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Kenya’s first street demonstration was over ‘Uhuru na Tabu’

 Police disperse University of Nairobi students during riots in 1968

The recent demonstrations that rocked Nairobi courtesy of opposition politicians having grouse with Kenya’s electoral body, were teargas-filled and has so far resulted in one death.

But things were ‘elephant’ during the famous demonstrations following the Saba Saba riots of July 7, 1990, in which 20 Kenyans lost their lives as firebrand politicians Charles Rubia and Kenneth Matiba called for an end to Kanu’s single party rule.

The freedom you enjoy today can be traced to the bravery of those two Kenyans, considering challenging the status quo at the time was swiftly met with detention and torture.

But consequences, no matter how dire, have never deterred a fed up people, like the ones spearheaded by the late Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai, who rallied mothers of political prisoners who demanded the release of their sons on February 28, 1992 (see The Immortals on the right side of this page).

On April 24, 1991, four political prisoners were released and by January 1993, all the mothers were reunited with their sons among them Koigi wa Wamwere.

Demonstrations, protests, sit-ins, go-slows and other forms of rebellion against the powers that be, are legal in liberal democracies.

But did you know that Kenya’s first public demonstration was held on January 16, 1964, less than one month after we gained independence?

Well, over 500 demonstrators took to the streets of Nairobi shouting, “Uhuru na Tabu,” a pent-up corruption of Kanu’s slogan, Uhuru na Kazi. There is nothing new under the sun. Now, like then, the anger had to do with that not so small matter of parliamentarians, in the words of former British Ambassador Edward Clay, “being greedy and showing their gluttony by vomiting on our shoes.”

The demonstrators of 1964 demanded that those new in government should sell their expensive cars (then nicknamed Wabenzi after Mercedes, the car of the loaded) and give the proceeds to the poor. The administration of President Kenyatta I banned public demos forthwith.

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