In this edition of Kumekucha:
We name for the first time in Kenya, the Suspects (some of them still alive) of the Tom Mboya assassination.
We reveal an amazing prediction on Kenya's future from a man (not a Kenyan) who predicted President Kibaki's election victory and Kenya's second terrorist attack in Mombasa, many months and years earlier. He has some startling things to say about the political future of the country.
We celebrate the life of Thomas Joseph Mboya simply widely known as Tom Mboya.
======================
Welcome to this, the biggest ever Kenyan event to happen in the blogosphere.
This event is dedicated to a great son of Kenya whose life was brutally cut short by two assassin's bullets on a day just like today, July 5th 1969 at about 1 pm in broad daylight in the streets of Nairobi. He was only 39 years old. That man was Tom Mboya.
I do not intend to bore you with a long history lesson. Instead what I'll do is simply prove why his death was the great re-birth of tribalism in Kenya and why any healing of our country must start with the prosecution of those who played a part in his murder. Some of them are still alive and they today walk prosperous and powerful because they succeeded in silencing forever this, the greatest politician to have ever been carried in the womb of a Kenyan woman.
I will ask and answer a number of simple questions that will show why this man's life and death are so closely linked to the problems facing Kenya today. I will do it without fear or favor. I will name names.
Why Was Tom Mboya Killed?
Mainly because he was a threat. He was a threat to the rising corruption that had already began and was escalating then he was a threat to tribalism which was being used to help build an evil system that would grow to stifle and suffocate Kenyans in years to come.
Tom Mboya was a political organizer and operator of a caliber that had never been seen and has never been seen since. He had played a major role in the victory of KANU – a nationalist party with national policies over a settlet sponsored party that was little more than a coming together of tribal chiefs who referred to their tribes as small tribes that were in danger of being swallowed by the big tribes in independent Kenya. The party was called the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). Still their ideas later came to take a firm footing in the country through the elevation of one of their key people to the presidency in 1978. That person was President Moi.
To this day, listening to President Moi speaking politics, for those who understood what KADU stood for, is like listening to a political campaign of the party way back in 1963.
Even President Kibaki is currently using KADU tactics to stay in power with his so-called government of national unity that is nothing more than a banding together of tribal chiefs with significant following from different parts of the country. Some would go as far as saying that KANU and the true ideals of KANU died with Tom Mboya on that sunny Saturday in the month of July, 1969.
What does the death of a man who died in 1969 have to do with my life as a Kenyan today?
All his life Tom Mboya represented cosmopolitan Nairobi constituencies, starting with the whole of Nairobi in 1969 when the first African leaders were elected to the Legco (legislative council) until his death. Ironically most of the people who cast votes for TJ (as he was popularly known) were from the Kikuyu tribe. The fact that he was a Suba (Luo from Rusinga island) never became an issue. In virtually all his politicl campaigns, Tom Mboya faced Kikuyu candidates and easily defeated them.
So what happened? What has taken the country back since the 60s to a situation today where it is virtually impossible for a Luo to be elected by Kikuyu voters in preference to their own Kikuyu candidate?
After Mboya's death the people who took to the streets in protest were mainly Luos. This was the saddest thing because Mboya had never stood for anything tribal, let alone Luo. That was the beginning of the great cancer we have today in Kenyan politics where any politician faced with a crisis turns to his tribe and claims that it is not him who is being dealt with but the entire community. Mboya's assassination was also a clear sign that no major national politician could be assured of a firm political base in the city. It caused people like Mwai Kibaki to shift from their Bahati constituency in Nairobi (organized for him by Tom Mboya himself) to Othaya in Nyeri.
Who killed Tom Mboya?
There was no love lost between Tom Mboya and President Kenyatta's inner circle – all Kikuyus. They secretly referred to him as Kihehe Kikuyu word for uncircumsized. Traditionally the Luo (like most nilotes) do not believe in circumcision. The Kikuyu related circumcision to manhood and bravery and to them those who are not circumcised are little more than cowrdly boys who are not yet men.
Yet Tom Mboya was the furthest person one could associate cowardice with. He had almost single-handedly engineered independence for Kenya through some well calculated moves and had outsmarted the colonialists at every turn.
The real cowards were members of this kitchen cabinet who could not dare call Mboya a Kihehe in his face. Mboya spoke a number of African languages fluently, one of which was Kikuyu. Instead this corrupt tribalists chose the cowardly act of sending an assassin to kill Mboya.
There are those who are convinced that there was help and support from a major foreign power in carrying out this execution. But there is little proof of this other than motive. The man who was arrested for pulling the trigger of the gun that killed Mboya, Nahashon Njenga, kept on referring to "the big man" who had sent him to execute the mission, without revealing who the big man was.
Some of the people who were in President Kenyatta's inner circle who are still alive today include the following. Dr Njoroge Mungai (former cabinet minister and one of the wealthiest people in the country), Charles Rubia (former mayor of Nairobi), Charles Mugane Njonjo (former powerful AG) and President Mwai Kibaki (finance minister in the Kenyatta government for many years).
Wasn't the man who fired the bullets prosecuted and sentenced to hang?
An Asian couple visiting Ethiopia claimed that they saw Njenga there. It is quite likely that he was never hanged. Besides, it was quite clear that he never acted alone. Powerful men in president Kenyatta's inner circle sent him on this terrible mission.
Is it not Mboya who wanted to assassinate Kenyatta and become president? Is this not the reason why he had to be assassinated first?
There have been suggestions that Mboya, who was known to be extremely ambitious would stop at nothing but the presidency and that he had an elaborate plan that may have involved assassination. This is pure nonsense. Mboya had brought down the colonialists using peaceful means, why would he suddenly turn violent?
What seemed to strengthen these rumours was the assassination of Pio Gama Pinto (a man with communist inclinations and a close supporter of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga). It is believed that the assassination had the blessing of Mboya's friends' the Americans and that Mboya himself must have known about it. What made people fear Mboya even more was the belief that he was a CIA operative.
Still if the government had evidence that Mboya planned an assassination, there were a whole lot of options open to the president including the notorious detention without trial that was in force then. No, an assassination is mostly a cowardly act usually carried out by those who fear the political power of the subject or their ability to change things and see no other option in outsmarting them other than permanently silencing them. Just look at all the great people who have been assassinated. President Abraham Lincon, Mahatma Gandhi of India and President John F. Kennedy, his brother senator Robert Kennedy among many others.
Are you suggesting that by finding the killers of Mboya we will get rid of tribalism In Kenya? That's ridiculous.
What I am saying is that when you lose your way, the only way to get back on the right track is to go back to where you started and then find the right path and get back on track. As long as the assassination of Mboya remains unsolved and unresolved, then there is little chance of other political assassinations that followed like that of JM Kariuki and Robert Ouko ever being resolved.
What should be done?
Kenyans should demand that the killers of Mboya be brought to book. This is the perfect place to start because there is little room or possibility for the usual political heat to hijack this initiative and finally frustrate it, like has happened so many times before. By getting to the bottom of the Mboya assassination, it will then be easy to deal with other assassinations. If it is true that there was a conspiracy involving foreign powers, then let the evidence be given to the people and let us get to the bottom of it. We need to ensure that never again will persons get away with murder when their identity is known and when there is enough evidence to prosecute them. Never again should there be stones in Kenya that are too heavy to turn over in an investigation.
Other Tom Mboya Articles In This Blog:
Exposed: Murder Of Mboya, JM And Ouko Linked To Standard Newspapers Raid
Where Tom Mboya’s Assassination Was Planned?
Tom Mboya: American Friends Were Expecting Assassination Attempt
Political Assassinations In Kenya
---------------------
SEE THE AMAZING KENYA PROPHECY and what is said about the political future of Kenya.
Tj We Remember a Photo Tribute to Tom Mboya
===================
More Features:
Rape in a matatu that changed a married woman's life
Kumekucha's Presidential Campaign 2007: We Need One Priority, We Need Lots of Creativity
Tj We Remember a Photo Tribute to Tom Mboya
I am sorry but i think you are a true Jeng.You never know what Tom Mboya would have become. All the same Great post
ReplyDeleteChris, you may be treading on very slimy, shaky ground by taking this one on..But then as a Kenyan, having read about this illustrious young man,whose life was cruelly nipped in the bud, in the history annals of Kenya, I laud you for being so timely. Kenyans need to know the truth about the what, and why of this young man's life and 'untimely' death.What Kenyans need is the truth. Though bitter and sour it may be. Open Pandora's box and bare the brass tacks of this rather evasive and touchy subject matter. Adios.
ReplyDeleteIs it my imagination or do you always seem to send an anti kikuyu undertone? Change your ways. Abolish tribalism.
ReplyDeleteOhhh and with Mboya, inner circle stories indicate that the gun that shot him was the one he bought and gave to the man that would have been Kenyatta's assasin. And the reason why not enough is known about it is because it (whatever the act might have been) was within one of the Mau Mau pacts. If you know anything about these, you know amongst those is they killed their traitors, decapitated them and hang their heads on the gates of their compounds.
I'm not saying this is teh true story. I'm just saying that anyone of them is as believeable as the next. If you're going to give information such as this, be sure not to force your ideas as the truth!
You know I didn't even know that today was the anniversary of Mboya's death. thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I cannot laud this as a great post, just good writing, seeing that it is purely based on conjecture.
For one, there is no new information here, It would have been easy to blame the government fo Mboya's death, and that is what Kenyans did.
Yet it is clear that Mboya's arch enemy was Jaramogi. They had differences beyond tribal supremacy in Nyanza into the geo-political ideology of the time such that they stood strongly on opposite sides of the cold war divide.
As things stand, Jaramogi and the Russians had a bigger motive for assassinating TJ. if what you wanted was to give us a good conspiracy theory, then alleging that communist interests killed TJ, would have been the way to go. But this, it is not refreshing at all, it is what as you say, the luo riots tell us...that there was a kikuyu conspiracy.
Interesting reading! Very interesting indeed!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIs it my imagination or do you always seem to send an anti kikuyu undertone? Change your ways. Abolish tribalism.
Bwana Anonymous,
Let me reassure you that even if I was a tribalist (which I am not) it is impossible for me to "hate" the Kikuyus.
My friend, my dear wife of 20 years whom I love very much is a Kikuyu (from Kiambu). My 23 year old daughter identifies more with the Kikuyus and speaks the language fluently because she spent such a long time at her grandmother's while her mother and I were trying to make things happen, early in our relationship.
Probably what all this does is put me in a very unqiue position to understand the Kikuyu. They get things done and their entrepreneurial spirit (which is second to none) must have been transfered to me by osmosis from my wife. But like any other community in Kenya, the Kikuyu have a weakness, especially the current generation. They are tribalists without knowing it. That's why they are quick to sense any would be "undertones" imagined and otherwise.
David Goldsworthy, (an Australian) in his landmark biographical work on Mboya Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted To Forget leaves no doubt as to who assasinated Mboya. Luo riots or no Luo riots it was Kikuyu insiders in Kenyatta's tribal inner circle.
Let me however quickly add that these genetlemen were not acting on behalf of their community, they were acting on behalf of their own stomachs and were above all else defending the ill gotten wealth they were accumulating.
To heal the wounds of Kenya we need a truth and reconciliation commission to discuss these issues openly and to gather evidence for posterity and also to prosecute those who refuse to co-operate.
Chris this is a good attempt at acknowledging the unsung hero. However you are basically rehashing facts that already reside in the public domain. Do you have specific links of motives from specific people or groups? As you very well know JM's assasination was operationally finalised in Kingsway House. Do you know the significance of this building during that era. Was TJ's death formulated here and by whom? Who were the operational cog wheels? If you want to present a balanced thesis on TJ please fully contextualise the Jaramogi/Kenyatta interests at that time vis a vis the assasination. Who were the security apparatchiks at that time and what role did they play? This is an area no one has yet fully articulated.
ReplyDeleteCredit for mentioning that Jaramogi stood to benefit from TJ's death. Finally you made an ineffectual attempt at exploring the extent TJ's ambition would have impacted on Kenyatta's presidency ie the threat he posed. Please peel this aspect further. Can't wait for more posts...
I wish to make two comments about the the TJ issue. First the writer in this blog who said that Mboya had "almost single-handedly engineered independence for Kenya" is exagerating the truth.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is true that TJ made enormous contributions to our freedom it is my feeling that no single person- not even Kenyatta,Jaramogi,Kimathi or any other could do much by himself or herself. When you flatter TJ with such an inaccuracy you tempt your readers to think that even the good points in your paragraphs are not accurate.
Secondly, I think it is wrong for some people who are participating in these discussions to condemn an entire tribe for any of the assassinations that have occured in our country.
This is because this kind of thinking does not heal the wounds that resulted from these evil acts. It just creates further rifts between different communities.
Additionaly, it does not seem to make sense!As observed fron these pages, the victims of the assassin's bullet came from various tribes/races.Let the killers be called by their names and not by names of tribes.
Dear Mr Muthima Wanjohi, USA
ReplyDeleteThank you for your wonderful comment. I totally agree with you concerning the tribal comments being made. Mercifully, there are recent signs in our country that Kenyans are finally bring themselves to face this monster (tribalism), especially if you consider the heat and outrage that Mr Ole Ntimama’s recent tribal remarks have caused in the country.
People should be judged as individuals. Murderers are just that and it has nothing to do with their tribes.
However on TJ I think you should consider that when I say that “he ALMOST single-handedly engineered independence,” I am referring to the actual final stages, especially bringing the reluctant colonialist to the negotiating table to discuss independence.
This happened, not because he was the only guy around but because he had an opportunity when the colonial government had effectively shut down any political activities in the then Kenya colony. Mboya got involved in the trade union movement and quickly climbed the ranks by a stroke of luck stepping into the shoes of a senior trade unionist whom it had been established was corrupt.
It was from his trade union base that he was able to get his political grounding and base. So the fact that he did so much had a lot to do with the inability of other Kenyans at the time, due to the prevailing circumstances and especially the legal status where politicking by Africans was essentially banned after the Mau Mau uprising and subsequent state of emergency of 1952. By the time the first 8 African leaders were elected into Legco, young Mboya was already a seasoned operator.
Judging by events of the time, had it not been for Mboya’s call for unity amongst the African elected members (despite the fact that he had enemies within the first elected 8), and his clever tactics of negotiating for a smaller concessions only to promptly call the colonialist back to the negotiating table to ask for more when the ink had hardly dried on the previous agreement, independence in Kenya would have been delayed for many years. Kenya would have been another Zimbabwe at best or a South Africa at worst – indeed many settlers at the time moved to South Africa and settled there.
Mboya’s calls for “Uhuru Sasa” had an impact on both the colonial administration and Kenyans who suddenly woke up to the realization that Uhuru could be closer than they had ever thought it was in their wildest dreams.
But it is also true that others gave even bigger sacrifices for many small gains along the way that opened the door later for Mboya’s negotiation skills to win the day. Some gave their lives, like Dedan Kimathi and others. People like the JM Kariuki went through terrible suffering in concentration-like detention camps run by the colonial administration.
I am looking forward to your next informed comment, even where you may not entirely agree with what I am saying here.
I have just posted more Mboya posts and you start with this one here (use link below);
ReplyDeletehttp://kumekucha.blogspot.com/2006/07/kingsway-house-building-in-nairobi.html