1966, the year independence euphoria in Africa started evaporating

Africans in the early 1960s were euphoric about independence but signs that all was not well generally started showing up in 1966, 60 years ago when disillusionment set in. Anti-colonialists lost their saviour ‘image’ and seemed like the mzungu in black skin. Independence did not bring structural changes to reduce all sorts of exploitation. This inadequacy was especially vivid when it came to leaders of two former colonies who participated in the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England.

These were Kwame Nkrumah of the Gold Coast that changed the name to Ghana, assisting George Padmore, and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya who represented an illegal organisation, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), and spoke for East Africa. Kenyatta stressed the necessity of acquiring political power first as the way to getting other benefits. The Congress resolved to mobilise people and do whatever was necessary to end colonialism even if it destroyed the world.

Nkrumah, nicknamed ‘Osagyefo’ or saviour, dominated the 1950s and early 1960s as a pace-setting liberator who stressed the primacy of seeking the political kingdom first in order to receive the rest. He became a globe-trotting leader of Africa, talked of changing the colonial structures, and even entered into a 10-year bet with Felix Houghphey-Boigny of the Ivory Coast as to which path was advisable.

He advanced the idea of abolishing colonial boundaries to promote continental unity, and complained about neo-colonialism. He was overthrown in 1966 while on a trip to China and retired in Guinea where he spent time writing. Nkrumah, avoiding and silently grumbling about Ali Mazrui’s teases, slid into a revered legend of Pan-Africanism.

Reportedly, one of Nkrumah’s political followers was Uganda’s Apollo Milton Obote who entered a 1962 pre-independence power sharing deal with the Kabaka of Buganda, Edward Muteesa, in which the Kabaka was ceremonial president and Obote the powerful executive prime minister.

The arrangement lasted four years before Obote, using a former anti-Mau Mau Kenya Rifles soldier named Idi Amin Dada, overthrew the Kabaka in 1966 and consolidated all the powers of state in his political hands.

Perpetual chaos

He tried pushing Uganda into some ‘socialism’, calling it ‘Common Man’s Charter’, picked quarrels with Kenya, and lost power to Amin. Obote’s legacy was to plunge Uganda into perpetual chaos that started in 1966.

Uganda’s neighbour, Kenya, also had it rough in 1966 in Kenyatta’s second year as president. Globally, Kenyatta had been symbol of violent anti-colonialism called Mau Mau, had established a name in the 1930s as an anti-fascist Pan-Africanist and intellectual critic of colonial benevolence, and was a key player in the Manchester Congress.

After joining W.E.B. Du Bois in petitioning the United Nations against colonialism, he had returned to Kenya to popularise the philosophy of acquiring political power first irrespective of how.

He, as Atieno-Odhiambo once argued, was guilty of inspiring people into the Mau Mau War which increased his world stature as an anti-colonialist for which he was jailed. Released in 1961, he seemed to prefer the Benedicto Kiwanuka’s camp against Obote-Kabaka in Uganda’s political campaigns for independence. He led Kanu into a republic in December 1964 with the challenge of creating a nation out of disparate colonial subjects in a state called Kenya.

Kenyatta, consistent in political opportunism, disillusioned followers by discarding his Mau Mau ‘revolutionary’ past while embracing the very colonialists that he had fought. The contradiction exploded in 1966 when Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a Kenyatta political disciple, quit the vice-presidency and founded Kenya People's Union (KPU), reportedly with Obote’s help.

With the Kenyatta-Odinga political alliance collapsing, Kenyatta imposed a constitutional amendment to force defectors from Kanu to face voters afresh. He actively campaigned against his Mau Mau prison mates, Achieng Oneko in Nakuru and Bildad Kaggia in Kandara, to ensure that both men lost in the by-elections. Thereafter, KPU was restricted to Luo Nyanza. Kenya was never to be the same again.