Category: Personalities

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The Ngugi I knew

Ngugi (centre) with his wife Njeeri (Right) and PLO Lumumba (left) during the book launch at the National Museums of Kenya

Today I have the single unenviable task of writing about Ngugi when everyone has written what is to be written about Kenya’s foremost writer, who went to join his ancestors on Wednesday last week.

So where do I start?

Well, I will start from the very beginning. Growing up, I didn’t encounter much of Ngugi; my elder siblings were studying texts like Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy.

However, towards the end of the 1980s, as I was about to clear my primary school education, the Moi government started a ‘big fight’ with ‘dissidents’, who included Koigi wa Wamwere, writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, among others. The dissidents were said to be members of group called Mwakenya, and that they wanted to overthrow the government and ‘destabilise’ the country.

That is the first time I encountered Ngugi. It is also the first time the word effigy entered my dictionary. To prove their loyalty to the government, politicians would make effigies, which would then be burnt in public, or thrown to the sea, in the case of Mombasa.

Then, Nakuru, my hometown, was home to many rabid politicians, who would come up with the nastiest things to do or say, just to be seen to be on the side of the government. We had Kariuki Chotara, who was the Nakuru Kanu branch chairman then – being a district Kanu branch chairman was a very powerful position.

There was also Kihika Kimani, father of the current Nakuru governor, and later Wilson Leitich, who inherited Chotara’s seat.

This bunch of politicians from Nakuru had to be extra ‘active’ since Koigi, one of the dissidents, hailed from Nakuru. In fact, Koigi had at one point represented our constituency (Nakuru North) in Parliament.

Alongside dissident and effigy, two other words also found prominence of place in my growing dictionary; exile and subversive.

Newspapers reported that the dissidents were planning subversive activities and that they were in exile. Koigi was in Norway and Ngugi was in the UK, before he went to the US.

One of my elder brothers had recently been posted as primary school teacher and he religiously bought newspapers, which I enthusiastically dug in. The editors and journalists provided background information on the dissidents and that is how I learned that Ngugi was a writer, that he had taught at the University of Nairobi. He was detained without trial, just like Koigi and that while in detention, he wrote a whole book on toilet paper.

I was fascinated and impressed.

Then I learned that as part of his ‘subversive’ activities, Ngugi had written a play in Gikuyu and staged it in his Kamirithu village in Nakuru. People from all over the country, who spoke Gikuyu, would be ferried in lorries and buses, to go and watch, Ngaahika Ndeeda (I will Marry when I want).

To my young mind, after watching the play, the people would come back home angry with the government and wanting to overthrow it.

Ngugi, to me, was like a book and movie character; I found it hard to believe that a human being could do the things he was said to have done. Yaani the man was not even afraid of Moi and Kanu!

Ngugi was, for me, a mythical figure; defying all odds to do what he did.

Then I read that the man had written another book titled Devil on the Cross. I knew, through Christianity, that the Cross was associated with Jesus but now Ngugi was putting the devil there as well – What was this man not capable of?

As if that was not enough, I read that Ngugi had written yet another book, where a character known as Matigari was going around villages inciting people by asking them very difficult questions. It got so bad that policemen and detectives were despatched to go and arrest this Matigari man; a mere character in a book!

I told you, this Ngugi man was something else.

Whenever newspapers wrote about Ngugi, they used a black and white photo of the man wearing a full neck sweater, taken from a sideways angle.

This iconic photo was burned in my memory, much like one where the imprisoned Nelson Mandela was pictured with a stylish cut running through his hair.

In the early nineties, when the country was agitating for Multi-party politics, and I had just joined high school, matters to do with Ngugi had somewhat cooled down.

This coincided with Ngugi’s fallow period when he didn’t write much, but I kept tucked his memory somewhere in my archives.

The man that properly reintroduced me to Ngugi and his works, now on an intellectual level, was US based scholar, Prof Evan Mwangi. I really looked forward to his delightful articles published on the Literary Forum, in the Sunday Standard. By then, I had just joined The Standard as a newbie features correspondent.

That is about the time that I appreciated how big Ngugi was; his name had become a cottage industry among people who wished to remain relevant in the literary domain.

Many, including university professors, wrote to praise Ngugi, others wrote to criticise him; some on very flimsy grounds, like one who wrote that Ngugi was the ‘father of Mungiki’, simply because he wrote on aspects of Gikuyu culture,

How demented!

At around 2003, we heard that Ngugi was about to release his newest book, Múrogi wa Kagogo, which he would later translate into Wizard of the Crow.

I had really polish my written Gikuyu in order to be able to read the book, which came out in instalments, published locally by East African Educational Publishers (EAEP).

Unlike Kikuyus who were born and educated in the Mount Kenya region, I did not have the benefit of learning to read and write Gikuyu up to Standard Four. But I coped.

It was then announced that Ngugi would be coming back to Kenya, after 22 years in exile. This piece of information got me excited and sad at the same time.

I was excited that I would somehow see the subject of my intense fascination and hear his voice in close quarters. I was however sad that I was in between jobs – having been retrenched at the Standard at the age of 28! – and as budding literary journalist, I would not enjoy a ringside seat in the whole Ngugi homecoming business.

Then came the horrible news that Ngugi and his wife had been attacked and his wife raped. I could not wrap the news around my head. I shut it down altogether.

One day, while the case was being investigated, I had gone for lunch at the Central Police Station canteen, when I saw Ngugi with a number of plain clothes police officers in tow. I reckoned he had probably gone to identify some suspects.

I was struck by how fragile and frail he looked, with his signature shaggy hair; he an oversized coat a pair of baggy trousers and open shoes. He looked sad and tired.

I tried to figure out what was going inside his mind at that moment and I again shut it down.

This was not the fire-eating Ngugi I had stored in my mind all those years; just like the equally frail Mandela who came out of prison after 27 years.

A certain John Kiragu, a cousin of Ngugi’s first wife, the late Nyambura, was tried in court for planning and financing the attack.

For context, Kiragu, the current Limuru MP, is suspected to have planned and financed the attack on Rigathi Gachagua, when he attended a funeral in Limuru, shortly after he was impeached.

Make of that what you will.

In one of his subsequent returns to the country to attend the court case, I got the opportunity to interview Ngugi. I had joined Sunday Nation as a literary correspondent, when I got in touch with EAEP and they set up the interview.

That evening, I got a call asking me to get downstairs, where I got into a vehicle which would take me to where Ngugi was. That time, his location was top secret and he was being guarded round the clock.

We arrived at a house in Westlands, where I found Ngugi and his wife Njeeri. The owner of the house, a matronly woman fixed me a severe gaze and warned me of unspecified consequences should I misquote Ngugi in my story.

Her warnings did not register much as I was too preoccupied, to finally meet and sit down with my literary hero. Although I remember asking some questions, I must have been too star-struck I quietly drank in every word the man said.

I was however struck by how humble and down-to-earth he was. Was this the man, with his stuttering voice, that had given Kenyatta and Moi’s governments walking nightmares?

Well, that is the power of the pen for you; and our Ngugi knew how to wield it.

I had more opportunities to interview Ngugi and on one occasion, I asked him who, in his view, would inherit his giant literary shoes. It turned out to be a fascinating encounter, but that is a story for another day.

Fare thee well Ngugi, you will never be forgotten.

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Arts Books Events Issues Personalities

Generations apart: when literary art meets visual art

For purposes of this story, I will start by going down memory lane, where we meet Ancent Soi, who was employed as a shop assistant at a curio store belonging to former Kamukunji MP, George Nthenge, at the City Market.

Now curio shops are filled with, among other things, colourful artefacts meant for the tourist market.

Soi, who had a keen but supressed artistic mind, was fascinated by colours and during his spare time, would doodle his own sketches. His employer was impressed by those sketches and would encourage him to do more.

This was in 1972, when the world was gearing for the Munich Olympic Games in Germany. That same Michael Soi, his son was born.

More on him later.

Through Nthenge, the elder Soi came across a circular seeking artistic submissions, to be considered for use as the official poster for the Munich Games.

Soi thought to himself, “I can do this…” and went to work. Nthenge, being a busy man, soon forgot about that competition, only to be jolted by an agent who came to collect the artwork.

Nthenge was about to start scratching his head, knowing he did not follow up on the matter (well, I am imagining this is what happened at the shop), when Soi fished out the piece of artwork he did and gave it to the agent.

Soi’s piece won the competition and it became the official poster for the Munich Olympic Games. That win came with fully-paid trip to the games and prize money that enabled him to move his family from Eastleigh to a swanky new estate called Buruburu.

It also marked the beginning of a successful career in visual art for Soi. For a man with no formal training in art, that was quite a feat.

At around the same time, in Jericho, the writer’s bug was tormenting David Maillu, who like Soi, was self-taught. Maillu’s formal education stopped at Standard Eight.

Maillu knew that to be a successful writer, one had to write something that people would identify with; in the course of his research, he delved into the question of what people liked talking about.

Maillu’s research yielded six broad topics that people can never get enough of. I will list them here in no particular order.

1. Battle of the sexes.

2. God, religion and spirituality.

3. Money.

4. Alcohol.

5. Work place relations.

6. Politics.

Though he is a teetotaller, Maillu frequented pubs, where he keenly observed what happened in those joints.

With his research done, he went to work and let his imagination and creativity do the rest. The result was After 4.30, a book, rendered in poetic flow, that took a critical look at what urban folks do after the official working hours.

This book, did wonderfully well in the market; it was literally flying off the shelves. His print run of 10,000 copies was cleared off the shelves within a year.

To put these numbers into perspective, today, a book (fiction) that sells 5,000 in five years, in Kenya, is considered a bestseller.

Perhaps driven by fear and jealousy, the gatekeepers (not good people) at the time, closed ranks and started fear-mongering: oh, ati Maillu’s books are unfit for human consumption (he has a book by that title BTW) that they are full of sex and will lead to moral degradation.

In spite of this moral posturing, brothels and other dens of iniquity were operating at full capacity; frequented by the same moralists. That explained why Maillu’s books were consumed in secrecy.

51 years on, Michael Soi, who grew up watching his father paint, is a big artist on his own. When Mvua Press acquired the rights to publish the third edition of After 4.30, fate connected them with the younger Soi, who was more than willing to do the book’s cover.

And that is how I found myself at the GoDown Arts Centre, in Kilimani, on Monday, where Soi has a studio.

Now, Soi is quite selective in who he gives media interviews and is very strict with time (“time is a very important asset, guard it jealously,” he told me after I arrived 15 minutes late.)

He said that he agreed to do the cover since he identifies with Maillu’s works and philosophy. “Maillu focuses a lot on human behaviour, their interactions and psychology, which is also a prominent feature of my work,” explains Soi.

Like Maillu, Soi’s work centers on places where ‘forbidden’ things happen; he regularly frequents strip joints, just to observe human interactions there. These interactions are regular staple on his canvases.

To illustrate this, he walks to a corner in his studio, where he retrieves a big rectangular painting that depicts a strip joint scene.

In the painting, a number of men are drooling over a thong-clad woman on stilletos. The men include, a suited office executive, a pastor, a policeman, a turbaned muhindi; all respectable men in society.

“I get constant accusations of painting boobies and butts, but no one talks about, that accountant, that CEO, that pastor or that cop in the picture,” he adds.

Soi paints the reality of what happens in these joints but society, or rather those who patronise them, would wish they were kept a secret. It also explains why he gets accusations of sexually commodifying women.

If you check closely, these accusations – reverse psychology – most likely come from the men who frequent these joints, through proxies – to dissuade Soi from ‘exposing’ their activities.

That is the same fate that befell Maillu, those many years ago, for daring write about what influential people do behind closed doors, like the boss, a married man, in After 4.30, who pesters Lili, his secretary, to have a secret sexual affair with him.

The fact that Soi did the cover of After 4.30, celebrates the rare intersection (at least here in Kenya), when two artistic disciplines – literary art and visual art – come together.

“We should have more of these artistic collaborations, if our creative industry is to go places,” says Soi.

After 4.30 is the fourth book, whose cover Soi has illustrated. Locally, he has done the cover of Stanley Gazemba’s novel, Forbidden Fruit.

He has also done the cover of Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money and Belonging in Kenya, by George Paul Meiu.

The other one is Yellow Perils: China Narratives in the Contemporary World. The book, edited by Franck Bille and Sorren Urbansky, arose from a popular ‘China Loves Africa’ series, Soi did from between, 2009 and 2017, at the peak of China’s ‘involvement’ in Africa affairs.

So ‘effective’ was these series that when the Chinese President visited Kenya, in 2014, Soi received surprise guests from the Chinese delegation, in his studio and who proceeded to give him a tongue lashing for not being ‘appreciative enough’ of the ‘good things’ China was doing for Africa.

Soi’s earliest interaction with After 4.30 was when he was in high school. “Our English teacher caught me reading the book in class and advised me to read it in the dorms; not in class,” adds Soi.

His teacher was lenient; other would confiscate the book, punish the student caught with the book and then go read it in the staffroom.

The new edition of After 4.30 will be officially launched at an action packed event at the Sarakasi Dome, in Ngara, on Saturday, June 28. It will also feature a stage adaptation of the book, featuring, among others, Nice Githinji, Dedan Juma aka Zeze among others.

The play is directed by Mwaniki Njache.

Entry to the launch event, which will also feature performances by various DJs, in a street dance party, is a copy of the book, which goes for Ksh1,200.

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Books Culture Events Fiction Issues News Personalities

Maillu’s After 4.30 still relevant 50 years on

There is something about Mathemboni that makes you want to keep going back.

Last Saturday was my third time, since November last year, and it definitely will not be the last. There is a certain aura of peace that pervades the place. Situated on a hilly place, Mathemboni, to those who have never been there, is full of all manner of exotic trees. This is the perfect place for meditation, to be one with nature, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Mathemboni, in Kikamba, means the place of shrines. That is precisely what writer David Maillu had in mind when he developed the place that sits on a ten-acre piece of land. It is a shrine of knowledge.

When you consider that Maillu, who is now 86, has been at the writing game since the early seventies – his inkpot is still brimming full – then you know that you are walking into a museum of sorts.

A visit to Mathemboni, which is at the border of Machakos and Makueni counties, near a town called Kola, is not complete without the host taking you on a tour of the place. For example, the main houses are built in the shape of medieval castles, using material collected from various places. What you see is a castle, but Maillu will tell you that the storied building was inspired by the Akamba Kiondo.

The main compound is dotted with sculptures, ranging from the Ankh, an ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic symbol, representing life, to a sculpture of Syokimau, the Kamba prophetess, who foresaw the coming of the colonialists to Kenya as well as the railway. The latest addition is the giant President Donald Trump Shithole, which basically houses toilets.

Listening to Maillu explaining things, from African spirituality to philosophy and writing, is like flipping through the pages of an encyclopaedia; you just want to listen and listen some more.

On the second floor of the main building is an open-air conference hall, which on this particular day hosted a one of a kind book club meeting. I am not a member of the Not Nerdy Book Club, but when I saw their poster announcing that their March, 2025 session would be held at Mathemboni, I was determined not to miss.

I had met Cheryl Kamy, the founder of Net Nerdy, at a book event at the Alliance Française, in February, and expressed interest in attending one of their sessions. Turns out that Not Nerdy have an arrangement with Mvua Press, the newest and coolest publisher in town, to feature some of their books in their sessions. What a novel way of marketing books!

What made this particular book club session even more attractive was the fact that they were featuring one of Maillu’s classics After 4.30. Now, anyone who has read some of Maillu’s earlier books, knows that they are full of fireworks, right from the use of language to the imagery employed.

Older generations, from GenX upwards, have hilarious recollections of their encounters with Maillu’s books. Almost all confess that they consumed the books in secret and very few read the complete text. There were bits and pieces of the books doing rounds in the villages/estates and schools. This is testament to how sinfully popular these books were.

In a previous interview, Maillu summed up the who whole experience of his books among the masses then. “I knew of households that, at any one time, had three copies of my book,” he explains. “The husband had a copy, the wife had a copy and the children had theirs too. None of the three parties knew the rest had the book.”

Now the membership of Not Nerdy is entirely made up of millennials and the occasional GenZees. Seeing as After 4.30 was written in 1974, way before each one of them were born, I was curious to know what their take on the book is.

All of them were unanimous that the issues raised in the book are as relevant, if not more relevant than they were at the time of its publication. “When I started reading the book, I was shocked and I asked myself, ‘who is this beautiful woman who is speaking for me?’ and then I turned back to the cover to confirm that it was written by a man and not a woman, as I had thought,” Maya Suleiman told Maisha Yetu.

She added that it was eye-opening for her that a man would so accurately tell a woman’s experience. “It is amazing that the book was written in the early seventies and can I relate to it in 2025.” she added. “For raising issues so close to the hearts of women, I would say that Maillu was feminist and not of the toxic variety.”

Peter Karuga, a banker, was impressed by the diverse themes raised in the book. “Despite the fact that the book was written over 50 years ago, we are still experiencing the same problems encountered then. The poverty that was prevalent at the turn of independence and attendant issues like the gender-based violence are still the same problems we are grappling with in today’s world.”

June Jose noted the finesse with which the author raised the sensitive issue of gender-based violence, which is still as prevalent as it was back then when the book was written. “It is amazing how despite the difference in time, the issues remain the same. The book is highly recommendable especially with us people of the younger generations.”

Maureen Wairimu was especially fascinated by how Maillu raises the issue of religion and spirituality. “This book really spoke to me because lately I have been deconstructing some long-held religious beliefs,” she explained. “I identified with a character in the book called Emily, who questions the whole concept of confessing her sins to a pastor. Why bestow so much power on a fellow human being to determine how your sins would be absolved? There is more to religion than we are taught.”

What about the language?

“I loved the rawness of language used in the book; that is what attracted me to it,” added Wairimu. “There are people who might be shocked by the language used and might call it vulgar; it is because they don’t want to call a spade a spade. I am not at all shocked by the language; on the contrary, I loved it.”

While Jose acknowledged that the language used is ‘strong’, she said it is necessary when it comes to dealing with difficult issues like Gender-based violence.

As a Muslim woman, Suleiman is not offended by the language used and themes explored in the book. “The issue of violence against women, which features prominently in the book, cuts across religions,” she said.

Kamy started Not Nerdy in October 2022 because she wanted to be in a community of readers. “Through our online activities, we got to meet with the people at Mvua Press, which is an imprint of eKitabu, and we quickly discovered that we shared common ideals like the love of books. They also wanted us to help popularise the books they publish and distribute,” she explained.

Isaac Mwangi, the managing editor of Mvua Press says that they work with a wide range of stakeholders in the publishing industry to advance the interests of authors, publishers and book lovers. “One of our strategies is to work with book clubs such as Not Nerdy. We are happy to see book clubs mushrooming around the country as they play an important role in enhancing critical reading skills,” he explains.

Mvua Press does a number of activities aimed at encouraging a reading and writing culture, especially among students and young people. “These include the annual Digital Essay Competition as well as short poetry and fiction submissions from young writers across the country. Hopefully, these activities and book clubs will assist in the emergence of not only future authors, but also avid readers and spoken word artists,’’ adds Mwangi.

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Books Events Featured Fiction Issues Personalities publishing

Kombani reflects on 20-year journey with Villains of Molo

  • Maisha Yetu: Congratulations on your book turning 20. What does this milestone mean to you?

    Kinyanjui Kombani: Wueh! How time flies!

    First, it is an opportunity to reflect on my own writing and publishing journey. Life moves so quickly that we forget about how far we have come. When I wrote the book, all I wanted was to see it on a shelf at a bookshop — specifically, at the now-closed Bookpoint, on Kenyatta Avenue. They had book dummies displayed as you passed by the shop, and I couldn’t wait to have mine up there, with the rest. To have ‘The Last Villains of Molo’ become part of a national conversation – mentioned as one of the top Kenyan books of all time and studied in schools and universities – that was not part of the plan!

    Secondly, it grants us, as Kenyans, the opportunity to think harder about our future. 20 years is a long time to rethink our national politics and the accumulated impact of the politics of division. For me, this milestone means giving a lot more reflection to where our country is heading. Most of the issues I addressed in the book – tribalism, poverty, mob justice, extra-judicial killings, politically instigated ethnic strife, and more – remain constants. How long shall we allow our leaders to sow the seeds of discord among us?

    • Your dream of becoming a published author with The Last Villains of Molo was almost thwarted despite it being ‘published’ with glowing reviews in the papers; tell us more about this trying episode for you…

    Yes. Although the book was released in 2005, it was not made available until 2008 when we had a formal book launch at the Alliance Francaise. It was missing from the bookshelves years later and, frustrated at seeing my dreams shattered, I started shopping for a new publisher. Luckily, my first publisher did not resist the withdrawal request, only insisting that I buy all the books in stock. The book was re-released by Longhorn Publishers under a new cover. And the rest is history.

    Like I said, I never thought my book was going to be as big as it became. It was my first publisher who suggested that it had the potential to be a school text. When he asked me what I would do if I got  millions in royalties, my dream of a LandCruiser VX was born!

    • When you wrote the manuscript for this book you were a university student, with no access to a computer, let alone a typewriter, what was it that kept your dream alive when others would have thrown in the towel?

    I lived with my brothers in Ngando, a sprawling estate behind Ngong Road in a single roomed house (this was the setting of ‘Villains’). We didn’t have most of the resources that are available to us now – cyber café charges were 10 shillings a minute!

    I got help from my neighbours and friends – the Mudola family. They had a cyber café in Langata and would allow me to use their computer when there were no clients. In fact, the bulk of the manuscript was typed by Dorothy Mudola. She believed in the story and wanted to see it come to life.

    I also had great encouragement from my mentor David Mulwa. He had read the initial handwritten manuscript and wrote “This is a masterpiece! Have it typed and submitted for publishing.” He kept asking about the progress, so I had to keep at it. The late Gachanja Kiai, one of my other lecturers who read my initial stories, and who introduced me to the publisher, was also following up on progress. 

    The publisher accepted the manuscript on condition that I rewrite a huge part of it. We had to get rid of about a third of it (which explains why a part of the book felt rushed – spoiler alert “Stella”). But by this time the cyber café at Langata had been closed and I was about to lose the publishing opportunity. I managed to slide past the then Kenyatta University Vice Chancellor Prof George Eshiwani’s security and told him of my plight. He turned to his personal assistant and instructed her to let me have all the support I needed. From that day, I had access to three secretaries – I would write the manuscript at night and submit it to them in the morning for typing. That is how I managed to beat the deadline. 

    • You were probably the very first Kenyan writer to address the thorny issue of ethnically instigated clashes, what fired this zeal?

    We lived in Molo until 1995 when I went to boarding school in Form 1 and then moved to our ancestral home in Njoro. We were to later meet the family of Mzee Joseph Mbure who had been displaced from Kamwaura in the 1997 clashes. My grandmother had given them a house and some land to till until they could move back. I heard the old man’s recollections about the clashes. Later on, I went to the Nation Centre Library where I discovered, to my horror, that his stories were factual.  The Last Villains of Molo started out as a short story but grew into a full length novel.

    We lived in Molo town during the 1992 clashes. One of my brothers was walking in town with my sister when he was hauled into a lorry to go fight in the forest. I was at the Molo hospital when a man was brought in with an arrow lodged in his forehead. One of our teachers, a Kalenjin, asked one of my brothers to take care of his house while he left town when the situation became untenable. All these are incidents  that made it into the novel.

    When I went to university, I discovered that my roommate had also experienced the clashes in Molo. He gave me harrowing descriptions about surviving the clashes by sleeping in fields of napier grass.

    I felt that these were stories that needed to be told, fictionally. And nobody was telling them.

    • We are two and half years to the 2027 General Elections and we’re already hearing inciteful ethnic rhetoric from politicians, are Kenyans that forgetful, despite the outcome of the 2007 election, that landed some politicians at the International Criminal Court?

    I don’t think Kenyans are forgetful. We all remember our collective suffering – not only from the 1992 clashes, but from all clashes that have happened every election period. The problem is that we have allowed our politicians to continue to use us for political expediency. We have allowed them to keep using the same tribal rhetoric, spiced with words like ‘murima’ and ‘madoadoa.’  And the resurgence of the Mungiki, spurred on by obvious political patronage by our leadership, spells even more danger. 

    But then, we have a more enlightened youth who have no more allegiance to tribe. Conversations on social media are mostly about issues. I quoted David Mulwa in the novel: “The young refuse the bonds of the past, the bonds of hate.” And I think this is going to be true in the coming years. Gone are the days when we allow ourselves to see the enemy as tribe X or Y. And people are quick to call out politicians.

    I think we have a better-informed electorate, and in the future, we will be able to vote in leaders who do not preach violence. I will be surprised if these war mongers come back to power.

    • What are some of the milestones this book has enjoyed and what it has done to you as an author?

    Man! Where do I start?

    I constantly receive messages on social media from people who have read and being impacted by the book. This for me is a huge motivator to keep writing.

    The book has also been studied in schools and at university level. I receive may queries from people who are studied it and who are stuck in one way or the other. I am not of much help, sadly, what with topics such as “Literary Historiographical Analysis of Kinyanjui Kombani’s The Last Villains of Molo’! See – when I write I just want to tell a story. Historiographical analysis – whatever that means – is not part of the plan!

    The book was mentioned in The Guardian as one of the top 10 books about Kenya. It has been mentioned in other Top-Something lists. We have optioned the book for film production. However, it has yet to gain a commitment for a film budget. We keep looking!

    As a writer, I must confess that it was a hard act to follow. I had put my heart and soul into it, and I didn’t think I had any other story in me. It was more than five years later that I could attempt a second novel – Den of Inequities – which also did well.

    Early success in my career meant that I could experiment with different ideas, hence the shift to faster-paced, simpler and definitely not darker books like ‘Of Pawns and Players’ and ‘Hawkers-Pokers’. My writing style is now much more different.

    • You recently took to Facebook to shop for ideas on how to celebrate this 20-year milestone, you must have received plenty of them by now…

    Yes, I reached out to my connections on social media for ideas on how to commemorate the milestone – because the book is a success thanks to them. I received dozens of ideas within a few hours.

    Some of the ideas we are going with is a release of a reading of an excerpt of the book by my friend and mentor, the legendary John Sibi-Okumu, OGW. JSO will also be reading other excerpts live in March.

    On 21 February 2025. we will be having a Readers’ Special Space on X / Twitter featuring appearances by people who have been part of the novel – from those who inspired it to those who have taught it at high school/university level, to those who have read it for fun. We will also have a slew of other X Spaces to reflect on Kenya’s tumultuous history, and the challenges ahead of us.

    Additionally, there are commemorative articles to be published across the media houses and two special radio shows. We will have virtual panel conversations with other writers who have handled ethnic conflict in Kenya, in addition to live Ask-Me-Anything sessions on Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram. I am excited at the lineup of people who have raised their hands to be part of this conversation.

    We are also working on exciting giveaways in collaboration with Nuria Books and Longhorn Publishers.

    • You are also known as the ‘banker who writes’, how do you combine the two roles?

    First, I am glad to work with a company that allows me to use my talent as a writer. This is not a luxury enjoyed by most creatives. There are lots of interdependencies between the two careers – I believe I am a better writer because I am a banker, and a better banker because I am a writer. In my role as a Learning & Development specialist, I get to use my creativity to design, develop and deploy learning solutions. And when it comes to building my brand as a writer, I borrow a leaf from the bank, especially with the need to have a greater purpose. Finding my ‘why’ helps to refine my ‘what’ and ‘how’, and helps me to prioritise what is of greatest impact to my purpose. I constantly ask, as our head of Strategy and Talent does, “What is this in service of”?

    Secondly, I do not want to pretend that it is easy. Working in a global role in an international bank means that I must make a lot of sacrifices so as not to drop the ball. You also don’t want anyone to think that any ball is dropping because of my other activities.

    I see it as priorities management rather than time management. For me, this means that when I am working in the bank, I give it 150%, and when I can make time for writing I get rid of other distractions. I have to choose what I am saying yes to, more carefully, because it means saying not to conflicting agendas.

    • Ever since the publication of The Last Villains of Molo, you have enjoyed quite the ride as a writer, winning literary awards in the process; take us through that…

    I was shortlisted for the 2005 Rhodes Scholarship and won the ‘Outstanding Young Alumni Award’ by Kenyatta University in 2014. In 2015, I was named in the Top 40 Under 40 Business Daily Africa Award and a ‘Top 5 Under 35 Award’ at Standard Chartered Bank (an award to recognize the most outstanding colleague under 35 years).

    In 2017, I was shortlisted CODE Burt Award for African Young Adult Fiction for Finding Columbia, which went on to win the 2018 African edition and is now a school text for Grade 7. I was also a national finalist for my books Do or Do and Eve’s Invention. This is the first time a writer had been a double finalist in the national edition of the Burt awards.

    In 2019 my book Of Pawns and Players won the Wahome Mutahi Literary Award. In the same year, ‘Do or Do’ won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, Youth Category. These are considered Kenya’s most prestigious literary awards, and this has been great for me.

    I have also been invited to be part of Nairobi Noir – an anthology excavating the history of Nairobi, as seen through the eyes of its dwellers. I was also involved in ‘Toto Tales/Fabulous Four’ a children’s series, The Kenya Yearbook Editorial Board-commissioned project to create a children’s version of their popular Kenya Yearbook.

    1. Emerging writers moan about limited opportunities for getting published, hence the rise of self-publishing in Kenya, what are your thoughts on this phenomenon?

    Upcoming writers have always had a challenge getting published by traditional publishers. I blame this on the way the publishing industry is set up, with majority of sales coming through school texts. The result of this is that publishers go for writers and books that are most likely to make it through to the school curriculum, with little to no investment in books for leisure reading. Those of us who manage to crack through the brick wall are the exception rather than the rule. And even then, we have to wait years for publishing diaries to align.

    The good news is that there more opportunities for self-publishing. A lot of professionals have emerged to offer services such as editorial consulting (John Sibi-Okumu, Euniah Mbabazi, Mwende Kyalo and Jennie Marima to name a few) previously the preserve of employees from publishing houses. Distribution challenges, which have limited the growth of self-publishing, are being addressed by player such as the indefatigable Nuria Store.

    I strongly say that the future of Kenyan publishing is in self-publishing. Gone are the days when one had to wait for the gatekeeping publishing executives to get your work out there. Writers like Charles Chanchori, Scholar Akinyi, Lesalon Kasaine, Vera Omwocha, Ciku Kimani, Munira Hussein are good examples of writers who have built audiences of eager readers who want to read for enjoyment and are thriving. And The Book bunk, Kenya Readathon, Storymoja, Macondo Litfest, Lexa Lubanga, and Soma Nami are creating a buzz around the industry. I think the industry is in good hands.

    1. Your last book, Hawkers Pokers came out two years ago, what are you currently working on?

    I wrote another humorous (hopefully) book called Fools Day in 2021, and spent most of 2024 rewriting it based on feedback from my usual group of ‘beta readers’. It is now under review for publication. I hope to have it published in time for the next Wahome Mutahi Prize consideration.

    This year I am also restarting work on a more serious novel that talks about state capture and false flag terrorism in an unnamed African country. Let’s see how that goes!

    1. There was a period you used to be quite active, promoting writing on social media, not so much today…

    Is that true? I didn’t think so, personally. But if I am, I blame it on work pressure – the last few years have been busier for me as I settled into a new role and new environment. I do not believe in hiring someone to manage my social media accounts – nobody is able to replicate my voice, and I want my readers to know they are talking to me directly when they do.

    Secondly, working in a time zone five hours ahead of me robs me of the opportunity to engage in real time with my fans. My visibility across social media was because I used to respond to as many messages as I could, something I no longer have the capacity to do. But I will continue make every effort to engage with my fan base. 

    1. By now you must be fully settled in Singapore, both career-wise and socially, what would Kenyans learn from that country and how has the move shaped your writing?

    There is a lot to learn. I hear a lot of our politicians comparing Kenya to Singapore and calling it the Singapore of Africa. This makes me sad, because Kenyan leaders want Kenya to be like Singapore, without doing the things that Singapore did to be where it is. The government of Singapore thinks of creating a perfect world for the future, decades ahead.

    Our leaders do not think beyond their current terms. A lot of them come to Singapore for ‘benchmarking’, which is disappointing because a simple thing as having dustbins available in the city is a tall order. While it rains heavily in Singapore, the drainage system ensures that the flood waters are drained off in a few hours. Tap water is safe to drink in Singapore. Every bus stop in Singapore has a dustbin. What the leadership here has, and what we lack, is Intention.

    I am exactly 5 years in Singapore this month, and we can learn a lot about vision, and leadership from Singapore. . Perhaps, one of these days, I will write something longer about this disconnect and what Kenya must do to be the true Singapore of Africa.

    I am yet to see how this experience shapes my writing. Who knows? Maybe my next character will come to stay in Singapore. Or will be Singaporean. Or a Kenyan who goes to Singapore and falls in love with a Singaporean girl who is herself a mix between Chinese and Malay. I am already brainstorming!

    1. What is your advice to budding writers looking up to you as a role model?

    The same advice that my mentor David Mulwa has kept giving me, over the years:  And that is: “Keep Writing!” Every time I have delivered a copy of my latest book to Mwalimu Mulwa, he has taken it, blessed it and asked me, “So what are you writing next?”  The more you write, the more you find your own voice and, consequently, the more confident and assured you should become, just like any other serious undertaking: “Practice makes perfect.”

    I’d also urge writers to take a lot of time and energy to build their platform on social media. Apart from allowing you to interact directly with your readers and other stakeholders, and letting you know what is happening “kwa ground”, it allows you to build your brand as a writer. Some of the successes I have had, for example, selling out Of Pawns and Players were aided by great social media presence.

    Related to this is the importance of building relationships – both virtual and physical. Readers, festival organisers, publishing executives, editors, printers, book sellers, media practitioners, bloggers – all these have been responsible for my success. Seek to build symbiotic relationships with people (not just what you can get from them, but what to add value to them). Seek out coaches, mentors and accountability partners. You will never regret it.

    Categories
    Books Culture Non-Fiction Personalities Releases Reviews

    Africa in the eyes of a retired Swiss diplomat

    TITLE: In and Outside Africa: A Story of the Human Condition in Africa and the West

    AUTHOR: Dominik Langenbacher

    PUBLISHER: Mystery Publishers

    REVIEWER: Mbugua Ngunjiri

    In the course of his long and eventful diplomatic service, Langenbacher worked in many places around the globe, but it would appear that Africa had the most profound effect on him, probably due to the fact that his first posting was in Zaire, present day Democratic Republic of Congo, in the 1981.

    Although the book contains details of his life and work experiences, and should ideally fall into the category of a memoir; it is much more than that. It is at the same time less than that.

    The book opens with a narrative on crocodiles, or rather the evolution of that reptile. “My smallest crocodile is golden and only 13 millimetres long,” writes the author. “It is actually a pin on the head of a Zairean fetish, holding together a piece of real leopard skin with a synthetic ancillary… “

    With such a dramatic introduction, rest assured that you are now embarking on a wild ride across Africa, parts of Europe and the US, but mostly Africa.

    Then there is the humour, of the gallows variety, injected liberally throughout the narrative. Sometimes it hits you out of nowhere and so you must be prepared for the abruptness of it.

    For example, in the course of his research on crocodiles, he discovered that some female crocodiles could develop embryos from an unfertilised egg, without the input of the male species. “This rare natural phenomenon is called parthenogenesis, virgin birth or asexual reproduction. No sex,” he writes.

    Now, diplomats, when not in their stifling suits and ties, conducting sometimes boring official chores, are pretty interesting chaps. They can hold their own in a discussion on almost any topic on earth. They’ve been to many different places and interacted with a wide variety of people. They will wine and dine with corrupt dictators, in castles built in the middle of jungles.

    They will also share a humble meal with pygmies who have been uprooted from forests, where they have co-existed with nature since time immemorial.

    Do you start to see the contradiction and unfairness of it all? A dictator will destroy natural habitat, to build unsightly castles in the jungle, whereas people who have taken care of jungles and forests, living harmoniously with other forms of life, are thrown out and forced to beg for cigarettes in the concrete jungle.

    In short, diplomats, have seen things and know things.

    The author writes his book the best way he knows how. While the common practice infor memoirs, the author starts from the beginning, say when they were born, or slightly before that – their parents’ existence – Langenbacher opts to start from the VERY beginning; the evolution of man. The reader should thus prepare themselves for history lessons on early man, the homo erectus, homo habilis and homo sapiens.

    Not a chapter ends without reference to those.

    Oh, and if you thought that these are just idle musings of a diplomat with so much time on his hands, you would do well to know that he has actually visited the area, north of Kenya and South of Ethiopia, which are known as the Cradle of Humanity.

    These are places that archaeologists discovered the earliest known human remains, Lucy in Ethiopia and Turkana Boy in Kenya.

    And speaking about Lucy, the author provides an interesting anecdote about how that particular fossil got its name. “The name was derived from the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which the excavation team played repeatedly during her unearthing,” he writes.

    If you thought that diplomats spend all their time in the diplomatic districts of Muthaiga and Gigiri – this is somewhat true of the time they spend in Nairobi – you would be surprised to learn that they have probably been more places in your village than you do.

    The other thing you will have to contend with while reading this book is the amount of geography you will have to absorb. Here we are talking about the terminology your geography teacher struggled to hammer into your head during hot afternoon lessons, when you were having a real battle keeping your eyes open.

    You get to know the countries that lie in the Equator, Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The author also takes a historical detour and lets us reflect on the Berlin Conference of 1884/5, where European imperialists divided the African continent, amongst themselves, like a piece of pizza.

    The effects of those boundaries were communities that were torn apart, forced to live in different countries, despite shared heritage. He gives the example of the wildlife ecosystem that straddles Kenya and Tanzania – known as Maasai Mara National in Kenya and Serengeti in Tanzania. While there used to be a border post for tourists to cross to either side of the border, it has since been shut down, effectively ensuring that human traffic can’t cross to the other side of the border.

    “Fortunately, the wildebeests, gazelles and zebras that cross the border between Tanzania and Kenya, every year, during their great migration remain unburdened by the imaginary line on a map and the machinations of the human brain around it,” observes the author ruefully.

    Another thing that features prominently in the book, is the diverse cuisine of various African communities. A case in point is conversation Langenbacher had while in Ivory Coast and where he was given the definition of meat. Meat, he was informed, was ‘everything that moves but is not one of us’

    As an aside, and with a twinkle in his eye, the host told him that cannibalistic communities use the same definition for humans that are not ‘one of us’.

    East Africans, on the other hand are picky in what they eat; wild animals for Maasai pastoralists are off the menu. Donkeys ‘move and are not one us’, but are off limits.

    Oh, and there is something for Rastafarians, who consider Ethiopia their spiritual home and Haille Selassie, their spiritual head.

    In his visit to the Shashamane village in Ethiopia, which has a sizeable number of Jamaican immigrants/pilgrims, he tells the anecdote of how the former Ethiopian emperor, traces his roots to King Solomon, he of 700 wives and 300 concubines.

    The story goes that when Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon, she somehow found herself on the King’s bed, a liaison that resulted in the birth of Menelik, whom King Solomon made the king of Ethiopia. Haille Selassie comes from the lineage of Menelik.

    Due to the sheer amount of information packed in this book, be advised that this is not the kind of book you read in one sitting. You read a chapter at a time, let the knowledge sink in, before tackling another chapter.

    That said, I would have wished to read of more human interactions, particularly where he interacted with political leaders in the countries he served as an ambassador. I would give anything to know how our politicians behave when in the company of European ambassadors.

    Still, I got the distinct feeling that Dominik Langenbacher enjoyed himself immensely when writing this book.

    Ngunjiri is the curator of Maisha Yetu, a digital Arts and Books media platform mbugua5ngunjiri@gmail.com

    Categories
    Books Featured Non-Fiction Personalities Reviews

    Criminals eventually ‘see with their mouths’

    TITLE: My Life in Prison

    AUTHOR: John Kiriamiti

    PUBLISHER: East African Educational Publishers

    REVIEWER: Scholastica Moraa

    Following the sensation that was My Life in Crime, My Life in Prison tells the horror that was prison life for Jack Zollo, the writer of the two books.

    Fortunately, prison life is the kind of life most people will be fortunate enough not to experience. Through this book, we get a feel of how prison life is… or rather was during the time the author was imprisoned.

    Serving 20 years in jail with 48 strokes of the cane, Jack Zollo (Kiriamiti) lands in Kamiti Maximum Prison unceremoniously. He does not adapt well to prison life and it takes being beaten into unconsciousness and a friend simply referred to as GG to help him come to terms with his sentence. However, he does not settle into prison life without attempting an escape. 

    He is later transferred to Naivasha Maximum Prison, where he serves the rest of his prison term under inhumane conditions.

    It is difficult for someone who has never been in prison to grasp the concept of lack of freedom. Zollo’s time in prison is made worse by the conditions they are subjected to, which include the 1972 prison massacre.

    In a simple yet intriguing manner, John Kiriamiti tells his story leaving the reader enthralled from the beginning to the end. Throughout the book he shows us how crime can lead to unbearable punishments.

    Additionally, I love how most of the questions raised in his first book, My Life in Crime are answered. Kiriamiti’s first book left readers with plenty of questions and this book gives the reader closure. A painful, necessary, raw ending.

    My Life in Prison is a necessary book especially for young people who are tempted to use shortcuts to get rich quickly. As Jack Zollo says, when the law catches up with them, they will see with their mouth.

    Moraa is a young woman navigating life. Author of Beautiful Mess… Co Author of Dreams and Demons and I’m Listening 2021 edition. She is also the winner of Kendeka Prize of African Literature-2022. She can be found with a book or two. When she’s not fighting to stay afloat, she is daydreaming, writing poetry or reading.

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    Books Non-Fiction Personalities publishing Releases Reviews

    Rehema Kiteto’s journey of daring

    TITLE: Daring

    AUTHOR: Rehema Malemba Kiteto

    GENRE: Memoir

    PUBLISHER: The Writers Guild-Kenya

    REVIEWER: Kelvin Jaluo Shachile

    Coming of age novels must be among the best books we recommend to teenagers and young adults. My assumption for this has always been that coming of age novels are books and stories that allow these young people to look at their lives at the same time reflect on the stories and characters they read about. But then that is fiction, it might be a great reflection of their lives but there is a thin line between those stories and the realities they encounter in their lives.

    I have thought for days since I first read Rehema Kiteto’s new memoir titled “Daring” and I have settled to declare it a coming of age story in full realness.

    Kenyan author and administrator, Rehema Kiteto made news some years back after her appointment as the youngest administrator in the country at just the age of 24. Having known her for years since I worked with her on our first book “Hell in the Backyard and Other stories” published by Queenex Publishers in 2019, I celebrated this milestone for her.

    Days later, as news spread even wider and curiosity in the country spread in wonder of who this mysterious girl was, I started receiving calls and emails from people to get a comment about her. That scared not only me but others close to her.

    Some people had theories of how she might have got the job while others remained in awe of her life for they knew her somehow. Daring is a story the country has been waiting for. She writes about her life from childhood to the government administrator she is today. Personalised enough that we get to learn about her encounters with people, love, expectations, disappointments, her blossoming and becoming.

    She answers the questions the public had for her since her appointment while situating her story to remind us that it was not an accident she got here. It is actually something that was long overdue. With the right qualifications, experience and values, Rehema’s arrival into the public scene was not an overnight success, it is as she writes, a journey of daring.

    She however clarifies that what people said about her did not concern her and the misinterpretations are not something to address. She wrote Daring to dare others to journey on with strength and resilience.

    She writes that “My concern was for the young people who might read those online blogs, believe them and throw away their tools of hard work.”  Daring is not only a promising book for teenagers and young adults, it is great for general readership with a promise to resurrect hope in readers who might have in anyway been threatened by the quality of Kenyan self-published books in this recent while. The most exceptional coming of age memoir I have read so far.

    The 197 pages long memoir is among the best self-published books I have ever read from any Kenyan. The skillful craft and the way the publisher upheld the integrity and standards of the industry warmed my heart as a book lover. Launched on 25th May of 2024, this new book within a very short time has found itself in the hands of very many people and in places I had never seen memoirs being celebrated, even the Senate of Kenya. I dare say, a well-received memoir from a young person in Kenya threatening to become a national bestseller.

    Kelvin Shachile is a writer and curator. He co-authored Hell in the Backyard and other stories (Queenex Publishers, 2019). His writing has appeared in; The Armageddon and Other Stories anthology, A Country of Broken Boys anthology and The Best New African Poets 2018 anthology. Shachile has been featured and published by some of Africa’s finest literary platforms including Agbowo’, Writers Space Africa, Kalahari Review, Akewi’ and elsewhere. Long listed for African Writers Awards and Shortlisted for the Wakini Kuria Prize in 2019. He has worked for Lolwe and briefly for Agbowo’. He is well known for his pamphlet the Game of Writing published and distributed by African Writers Development Trust in 2019, which was reviewed as ‘a bible for new African writers.’ He currently serves on the editorial board of Fiery Scribe Review.

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    Books Culture Issues Non-Fiction Personalities Releases Reviews

    Long walk to citizenship: the Nubi story in Uganda

    TITLE: The Odyssey of the Nubi: From soldiers of the British Empire to Full Citizens in Uganda

    AUTHOR: Moses Ali

    PUBLISHER: Jescho Publishing House

    REVIEWER: Mbugua Ngunjiri

    AVAILABILITY: Nuria Bookstores

    Uganda, as a country, has had a chequered history marked by leadership struggles informed by much bloodletting. For Kenyans, the much they know about the journey of Uganda to what it is today, is limited to the personalities that have been occupied leadership positions and to an extent, the communities they came from.

    These individuals include, Edward Mutesa, Milton Obote, Idi Amin and current president Yoweri Museveni. While the communities where these leaders hail from are known, there is, however, one Ugandan community that has largely escaped the attention of Kenyans, probably due to the fact that none of them has ever scaled to top leadership position in that country.

    The Nubi community has however played a larger-than-life role in the history of Uganda, even preceding the advent of colonialism. For the right or wrong reasons, the Nubi community in Uganda have featured centrally in shaping the history of the East African Nation.

    The history of the Nubi in Uganda is as colourful and as chequered as that of the country. Above all else, theirs has been a story full of trials, tribulation and betrayal. It is not until Museveni came into power through a protracted bush war, that the Nubi found peace and recognition.

    Moses Ali, a retired general in the Ugandan army, has put together a book that traces the roots of the Nubi, from Sudan, during the pre-colonial times, their role in midwifing the both the colonial and post-colonial Uganda sates, to the present.

    The Odyssey of the Nubi: From soldiers of the British Empire to Full Citizens in Uganda, is a recommended read for anyone keen on knowing the other side of the Uganda away from the mutesas, obotes, Amins and Musevenis.

    General Ali’s book gives a different – one might argue, refreshing – perspective of Uganda. When Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe famously said that ‘until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter’, he must have had the unsung contribution of the Nubi in the making of Uganda, in mind.

    One story that has been told over and over again is the contribution of Rwandan refugees, who joined Museveni in liberating Uganda from the chokehold of Obote II and Tito Okello and their murderous band of soldiers. The story of the Rwandan refugees would have remained in the footnotes of history, had those soldiers not fought their way into power in Rwanda.

    The story of the Rwandan refugees, mainly Tutsis, led by Paul Kagame, would not be as celebrated as it is today, had they not brought down the genocidal regime of Juvenal Habyarimana. Similarly, the story of the Nubi’s contribution to Museveni’s liberation of Uganda, would not be known had Gen Ali elected not to write this book.

    It is therefore safe to say that the Nubi, through Gen Ali, are the proverbial lions that learnt to write and therefore managed to celebrate their contribution in shaping modern Uganda into what it is today.

    When Obote, propped up by Tanzania’s president, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, came back for a second stint as Ugandan president, he embarked on a negative campaign that sought to exterminate the Nubi, whose soldiers he blamed for backing up Idi Amin, when he ousted him (Obote) in a military coup in 1972.

    Many Nubi’s lost their lives, while others fled to exile, in the hands of Obote’s troops, after he came back to power, via an election in 1980, which Gen Ali dismisses as a sham in his book. The author, who at one time was a finance minister in Amin’s regime, fled into exile in Sudan when Obote came back to power.

    He writes that Amin sacked him and had sent assassins to finish him off

    When Obote took his revenge campaign to West Nile, the homeland of the Nubi in Uganda, Gen Ali and others, who had served in Amin’s army, decided to push back when they formed UNRF (Uganda National Rescue Front), thereby creating a safe haven for their kinsmen in the region.

    Museveni was at the same time, also waging war against Obote. Much later, Museveni and his National Resistance Army formed a pact with UNRF, which ushered them into power. The book explains that the Nubi in UNRF, courtesy of having career soldiers within its ranks, had the potential to capture state power in Uganda, only that it was hindered by internal wrangles.

    General Ali currently occupies the office of second deputy prime minister as well as deputy leader of government in Uganda.

    As book’s title suggests, the Nubi have struggled with the issue of citizenship in subsequent Ugandan governments. They finally achieved their citizenship dream with the enactment of the 1995 constitution.

    When the book was launched in Kenya on Friday May 11, the Alliance Française library was filled with members of the Nubi community based in Kenya. The deliberations, inevitably, touched on the citizen status of the Nubi in Kenya.

    Like their Ugandan counterparts, the Nubi of Kenya arrived as soldiers with the British imperialists, helping them establish the Kenyan colony. As a way of appreciation, the colonialists allocated the Nubi about 4,000 acres in present day Kibra. Out of the original 4,000 acres, the Kenyan government gave them title deed to 288 acres only, following years of agitation.

    The Nubi of Kenya have made a petition to President William Ruto, who promised to look into the issue of getting them recognised as an ethnic community in Kenya. They are now awaiting a positive presidential announcement on December 12, during Jamhuri Day celebrations.

    Categories
    Books Fiction Personalities Reviews

    70-year-old medic pens archaeological thriller

    When Dan Kairo says he is a Mau Mau detainee it is somewhat difficult to believe his assertion. For one, he was born in June 1954, while the State of Emergency, that ushered in mass detentions of Kikuyus, had been declared a year before.

    “I was two months old, still on my mother’s back, when my parents were detained,” he explains. “My mother and I went to a detention facility in Limuru, while my father was hauled to the Athi River Detention Camp.”

    As a result of his one-year stint as a Mau Mau baby detainee, Kairo is a paid up member of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association and has receipts to prove it.

    At the time of their detention, Kairo’s father was a headmaster at a school ran by the Karing’a movement, which had defied colonialists and Christian missionaries by establishing independent churches and schools that incorporated Gikuyu culture in their teachings. When the State of Emergency was declared, these schools were shut down by the colonial authorities.

    Kairo’s father was deemed guilty by association.

    While Kairo and his mother were released from their incarceration after one year, his father came out of detention in 1960. “When my father came out of detention, I was in Standard One; I could not believe it when I was told that he was my father,” he recounts. “This was due to the fact that we had been told that he had died in detention.”

    By virtue of being a headmaster before detention, Kairo’s father was a man of means and had a number of pieces of land to his name in his home area of Nyathuna. He lost all that since land consolidation was done when he was still in detention.

    That setback in his early life did not prevent Kairo from making it in life. He is a trained medical doctor, who later veered in the world of pharmaceuticals, before settling into real estate. That is not all, Kairo, who is turning 70 in June, recently opened a new chapter into his colourful life, by becoming a published author.

    At an age when his peers are in semi-retirement, Kairo took pen and paper and wrote an engrossing archaeological thriller, whose publication he funded. He worked with Mystery Publishers, who offered him editorial, design and printing services.

    His book Sibiloi, is a fictional story of a group of scientists, who set up camp among the Amalek, a community found in Northern Kenya, where they make a discovery that has the potential of shocking the whole world.

    This discovery, once unveiled, will turn, on its head, the story of creation as the world knows it.

    It all starts when a sacred belt, stolen from the Amalek, finds its way to a pawn shop in London and acquired by a collector, who is also an archaeologist.

    The collector soon discovers that this is not an ordinary belt. So explosive is the mystery held by the ancient belt that some people are willing to kill to ensure it is not unveiled to the world.

    The sacred belt, the Amalek elders explain, is part of what their ancestor’s gods bequeathed them, and the complete information is stored in caves on the edges of Sibiloi National Park.

    The scientists and the Amalek elders hammer out a deal; the scientists get access to the secret caves for research purposes, in return to handing sacred belt back to the community.

    One thing leads to another and the book comes to an explosive end, literally. You would have to read the book know what transpired. The book is truly edge-of-the-seat stuff. 

    Back to the Mau Mau detention story: “While in detention, my father took up teaching fellow detainees, a job that paid him one shilling a day. At the time of his release, he had had saved up sh2,700,” explains Kairu. “He used the money to buy a seven-acre piece of land adjacent to the school he used to teach.”

    It is ironical that despite having worked as a teacher, while in detention, by colonial authorities, the same colonial government refused to give him a teaching job after he was freed from detention. By this time, the school had been taken over by the government and renamed Kahuho DEB Primary School.

    Two years after Kenya gained independence, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president visited Kahuho and expressed desire to upgrade the school into a secondary school. “For it to be upgraded to Kahuho Uhuru High School, the institution required additional land, and that is how my father moved to Nyandarua, where he bought a larger piece of land and settled his family,” explains Kairo.

    When his family relocated to Nyandarua, Kairo was in Standard Seven, so he was left behind with his grandmother, as he completed his education. “I later joined Dagoretti High School, which was quite a distance from my grandmother’s place. Being a day scholar, I ended up staying with a relative, who operated a food joint in Uthiru,” says Kairo. “It was a two-roomed affair and we would sleep on the ground in the other room, which also served as the store for things like charcoal.”

    As a result, young Kairo found himself with time to spare, time he used to frequent social joints, singing and dancing to Lingala music, which was the craze in town.

    One of the patrons of those social joints worked as a driver at Kabete Vet Lab. “I knew the man since we used to pass through his farm, going to school,” recalls Kairo. “Every time he emerged from his drinking joint, he would see me hanging around and ask me to help him push his bicycle across Naivasha Road, as he was already drunk.”

    One day, as Kairo was helping the man with his bike, he sought to know what a boy in school uniform was doing hanging around drinking joints. “I told him my story and he said that he wouldn’t wish to see me to ending up as a drunk, like him. When we got to his home, he told his wife that I would henceforth be staying at his home,” explains Kairo adding the man’s decision to accommodate him saved his education.

    He kept touch with his benefactor’s family and would later take care of him when he was admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital, where Kairo was working a medical intern. 

    Kairo finished his ‘O’ Levels at Dagoretti and proceed to Kenyatta College, now Kenyatta University, for his ‘A’ Levels. He later joined the University of Nairobi’s School of Medicine. “I practiced as a medical doctor for a few years but left to join the pharmaceutical industry, where I worked for twenty years,” he explains, adding that he later shifted to real estate.

    Sibiloi is available at Nuria Bookstore.

    Categories
    Books Events Issues News Non-Fiction Personalities

    How harassment by government forces ‘dynasties’ to join politics

    By Mbugua Ngunjiri

    In 2021, when the Pandora Papers ‘scandal’ broke, Kenyans learnt that the Kenyatta family has stashed funds in foreign accounts. Now, there are a number of reasons why certain people chose to spirit their monies in those tax havens. Chief among the reasons such people hide their money, whether clean or dirty, in secret accounts, in my view, is security.

    Patriotism comes later.

    On Friday, July 21, an angry Uhuru Kenyatta was on TV complaining bitterly that William Ruto’s government was targeting his family. This was after it was reported that police officers had raided one of his son’s home in Karen, ostensibly to search for ‘illegal firearms’.

    During the media interview, the retired president challenged Ruto to ‘come for him’ and leave his 90-year-old mother alone. A few days earlier, it had been reported that Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s security had been withdrawn.

    Uhuru said he is capable of ‘protecting’ his family’s property. Well, your guess is as good as mine, where he would take his money should harassment by government persisted.

    It should be remembered that a few months back, goons suspected to have been funded by the Kenya Kwanza regime, raided Northlands Farm, owned by the Kenyatta family, stole sheep and set trees on fire.

    Kenyan politics is replete with examples similar harassment. I will use the late Simeon Nyachae’s example to illustrate my point. In his book, Walking Through the Corridors of Service (Mvule, 2010), Nyachae says that he entered politics to protect his property.

    Now, let that sink for a bit.

    When he retired from the civil service in 1987, upon attaining the age of 55, Nyachae was already a successful businessman. “…my intention was to go into farming and to concentrate on my other businesses… I had no intention whatsoever to join politics,” he wrote.

    Moi’s government meanwhile, had other plans; they wove a narrative to the effect that Nyachae was ‘a dangerous rich man, who wanted to dominate the Gusii community and Kenya.’ A sinister plot was then hatched to cut him down to size, beginning with his vast business empire. To begin with, public health officials would be dispatched, almost on a daily basis, to his Sansora Bakery with bogus allegations that it was operating under unhygienic conditions.

    It also became increasingly difficult for him to import spare parts for his Kabansora Flour Mills, which had to be sourced from Germany. He had to find a way round it. “The supplier would send the parts to the German Embassy, in Nairobi, as samples, and then we would collect them for our own use,” wrote Nyachae.

    At the time of his retirement Nyachae decided to reward himself by importing a brand new Mercedes 500. That is where his problems started.

    When the vehicle arrived at the Mombasa Port, he was told, flat out, that it could not be cleared into the country. When his son Charles Nyachae went to ascertain what the fuss was all about “a customs official told him that the car I had imported would not be cleared because nobody in the country was ‘allowed’ to import a car that big, unless he or she wanted to have powers like those of the president!”

    He had to go to court to have the car released. When it was finally released, seven months later, the Mercedes Benz had been so badly vandalised, he had to order for new parts from Germany. “This experience heightened the pressure from my friends that I should join politics to defend my investments,” wrote Nyachae.

    The kamati was not yet through with him; they sent thugs to throw a dead rat into the compound of Kabansora Mills, in Embakasi, in the dead of night. The following morning health officials demanded to allowed into the compound to conduct an ‘inspection’. Once inside they made a beeline to where the dead rat had been thrown. The goal was to close down the premises under the pretext that the whole place was infested with rats, and that consumers of his products risked being infected with plague!

    You really can’t make this stuff up.

    Seeing as the harassment was not about to die down, Nyachae decided to go to parliament “and fight against the injustices meted out against individuals and groups who were not singing to the tune of the ruling party Kanu.”

    There was one more roadblock waiting around the corner. At the time, Kenya was ruled by a single party, Kanu. To contest for any political seat, one had to be a member of the ruling party. Try as he could, Nyachae’s name could not be cleared by Kanu for the 1988 elections, which broke so many records for rigging. Mnasemanga rigging, the 1988 mlolongo elections were not only the mother and father of rigging, they were also the grandparents and ancestors of modern day rigging!

    Nyachae got to parliament in 1992, ironically, on a Kanu ticket.

    The late Njenga Karume, in his book, From Charcoal to Gold, also gave the same reasons as Nyachae, for entering into politics; to protect his property.

    At his prime, the late Kenneth Matiba, another former civil servant, was said to be one of the richest men in Kenya. However, a tumble with Moi’s government, not only left him severely incapacitated, health wise, but at the time of his death, Matiba was stone broke.

    Now, had someone advised him to hide some of his money in the Cayman Islands, or some other tax havens, his descendants would still be doing fine.

    Now, based on what happened to Uhuru’s son, on Friday, would you blame him for joining politics to ‘protect’ his property or that of his family?