THE DAY KENYA ALMOST OWNED ZANZIBAR
It was a Sunday morning, January 12, 1964, when the telephone in the Office of the President rang.
The man on the line introduced himself with the confidence of someone who had just rearranged history.
“This is Field Marshal John Gideon Okello. I have overthrown the Sultan of Zanzibar. But now… I don’t know what to do with this country. Can Kenya please come and take it over?”
For a moment, silence filled the room. In Kenya’s corridors of power, pens stopped, teacups froze midair—everything hesitated, perhaps waiting for the punchline.
The Marama people from Butere say, “When the lizard falls from a tall tree and survives, it looks around to see who is clapping.” Okello had fallen from the sky, landed on the Sultan, and was now looking for applause—or adoption.
Within hours, a security meeting was convened—a congregation of Kenya’s finest minds and fastest talkers. Around the table sat senior police officers, intelligence chiefs, and men whose job titles sounded more important than their salaries.
In front of them was a large map of Zanzibar—spread out like a patient on an operating table.
“Gentlemen,” the presenting officer declared, “Zanzibar is ripe for takeover. A beautiful island, strategic location, tourism potential, a ready government waiting for us!”
Brigadier Joseph Ndolo nodded vigorously. “We could fly the Air Force there immediately. If it becomes necessary, I will send in the Air Force!”
Nobody reminded him that the Kenya Air Force was still technically a wing of the British Royal Air Force—like promising to borrow your neighbour’s car to elope with his daughter.
But spirits were high. In that room, Kenya’s best brains plotted to become a maritime superpower overnight.
Someone had to tell Mzee Jomo Kenyatta about the plan. So they sent Dr. Njoroge Mungai—physician, relative, and part-time messenger of impossible requests.
He drove to Gatundu, rehearsing his pitch: “Mzee, there’s a small island up for grabs—beautiful beaches, excellent for tourism, one previous owner—and slightly used by a Sultan.”
When he arrived and explained everything, Kenyatta just stared at him. Not a word. Not a grunt. Not even that legendary “Aaaiiih” that usually preceded wisdom.
Dr. Mungai, thinking the old man was meditating on destiny, excused himself. “I will return tomorrow, Mzee.”
By morning, Kenyatta had vanished to Nakuru. No note, no instruction—just silence. And in politics, silence can be louder than a siren.
The officers waited for orders that never came. The plan died the quiet death of all African dreams—in committee.
Meanwhile, in Zanzibar, Field Marshal John Okello—a 27-year-old Ugandan with a heavy Luo accent and the zeal of a prophet—had done the impossible.
Armed with little more than homemade weapons, he and his ragtag army toppled centuries of Arab rule in nine hours flat. It was a revolution so swift that even the bullets seemed confused which side they were on.
Okello went live on Radio Zanzibar, thundering:
“The Sultan must kill himself and his family! I, Field Marshal Okello, am now in charge!”
For someone who had just conquered an island, he had the modesty of a man asking for extra sugar in his tea. Instead of declaring himself President, he invited Sheikh Abeid Karume—then exiled in Tanganyika—to come and lead.
When Karume arrived, Okello received him like a proud father handing over the keys to a stolen car.
But politics is like a hyena’s tail—it never stays straight. Within months, Karume plotted against Okello, branded him a madman, and denied him re-entry when he went abroad. The plane carrying him was told to land anywhere but Zanzibar.
He landed in Tanganyika instead, where Nyerere and Karume began whispering about him like two suspicious neighbours.
From there, Okello’s life became a passport with no destination. He was deported, ignored, and eventually silenced—drifting through Congo and Uganda, finally seen in the company of Idi Amin.
But Okello never stopped calling himself Field Marshal. “If I die,” he once said, “God will make another Field Marshal who will continue the work of liberating Africa.”
He died in 1971, largely forgotten—except by historians and dreamers of lost empires.
Had Kenya accepted Okello’s offer, we might today be The Republic of Kenya and Zanzibar.
In the end, Nyerere and Karume merged their lands to form Tanzania, while Kenya stayed put—steady, cautious, continental.
And now, decades later, when Museveni dreams of taking over the Mombasa coastal strip with his son Muhoozi, some say they are trying to relive those old days of independence, when borders were still wet ink and ambition was the new religion.
Others whisper that such dreams are not patriotic—they are simply demented echoes of Field Marshal Okello’s ghost still wandering the shores of the Indian Ocean, looking for a country that might finally clap for him.
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