Matiba was forced out of public consciousness in life, national economy

David Goldsworthy called Tom Mboya the man Kenya wanted to forget. The late Australian professor of history said after Kenya killed one of her most illustrious sons in 1969, she did everything possible to bury his memory. Goldsworthy travelled all the way from Oceania to sojourn among us, to research and publish the volume titled Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget.

If Kenya wanted to forget Mboya in his death, has the country wanted to forget Kenneth Stanley Njindo Matiba in life? If Mboya stopped the assassin’s bullet in broad daylight in downtown Nairobi, Matiba was forced out of public consciousness in life. He was also forced out of the national economy through State-sponsored destruction of a business empire he built in the prime of his youth. In a sense, Kenya killed Matiba way before his physical death this week. Ken Matiba was another man Kenya killed and wanted to forget.