Mboya’s legacy still alive, 40 years later

By Joe OmbuorToday marks 40 years since Tom Mboya was brutally killed in Nairobi. Under the glare of the afternoon sun, that fateful Saturday, a hired gunman nearly brought Kenya to its knees when he silenced the then 39-year-old minister with two bullets through the chest on Government Road, (now Moi Avenue).Tom MboyaFour decades later, memories of the man who bestrode the political landscape like a colossus have refused to fade away.Those who had the privilege of interacting with Mboya say he was a humble leader with abilities beyond academic qualifications. He was a witty orator, a strategic thinker, and organiser, who hated mediocrity and inefficiency. His one time personal assistant, Joshua Omoth, says Mboya was powerful and influential and yet accessible. Always reachable "He replied to all the correspondence on his desk regardless of who the addressee was," recalls Mr Omoth. "Today, a constituent has to make elaborate plans to meet an MP and phone calls from lesser mortals are never returned or answered. Letters addressed to public offices are hardly acknowledged unless the writers of such letters know somebody in the offices. It was not the case with Mboya," he says.The former Minister for Economic Planning and Development had been widely viewed as the most obvious successor to former President Jomo Kenyatta. Gone at the mad pull of the trigger were the brains that had helped shape Kenya into the envy of emerging African nations. The dastardly act tossed the young nation, only six years after Uhuru, into an unprecedented confusion. The push to give Mboya’s name to the street of the daylight assassination was fiercely resisted by those who wanted the minister forgotten. But pressure could not allow them have it all their way. The then Victoria Street in honour of the long British reigning monarch was renamed after Tom Mboya. As the country remembers the fallen politician, the question on many lips is: "Why was Tom Mboya killed?" Perhaps the testimony of the perceived gunman, Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge, could help unravel the puzzle.Njenga wondered aloud during his trial why he was the one picked and not the ‘big man’. Though sentenced to hang, it remains unclear what became of him. Understanding Mboya He was many things in one. Friend and foe admit Mboya the politician had no match in the local scene despite his little formal education. It is said Mboya, the intellectual and master debater, had no known local peers. Mboya the trade unionist was the true behemoth of the game, acknowledged as the best even by the fiercest of his enemies, the colonial masters. Popularly known as TJ, Mboya rose from humble beginnings to leave big steps in the sands of Kenya’s history. His father, Nehemiah Ndiege, was a nyapara (overseer) in a sisal plantation at Kilimambogo, where Mboya was born on August 15, 1930. He went to Kabaa School in the neighbourhood, St Mary’s School, Yala, and later to Mang’u High School. He, later, dropped out due to lack of school fees. After a training stint as sanitary inspector at the Royal Sanitary Institute Medical Training College, he joined the Nairobi City Council as a health inspector before becoming a trade unionist. He got a scholarship from Britain’s trade union congress to attend Ruskin’s College, Oxford where he studied industrial management. He was founder of the Kenya Government Workers Union while at the City Council of Nairobi. The public at the scene of crime on Moi Avenue near the Kenya National Archives on the fateful day.[PHOTOS: FILE/STANDARD]For years, he was the engine behind the Kenya Federation of Labour, the precursor of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions that he led until he formed the Kenya Congress Party (KCP). Through the party, he was elected to the Legislative Council (Legco) among eight African members in 1957. Mboya developed a close relationship with renowned Pan Africanist President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and was elected chairman of the first All African People’s Congress in Accra, in 1958, aged only 28. Meanwhile, he had won the admiration of the powerful Kennedy family in the US. The family helped him set up the African-American Students Foundation that organised the famous student airlifts of the 1960s. US President Barack Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr, was among the beneficiaries of the airlifts.The trade unionist became the first Kanu secretary-general at its formation in 1960. The following year, he campaigned vigorously for the release of Jomo Kenyatta. At independence, he was Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. Later Mboya, who was MP for Kamukunji, was named Minister for Economic Planning and Development. ‘Saved’ Kenyatta As the Kanu secretary-general, Mboya was a powerhouse. Omoth says Kenyatta could not have survived the 1966 uprising brought about by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s Kenya People’s Union (KPU) were it not for Mboya’s ability to handle political opponents. According to Omoth, his idea of a constitutional amendment for those wishing to cross the floor to seek fresh mandate from the electorate saved Kenyatta and Kanu. Of 27 MPs, only nine retained their seats on KPU ticket.Thus, he ensured a political contest between Kanu and KPU did not materialise in what could have been a humiliating showdown for the ruling party. Nearly 2,000 Kanu civic candidates were elected unopposed after the same number of KPU opponents were disqualified on account that the signatures of the party chief, Jaramogi Oginga, on nomination forms were different from those on official documents.His offsprings As a trade unionist, Mboya mentored leading trade unionists including the longest serving secretary-general of the Chemical Workers’ Union, Were Dibo Ogutu, first secretary-general of All Africa Trade Union Unity, Dennis Akumu and current Cotu Secretary-General Francis Atwoli.As an honour to Mboya, workers put up a labour college in Kisumu that Atwoli has undertaken to modernise in his honour. Mboya is survived by six children. Those in the public limelight are High Court Judge Maureen Odero and Ms Susan Mboya who has been on a mission to revive her father’s student airlift programme through Zawadi Education African Fund. Others are Alakie, Luke, Jane Akinyi Owaga and Tom Mboya Jr. The eldest son, Peter, died in a motor accident in Limuru in 2004, aged 39.His mausoleum on Rusinga Island, built in 1970, stands on the Mboya ancestral land at Kaswanga village. Shaped like a bullet to signify the way he died, the facility contains various mementos and gifts he received during his life. The inscription on the marble grave reads: "Go and fight like this man who fought for mankind’s cause, who died because he fought, whose battles are still unknown." The Museums of Kenya has taken over maintenance and upkeep of his resting place.

Mboya’s legacy still alive, 40 years later

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Mboya’s legacy still alive, 40 years later

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