President Yoweri Museveni reveals that he almost became a victim of a Giant British Gunman in Nairobi.
The current President of Uganda however managed to escape by sheer luck, to Arusha, via the Namanga border.
The gunman of course was none other than Patrick Shaw the formerly Nairobi-based English police reservist, who may have had his pistol ready to execute the would-be Ugandan Head of State.
Patrick Shaw was implicated along with Pius Thuo, Peter Njau and Peter Kimani as suspects in the murder of Josiah Mwangi (JM) Kariuki, the outspoken Kenyan politician.
Museveni documents in his book, ‘Sowing the Mustard Seed,’ that he met Patrick Shaw at the Nairobi Hilton Hotel in the late seventies.
It should be noted that JM Kariuki was also kidnapped from the same Hilton Hotel before his dead body was discovered in the forest.
The Nairobi Hilton closed business in the New Year eve of 2023.
But during the fateful day, Museveni happened to have been seated with his nephew Kiyombo Christopher, in the Hilton Hotel Lobby.
The Bulky Patrick Shaw was meanwhile slouched on an armchair across the foyer, pretending to read a Newspaper as he continued to spy gaze at Museveni over the pages.
Museveni panicked because he had heard some notorious stories about Shaw so while heading towards the toilets, he quickly walked over through the back of Hilton and hired a special taxi for Namanga.
He reached the Tanzanian side of the border in one and a half hours, heading to Arusha.
By the time Museveni, who Shaw was tracking, got to Tanzania, the policeman was still unaware and waiting for him to return from the rest rooms.
Realizing Museveni could have made a dash for it, the plain clothed policeman went straight to Christopher Kiyombo, who was still in the hotel foyer and asked him where Museveni had gone.
Of course, Kiyombo ‘couldn’t have known!’
A member of the Kenya Police Reserve, Pat Shaw was an intimidating man, standing six feet tall and weighing in at nearly 140 kilogram.
Despite his size the modern day Goliath was a sharp shooter who never missed his target.
There are reports that Pat Shaw rarely slept, suffering from a glandular disorder.
He therefore chose to spend his free time, night or day, patrolling the streets of Nairobi City driving in a white Volvo car, hunting down criminals.
He killed Nairobi’s most notorious gangsters and hundreds of others.
Observers believe Shaw was probably the most prolific, if not the most unorthodox, lawman that ever lived in East Africa.
Who sent Shaw to kill Museveni at Hilton Hotel?
Writers Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey, document that during the 70s, Museveni also kept up some guerrilla activities with the quiet support of Tanzania.
Obote and Museveni had very little to do with each other. Despite their alliance in Uganda People’s Congress (UPC).
In 1964 Museveni had been one of the young UPC leftists expelled from their temporary alliance, Museveni had long been critical of Obote and the party when its Youth League was banned.
In the late 1960s he was involved in radical politics while a student at the University of Dar es Salaam and began to consider himself a Marxist.
In an interview in early 1972, Museveni accused Obote of paving the way for Amin’s takeover by allowing the Israelis to penetrate Uganda’s military and intelligence services.
He also faulted Obote for his initial collaboration with, and then subsequent violent suppression of, the reactionary Mengo feudal clique within the Baganda.
“I do not think that having to choose between Obote and Amin is a pleasant choice for many Ugandans. What many people want is a fresh beginning.”
Between 1971 and 1974 Museveni and his supporters attempted some modest sabotage and intelligence gathering inside Uganda.
In early 1973 he publicly announced the formation of a new organization called “The Front for National Salvation” (FRONASA).
It had an estimated two hundred members and a radical manifesto entitled “An Indictment of a Primitive Fascist.”
About this time a Fronasa camp near Busoga was discovered and much of the organization’s internal network exposed.
In February nine FRONASA people were among the first group of twelve Ugandans publicly executed by firing squad.
In 1974 Tanzania arranged for some of Museveni’s followers to receive guerrilla training with Frelimo at its Nachingwea base in southern Tanzania.
Tanzania, fearful of being caught breaking the Mogadishu Agreement, was unwilling to train Ugandan exiles itself.
Museveni brought forty to fifty young men to Nachingwea, but the recruits were reportedly very unruly, and the training was short-lived and of little value.
That same year Museveni, who had been receiving a stipend from the Tanzanian government, decided to earn a living.
Between 1974 and 1978 he taught at the technical college in Moshi, and FRONASA activities dwindled.
In mid-1978 as prospects for fighting Amin improved, Nyerere called Museveni to Dar es Salaam and gave him a house, car and allowance.
Museveni began once more full-time FRONASA organizing, including again traveling incognito into Uganda through mostly Kenya.
Another Tanzanian-based exile group carrying out small-scale sabotage activities with behind-the-scenes aid from Tanzania was the Save Uganda Movement (SUM), founded in Nairobi in 1973 by Ugandans in Kenya.
From this flow, it is definitely that Museveni created many enemies in the 70s and early 80s.
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