Fake historian who framed Kenyatta 'death leader' tag

Jomo Kenyatta addresses a rally at Tamayota settlement scheme in Molo, Nakuru County. [File, Standard]

"Without the freedom afforded them by a liberal government, Jomo Kenyatta and his associates would have been unable to preach their calculated hymn of hate," it said.

He nevertheless admitted, a little, to Africans being handicapped by poverty, lack of education and malnutrition. This is the closest he came to blaming the colonial government. Not even the colonial government was impressed, with Ian Buist, a colonial office official remarking:

"Corfield is not a trained historian but an administrative officer." He said the result of it all was "obvious bias towards the government sources in question."

Yet Governor Patrick M Renison had wanted to release the report for a reason; to lay the basis for his public conclusion that Jomo Kenyatta was "the African leader to darkness and death".

Officials in London were however not so keen with such a description given that Kenyatta was nearing release and reality was dawning that they would have to deal with him somehow.

But Renison stuck with it, threatening to resign unless he was allowed to use the particular phrase. London capitulated, and Renison made his remarks.

"I regarded him as a rather silly man," Colonial Secretary Ian Macleod later wrote of Renison.