How Britain conspired to make Kenyatta landless

By MOSES NJAGIH

Founding President Jomo Kenyatta had his land seized and allocated to collaborators, a new book detailing his life and times claims.

And Kenyatta caused anxiety when he rejected the colonial government’s compensation offer after his release from prison, insisting on settling in his land in Ichaweri.

The Kenyatta Cabinets: Drama. Intrigues. Triumph states that Kenyatta fell victim to a crafty law, Forfeiture of Lands Ordinance, which was passed by the colonial government in 1953, to intimidate the Mau Mau and other Kenyans who were agitating for freedom.

The declaration of emergency in 1952 provided the colonial government the perfect excuse to disinherit persons it considered as “political undesirables” of their land.

 The law empowered the governor to seize land owned by a person who was convicted of a crime. Britain’s then Secretary of State for Colonies Oliver Lyttelton had laid the ground for passing of this law in Parliament when on October 16, 1952, he told the House that some laws were required to intimidate Mau Mau against their struggle for independence.

It was on the strength of this crafty law that Kenyatta, who was on April 8, 1953 convicted of being a member of Mau Mau and managing the unlawful society through criminal case 1 of 1953, had his 31.24 acre piece of land in Gatundu seized.

The order to seize the land, which was signed by then Governor Sir Evelyn Baring on October 2, 1954, touched on Kenyatta’s four parcels of land, including his popular Ichaweri home, which was alienated and given to other beneficiaries.

The book states that the move followed Kenyatta’s imprisonment in Kapenguria. But the move to give out Kenyatta’s land would later, according to former Commissioner of Police Benard Njinu, haunt the colonial Government, since after his release from prison, he demanded his land back, declining the offer for compensation with another parcel.

Great courage

“Since Kenyatta was technically landless and homeless, the Government was willing to construct a new house for him but he insisted he would only settle in his original home and land in Ichaweri,” states the book, quoting Njinu, who also served as the Commander of the Presidential Escort under Kenyatta.

Adds Njinu: “His demand to return to Ichaweri was not practical as his land had been allocated to other people, who could not be traced”.

Njinu recounts how he was fished from Isiolo where he was working as an Intelligence Officer to go hunting down the person who had been given Kenyatta’s land to surrender it before the founding President could be released from jail.

“I later traced him in Ngong and the Government had to transfer the land back to Jomo,” says Njinu, who would later be one of Kenyatta’s closest confidants. The former police boss recalls the anxiety that came with the release of Kenyatta on August 14, 1961, with some British settlers fearing that he could mobilise his supporters to oust them.

Also fearing his release were home guards who feared that the man would punish them for collaborating with his jailers. The fear and anxiety is well indicated through the story of one collaborator from Gatanga, Ndung’u Kagoi, who allegedly whacked his radio with a walking stick for announcing the release of Kenyatta from prison.

“Gatutu gaka githi towe wanjirire ndakarekio na riu wandira magego wanjiira niarekio? Ndigithiria muchene! (This thing (radio) are you not the one who told me that Kenyatta had been jailed for life and now you are claiming he is a free man? Stop rumour mongering!) Kagoi is quoted to have shouted in anger, hitting his radio.