The True History of Kenya; not that crap we read in school.

Knowledge is power, but like a knife in the wrong hands, it is dangerous to those without the mental capacity to process it well.

That said; I am here to set the record straight. Do you recall that at the height of the Moi era, all parastatal choirs used to sing songs that gave heaps of praise to the man, Mtukufu Rais Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, reminding us the he was the commander in chief of the armed forces etc. etc. Despite all that was wrong with the country, the few Radio stations and the single TV station of the time never saw these and went ahead to proclaim that this man was faultless. Prior to that, Kenyatta was the ish and all those who did not see eye to eye with him were doomed, politically, financially or at worst assassinated.  That was expected but I am sorry to say that a country of intellectuals like ours should never have been so scared to the point that we wrote history in the way that the then political figureheads commanded but not as they happened. And then we feed that shit to the kids in school today in their history and geography classes.

I read that crap in school too and you can imagine my shock when I realized I was bright and dug deeper to uncover the missing pieces of the puzzle.  My digging did not reveal much since most people did not record in writing what really happened for their own reasons (fear or favour). Most of the state sanctioned books of the time reveal similar crap and that is one thing I will never let my children read. I must commend Hillary Ng’weno for his ‘The Making of a Nation’ documentary which is the most comprehensive effort at telling Kenyans what actually transpired. That is what my children will watch in their lessons of history.  They need to know the real truth about the history of their country and ENOUGH with the state secrets BS since too many thieves are shielded by it.

With that in mind, I will now tell you the history of Kenya as I have come to see it without the entire ‘sainthood’ ring to it that we have been fed in all of our classes. I will start with the perceived independence from our colonists…

Jomo Kenyatta;

The first president of this country has been perceived as the great liberator, the person who fought for the independence of the country – and from some of the praises he has received – you would think he did it single handedly. Yes this man fought for our independence, but so did many other people, some dead but celebrated, some alive but peasants, some alive but bourgeoisies, and some still in Government – I kid you not.

Back to Kenyatta; we got our independence when he was still in prison, but the honourable men of the time who had bled for our Independence refused to form the Government until Kenyatta was released from prison. What did Kenyatta do after he was released? He became the Prime Minister and then president after one man stepped down from the chairmanship of the party for him. Over the first few years, he systematically sidelined those who had fought side by side with him for the independence of this country. He put some in the very jail cells that they had shared with him, surrounded himself with newbies to the independence struggle, and went ahead to do the unthinkable.

Perhaps as a sign of an institutionalized mentality, he became like the colonialists themselves in most of what he proceeded to do. He changed the constitution and made Kenya a one party state. He went ahead to promote tribalism by surrounding himself with men from his tribe and home area as opposed to those who had the same vision of an Independent Kenya, and who actually fought for it. Remember, colonialists are the ones who pitted tribes against each other using the age-old psychology 101 principle of ‘Divide and Rule.’ Kenyatta could not see beyond this and went ahead to exacerbate it.

But what he did to the MAU MAU fighters and something which can never be said enough times is simply unforgivable. And that to me defines the whole of his leadership. After the MAU MAU left their farms to go into the forest to fight for our Independence, Kenyatta called them “a disease” because they wanted to be acknowledged. And four decades later, you still see these dilapidated old men and women still seeking acknowledgment and compensation. The compensation part is next on this list but first one question, which country in the world refuses to acknowledge beyond rhetoric those who put their lives on the line for the independence of their country? Only in Kenya, ama?

You probably think that these men and women seeking compensation is self serving and that sacrifices require no payment for that is the nature of sacrifice. Well, let me educate you on what I dug up as I tried to fill in the gaps. The MAU MAU left their farms for the forest where the fighting went on for years. Finally, Kenya got its independence and it was time to come back home. But to the shock of many, there was no home to come back to. The farms were gone, assigned to new people by Kenyatta as he sought to appease loyalists, and reward cronies. Have you heard the story that people were asked to throw a stone and wherever it landed on either direction, would be how far your land stretched. But maybe I exaggerate; it may have been as far as yours eyes could see. And you wonder why people own districts of land in this country while others are squatters.

Earlier, the colonialists had come and took over the most productive land in the country. They first rounded up the ancestral owners of the land and threw them in reserves. They tilled these land with mostly incidental crops which they exported back home. And back home in Britain, these settlers either paid their Government or were paid by their government to come here – not for Safari – but for the productive land. But after independence, these settlers had to vamoose so that this land could revert back to their ancestral owners. But their vacating was more organized compared to the Jua Kali way in which Mugabe evicted the settlers in Zimbabwe.

The Kenyan Government was given money by the British Government to buy out the settlers, which it did, but the likes of Karen Blixen, Lord Egerton, and Delamere etc. chose to stay. And from the ridiculously colossal tracts of land they own, you can imagine how much land these guys had between them. Now came the time to give back the land to the ancestral owners of the land who included most of the MAU MAU fighters and Kenyatta bolted; he bailed from the deal. He thought that himself, some friends here and there, loyalists and any other person who could be bought for leverage deserved it more. Can you spell NEOCOLONIZATION? His choice not to acknowledge freedom fighters across the country including the MAU MAU was one of the major reasons he fell out with his then VP, Oginga Odinga, who later resigned. And then he goes ahead to call the MAU MAU a disease when they demand to be acknowledged for the fight and compensated for their land.

Is it any good to read in the history books that the MAU MAU fought for independence without revealing that they were treated like dogs after independence? History books are not works of fiction with rosy endings the way we were taught in school; history is what it is, factual records of what transpired without bias, or as Kenyans like to say, without fear or favour.

That was merely land, now we get to the assassinations. Pio Gama Pinto was one of the first people to go. Why? You may ask. Well, Pio Gama Pinto had socialist ideals which automatically put him at crosshairs with the Kenyatta Government. But that was not what got him killed. It is said that Pinto was the brains behind all that Oginga Odinga – the biggest threat to the Kenyatta presidency at the time – did. He was shrewd, calculating, and an impeccable strategist who – if he had lived – might have rewritten the history of Kenya as we now know it. But with Pinto dead, it is argued that Odinga lost his way and hence got completely sidelined. Later, the brilliant Tom Mboya, the go-to-man who made things happen in the Kenyatta government was murdered for he had become too powerful for his own good. Then J. M. Kariuki was next; he was the only Kikuyu at the time with country wide appeal. That did not augur well with the wheeler-dealers of the time and he got wasted. He had become too popular too fast for his own good.

Put that in the history books then we can talk. And I understand the nature of writing and expect that perspectives will differ on how people will choose to see these things. I however will not understand the lack of perspective. I therefore ask that the least one can do is put the above facts in the books and let people argue on what the merits may be. Everything is open to interpretation, but only if all the facts are laid bare on the table, which is all I ask.

Daniel Arap Moi

You have heard the songs about the man which best represented the man’s propaganda agenda. His was a baptism of fire that came at a time when tribalism was rife with the GEMA intensifying their efforts to ensure that one of their own succeeded Kenyatta.  He became president all the same and instead of becoming better that Kenyatta, he proved to be another institutionalized person whose creativity as a leader was boxed in by tribalism, corruption, and dictatorial tendencies.

It is said that the man changed after the failed coup of 1982, before I was born. But I think this was just the excuse that he used to do what he did. Since then, the man clamped down on everything including democracy when he pushed for Kenya to go back to the single party state. I should say that Kibaki was one of the key point men who pushed this motion of a single party state through when he seconded it in parliament. I have said that so that Kenyans can learn to review the history of people both within and outside parliament before electing them. But that was it, the bill went through and democracy went out. Then the trouble started.

This was that time when universities across Africa were the birth place of ideas and especially revolutionary ones. Student leaders were true leaders and they made their feelings known to those in power at the time. Moi was not a pleased man on the showdown and hence the worst of his leadership came to the fore. Students who dared rise against the man were arrested and taken to Nyayo House where they were tortured by the Special Branch officers, today known as NSIS. This went on throughout the 1980’s where most of those who dared speak against Moi and his Government received the similar treatment. The basement of Nyayo house was the symbol that defined Moi’s presidency. People would be taken to Nyayo house and some went missing without a trace.

Those at odds with the Moi government included James Orengo, Paul Muite, Prof. Anyang Nyong’o, Martha Karua, Oginga Odinga, Mukhisa Kituyi, Kijana Wamalwa, Raila Odinga, Koigi wa Wamwere, Gitobu Imanyara, Gibson Kamau Kuria, Khaminwa, Alexander Muge, Keneth Matiba, and a few others whom I cannot recall now as I type this. But they are just that, few. There were others like Prof. Makau Mutua who were expelled from their respective Universities and Mutua had to study in Tanzania and then Havard in the U.S. These men suffered in one way after another under Moi, but that did not stop them from speaking out their minds to demand for a return to Democracy and we owe our democracy to them. It was during this time of increasing dissent that another brilliant personality was taken down. Robert Ouko was murdered in the most foul of way in what was seen as a Government sanctioned murder.  But Ouko’s murder was probably what fed the increasingly louder calls for democracy, so much that Moi finally gave in and Kenya returned to become a multiparty state.

There were other high profile Government sanctioned assassinations  to follow in the Moi Government.

‘It is our turn to eat’ is a phrase that defines Moi’s regime. Following the example of Kenyatta, he surrounded himself with people from his own tribe and proceeded to loot the country’s resources. I usually muse that Kenyatta cleared most of the land in the country – mostly stolen from peasants – and that by the time Moi got into the picture, most of it was already gone. And since Moi had to get land to grab from somewhere, he turned on parastatals. This was the time that parastatals were run like the personal properties of those appointed to run them. Moi’s people ran all parastatals down by taking billions of shillings in loans that were seemingly institutional but which ended up in the pockets of those manning these parastatals. Service to the people was not the issue in the corruption ridden government of Moi. It was service to self and hence the billions of debt that most institutions of Government still have to date. A promotion during Moi’s time was when someone was transferred or appointed to a ministry or parastatal that had the best potential for stealing or fleecing. And fleece they did.

After the parastatals were broke beyond reprieve, people had to steal somewhere, and that was when the Mau Forest saga began. The Moi government started allocating forest land to loyalists; people who today own huge ranches in a place that was once forested. In the same way that Terrorists and other similarly armed groups use civilians as Human Shields during times of conflicts; those MP’s and Ministers who benefited from the underhand Mau Forest deals are now using a whole tribe as civilian shields. Look beyond the façade and you will realize that these MP’s collectively own more land than the thousands of tribesmen that they are claiming to speak for. In that light, Moi enabled thieves to hide behind tribal cocoons when it is the character of the person and not the tribe that is in question. Subsequent suspects have picked up on this as was the case with Kimunya, Ruto, and now Uhuru.

But with the increasing democratic space, it became more difficult for Moi to work. IPPG, was the first major sign of changing times, the there was the constitutional review team and all these culminated to Moi leaving office in 2002. And boy did we sing when he finally left. For 24 years, this man had perfected his politics and to finally see him go was like a burden off our shoulders.

Mwai Kibaki

Then Kibaki came and suddenly both Kenyatta and Moi look like saints.

That said; I must commend the trend that is coming up today, where Kenyans from all walks of life are standing to be counted. We are challenging the status quo by daring to do things different. The blogs around are becoming more creative in advocating for certain things here and there and that for me is a start. The main stream media is also getting bolder but writers (especially those who record our history in books) are yet to follow suit because the only book that has tackled head-on by writing things the way they truly are – It is Our Turn to Eat – is by Michela Wrong, and she’s not Kenyan. We are still scared of our Government; too scared to even stock books that dare speak the truth to power. I hope those aged men who have nothing to lose can do this country a great favour by writing books on those lost bits of our history that have not been watered down to sound like nursery school rhymes; and which we then call history. Bullcrap!

I am sure that I am not the only one who has read those eternal words that read, “People should never be scared of their government. It is the government that should be scared of its people.”

Finally, please, let us not lie to our children by teaching them half truths and whole lies about the history of their country. How else will they learn if not from the mistakes of their forefathers? Do not lie to your kids; I surely will not lie to mine – when I get me a Tumbo Jr.

We owe that to them, to posterity.