Assassination of Waruhiu

The assassination of Waruhiu is the unsolved murder of Kenyan Chief Waruhiu suspected to have been planned by the White settler community in colonial Kenya on 7 October 1952. The Chief was a church elder, evangelist, teacher and administrator who grew up with and was educated by the American Gospel Missionary Society (GMS) mission station in Kambui location of Kiambu. This mission affiliate of The People’s Church of Christ of New Britain, Connecticut, USA sprung from the revival movements of the late 1880s that swept through North American states. He carried out his evangelical work in Kiambu with these missionaries through teaching the gospel and planting churches in his community. As chief he carried on his duties with distinction and excellence earning him several awards by the British Administration including the MBE. At Gachie, a location seven miles outside Nairobi, The chief’s car was trailed by unknown assassins where after blocking his car, a single gunman walked up to him while he was seated at the back of his vehicle, asked him his name and shot him in his car. At his funeral that was attended by a multitude of mourners, his family and various Kenyan leaders, Governor Evelyn Baring called him "a great man, a great African and a great citizen of Kenya, who met his death in the service of his own people and his Government." His death was used by the British Colonial Administration as the much needed catalyst to declare a state of emergency in Kenya two weeks later, a result that largely benefitted the White Settler Community who could thereafter retain the large tracts of land they were growing cash crops on. The entire Mau Mau uprising was an agitation by Kikuyus asking for their land back from these white settlers. The murder of senior Chief Waruhiu remains unsolved despite the hanging of two innocent men that were prosecuted and executed in a murder trial riddled with illegalities. The African court assessors present throughout the murder trial submitted their report that the men presented in the colonial court could not have been the chief’s killers based on the evidence presented in court. Their observations were ignored by the British trial judge who left colonial Kenya soon after delivering the judgement.