Why we need to learn from our past and detribalise national life

Bernard Awoya a newspaper vendor within Nakuru City. [Joseph Kipsang, Standard]

On Tuesday, December 12, Kenya marked 60 years of independence from Britain. After about 70 years of colonial rule, a nationwide revolutionary ferment that saw the natives engage the colonialists in a seven-year sanguinary gore typified by the Mau Mau uprising culminated in the independence declared on December 12, 1963.

Our independence heroes and heroines had fought for, not only the restitution of then-settler-held land to Africans but also self-rule, which the founding fathers hoped would then focus on the alleviation of poverty, ignorance and disease among the natives.