57 years on, Kenyan man wants his teeth back from the British

He groaned and trembled in pain as a burly doctor forcibly extracted his six teeth in the most barbaric fashion. A shark-faced colonial District Commissioner paced the tiny operation room to ensure he did not escape the punishment. An African medic, barked at the hapless 16-year-old boy as he pulled out the teeth and placed them on a surgical plate. He had not applied an anaesthesia because that was the preserve of the white men and a few loyal Africans. Today, 57 years later, Thomas Magero Oluk shudders as he narrates his ordeal.

"The pain was unbearable. I never imagined that I would be alive after the sixth tooth were extracted without anesthesia. I bled profusely," Oluk says. He says even traditional experts who extracted the six lower teeth of Luos during the old days used herbs as anesthesia. Last week, an angry Oluk said he is planning sue the British Government to compensate him and return his set of six lower teeth forcibly extracted at the orders of then Kitale DC, Mr Roe Wilson at the Kitale District hospital as a way of punishing him in 1953. "I want my teeth back," he said.



He adds: "The doctor used a pair of pliers. I cried my heart out and bled profusely as the DC smiled," says Oluk, now 80. The polygamist father of 12 was working for the Ministry of Public Works in Lodwar when the tragedy happened. He was admitted to Kitale hospital for 40 days and eventually lost his job. According to Oluk, the colonial administrator ordered his teeth removed to prove that he was a Luo and not a Mau Mau freedom fighter (Luos used to remove six lower teeth as a rite of passage to adulthood).

"My crime was that I had given water to the Kapenguria Six — including Mzee Jomo Kenyatta who were detained in Lodwar. Others were Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng’ Oneko. The nationalists were all arrested in 1952 at the height of the struggle for independence. "The Mzungu was mad. He accused me of being a Kikuyu rebel. When I told him I was a Luo, he ordered that my teeth be removed like other Luos," says Oluk. He adds: "I was depressed after losing my teeth because it was against my Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church doctrine."