Mzee Jomo Kenyatta: The carpenter who became president and a renowned pan-africanist

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta: The carpenter who became president and a renowned pan-africanist

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta: The carpenter who became president and a renowned pan-africanist

trademan to mzee jomo - Mzee Kenyatta is acclaimed from all quarters of the world as a true son of Africa, a visionary leader. During his tenure, Kenya enjoyed political stability, and economic progress. In 1974, he declared free primary education up to primary grade 4. He is also remembered for urging Kenyans to preserve their culture and heritage.

As a true Pan-Africanist is reported that on Friday, October 24 1969, Jomo Kenyatta during his tour on Western Province to familiarise himself with the development in the province, upon reaching Nyanza and was shown Broderick Falls as a major key attraction became angry that after independence of Kenya the prominent tourist spots continued to bear names of foreigners.

He caused laughter when he asked: “Which Luhya man was called Broderick? Broderick was whose relative? A name is very important for identity. Which foreigner adopts your African names? If you want to domineer someone, conquer his intellect first and you will suppress him wholly.”

Following this directive, many roads bearing colonial names were changed. Plaques bearing names of colonial masters were similarly removed and the names changed.

For his unyielding fighting spirit, Kenyatta was described by former governor of Kenya Sir Patrick Renison as “the African leader to darkness and death”. He also shown the magnanimity of Africans and their willingness to forgive and forge ahead when after gaining independence he said although his government aimed to free itself from British colonialism, it would not try to avenge past injustices.

In 1909, Kamau joined Church of Scotland Mission, Thogoto, a Kikuyu town, north-west of Nairobi. He studied amongst other subjects: the Bible, English, mathematics and carpentry. He paid the school fees by working as a houseboy and cook for a white settler living nearby.

In 1912, he finished elementary school and became an apprentice carpenter. In 1913, he was circumcised at Nyogara stream near Thogoto Mission to become member of Kihiu Mwigi/Mebengi age group.

In 1914, he was baptised a Christian and given the name John Peter which he changed to Johnstone Kamau. He left the mission later that year to seek employment.

He first worked as an apprentice carpenter on a sisal farm in Thika, under the tutelage of John Cook, who had been in charge of the building programme at Thogoto.

During the First World War, when the British government was forcefully conscripting Africans into the army, Kenyatta took refuge in Narok where he lived with Maasai relatives and worked as a clerk for an Asian trader. After the war, he served as a storekeeper to a European firm and this time, he began wearing his beaded belt Kinyatta.

POLITICAL STRATEGY

When Kenyatta began working as a store clerk and water-meter reader for the Nairobi Municipal Council Public Works Department, once again under John Cook who was the Water Superintendent, his salary was about Sh250 per month. Meter reading helped him meet many Kenyan-Asians at their homes who would become important allies later on in his political life.

He entered politics after taking interest in the political activities of James Beauttah and Joseph Kang’ethe the leaders of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). He joined KCA in 1924 and rose up the ranks of the association. By 1926, he was the secretary of KCA. He was also chosen to represent the Kikuyu land problems before the Hilton Young Commission in Nairobi. This marked the beginning of his career in politics.

In 1929, the KCA sent Kenyatta to London to lobby on its behalf with regards to Kikuyu tribal land affairs. Using the name Johnstone Kenyatta, he published articles and letters to the editor in The Times and the Manchester Guardian. He returned to Kenya on September 24, 1930 and was welcomed at Mombasa by his wife Wahu and James Beauttah. He then took part, on the side of traditionalists, in the debate on the issue of female genital mutilation of girls. He later worked for Kikuyu Independent Schools in Githunguri

Kenyatta relocated to London in 1931 to present a written petition to parliament but ended up enrolling in Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham. Discouraged by the lack of official response to the land claims he was putting forward, he began an association with British Communists, who published articles he wrote in their publications. Kenyatta met India’s Mahatma Gandhi in November 1932. After giving evidence before the Morris Carter Commission, he proceeded to Moscow to study Economics briefly at the Comintern School, KUTVU (University of the Toilers of the East) at the invitation of George Padmore, a radical West Indian. He was forced to return to Britain by 1933 when Padmore fell out with the Russians because “the Soviet Union (worried about Hitler’s growing power and seeing Britain and France as potential allies) withdrew its support for the movement against British and French colonial rule in Africa.” Back to England, Kenyatta continued with political campaigns against imperialism in Africa and his country.

In 1946, Kenyatta returned to Kenya after almost 15 years hibernation in abroad. He married for the third time, to Grace Wanjiku, Senior Chief Koinange’s daughter, and sister to Mbiyu Koinange (who later became a lifelong confidant and was one of the most powerful politicians during Kenyatta’s presidency).

Kenyatta then went into teaching, becoming principal of Kenya Teachers College Githunguri.

In 1947, he was elected president of the Kenya African Union (KAU). He began to receive death threats from white settlers after his election.

From 1948 to 1951 he toured and lectured around the country condemning idleness, robbery, urging hard work while campaigning for the return of land given to white settlers and for independence within three years.

FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE

The Mau Mau rebellion began in 1951 and KAU was banned, and a state of emergency was declared on October 20, 1952.

Kenyatta was arrested and indicted with five others on the charges of “managing and being a member” of the Mau Mau Society, a radical anti-colonial movement engaged in rebellion against Kenya’s British rulers. The accused were known as the “Kapenguria Six”. The trial lasted five months. The court sentenced Kenyatta on 8 April 1953 to seven years’ imprisonment with hard labour and indefinite restriction thereafter. The subsequent appeal was refused by the British Privy Council in 1954.

Kenyatta remained in prison until 1959, after which he was detained in Lodwar, a remote part of Kenya. On April 15, 1960, over a million signatures for a plea to release him were presented to the Governor. On May 14, 1960, he was elected Kanu president in absentia. On August 14, 1961, he was released and brought to Gatundu to a hero’s welcome.

On June 1, 1963, Mzee Kenyatta became prime minister of the autonomous Kenyan government. After independence, Queen Elizabeth II remained as Head of State (after Independence, styled as Queen of Kenya), represented by a Governor-General. He consistently asked white settlers not to leave Kenya and supported reconciliation.

The next year, he had Parliament amend the Constitution to make Kenya a republic. The office of prime minister was replaced by a president with wide executive and legislative powers. Elected by the National Assembly, he was head of State, head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Under the provisions of the amendment, Kenyatta automatically became president.

Kenyatta was re-elected un-opposed in 1966, and the next year had the Constitution amended to expand his powers. This term featured border conflicts with Somalia, and more political opposition. He consolidated his power greatly, and placed several of his Kikuyu tribesmen in most of the powerful state and security offices and posts. State security forces harassed dissidents and were suspected of complicity in several murders of prominent personalities deemed as threats to his regime, including Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya and JM Kariuki, MP and Lawyer CMG Argwings-Kodhek and former Kadu Leader and minister Ronald Ngala , also died in suspicious car accidents.

In the 1969 elections, Kenyatta banned the only other party, the Kenya People’s Union (formed and led by his former vice president, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who had been forced to quit KANU along with his left leaning allies), detained its leaders, and called elections in which only KANU was allowed to participate. For all intents and purposes, Kenya was now a one-party state.

On January 29, 1970 he was sworn in as President for a further term. For the remainder of his presidency, Kenyatta held complete political control of the country. He made use of detention, appeals to ethnic loyalties, and careful appointment of government jobs to maintain his commanding position in Kenya’s political system. However, as the 1970s wore on, advancing age kept him from the day-to-day management of government affairs. He intervened only when necessary to settle disputed issues. His relative isolation resulted in increasing domination of Kenya’s affairs by well-connected Kikuyu who acquired great wealth as a result.

Kenyatta was re-elected as President in 1974, again as the only candidate. On November 5, 1974, he was sworn in as President for a third term. His increasingly feeble health meant that his inner circle effectively ruled the country, and greatly enriched themselves, in his name. He remained president until his death four years later in 1978.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, as he was popularly known, was an important and influential statesman in Africa. He is credited with leading Kenya to independence and setting up the country as a relatively prosperous capitalist state. He pursued a moderate pro-Western, anti-Communist economic philosophy and foreign policy. He oversaw a peaceful land reform process, oversaw the setting up of the institutions of independent Kenya, and also oversaw Kenya’s admission into the United Nations.

FAILURES

However, Kenyatta was not without major flaws, and did also bequeath Kenya some major problems which continue to bedevil the country to date, hindering her development, and threatening her existence as a peaceful unitary multi-ethnic state.

He failed to mould Kenya, being its founding father, into a homogeneous multi-ethnic state. Instead, the country became and remains a de facto confederation of competing tribes.

His authoritarian style, characterised by patronage, favouritism, tribalism and/or nepotism drew criticism and dissent, and set a bad example followed by his successors. He had the Constitution radically amended to expand his powers, consolidating executive power.

He is also criticised for having ruled through a post colonial clique consisting largely of his relatives, other Kikuyus, mostly from his native Kiambu district, Offspring of former colonial chiefs, and African Kikuyu colonial collaborators and their offspring, while giving scant reward to those whom most consider the real fighters for Kenya’s independence. This clique became and remains the wealthiest, most powerful and most influential class in Kenya to date.

Kenyatta has further been criticised for encouraging the culture of wealth accumulation by public officials using the power and influence of their offices, thereby deeply entrenching corruption in Kenya. He is regularly charged with having personally grabbed and accumulated huge land holdings in Kenya. “The regime of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, was riddled with land grabbing which was perpetrated by him for his benefit and members of his family...between 1964 and 1966, one-sixth of European settlers’ lands that were intended for settlement of landless and land-scarce Africans were cheaply sold to the then President Kenyatta and his wife Ngina as well as his children...throughout the years of President Kenyatta’s administration, his relatives friends and officials in his administration also benefited from the vice with wanton impunity.” a report by Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission was recently quoted as saying

His policies are also criticised for leading to a large income and development inequality gap in the country. Development and resource allocation in the country during his reign was seen to have favoured some regions of the country over others. His resettlement of many Kikuyu tribesmen in the country’s Rift Valley province is widely considered to have been done unfairly.

FINAL JOURNEY

President Kenyatta suffered a heart attack in 1966 and in the mid-seventies lapse into periodic comas lasting from a few hours to a few days from time to time. In April 1977, then well into his 80s, he suffered a massive heart attack.

On August 14, 1978, he hosted his entire family, including his son Peter Magana who flew in from Britain with his family, to a reunion in Mombasa. On August 22, 1978, President Kenyatta died in Mombasa of natural causes attributable to old age.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was buried on August 31, 1978 in Nairobi in a state funeral at a mausoleum on Parliament grounds.

He was succeeded as President after his death by his vice-president Daniel arap Moi
 


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