Johnstone Kamau, the Black British Comrade who became Kenya’s first President

 A hundred years ago in the August of 1914 at a Christian baptism ceremony in Thogoto, a smooth-shaven 25-year-old took up the name “Johnstone Kamau” in Thogoto. With his apprenticeship as a carpenter at an end in the area, the young man who would one day be Kenya’s first president came to the tiny town of Nairobi.

In the shape-shifting duality that would mark his character all his life, Kamau had wanted to be christened “John Peter”. But on being instructed to choose only one Christian name, he creatively went for Johnstone. And by the stroke of his genius, this marked the first significant step of out-manouvering the British, while at the same time exploiting their tongue – English – in ways that would see him literally use his tongue to get into State House half a century later.