The danger of making Edwin Sifuna a messiah

Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna during an interview with The Standard in Nairobi on October 9, 2026. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

I wonder if people know that Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between was written and submitted to the publisher under the title The Black Messiah. It was, I suspect, the developmental editing process that led to the change of title.

Ngugi knew that there is something dangerous about a human being being called a messiah, both in social life and in politics. Waiyaki is presented as a leader who carries the hopes of his people, but the expectations placed upon him eventually become too heavy for one human being to carry. When he failed to satisfy these expectations, the same community turned against him.