By MERCY KAHENDA
KENYA: The late Fred Kubai was among six freedom fighters commonly known as the Kapenguria Six, along with Jomo Kenyatta, Kung’u Karumba, Bildad Kaggia, Ochieng Oneko and Paul Ngei.
Kubai was born in Nairobi in the 1917 in a humble Christian family and attended his education in several missionary schools in Nairobi and Mombasa, among them Buxton Baptist. After his education, he was employed by the East African Posts and Telecommunications Corporation and trained as a telegrapher. In 1943 to 1945, during Second World War, he was posted to Lodwar where he witnessed and participated in the war between the British and Italian Armies.
He participated in signal battalion as an operator/telegrapher on the British Army side. Kubai was later posted to Rongai and Nakuru Post Offices after the war and resigned in 1946 due to job discrimination against black employees. He became a pioneer trade unionist who shaped the development of the labour movement in pre and post-independence Kenya. The fighter joined African Workers Federation Union (AWF) in 1946 and in 1949 he unified all registered trade unions under the first Trade Union National Center namely the East African Trade Unions Congress.
After his political trial in 1951, he went on organising other young trade unionist and other general working class in Nairobi area to join the only black political party Kenya African Union (KAU). In 1960 the late Fred Kubai was the first of the Kapenguria Six Prisoners to be transferred to house detention and restricted in Kabarnet Township, Baringo District and released in 1961.
After being set free in 1962, he participated in drafting the first industrial relations charter of 1962. Kubai was elected on a KANU ticket in 1963 and appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Services thereafter.
He was appointed Assistant Minister in the same ministry from 1969 to 1974.
