How money changers in Cairo delayed Jomo Kenyatta's return

It takes one an unguarded moment for a restless young man to lose his luggage in a strange country. The broke young man with messianic mission was exposed to the rough side of the land of the Pharaohs.

This is the riveting story of a young journalist, Wycliffe Awori forced to wander in the wilderness of Cairo, Egypt, leaving his mission returning home Kenya’s future ‘messiah’, Jomo Kenyatta in abeyance.

In the dawn of Kenya’s independence struggle in 1947, the Kenya Africa Union (KAU) had placed all its hopes on the shoulders of the energetic young man to deliver a critical message to the old man.

Kenyatta’s time in London, KAU, believed was over and it was time the old man accompanied Awori back home where his services were needed urgently

It is not clear what transpired midway through the mission but in the words of veteran freedom fighter, James Beauttah, the young man ‘managed’ to lose his money and all his earthly belongings, momentarily derailed the aspirations of his country and almost changed the course of Kenya’s history.

First African

Previously, Awori had managed another feat of being the first African in Kenya to be employed as a health inspector by the Municipal Council of Nairobi, before it became a city.

Although Awori had studied at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, it was not the public health field that would propel him to fame and infamy.

Earlier in 1944, he teamed up with James Gichuru who was leading Kenya Africa Study Union (KASU) in a survey whose findings were unpalatable to millions who hungered for freedom.

Their survey, Keith Kyle writes in his book, The Politics of the Independence of Kenya concluded that “Africans wanted education and land.

Owing to lack of these two priorities, the time is not ripe for self-governance and that.”

They however concluded that, “The African people have a highly developed sense of nationalism... and when the time will come, it will be the Africans themselves who will petition her majesty’s government to grant self-government to Kenya.”

Ironically, when in 1946, when KASU changed to KAU it decided to send an emissary to London, it chose its former treasurer, Awori.

Awori was the natural choice for he had good English, a powerful voice and was quite energetic although some old guards like Beauttah were convinced that he was arrogant and too young for the job.

The emissary was to travel via Egypt where he was to have a five-day stopover and it was during his stay in Cairo that Awori lost all his money, temporarily halting his progress to London where he was supposed to link up with Kenyatta and take him home.

When reports of Awori’s loss filtered back home, Beauttah who had raised the funds for the trip felt vindicated because he had earlier described him as an “eager but arrogant man who lacked self discipline’.

KAU ultimately managed to raise funds and Awori managed to reach London but again he lost his luggage and money. Predictably, both Awori and Kenyatta were stranded and could not return home.

Upon learning this, a frustrated Beauttah wondered, “If he (Awori) could not look after his own property, how could he represent our case as well.”

In the meantime, Kenyatta declared that he was willing to return but maintained that he was broke.

During his stay, Kenyatta had gone to Moscow in 1932 and returned to London where he practiced journalism, wrote letters to the Colonial Office on behalf of Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), which was banned, and tried his hand in acting as a film extra.

He also lectured in London University as a Kikuyu linguist. Apparently, the money he made was not quite sufficient and he could not pay his rent most of the time.

Faced with the predicament occasioned by Awori’s second mishap Kenyatta impressed upon, KAU had to do another round of fundraising back at home where they could only manage a low monthly trickle of between 30—40 Sterling Pounds (Sh4,000-5,300).

Ultimately, Kenyatta returned home in September 1946, amid SS Alcantara to a warm welcome in Mombasa where Beauttah had organised a hero’s welcome. After establishing contacts with Kenyatta, the journalist was now forgotten in London where again he was stranded, without a means of raising his fare home.

According to the biography Seizing the Moment: The Amazing Story of the Awori Family, penned by Horace Awori and Kondia Wachira, the family had to intervene.

Word went round Butere like bushfire that Canon Awori’s son was stranded and was almost starving to death in the strange land of the whites. Some tongue wagged that a desperate father at one time was organising for trays of eggs to be flown to London.

This, the narrative suggested, was the only food that could survive long haul to London without refrigeration and would be easy for the young Awori to cook.

Former Vice President Moody Awori, who is the journalist’s brother discounts these reports in the biography explaining, that his father had to borrow money from a chief in Wanga to pay for return journey.

“He used his own funds to acquire a one-way ticket as James Gichuru, who had been tasked with raising the necessary travel funds had not done so. By the the time Kenyatta returned, Awori had not received any money,” the family biography says.

Narrow escape

A day before Jomo and other freedom fighters were arrested, Awori was tipped by a CID officer and sought the assistance of the Indian High Commissioner, Apa Pant who organised for all KAU sensitive documents to be whisked from the office in diplomatic bags.

By the time the party’s top leaders were arrested and KAU offices raided, all the sensitive documents were safely on their way to India.

Later on March 8, 1953, when Awori was arrested his father used his connections in church to have him released and even visited Government House in Nairobi.

Despite his narrow escape, Awori did not ditch politics. It was in his office that members of Kaloleni Club met and formed the Kenya Africa National Congress, where Arwings Kodhek was elected as president while a committee of eight was selected to run it.

Politics then just as now was not a gentleman’s game for it was a field where audacious young men who dared to dream could unseat respected old men as happened during the struggle for control of the pulse of Kenya’s capital.

Sometime in 1953, Mboya served as Awori’s protégé in KAU but things got dicey at times for Kodhek was upstaged by Mboya shortly after he was suspended from the party her had formed, Nairobi District African Congress as president.

He was replaced by Milton Obote, Ugandan future president, whose house Kaloleni L 10 was the unofficial headquarters of Nairobi’s politics.

Kodhek went ballistic in his dismissal of Obote, saying, “We are trying to get rid of imperialism. We are not used to imperialism across the border. People of Obote’s clan in Northern Uganda are very primitive so you can see a lot of flies around their eyes. Obote should get the flies from his mother’s eyes instead of teaching people about politics.”

Triggering trouble

Kodhek was equally bitter with Mboya, whom he accused of triggering trouble in the party but this did not save his seat as a Legislative council member for Nairobi. In the elections held between March 9-10, 1957, Mboya then 26 trounced Kodhek by 2138 against 1746.

Some people believed that Awori had betrayed the African cause. In 1958 when, the government created six Specially Elected Seats, he alongside Musa Amalemba were among the candidates who were voted in by the whites.

Macharia Munene, in his book, Historical Reflections: Kenya Intellectual Adventurism, Politics and International Relations writes that Awori told a newspaper, The Manchester Guardian, that he could not trust Eliud Mathu’s leadership because Kikuyu KAU officials had organised Mau Mau and that the government was giving too much attention to Mathu.

The government would have banned Mathu, the first African elected member of the Legislative Council from defending his seat because owing to his ancestry as a Kikuyu, he could not be loyal. He was replaced by Fred Mate who was from Meru, which according to the government was a much loyal tribe.

After the 1958 elections other African elected members were unimpressed by Awori and the special members whom they denounced as stooges and black Europeans ‘who must be treated as traitors to the African cause.

In turn the colonial government cracked the whip and charged the elected African members with defamation. This gave Mboya a perfect opportunity to shine as he mobilised his Pan Africanist friends led by Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, whose country had just gotten independence, for legal and financial assistance.

There was big relief when the defamation case was finally concluded on June 11, 1958 and members of Legco ordered to pay 75 Sterling Pounds (about Sh10,000).