Mashujaa Day: Heroes are feted but their stories quickly forgotten

Security personnel march during rehearsals ahead of Mashujaa Day at Kipchoge Keino Stadium. [Peter Ochieng, Standard]

The challenges that led to what Kenyans celebrate as Mashujaa Day refuse to go away. They continue to dog the nation six decades after independence. But do Kenyans even know their true heroes who should be celebrated on this day?

We knew the day as Kenyatta Day, marking the occasion when colonial authorities arrested Jomo Kenyatta at the start of the 1952 state of emergency. The operation went beyond Mzee Kenyatta to net other heroes of Kenya’s independence struggle and members of the Kenya Land Freedom Army, also known as the Mau Mau. Mau Mau was itself dreaded right into independence, leading to the vaporisation of the champions from the national memory while what the struggle was against continues in other guises, under new masters.

If this heroism was about fighting colonial misrule, oppression, and for expanded democratic space, does the most fundamental change seem to be a change of guard?  Kenyan youth, especially, have been arbitrarily arrested and tortured by successive post-colonial regimes for agitating for democratic and accountable governance. Some have been killed, others disappeared without a trace. Have we betrayed the cause for which a few gave so much so that so many may enjoy the benefits of citizenship in a democratic self-governing country?

Achieng’ Oneko has captured the 1952 activities in notes he left behind for his biography titled The Price of Freedom, which I was privileged to contribute to as an assisting writer. He wrote, “The year 1952 seethed with mistrust and hatred between Africans and the White European community in Kenya. The hostile situation generated tension to a boiling point.”

It was all about the search for self-determination and self-rule by Kenyan nationalists. Raila Odinga would later sum up the struggle recounted in Oneko’s book as, “a collective national effort that saw citizens close ranks, regardless of tribe or region of origin. It was a spontaneous reaction that often required no invitation. The feeling of indignity and injustice was instinctive and arose naturally in every Kenyan, regardless of whether one lived in the Mt Kenya region, Nandi, Kavirondo, or the Coast.”

It is this unrelenting desire for just government that informs the notion of heroism at the heart of Mashujaa Day. In those heady days, Raila observed, “The issues canvassed varied according to region, yet the feeling of grief was universal. Some focused on land, others were opposed to taxation without representation, and against forced labour. Kenyans wanted to be involved in the making of decisions affecting them.”

Kenyatta was arrested on 20 October 1952. Oneko recalled that he had just returned to his residence in Nairobi’s Starehe estate, from checking on a sick relative, when he was pounced upon. He was rudely shoved into the back of a Land Rover vehicle and taken to Kilimani Police Station. Here, he found several others, who included Waira Kamau, Babu Kimani, Wiljim Wambugu, Job Muchichi, and J.K. Ndegwa.

Others were Fred Kubai and Bildad Kaggia, who would later be bundled up together with Oneko, Kenyatta, Paul Ngei and Kung’u Karumba, to constitute the sextet that has been immortalised as “the Kapenguria Six.” The following day, Oneko, Kaggia and Kubai would be flown from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport to Kapenguria, where they joined Kenyatta and the other two heroes of Kenya’s freedom.

They would undergo a sham trial and later be packed away for nine years for fighting for Kenya’s independence. Raila would observe years later that their story after independence was one of painful betrayal; that Kenya lost focus on what independence was about. Accordingly, we have failed to build the Kenyan nation that our freedom heroes dreamt of. Indeed, on account of serial betrayal, Oneko and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga would find themselves in detention in independent Kenya, because of fighting for a just society.

We are not out of the woods yet, as Odinga famously remarked in his 1967 book titled Not Yet Uhuru. For national self-determination has often been conflated with self-indulgence. Even here, focus seems to be on indulging one powerful individual. He consolidates power around himself and gives the rest of the circle around him privileged access to the State and the benefits of bad use of office.

These people are Kenya’s new heroes, purely on account of holding high office. They are decorated in orders and medals that in effect invite the notion of national heroism into question. State House has the last word in these matters. To be fair to them, some outstanding and deserving Kenyans have previously been decorated. Yet, have we also recognised undeserving individuals?

The true heroes whom we have recognised have mostly been our sportsmen and women; Kenya’s sports champions who stop the world and make it listen to our national anthem. In the Moi and Kenyatta years, we also recognised our scholars, like Prof. T.R. Odhiambo, Simeon Ominde, Joseph Maina Mungai, David Wasawo, among others. Yet, even before we get into this space, what does Kenya know of the people whom Oneko found at Kilimani Police Station in 1952?

These people wasted away in diverse prisons in colonial Kenya for fighting for independence. Has independent Kenya forgotten them? Who is Wiljim Wambugu? Does anyone remember Job Muchichi, or Babu Kimani? There is a road in Dagoretti named after Steffan Wanyee. But do Kenyans know who this early nationalist was? Wanyee was murdered at night in 1952 by unknown persons, following a fiery meeting between Kenyan nationalists and colonial administrators at Senior Chief Koinange’s residence in Kiambaa.

Apart from a road sign off Naivasha Road, Wanyee’s name, like many others, is lost in Kenya’s dustbin of history. His story needs to be researched and properly documented. He remains a peripheral figure in Kenya’s documented history. The last time Waira Kamau featured prominently in Kenya’s civics was sometime in the early 1980s, when President Moi took him to task in Thika for what was characterised as “subversion against the government.”

Waira was alleged to be leading a circle of politicos from the Mt. Kenya region opposed to the Moi regime. They were said to meet regularly in a public house called The December Twelve Bar and Restaurant. After Moi named them, their drinking hall closed down. Regardless, their story needs telling.

Yet, even the stories of central figures in the liberation struggle have not been properly told. Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, and Bildad Kaggia increasingly fade into footnotes in the Kenyan story. But is it perhaps asking for too much to imagine that there should be full-length biographies on these individuals? For Jomo Kenyatta’s homegrown biography has yet to be written. James Murray-Brown’s book titled Kenyatta was slightly revised in 1978, shortly after the passing of Kenya’s founding president. It remained the only major work on Kenyatta until 2020, when Anais Angelo published Power and Presidency in Kenya: The Jomo Kenyatta Years. 

It is instructive that these are offshore accounts of Kenyatta, told through Eurocentric lenses. Wunyabari Maloba’s Kenyatta and Britain: An Account of Political Transformation, 1929-1963, is a homegrown effort that captures the moulding of the teacher and Nairobi meter reader into the future statesman. The story of Kenya’s de facto founder is at best available in fragments. Isn’t there a need for a comprehensive Jomo Kenyatta archive?

There are many others. James Gichuru could easily have gone on to become the first prime minister of Kenya, had he not stepped down twice for Kenyatta to lead. The Oneko book explains the circumstances in detail. But away from fragments, new generations know little about this self-effacing Kenyan hero of independence, who also served in the Kenyatta and Moi cabinets.

The emerging portrait is that of a nation that has forgotten her true heroes. A proper historical archive of these people is of the essence. Prof. Bethwell Allan Ogot, having been a historian, told his own story in the giant volume titled My Footprints On the Sands of Time. But nobody has told the story of Gideon S. Were, who died in 1995. A 1965 PhD graduate from Wales, G.S. Were is remembered for his outstanding East Africa Through A Thousand Years and A History of Africa Since 1800. He wrote the first book jointly with Derek A. Wilson, and the second one with the controversy-kicking Roland Oliver. G.S. Were became a prominent researcher and teacher of history at the University of Nairobi. His own story has not been told. Nor has Ali Mazrui’s story been told.

At the time of this writing, Prof Godfrey Muriuki has rested, and plans are well underway to bury him. To be buried with him is his story. But Muriuki was one of the founders of African historiography in Kenya. He did for history what Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Owuor Anyumba and Taban Lo Liyong did for Kenyan literature. Muriuki’s earliest work was A History of the Kikuyu: 1500–1900. Beyond that, he contributed profusely to the East African historical archive through journal papers and teaching. Without a doubt, he taught everyone who is teaching today in the Department of History at the University of Nairobi.

These are some of the heroes Kenya should be celebrating today, instead of decorating mischief-makers who are deemed to be politically correct. They should be remembered not just by their names being mentioned and medals given. Their stories need to be documented and properly preserved and circulated. The women too. Who is going to tell the story of Jael Mbogo? What of Grace Onyango-Baridi, Grace Ogot, Asenath Odaga, Micere Mugo, Nyiva Mwendwa, the two Margaret(s) Kenyatta, and many others? A slim volume on Phoebe Asiyo exists, but she is worth a lot more.

A few years ago, I sat next to Charles Njonjo at the launch of Annabel Maule’s book, Theatre Near the Equator: The Donovan Maule Story. He was the chief guest at this event.  At one point, I said to him, “And when are we going to publish your story, Sir?” His response was ready-made: “Barrack, never!” He repeated, “Never! I will go with everything to the grave.” In the end, he went into the ashes with everything. However, you look at him; Njonjo’s story needs to be told.

Instead of spending hundreds of millions of shillings on celebratory jamborees in Eldoret and in other towns in the name of remembering Kenya’s heroes, perhaps the time has come for a paradigm shift. It is about time a national entity was established to develop the Kenyan heroes’ archive. It is daunting to think that Uhuru Kenyatta is out there, a retired president whose story exists only in fragments.

Mwai Kibaki died a few years ago and is steadily fading into the dim recesses of memory. Many Kenyans aged below 20 will probably not remember anything of the Kibaki presidency. And certainly, nobody aged 25 in Kenya today remembers a single day of the Moi presidency. I grew up in the Jomo Kenyatta years and matured under Moi. I hear a lot of misleading narratives about the two presidents, told by people who know absolutely nothing about them, beyond apocryphal narratives and hearsay. Don’t we need full-length, orderly accounts of the times and lives of these leaders?

Who was Daudi Wabera? Samuel Muindi Mbingu? Musa Mwariama? Other forgotten heroes include Martin Shikuku, J.D. Kali, Ambrose Ofafa and Walter Mbotela. Going forward, the national archives need to go beyond preserving and providing access to historical government records. National archives are more than photographs and artefacts. A modern national archive should be funded to retain researchers and writers on Kenya’s heroes. These stories need to be captured when the bearers of lived memory are still around. Maybe then we can begin celebrating true heroes, and not just any praise singer on the horizon.

Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser