Listen Kenya’s first President and Prime Minister, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was an African statesman who rose from jail and house arrest to lead a new nation from 1963 to 1978. Mzee Kenyatta was born Kamau wa Ngengi at Ng’enda in Gatundu, Kiambu, in the 1890s. His parents, Muigai and Wambui, died when he was young. […]
Listen Thomas Joseph Mboya will be remembered as one of the most charismatic and most flamboyant Cabinet Ministers Kenya has had. At independence in 1963, he was appointed the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. In 1965, he was moved to the Ministry of Economic Planning. TJ, as he was popularly known, was born on […]
Listen Zachary Theodore Onyonka was born on June 28, 1939, in Meru, where his father, Godrico Oeri Mairura, was a policeman. Zachary was the second child of Oeri and Kerobina Kebati. The family left for Kisii after his father resigned from the police force to join the Provincial Administration as an assistant chief. In school, […]
Listen Like his nickname, ‘Kaliech’ (Dholuo for like an elephant), Dr William Odongo Omamo’s contribution to Kenya’s political landscape was gigantic. He was one of the most polished and eloquent politicians Kenya has ever had. A man with the gift of the gab and a great sense of humour, he could speak for hours and […]
Listen Dr Taaitta Kipyegon arap Toweett was born in 1925. He started school at Litein Primary and later joined Kabianga Mission School. In the 1948 Kenya African Preliminary Examination, he emerged the top pupil in the country. He joined Alliance High School, from where he later went to Makerere College. He then enrolled for a […]
Listen From 1963 to 1983, Stanley Shapashina ole Oloitipitip bestrode the Maasai politics like a colossus and when he fell from the national limelight and into oblivion, his political career collapsed like a house of cards – ending with a 12-month jail term. As Minister for Local Government, Oloitipitip upgraded numerous small towns into municipal […]
Listen Samuel Onyango Ayodo was one of the youngest members of Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta’s first Cabinet. Ayodo was 33 years old when he was appointed to be part of a new crop of leaders to shape the destiny of the young nation at independence in 1963. He was the son of a former assistant […]
Listen The terse one o’clock announcement by the Presidential Press Unit of the sacking of Robert Stanley Matano as Minister for Information and Broadcasting in 1985 hit the Kanu secretary-general like a thunderbolt. Matano, who was en route from his Mazeras home in Coast Province by train, disembarked in Nairobi and called his office, seeking […]
Listen Born in 1922 in Kilifi, Ronald Gideon Ngala went to St John’s School, Kaloleni, Shimo la Tewa and later Alliance High School. He then joined Makerere College for a diploma in education. He taught at St John’s and Taveta’s Mbale Secondary schools between 1949 and 1954. He moved to Taita and Buxton (Mombasa), where […]
Listen Freedom fighter Ramogi Achieng Oneko will be remembered as a principled politician who was ready to die for his country. He was the only freedom fighter who was detained by the colonial and the Kenyatta regime, and lived to tell the story. He was in Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta’s first Cabinet as the Minister […]