Secrets of Mau Mau and oaths that bound community

Mau Mau rebellion was started to defeat the white man and reclaim land. Instead, brother turned against brother as the rebellion reached its peak in 1955. Described as a one-legged devil by the British, Kassam Gicimu Njogu was one of the leaders of the rebellion and narrates his experiences to writer PETER THATIAH

Many of the people I meet always ask me when I joined the Mau Mau. The truth is I did not join the Mau Mau. We formed the Mau Mau. We formed this organisation in 1950.

I had earlier joined the Central Union, a grouping of militant youth aligned to the Kikuyu Central Association in 1941 when I first came to live in Nairobi. There was a political union between the Kikuyu and the Luo and by the late 1940s, there was a general consensus among many members in Nairobi that an armed uprising was our only way to freedom. The timing was excellent and we had sound reasons for pitching for 1950.

We invited our Kavirondo friends from Nyanza and told them that now it was the time to start physical attacks on the British establishment. Our war would not only be against the whites, but also against the many people who collaborated with them.

Our friends from Nyanza turned down our offer. At this time, I had returned home at Kianyaga in Kirinyaga, but I was soon recalled in early 1950 and informed that the Kikuyu were going it alone. We stopped calling our outfit Central Union and adapted the name Kimuri (flaming torch).

Earlier, this organisation was called Forty Group, mainly consisting of men who had been drafted into the army in the early 1940s. A young man called Dedan Kimathi Waciuri was the most prominent among them.

I remember that evening when we met at Majengo, Nairobi, where Gikomba market stands today, to plan the armed rebellion.

This was my first encounter with Mathenge Mirugi from Nyeri. He was tall and light skinned and I instantly liked him. He was a born leader and he was educated too. We received support from political groups and personalities like Bildad Kaggia and Paul Ngei. We needed arms and ammunition.

Arms cache

We already had a cache of arms but we needed more. The quickest way to do this was by stealing them. We would round up all Kikuyu men and women working for white men in their residences and demand they steal firearms. For the mission to succeed, we’d have to swear them into secrecy and stipulate penalties that included execution of any betrayer and family members. This was the origin of forced oaths that started taking place on a wide scale in Central Province in 1950.

It was at Majengo that six diehard members from each region of central Kenya (Meru, Embu, Nyeri, Murang’a and Kiambu) were asked to volunteer and choose a leader from each group. I volunteered for the group from larger Embu, which then covered my home in Kirinyaga. My group chose me to be their leader, meaning I would be the one administering and supervising oath-taking from Karatina in Nyeri to Thuci River bordering Meru. I would also lead guerrilla operations in the area.

Our aim for subdividing leadership among the regions was to make it difficult for the British to hit the centre. At some point, it would also work against us.

I organised a military base on the southern part of Mt Kenya forest and many of us who had not been to war were trained on the basic techniques of handling a rifle by those who had come from the war. I had also received basic military training at Kiambu.

With more rifles and ammunition being sent to my base from Nairobi, I soon had 2,000 troops from the region that is today Ndia, Gichugu, Mwea, Manyatta, Gachoka and Runyenjes. It was time to begin forcing to take the oath. Most of the people took it out of their free will, but a few refused and we had to use force. We would take a route and make sure everyone was going northward towards my base, where they had to take the oath. We executed the few who refused.

The morale was high and the uprising, which until this time had no name, started with remarkable guerrilla successes. Little did we know that we had triggered events that would be the hallmark of the most painful decade of our country’s history.

Dreaded rebellion

I was born in 1922 and my father, Njogu wa Kamara, was the richest man in my village. He had many cattle. I went to Nairobi in 1941 after primary school to escape what I thought was a demeaning life propagated by chiefs and their headmen. These men were imperious. They had power over other people’s properties and wives.

I had been told there was a military recruitment where Nyayo House stands today. To my dismay, we were recruited but instead they took us to work in a sisal plantation first. I refused to work and joined casual employment at building sites in the city. While we were building Gill House a supervisor hit me for sitting down during working hours. I hit him back, encouraging others to join in. It was the first rebellion that I led.

Next I clashed with a white man in another building site and decided to stalk him for revenge.

The man lived where Chester House stands today. I attacked him with a knife even though he had a pistol. I escaped and went to work in a farm in Kiambu. Here, I met a lot of young men who had beliefs similar to mine. From this point, I was a rebel. We formed a gang and I was one of the leaders.

In today’s terms, this gang may be described as criminal but in those days it was the only way we could hit back.

In fact, we were a pack of nasty mobsters who did terrifying things to white men and Asians we did not agree with. I was an avowed outlaw and luckily I had my followers, especially young men from Kiambu.

The turning point came when I visited my parents’ home in the late 1940s and saw the kind of injustice that the administration was perpetuating. Can you imagine someone striping your mother and raping her in front of you? Can you imagine someone taking your sister away forcibly?

I was quite ready to kill anyone who came on my way to right these injustices. There were absolutely no exceptions.

—pthatiah@eastandard.net