember telling him. Although he was open to the idea of postponement, he indicated that he had to travel to Wajir the following day, nonetheless, to communicate any such postponement. 

We readied for take-off and as the plane lifted off, I looked behind and told Martha Koome, who was seated behind me on the opposite row: “Madam, take notice we are airborne”. 

These were the last words I recall before the plane crash. I must have passed out because I do not remember much else after that. I woke up in a hospital bed, unable to lift myself. 

I was unaware of what had happened or where I was. I then saw a person in green scrubs, and in a very tiny voice, asked him where I was, to which he replied: “Busia”. 

“What the hell am I doing in Busia?” I shot back groggily. In that instant, the door opened and the Attorney General, Mr Wako, and Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, then Minister for Trade, walked in. At that very moment, it all came back to me. 

These were the colleagues I had been with before being dropped off at the Busia Airstrip. I remembered being on a plane and realised there must have been an accident. 

I even remembered that Mr Wako had offered to give us his driver to take us to Kisumu, slightly over an hour away, so that we could stay longer in his house, but I had declined on account of other colleagues accompanying us to Kisumu already having arrived at the airport. 

“Amos, you should have persuaded me hard enough to go by road”! I remarked to Mr Wako, who remained silent looking at me helplessly. I asked about the other colleagues who had been on board with me and was informed that they were at Busia Hospital, where I was to be transferred. 

The accident, I would later learn, was devastating. Martha Koome and I could not be initially accounted for because our rescuers took us to the nearest facilities, in my case Tabaka Mission Hospital. 

For a while, we were feared dead, but there was no trace of the bodies at the scene of the crash. Before the government’s official communication, rumours about “our deaths” had begun to circulate, and some of my constituents were already in mourning. 

It was a harrowing experience for my family, especially for my children. I later learnt from my sister Esther that upon hearing the news, she and my children hurriedly drove to her office, where they set up a “command centre” from where she hoped to receive and give updates on the situation as it unfolded. 

To date, I still do not know who took me to Tabaka Mission Hospital, but I know that were it not for the Good Samaritans, I would not have received the life-saving stabilisation and care that I did. 

The injuries on my head were stitched as a first aid measure to stop the bleeding. I was then transferred to Busia Hospital, where the rest of the injured were, to await the arrival of a rescue plane from Nairobi. 

We were all lying on stretchers in a corridor, in the company of well-wishers I asked Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, to call my sister Esther. In the confusion, however, I ended up giving him my number instead of hers! Eventually, I was able to call Esther and tell her I was alive and in hospital. 

I requested her to convey the message to my parents and children. I also asked her to organise for my insurer, Africa Air Rescue (AAR) Air Ambulance to come for me. In the end, two flights came for us, one from the government and another from AAR. 

On the flight to Nairobi, I simply could not stop talking. For some reason, I feared that if I did, I would die. I later learnt that I had been injected with morphine to ease the pain, which had left me incredibly hyper. 

I knew I had serious injuries because I could not lift myself. I was motionless but alert and talking non-stop. While at the Busia Hospital, I was informed that our two pilots and Mr Khalif had sadly perished in the crash. However, the enormity of the sad news did not hit me until days later. 

I have no recollection of where we landed once in Nairobi or being transported to the Nairobi Hospital in an ambulance. It felt like we had landed at the hospital, where I was immediately wheeled into a ward. 

I remember seeing people lining up the corridors as I was being wheeled in. I saw my children and asked them to go home and sleep because they had school to attend. 

I expressed concern about seeing my good friend Wairimu Thande that she would be driving to her home in Limuru on the outskirts of Nairobi late at night. Clearly, I was out of touch with reality and did not appreciate the enormity of the situation or how traumatised all these people were. 

When I later saw my photograph in the media, with blood all over my face, hair and clothes, I got to understand what a terrifying sight I must have been. Following treatment at the Nairobi Hospital, my recovery was fast. On the fourth day of hospitalisation, I addressed the press at the hospital to reassure the public that all was well. 

As I left the hospital to continue my recovery at home, I requested to be taken to see my friend Dr Wanjiru Kihoro, who was still in a coma at the hospital. I would, thereafter, visit her as regularly as I could, initially at the Nairobi Hospital and later at Kenyatta National Hospital to where she had been transferred. 

As a colleague, friend, and survivor of the plane crash, I felt I had a responsibility to check on her and her family, who remained by her bedside throughout her hospitalisation. 

Dr Kihoro had been part of the movement for change and had done tremendous work in sourcing financial support for the NARC campaign as well as managing the women’s kitty that Martha Koome and I had mobilised for the women aspirants. 

Additionally, she led the mobilisation of funds from friends abroad, including a neighbouring government, taking the risk of transporting the funds to Nairobi by road. 

Dr Kihoro was a great team player, and her efforts were well appreciated by President Kibaki. She had hoped to lobby for an appointment as Kenya’s ambassador to Brussels, but unfortunately, her dream never came to be. 

I kept the Cabinet apprised of her progress, with President Kibaki, Uncle Moody and Mr Odinga always expressing their deepest concern and hope for her recovery. Uncle Moody especially felt indebted, given that we were his guests when the crash occurred. He always came through when called upon to assist. 

A master planner, Dr Kihoro was not only large but also in her actions and her heart. Her subsequent death in 2006, after over three years in a coma, robbed her family of a key pillar and the country of a brilliant mind and a patriot. 

While still at the Nairobi Hospital, I learnt that President Kibaki had suffered a stroke and was admitted to the same hospital. 

He got better and was discharged ahead of us. We never got to meet him while there but would later learn the stroke had taken a heavy toll on him, for which he needed considerable time to recuperate. As a result, we did not hold Cabinet meetings for close to six months. 

The plane crash and President Kibaki’s stroke jolted the nation from a carnival mood to a somber mood.

The book was published with support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation Regional Office, South Africa. It is available in all leading bookshops.