Listen In 1963, Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta appointed C.M.G. Argwings-Kodhek an Assistant Minister for Defence. In 1966, he was promoted to head the Ministry of Natural Resources and eventually in 1967 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was a true hero of the independence movement whose personal sacrifice, determined resistance and unfailing courage are good […]
Listen Before it opened in January 1926, Alliance High School was supposed to be a medical college. But how the failure to build the college would later transform both the political landscape and shape a new elite that would rule Kenya for ages is the epic story of the institution at Kikuyu. Alliance alumni dominated […]
Listen Kenyatta’s prison term at Lokitaung ended on April 14, 1959, and the restriction order passed by Thacker and confirmed by Baring in September 1954 was immediately applied. He was moved to Lodwar, in Turkana, the administrative centre for the Northern Frontier District, some 90 miles ( 144km)from Lokitaung, where some bungalows had been built […]
Listen The declaration of a state of emergency gave the Government the perfect excuse it had been seeking to not only round up all “the political undesirables”, but also start executing a system of disinheriting the seized leaders of their land. When the issue of political repression arose in Britain days before declaration of the State […]
Listen Mathews Joseph Ogutu, the Minister for Tourism and Wildlife in President Jomo Kenyatta’s last Cabinet, was born in Uyundo Village, Sega, in Siaya District in 1931. He was an ordinary boy whose father, Julius Oduor, would later be appointed as an assistant chief. Even as Ogutu walked to Uyundo Primary School and later crossed […]
Listen Peter Mbiyu Koinange, the long-standing confidant and bosom buddy of founding President Jomo Kenyatta, served under his successor President Daniel arap Moi for a very fleeting, and what may well be described as lonely, stint. Used to literally being the President’s right hand man and constant companion, in the Moi administration Koinange found himself […]
Listen Kipkalya Kiprono Kones was part of President Mwai Kibaki’s Cabinet for just 57 days before his death in a plane crash on 10 June 2008, aged 56. Given such a brief stint, it is difficult to put a finger on any agenda he might have had that would have contributed to the legacy of […]
Listen In the rough and tumble of Nairobi City politics, Maina Kamanda was to Mwai Kibaki what Fred Fidelis Gumo was to Daniel arap Moi. A streetwise mobiliser, Kamanda stormed the political scene through his election as councilor for Ngara in 1979 aged only 28. He was for many years Kibaki’s commander in Nairobi City, […]
Listen President Mwai Kibaki’s wife, Lucy Kibaki, was known as a person of influence who would not hesitate to call out individuals she believed were driving the country the wrong way. She was also said to have some measure of influence concerning government appointments, which is how Mohammed Abdi Kuti, a medical doctor and first-time […]
Listen Before his appointment to President Mwai Kibaki’s Cabinet, Moody Awori was unflatteringly referred to as the permanent Assistant Minister in political circles. This was well founded in fact because in previous administrations, he had served in that position in various dockets, among them the Office of the President, Foreign Affairs and Tourism and Wildlife. […]