Career
Kenyatta and the others were Kenyan nationalists jailed for managing Mau Mau. The six defendants, Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Kung"u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng Oneko were arrested in 1952, and tried in 1952-1953 for the offence of managing Mau Mau, then a proscribed society. Macharia testified at this trail that in March 1950, he had taken one of the Mau Mau oaths at Kenyatta"s hands.
He further claimed that the oath-taking involved stripping naked and drinking human blood.
Macharia"s submissions were the only evidence of a direct link between Kenyatta and Mau Mau produced before the court. Mau Mau was proscribed in August 1950, so, even had the claims been true, it is unclear that they proved Kenyatta"s membership, let alone management, of a proscribed organisation.
In 1958, Macharia swore an affidavit to the effect that he and six others had perjured themselves at the trial. The prosecution witnesses, he claimed, had been coached, and some of them were rewarded with plots of land at the Coast.
He had himself been offered a university course in public administration at Exeter University College, protection for his family, and a government job on his return from the United Kingdom The affidavit was backed by a letter, apparently from the Attorney-General at the time of the trial, detailing the promised benefits.
Macharia was later to write a book: The Truth about the Trial of Jomo Kenyatta.
