That evening, nine men came to his home. They beat him up and chopped off three of his fingers – the thumb, little finger and ring finger completely. They had to be reattached by a team of doctors.
“I was lucky to survive that was just the first of my many brushes with death.”
OF ‘DEAR’
Now seated in his expansive office, I wonder aloud about Mrs. Njoya. He says that she is in the house and quickly picks up the phone and dials her number. “Dear, Jackie wants to see you…” the conversation quickly dissolves into a quick series of rushed words and nods.
He then informs me that his wife will definitely not be talking to press. And that is that.
“I met her in prison in 1966. I had gone to preach at the Lang’ata Women’s Prison, while she was doing research on inmates for the National Council of Churches of Kenya.
‘Women’s bureaucracy cannot work!’ were the first words I said when we met up in the office with the prison staff.”
Those words clearly didn’t impress Leah.
“What I had meant to say was that I had made the inmates co-operate by treating them like human beings. But Leah, turned to face me and said, ‘Don’t be proud. That happened because of the technique you used. If I went to a man’s prison and did the same I would get the same results.’ What a way to humble a man, and I fell in love right then,” he says with a chuckle.
“I had found a girl who would prevent me from going to hell. I did not even know her name then, but I knew I had found my lifelong partner.”
