Corruption, murder, womanizing: Paul Ngei, the man who bullied Jomo Kenyatta

In prison, Ngei hurled endless insults at Uhuru’s father, often mocking his “eight degrees” from England besides calling him a thief.

In 2016, President Uhuru Kenyatta took Mashujaa Day celebrations to Machakos County where he unveiled the statue of Paul Ngei after whom Ngei estate is named. But Ngei’s standing as a ‘shujaa’ is debatable. Machakos town was where John Ainsworth, Kenya’s first Chief Native Commissioner, wanted the capital of the Kenya colony to be. Machakos, one of the colony’s largest ivory trading centres, was named after odieros mispronounced the name of wealthy Chief Masaku wa Munyati, the real Kahuna in business there. Wouldn’t Chief Masaku’s statue have been more befitting than Ngei’s? Ngei’s life did not mirror a distinguished hero. It was peppered by corruption charges, a murder trial, womanizing, blighting debt and eventual bankruptcy.

In Jomo’s Jailor: The Life of Leslie Whitehouse, biographer Elizabeth Watkins notes that Ngei was part of the famous ‘Kapenguria Six’ alongside Jomo Kenyatta in Lokitaung Prison which Ngei called the “St Lucifer’s Monastery of Lokitaung” as there were no “women, alcohol and cigarettes” Jeremy Murray-Brown informs us in, Kenyatta, the eponymous bio of 1973. In prison, Ngei hurled endless insults at Uhuru’s father, often mocking his “eight degrees” from England besides calling him a thief and “the hatred between the prisoners was serious,” writes Watkins, adding that Ngei and Kenyatta often had many a kerfuffle over food rations and prison tasks.