Meet Kenya's president who ruled for six hours.
The story of Hezekiah Rabala Ochuka is only known by very few Kenyans. He was the senior private in the Kenya air force and surprisingly enough he managed to overthrow Moi's government for six hours after executing a coup which raided the national broadcaster VOK now KBC where they found Leonard Mbotela and forced him at a gunpoint to announce him as the president.
The whole country went into confusion as a heavy gunfire filled the air that was on 2nd August 1982. That was when Moi announced that all Kenyans should stay indoors until the matter is solved.
When Ochuka realised that things had gone wrong to him, he decided to flee to Tanzania for his safety purposes.
As we all know, Moi's era had a lot of rules and he was the powerful president ever. His rule could be described as a dictatorship one. That is why Ochuka was not successful in his plan. During all these chaos and confusion, many people lost their lives. For instance, more than 100 soldiers and 200 civilians died. Economy was also disrupted at the moment. The loyal men in the army finally managed to crush Ochuka's army.
While there he was extradited back to Kenya according to the law of extradition. He was tried and found guilty of the crime. He was later hanged in the year 1987 at the age of 33. That was when his story was cut short. Many Kenyans say that Ochuka's act is what made Moi to enact strict rules in the country. The rules also applied to the army since the president realised that some unqualified people were recruited into the army.
Comments
Post a Comment