Although Captain Augustine Njeru left the air-force seven years before the 1982 coup attempt, his armed forces links haunted him throughout President Kenyatta and Moi's governments.

He was detained alongside Oginga Odinga and George Anyona for trying to register a political party just before the failed mutiny happened.

In total, he was jailed for eight and a half years by both regimes. These experiences taught him one thing: "When you suppress an emotion you're only postponing a reaction."

Captain Augustine metamorphosed into the man many Kenyans know as Mtumishi Njeru Kathangu, former Runyenjes MP.

He had left the armed forces in 1975 after he refused to lead air-force show against protesters who demanded to know who killed JM Kariuki.

Kathangu was jailed for five years and after his release joined activists in 1982 to form a political party to challenge Kanu.

Vice President Mwai Kibaki stopped that with a legislation that made Kenya a one-party state. When the failed mutiny happened, Kathangu's past air-force links looked suspicious enough and he was detained.

"I was not involved in the attempted coup but was arrested because of my past airforce career," he says. He was released shortly but barred from contesting for any seat in 1983 election..

Kathangu says the coup attempt was an eruption of emotions fomenting since 1952 when the British detained and killed thousands of Kenyan freedom fighters.

Instead of acting on these grievances, President Kenyatta gave a cold shoulder to freedom fighters and instituted a Kikuyu elite hegemony, Kathangu says.

He advises the government to always allow people vent their dissent.

"After 82 Moi government also rounded up young army officer who had nothing to do with the coup and jailed them. Most of them are now rotting at home."

Kathangu was again arrested in 1990 together with George Anyona and Isaiah Ngotho as they clamoured for pluralism. They were jailed for two years.

Many Moi-era detainees are now in court seeking compensation. "It's not to be compensated for the unnecessary suffering, but the suffering and exclusion extended to our families. The government must assist us to reinstate to our families what they lost while we were detained."

The 63-year-old politician, who studied Political Science in Britain in 1980s, is back to class furthering his studies.