THE STARTLING REVELATION ABOUT A LUO FARMER WHO SHOT AND KILLED A SENIOR COLONIAL POLICE OFFICER AND ESCAPED THE HANGMAN'S CHAMBER BY WHISKER

  By Leo Odera Omollo
 
  In this country ( Kenya ) many historians are known and notorious of turning
the historical events that took place only a couple of years ago upside down for
personal aggrandizement or for selfish glorifications.
 
  But one of the many unsung heroes of our struggle for political independence
was the late Mzee Elly Onyuro Athembo, who was later popularly known as (Sir Elly). He is only named after a small village market near his home located next to the Miwani Railways Station which is known as Ka - Elly Market. Nobody has ever remembered or bothered to give him a recognizable street name in the nearby Kisumu City , where people with dubious backgrounds have been named promiently in the city streets.
 
  This is the man who shot and killed Chief Inspector Roberts, the former senior
colonial police officer who was the then Commanding officer of the Kisumu's main Police Station (O.C.S).
 
  The incident took place on one late Sunday afternoon in early 1953. It was
during the height of the state of emergency in Kenya where killing a white
senior police officer was simply interpreted as part of Mau Mau activities and
anti - colonial uprising by black nationalists in Kenya.
 
  Elly Onyuro Athembo (later Sir Elly) was one of the first few Africans to go
to school. He studied up to standard VIII at the famous Maseno, which he left in 1934.

  Amongst his cl;assmates were reknown Kenyan leading nationalists like the late Walter Fanuel Odede, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the late Peter Oranga, a former D.C. and many others.
 
  Upon leaving school Elly Onyuro Athembo was employed as a revenue clerk for the then North Kavirondo . No doubt his employment was influenced by his elder brother the late Ex - Senior chief Owili Athembo who was then the locational administrative chief for the entire Kano Plains. He was the contemporary of the late Ex - Chief Musa Nyandusi of Nyaribari in Kisii, the late Ex -Senior chief Gideon Magak of Kasipul and the late Ex - senior Chief Cherborge Arap Tengecha of Buret in Kericho. The Kano Plains was later to be splitted into a dozen of smaller administrative locations with two parliamentary Constituencies namely Nyando and Muhoroni and four Administrative Divisions and a district headquarters at Awasi.
 
  Elly Onyuro Athembo worked for about ten years, but was soon induced to sugar cane farming and later cattle rearing and breeding as well as rice farming by his former schoolmate the late Peter Oranga who was then working as an
Agricultural Officer near Ahero.
 
  He died a couple of years ago aged about 90 years, but died a successful large scale sugar cane farmer and businessman. But it was his countless herds of cattle, which he owned made him miss the colonial Hangman Chamber at Kamiti Prison by the Grace of God.
 
  One late Sunday afternoon in early 1953, Elly Onyuro Athembo carried his
licenced double barrel short gun as he escorted his cattle back home from the
grazing field along the Kenya Railways line linking Miwani and Chemelil
stations. Since he was about two kilometers behind the front cattle, which were
numbering several hundreds, little did he knew that the animals ahead had
blocked the murrum road for an arrogant, rude and brutal colonial police Chief
Inspector. This was none other than Officer commanding Police Station at the
main Kisumu Police Station  Chief Inspector Roberts.
 
  Already feeling humiliated and jittery the OCS waited in vain for about 30
minutes for the last herds of cattle to cross and clear the road for him. He
lost his temper and came out fire pitting at the herds boys pointing again at them.
 
  He then ordered the three African police constables who had accompanied him in a Police Land Rover to alight and confiscate the entire herd of the cattle and to drive them along the railways line to Kisumu about 30 kilometers away.
Immediately the native askaris obliged and stepped down on the soil they met the wrath of Elly Onyuro Athembo who violently resisted them.
 
   This was after the white Officer had exchanged the nasty words of abuse with
him. They challenged each othet to a gun duel. The OCS was armed with a revolver while Onyuro Athembo had a short gun with much longer range. He felled the white officer with one single bullet to the neck.
 
  After the bitter argument had ensued, it was the OCS who first pulled the
trigger of his hand - gun, and Elly Onyuro Athembo responded with the
devastating sound of gun explosion, blasting the arrogant colonial police
officer to the ground.
 
  The colonial authorities immediately responded by dispatching a contingent of
police men numbering into hundreds. They were joined by the men from the Kenya African Rifles (KAR) and the exclusively European only soldiers unit the Kenya Regiment, which was equivalent to the present GSU.
 
  Reinforcement of more policemen  were called from the outlaying districts like
Kericho, Kakamega, Kapsabet and Kisii joined. The hell then broke out not for the Athembo family alone, but the entire Kamagaga sub-clans and villages around Miwani with the arrival of hundreds of policemen who had been assigned to join the search for the fugitive gun-man who had slain a police officer and went into hiding.
 
  The news of the incident was flashed on page one of the then The Only daily
the East African Standard, which was the favourite of the white settlers and
Colonial administrative officials and its Swahili sister weekly Baraza. The fear
gripped Nyanza with claims that the Mau Mau terrorists were spreading into the western part of the country.
 
  The same evening while armed to the teeth,Elly Onyuro Athembo quietly slipped out of his Miwani home and walked in the darkness up to a place called
Nyan'gande in West Kano Kabonyo.
 
  There he walked into papyrus bushes of Lake  Victoria which remained his
hideout for one good month. He used his gun to scare away Hippos, Crocodiles, snakes and other dangerous animals. He used the same gun to feed himself by killing antelopes and other animals for food until he ran out bullets.
 
  He contacted his old schoolmate at Maseno a Mr. Acher Nyalick and
clandestinely discussed with him the rescue options .It was agreed that his
other school mates like Jaramogi Oginga  Odinga,Walter Odede and others be
contacted. Nyalick in turn contacted some inclined Sikh farmers in Kibos and
Miwani seeking for their help to supply him with more bullets. A Mr. Karam Singh, an old friend who voluntarily and readily supplied him with a carton full of ammunitions which kept him alive for another month in his hideout in the
wetlands of L. Victoria.
 
  His old schoolmates agreed to contribute money for his legal fees .They
consulted his family members while he remained holed in the wetlands as some of his cattle were sold in market places as part of fundraising for his legal aid.
 
  In total Kshs. 6,000 was raised .The late Jaramogi Odinga and his friends then contacted a Kisumu based law firm which was known as Kholi and Raichura for legal advice. The Indian lawyers declined to take up the case saying they would not get a better trial before the biased Europen Judges .They recommended that a European lawyer be contacted to take up the case .Major Russle then a prominent white lawyer in Nairobi was  contacted and agreed to take up the case .He told the Indian lawyer to ask for Kshs. 6,000.He later flew  into Kisumu Town in a chartered airplane for 150/- .But his first stop was at Nyanza Club, which by then was exclusively for Europeans only. It was a place of bad and good gossiping for the white only patrons.
 
  While having a beer at the Nyanza Club, major Russell met a white Settler
farmer from Songhor not far from Miwani who told him the whole truth. His
contact told him that the slained former OCS had adopted bad behaviours and that he was an amorous man who preyed on other people's wives and daughters.
 
  Major Russel   also discovered that on the fateful date when he was shot, the
police man was not on duty, but was on his amorous mission to meet another
settler farmer's wife. He had also stolen the police Land Rover with out a
signed work ticket. Armed with all this kind of information, Major Russel in the
company of  Mr.Raichura hired a taxi and visited Elly Onyuro Athembo's secret hideout location in the Westlands of Lake Victoria at night and persuaded his client to come out of hiding. The next day Major Russell personally escorted   Elly Onyuro to the Nyanza P.C a Mr. Williams, to the Regional Police Boss and to the Chamber of the resident Judge and left him under police custody before he flew back to Nairobi .
 
  But with a stern warning that should anything  happen to his client while in
police custody ,the three would be held responsible .The lawyer Major Russel
also gave instruction that the suspect be fed with food prepared by his own wife back at home and not the common prisoner is ration.
 
  The legal battle was later ensued in court and after several adjournments due
to lack of witnesses. The charge of murder was reduced to that of manslaughter
and Elly Onyuro Athembo (Sir Elly) was inernated for only six months.
 
  Due to the above facts of events the people of Kano later in honour of the
gallant Elly Onyuro Athembo renamed the nearby market at a place where he had shot and killed the policeman as Ka-Elly Market. It is just located two
kilometers away from Miwani Sugar Mills also next to Miwani Market and Railway Station .These places are historically significant to the locals today.
 
  It was also the same colonialists who had earlier  called upon Elly Onyuro's
father , Athembo Onyuro to go and settle in the area so that his home could act
as a buffer zone between the warring Nandi and Luo tribesmen at the beginning of the last century around 1903. This was meant to stop the Nandi's from
vandalizing the railways line. It was the same Miwani where the arrogant and
brutal and power drunk European Police Officer met his sudden death and paid
with his life for doing the wrong thing at the wrong place.
 
  Elly Onyuro Athembo is blessed with over a hundred sons, daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren.His offsprings included several doctors, academicians, proffessors, professionals and aspiring politicians.One of his sons Dr.S.R Athembo Onyuro is now prominent businessman in Kisumu,both cane farmer and transporter in the Miwani,Chemelil Muhoroni zone.
 
  Dr. Athembo Onyuro is one of the Parliamentary hopefulls currently aspiring
for the Muhoroni seat whose incumbent is the embattled Prof. Ayiecho Olweny, who is under pressure to quit. As the 2007 general elections are only about 15 months away, the Muhoroni voters will soon decide whom between Prof. Ayiecho, Dr.Athembo Onyuro, Omulo Okal, Onyango Koyoo and Polycap Ocholla will be their next MP.


  ENDS
  Leooderaomolo@yahoo.com   

The writer is LUOCOME REPORTER based in Kisumu. We urge all LUOCOME members with pressing issues pertaining to media and press releases to kindly contact him from any where in world. He will assist you to get true picture of your Village Developement.
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