With barely 140 days to this year’s polls, it has emerged that the controversial 1969 oath that sought to restrain the presidency to Kikuyu’s did took place.
Two weeks ago, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cousin Kung’u Muigai sensationally accused the head of state of going against the oath by backing ODM leader Raila Odinga’s presidential bid.
While Kung’u apologized for revealing the details of the oath that sought to prevent Jaramogi Oginga and his descendants from leading the country, Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria made similar remarks.
Kuria in a long Facebook post on Friday, March 19, sensationally claimed that more than 300,000 Kikuyus were rallied to take an oath-at a fee- binding them never to elect an uncircumcised person.
Though the details of the oath remain scanty, the highly clandestine Ichaweri oath which was documented in black and white by late Reverend John Gatu occurred against the backdrop of Kenyatta’s bitter fallout with the then vice-president Jaramogi Oginga.
In the documentary, it was reported that the 1969 oath was orchestrated by the late President Jomo Kenyatta’s inner circle commonly referred to as ‘Kiambu Mafia’.
On the morning of June 9, 1969, Gatu, the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa received a call from Kenyatta’s Ichaweri’s home and was invited for a meeting with the president.
Gatu in his memoir said he thought the summons was due to his sermon condemning voter bribery only to find out that he was to participate in the oath ostensibly to solidify the Kikuyu unity.
“It was summons in disguise. We were expected to take a Gikuyu oath, which was being administered to “all Gikuyu of goodwill”, ostensibly to solidify the unity of the tribe,” Gatu said in his explosive memoir.
He further revealed that those who were opposed to participating in the oath were abducted, tortured, and even killed.
Apart from circumcising their daughters, the oath-takers who feasted on raw goat meat vowed the following;
1. To ensure that the presidency (Uthamaki) remains within the House of Mumbi and moreover, it was never to cross beyond River Chania which is the border between Kiambu and Murang’a counties.
2. The residents were being asked to denounce family planning in order to increase the community’s population and thereby the vote.
3. They were made to vow to, in Gatu’s words: “defend the flag ‘against the uncircumcised’, in this case, the Luo.”
4. Some reports indicate the Kikuyus were also made to vow they would never allow their daughters to intermarry with the Luos.
