On 12th February 2020, the journey of Kenya’s longest-serving President Daniel Torotich Arap Moi on earth comes to an end.
Moi passed on at Nairobi Hospital on Tuesday around 5.20 AM after a long battle with an undisclosed illness.
With his burial plans underway, the date of his interment will definitely be an emotional moment for his family and for many people who had kept close ties with him.
However, history reminds Kenyans and the world at large that the very day the second president is set to be laid to rest on the very day a crucial Cabinet Minister in his government went missing and later found dead in February 1990.
The day awakens the old wounds of people who until today have been craving for answers on who murdered Robert Ouko, then Foreign Affair Minister in Moi’s government, but have never received any.
Ouko’s death took the nation by storm to the extent of shooking Moi’s government to the core and until to date, and failure to get to the root of happenings leading to his death dented the late Moi’s legacy.
To many who believe so, the Late Moi will be buried with the answers of who and why Mboya was executed.
Ouko was reportedly picked from his Koru home on the night of February 12-13 by people known to him. His remains were later on discovered at the foot of Got Alila, a small hill 2.5 kilometres from his home.
He had been tortured; his bones broken and shot through the head before his body was burnt.
A police statement indicated then that he left his house in haste towards Nyando River armed with his walking stick, pistol, a torch, a briefcase with clothes to change and a jerrycan of an inflammable liquid.
Upon arrival at the river bank, he undressed and dipped himself in the cool waters to bathe.
The police further stated that Ouko then dressed up in fresh clothes, broke his leg and left shoulder, shot himself through the head and, just before he died, set himself ablaze, then neatly arranged the stuff he had carried. Then, he lay on his back to die …
Scotland Yard pathologist, Dr Ian West, told the Commission of Inquiry into the murder that his remains had literally been grilled before being dumped at Got Alila.
The arrival of Moi at Ouko’s Koru home for the burial ceremony was met with a rude reception after a group of rowdy university students started shouting at him saying “You killed Ouko! You burnt Ouko! Now eat him!”
Placards were designed blaming Moi for the murder while others labelled him the murderer.
It took the intervention of Ouko’s wife Christobel, who asked the crowd to follow in the footsteps of his husband who loved peace, for the late Moi to speak.
Until then the Late Ouko’s death remains a mystery leaving the Late Moi, apparently, on the receiving of the blame.
And as Moi is set to be interred on February 12, it reminds many that it is the very day that Ouko was dragged out of his house to his death exactly 30 years ago.