FILE | NATION Traders forage through what remained of their businesses in Nairobi in August 1982, after an attempted coup to overthrow Daniel Moi was crushed by loyalist forces. The mastermind, Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, was Kenya’s “president” for less than six hours, but the adverse ripple effects of the abortive coup lasted more than two decades.

In the early hours of 1 August, 1982, exactly 30 years ago today, Kenyans woke up to a coup attempt by junior rebel officers of the Kenya Air Force against the government of then president Daniel arap Moi.
More than 100 soldiers and 200 civilians died, including two (West) Germans, an Englishwoman, and a Japanese male tourist and his child. Two Asian women committed suicide after being raped, and the economic damage kissed the Sh500 million ceiling.
The madness lasted less than 12 hours, but the damage is still with us. The mastermind, Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, was Kenya’s “president” for less than six hours, but the adverse ripple effects of the abortive coup lasted more than two decades.
Yet the poorly planned coup could have been nipped in the bud.
Lieutenant Leslie Kombo Mwamburi of the Kenya Air Force, Nanyuki, had informed his superiors about the impending revolt, even giving the date and time of the onslaught. Mwamburi had taken oath of allegiance to the coup but had a change of heart and sold out the plot, as he later testified during the court martial that followed at the Lang’ata Barracks.
Also, a month to the coup, Peter Ngare Kagume, the acting commander of the Kenya Air Force, Nanyuki, informed commanding officer Colonel Felix Njuguna of the plot. Nothing was done.
At Nairobi’s Moi Air Base, where the coup was plotted by the swimming pool, Air Force commander Major General Peter Mwagiru Kariuki had been informed about the coup plans. The Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Joseph Mulinge, asked Major General Kariuki to ensure that the informer was arrested and made to give the details and names.
Major General Kariuki, despite pleading that he had been misled by the military intelligence that a coup was impossible, was later discharged from the army and jailed for four years in January 1983 for failing to suppress the mutiny.
The Special Branch too, which had infiltrated the military, knew about the coup and even had the names of the perpetrators-to-be. Indeed, two days to the coup, James Kanyotu, the then spy chief, had asked President Moi for permission to arrest, among others, Sergeant Joseph Ogidi (who had tried to recruit Mwamburi), Corporals Charles Oriwa, Walter Ojode, Bramwel Injene Njereman, and Senior Privates Protas Oteyo Okumu and Hezekiah Ochuka.
But the President did not deem it fit that the police should get embroiled in military arrests as that would have been tantamount to insubordination. The matter, he said, would be dealt with internally on Monday, 2 August.
But alas! At midnight on August 1, the coup, which envisaged seizing control of the Voice of Kenya, the Kenyatta International Airport’s control tower, the Wilson Airport, the General Post Office, and the Central Bank of Kenya “to protect people’s money”, besides blowing up State House Nairobi, JKIA, and President Moi’s home in Kabarak, started in earnest.
Retired President Moi was never the same again after surviving the coup by “stupid fellows who had no manners”, as Charles Njonjo termed them.
Here is how the failed 1982 military coup affected Kenyans, directly and otherwise:
Era of political repression
President Moi once told Ronald Ngala to “take it easy, our time will come”. Ngala was then wondering why Moi allowed himself to be cold-shouldered and demeaned by hirelings in the Kenyatta administration.
Well, the attempted coup provided him with an arsenal to settle old scores and assert himself by systematically instituting an oppressive one-man state through consolidation, centralisation, and personalisation of power while neutralising disloyal elements, real and imagined.
In his book, African Successes, David Leonard notes that the coup attempt was “a piece of good luck” for Moi. The attempt legitimised Moi’s reorganisation of the command structure of the armed forces and the police. Once the attempt had been made and suppressed, he was able to remove leaders from positions that were most threatening. The armed forces and the police “were neutralised”.
Ben Gethi, the Commissioner of Police, for instance, was detained at Kamiti and later retired “in public interest”. Moi also eliminated Kikuyu and Luo officers from the military and put in Kalenjin and non-ethnic challengers. For instance, he named General Mahmoud Mohammed — an ethnic Somali — the army chief of general staff.