Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s intelligence didn’t fail him and he even managed to intercept a love communication that was going on between his daughter and cabinet secretary Paul Ngei.
When Ngei and Mzee were imprisoned at Kapenguria, they both wrote to Margaret often and one day their letters were mixed up and Kenyatta got a hold of what Ngei had penned Margaret.
According to Kenyatta’s biographer, Jeremy Murray-Brown, Ngei was complaining about the prison’s maddening solitude in the intercepted letter.
Brown described the communication as “Flowery, passionate and full of neat Kiswahili phrases.”
Kenyatta then confronted Ngei and joked about him being in a relationship with his daughter.
“What are you going to say now. I’ve caught you, ehee! You’ve kept mum for a long time and you are a son-in-law… and never said a thing,” Mzee quipped.
Kenyatta didn’t seem to mind because the relationship between him and Ngei did not change.
Ngei was known for his affinity to ladies. A few days before they were released, a woman visited Ngei accompanied by two young children.
When the woman left, Kenyatta joked that the children closely resembled Ngei.
Ngei responded that they were indeed his, adding that the colonisers could take away everything except his manhood.