Jomo Kenyatta
The imposing figure and paternalistic rule of Jomo Kenyatta gave the Kenyan political system its stability, direction, and essential unity. His importance stemmed from a long history as the spokesman of Kenyan nationalism, his imprisonment by colonial authorities, his organization of Kikuyu and national political movements and, not the least, his commanding personality, which literally dominated Kenyan politics and government. He was the symbol of Kenyan nationhood and in every respect deserved to be considered the "Father of the Nation."
According to records from the British Museums, Jomo Kenyatta was born in the evening of 20 October 1893 at Gatundu village, Central Kenya at exactly 8pm. Jomo Kenyatta was born Kamau wa Ngengi to parents Ngengi wa Muigai and Wambui in the village of Gatundu, in British East African Colony (now Kenya), a member of the Kikuyu tribe. He is also the father of Kenya’s 4th President, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta.
However, Kenyatta’s real date of birth, sometime in the early to mid-1890s, is unclear, and was unclear even to him, as his parents were almost certainly not literate and no formal birth records of native Africans were kept in Kenya and Britain either at that time. His father died while Kamau was very young, after which, as was the custom, he was adopted by his uncle Ngengi, who also inherited his mother, to become Kamau wa Ngengi.
Kenyatta then left home to become a resident pupil at the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) at Thogoto, close to Kikuyu Town, about 12 miles north-west of Nairobi. In 1912, having completed his mission school education, he became an apprentice carpenter. It was around this time that he took to wearing a traditional beaded belt known as a ‘Kenyatta’, a Swahili word which means ‘light of Kenya’.
In 1922 Kamau adopted the name Jomo (a Kikuyu name meaning ‘burning spear’) Kenyatta, and began working for the Nairobi Municipal Council Public Works Department. In 1928 he launched a monthly Kikuyu language newspaper called Muigwithania (Reconciler), which aimed at uniting all sections of the Kikuyu. In 1929 the KCA (Kikuyu Central Association) sent Kenyatta to London to lobby on its behalf with regards to Kikuyu tribal land affairs. He returned to Kenya on September 24, 1930. He returned to London in 1931 and enrolled in Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham.
Kenya was granted internal self-government on June 1, 1963. Kenyatta, as leader of KANU, became prime minister and selected a cabinet that was well balanced ethnically. Five ministers were Kikuyu, four Luo, one Kamba, one Luhya, one Meru, and one came from Coast Region. A European was appointed agriculture minister, and a European and an Asian were made parliamentary secretaries; the speaker of the House of Representatives was a European, and the deputy speaker an Asian. Kenyatta emphasized the necessity of unity of all ethnic and racial groups for the economic betterment of the entire nation, but in October a KANU-inspired effort to merge KANU and KADU was unsuccessful. In early 1964, however, the KADU leadership announced support for a policy of unity, which had priority over ethnic considerations.
In September 1963 a final conference had been held in London to reach agreement on the constitutional issues dividing the various participants. Although KANU's position in the National Assembly had been strengthened by defections from the other parties (bringing the total of KANU-held seats to 23 in the Senate and to 99 in the lower house), its representatives were unable to prevent the inclusion of significant regional features in the new Independence Constitution (also known in Kenya as the Majimbo Constitution). Thus, when the country attained independence within the Commonwealth on December 12, its governmental system was far more decentralized than that in the colonial period.
Kenyatta was a man of many contradictions. Although detained during the emergency in the 1950s for allegedly managing the Mau Mau insurrection, his actual connection with the Mau Mau had always been ambiguous, and convincing evidence was never presented to substantiate contact between him and the insurgents. Still it was he, rather than they, who was recognized in the years leading to independence as the leader of Kenya's struggle for national liberation. As prime minister of the self-governing colony, he had worked with British authorities to ensure a smooth transition of power and had sought the cooperation of European moderates and African loyalists. Characterized as a nationalist rather than as leader of the Kikuyu, he had attempted to create a unified African political movement. As president of an independent Kenya, he had advanced non-Kikuyu as his number-two men — Mboya and Odinga (both Luo) and later, Moi (a Kalenjin).
Kenyatta insisted on maintaining a semblance of national representation at the ministerial level of government, but he put his trust in the Kikuyu "old guard," a tight coterie of favored ministers and advisers drawn from members of an official family related to him by blood, marriage, or long association, most of them from Kiambu. He resisted ideologically motivated solutions. Although he promoted a concept of African socialism, he encouraged Kenya's free enterprise economy. In a de facto one-party system, Kenya's political institutions continued to develop along democratic lines.
Kenyatta was basically a cautious conservative, a pragmatist who sought to ensure a balance in his policies and the appearance of balance in the composition of his government. Especially in the early years of his regime, he rarely announced a decision without first verifying that it had popular backing; when necessary he appealed to the Kenyan people in mass rallies against opposition politicians. Although successful throughout his career in molding public opinion, Kenyatta was confident enough of his position in later years to insist on pushing through a particular policy "whether people like it or not."
Because of his personal prestige, wide public support, control of the party apparatus, and command of the powers of government, his regime was able to withstand ethnic and ideological pressures building up in the country and mounting criticism of corruption in official circles.
Government functioned at two levels: the first, the formal government structure; the second, the inner circle of mainly Kiambu old guard who surrounded the president. It was among this latter group that decisions were made and presented to the formal government for implementation. In 1974 it included holders of five of the nine most important ministries and several potential rivals for the future leadership of the country.
Some were connected with the Gikuyu [Kikuyu]-Embu-Meru Association (GEMA), which administered the harambee (literally, let us all pull together) program for social welfare and development among the Kikuyu. As an organization it was also dedicated to keeping political power in Kikuyu hands. Among the most influential were Njoroge Mungai, Kenyatta's personal physician and foreign min ister from 1969 until his defeat in parliamentary elections in 1974; Oxford-educated Eliud W. Mathu; and Mbiyu Koinange, a Kiambu traditionalist who was minister of state in the Office of the President and Kenyatta's brother-in-law. Kenyatta's youngest wife, Mama Ngina, a keen businesswoman and his closest adviser outside the government, reputedly controlled political patronage.
Kenyatta's exact age was unknown, although he was generally believed to have been born about 1890. In poor health, he withdrew more and more from the everyday routine of government in Nairobi after 1969, dividing his time between his family farm at Gatundu and the provincial state houses at Nakuru and Mombasa, which became Kenya's executive capitals and centers of political intrigue when the president was in residence. From these locations Kenyatta maintained absolute control of the country's political machinery. Increasingly shielded by his inner circle of advisers, however, the president became remote from public opinion, particularly regarding the growing resentment of corruption in high places, but he could still be a powerful force in forming it.
There was no prime minister, and the president acted as his own head of government. During his extended absences from Nairobi, the cabinet seldom met as a collective body. The National Assembly remained an arena for conflict solution, where policies handed down by the government were vigorously debated and then invariably approved, but Kenyatta referred to its deliberations as "a kind of theater."
Moi, the only non-Kikuyu close to the center of power, assumed responsibility for much of the day-to-day conduct of government and represented Kenya in negotiations with foreign leaders. In 1975 Kenyatta was elected to his third term as president. As his health further weakened, the question of succession became uppermost in the concerns of the old guard, who were determined to preserve their influence in the post-Kenyatta era. The Kiambu core, which included top civil servants and senior military officers, as well as prominent politicians, tried to agree on a Kikuyu candidate, but they remained disunited themselves. Moi's high stock with Kenyatta only served to widen the split in their ranks.
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