A trip to Marsabit town in Marsabit County, in Northern Kenya, some 423 Km from Nairobi City, was like going to hell and back.
I left my house that Tuesday morning for the newsroom at Nation Centre, in Nairobi, dressed in a suit and matching tie for my official news beat in Parliament which was to start at 2.30pm. with the usual daily prayer, led by the veteran Speaker Francis Xavier ole Kaparo. But that was not to be. A tragic dawn plane crash in Marsabit, some 7.5 hours away by road from Nairobi through Nanyuki and Isiolo, that morning had turned all our plans upside down.
I had never imagined visiting the dusty town which I only knew about from the map of Kenya and a few television news and documentaries mostly about the arid area, regular clan fights over pasture, and frequent famine and drought spells.
As a journalist, the name Marsabit and anything to do with Northern Kenya which had been closed in the 1960s, 70’s and part of 1980s, under Northern Frontier District (NFD) because of insecurity and attempts by the Somalis to secede to Somalia, featured in my mind for all the wrong reasons. Now I had to transform myself from being a bystander to a first responder!
The exception, was when Former Foreign Minister Bonaya Adhi Godana, was visiting his North Hor Constituency to review development projects and/or take donors to visit the largest constituency in the country.
My plans for the day were completely shattered by an urgent call on my cell phone by Catherine Gicheru, the News Editor, summoning me to report to the News Desk and join a team of colleagues to be driven to Wilson Airport, some 10Km away, to take a flight to Marsabit town immediately.
Another colleague, Njeri Rugene and photographer, William Oeri, were already on their way to Eastleigh Kenya Air force base to try to hitch a ride from one of the pilots to Marsabit. Everyone in the newsroom was in a panic mode with telephone calls ringing loudly as leaders and members of the public yearning to confirm the rumours.
So I asked the News Editor what was the urgency and the breaking news, the response was short and swift: “Go to Wilson Airport and board a hired helicopter to Marsabit where we have received information that Dr Bonaya Godana and several Assistant Ministers and Members of Parliament have crashed in a hill near the town. So far we don’t know whether there are any survivors!”
The directive was to be followed to the letter with no room for an excuse or adjustment. Indeed, until that morning when I arrived in the formal suit and tie ready to cover parliamentary proceedings, as usual, on a Tuesday afternoon, it never occurred to me that my letter of appointment had stated crystal clearly that I can work anytime, anywhere in the Republic of Kenya and at the pleasure of NMG and my bosses.
Meanwhile, the drama started in the office pool car as the communication between the News Editor and one of my colleagues on the speaker phone made life even more miserable and tense. Our media house was banking on a free ride from Kenya Air Force and/or AMREF (African Medical Research Foundation) Flying Doctor Air Ambulance Services, but bounced forcing the management of the leading media house in the country and East Africa to hire a chopper.
To be honest, I had never prayed continuously and persistently and hard as I did as we headed to Wilson Airport hoping against hope that my colleague at Eastleigh Airport would succeed and thereby I would not be needed to board the aircraft. But 10 minutes later, I received the worst news of the day that the Kenya Air Force chopper was full and could not accommodate journalists! It was worse that the two had been blocked from entering the airbase because Oeri, was a former Kenya Air force officers who had been sacked for leaking sensitive photos of a plane crash to NMG, had been blacklisted from accessing any military facility.
I had no choice with my colleagues, a photographer and two from the television department, but to board the chopper piloted by a Caucasian who gave us a quick instruction of how to wear the seatbelt and ear pads which doubled as our communication gadget.
Within minutes we were airborne heading to Marsabit overflying the city’s industrial area, residential and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), on the side. It was not my first time to fly in a chopper, but that did not make the ordeal less scary watching the highrise buildings a stone’s throw away, while seeing motorists and other car users zooming on Thika Superhighway and other feeder roads heading to and from Mt Kenya region and neighbouring counties of Machakos, Kiambu, Muranga, Nyeri, Meru, Isiolo and Marsabit.
The tension was palpable throughout the three hour flight as our pilot communicated with airline controllers at JKIA, Wilson Airport and Nanyuki Kenya Air force base about “the bad weather” in Marsabit, suspected to have been the cause of the chopper crash.
An attempt by the pilot to make us relax by cracking jokes about his experience in the aviation industry for over a decade was not successful as we all held our breadth and made silent prayers for a safe journey to and from Marsabit.
Fore Warned is Foretold
The pilot had informed us that aviation rules would not allow him to fly back with us in the night, so by 6pm. He relaxed his seat and called it a night as he munched his snacks and enjoyed his refreshments.
One of the most scenic parts of the flight was over flying Mt Kenya and seeing some wild animals like elephants and giraffes roaming freely; and the longest straight road I have ever seen stretching for miles on end from Isiolo to Marsabit town, which is surrounded by Marsabit National Park, through Archers Post and Laisamis towns in Turbi desert.
We arrived at the Marsabit airstrip in hazy weather and could hardly see the control tower and the few light aircrafts parked of the runaway. We heaved a sigh of relief. It is between two hills, with the town perched on one of them, But it was short lived as we were informed that the crash site was 10 Km away on a slope of one of the hills.
After consultation with the airline controllers and security officers on the ground, our pilot was advised to take off and fly us to the ghastly site where we saw the Kenya Air force plane that had crashed into the slope of the hill during the bad weather earlier and left 14 leaders, who were on a peace mission, dead on impact.
They were Dr Bonaya Godana, Internal security Assistant Minister Mirugi Kariuki; MPs Titus Ngoyoni, Dr Guracha Boru Galgalo and Abdi Tari Sasura; and Bishop William Waqo. All the passengers except two military officers and Eastern Provincial Commissioner, Patrick Osare, were killed in the crash.
When recently I managed to catch up with Osare, who is my neighbour in Fort Ternan, former PC says: “I did not remember anything because I was asleep during the tragic plane crash.” Osare and his two colleagues were later hospitalised for several months and they have lived to tell the tale of the tragedy. He works as a consultant in and out of the country from his farm in Fort Ternan Settlement scheme in Muhoroni, Kisumu County.
Among the top Government officials at the crash site were Defence and Interior Ministers, Njenga Karume and John Michuki, respectively. The distraught ministers later addressed the media before they flew back to Nairobi in a Kenya Air force chopper. My photographer, Joseph Mathenge, tipped me to dash for the AMREF light aircraft which took off immediately after we boarded it leaving our NTV colleagues, David Okwemba and Somoe Athman behind for another four days to file copy and send video footage to headquarters.
The flight back in the Cessna was more comfortable and much faster, better and less noisy. When the plane landed at Wilson Airport two hours later, it was another big sigh of relief as we made another silent prayer, and thanks to an end of a high octane day and assignment.
Looking back, Okwemba, who has since moved on from NMG, says at that time Marsabit was a one-street town with only one reasonable hotel. It had not been connected to the national grid and the noise pollution by the numerous roaring of generators was obvious to any visitor and residents.
Says Okwemba: “On that night, all the rooms were full in the hotel, and it ran out of food! I found the residents of Marsabit town not only friendly, but very accommodative to strangers and visitors.”
On the brighter side, the former Investigative Editor says that things have since changed since the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution and implementation of devolution, which created 47 counties.
“The rough, dusty murram road that used to run from Isiolo is now fully tarmacked all to the way to the Kenya- Ethiopian border to the North,” says Okwemba.
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