A bimonthly newspaper by the Media Diversity Centre, a project of African Woman and Child Feature Service

October 16 - 31, 2011

ISSUE 049

Read more Reject stories online at www.mediadiversityafrica.org

Continued on page 5

By KABIA MATEGA

As we mark the first Mashujaa day as entrenched in the new Constitution, Kenyans will be celebrating their heroes.

The heroes that many Ke-nyans know of are not the only ones who fought for indepen-dence. Among them remain many who are unsung, and most of them women who took many risks to ensure that free-dom fighters did not go hungry. They even went to the extent of stealing guns and ammunition from the white man to take to the men in the forest. Although many of them died, many more are still alive and in this issue

tell of what they went through.Having changed Kenyatta Day

to Mashujaa Day, we celebrate Kenyan men and women who have in one way or another played a role in ensuring that this coun-try stands where it is today.

HonourOther than the freedom fight-

ers, there are Kenyans who play other roles in our communities that make them heroes and ‘she-roes’. They are our neighbours, brothers and sisters who in one way or another try in a small way to make life better for other Ke-nyans.

To be a shujaa or hero means one has to make sacrifices. These

sacrifices are big and for other people to enjoy what one is fight-ing for, it is shujaa who suffers.

Just like all other heroes, the men and women who fought for this country’s made sacrifices that brought this country to where it is today. Their work was taken to the next level when Kenya re-wrote its constitution, and came up with a new law that honoured all heroes. Chapter 2(9) of the Constitution clearly indicates that Mashujaa Day would be observed on 20 October, effectively chang-ing the name from Kenyatta Day to Mashujaa Day

However, our greatest heroes are the people who fought for this country against the colonial rule.

These men and women suffered various atrocities in the hands of the enemy, the British rule of which have not been spoken of.

A one to one interview with members of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association from Narok

From left: Ex-freedom fighters Wanjiku Muthoni, Njeru Ritho and Lucy Njeri at a political rally held in Kangemi in 1996. Major-General Wanjiru, wife

of Field Marshal Bai Mungi at a baraza in 1964. Stinging nettle and safari ants that were inserted

in the genitalia of Mau Mau tortured by colonial forces. The Nyakinyua dancers.

Pictures: Reject correspondent and George Murage

Sacrifices of freedom heroesMashujaa Day honours men

and women who suffered

2 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

By WANJIKU MWAURA

The recent unveiling of a statue in honour of post-independence firebrand politician Tom Mboya has raised questions on the absence of women freedom fighters in Kenya’s ‘hall of fame’.

The death of Wambui Otieno, one of the women freedom fighters, reignited the debate. “In her typically non-conformist nature, Wam-bui left home at 16 and joined the Mau Mau in Nairobi during the emergency period,” says Njoki Wamai, a peace and security scholar at the African Leadership Centre in King’s Col-lege, London.

Yet, Wambui’s name may never be engraved at the Heroes Corner at Uhuru Park.

Wamai and others argue that there has been a long conspiracy to keep the role of women out of the history of the fight for independence.

National “The historical narrative is so bad that wom-

en in other parts of the country are non-exis-tent in the struggle for independence. The truth is women from the Coast to the plains and to the lake contributed to the struggle,” says Cyrus Koloshe, a history teacher.

That notwithstanding, there is little recog-nition of the role women played in the fight for freedom. Few streets if any are named after women heroines. For example, Giriama hero-ine Mekatilili wa Menza could only be afford-ed a back alley.

The country is littered with buildings, streets or stadia named after male freedom fighters but none is named after a woman.

Writer Muthoni Likimani, who has been among those challenging the skewed freedom struggle narrative, was once quoted saying: “What upsets me is that of all the books written about the movement, as much as women were

involved, no one has ever written about the ex-tent of their involvement. To me, women were unsung warriors. They were the fighters that no one talks about. They went to the forest with men. They were seeing that the people in the forest were fed, that the sick were taken care of. Women raised money, stole guns and medicine, transported all kinds of goods into the forest, they were even shooting. I know of one of the women, Field Marshall Muthoni, who was trap-ping wildlife to cook. She went to fight alongside famous warriors of the forest like Dedan Kimathi Waciuri. In fact, this woman was one of the last to surrender from the forest upon independence, she was not sure to surrender until she saw the African flag.”

Likimani who is a writer of several fiction and non-fiction books on the social history of Kenyan women, including Passbook Number F.47927: Women and Mau Mau in Kenya and What Does a Man Want? hopes women can be recognised for their role in the fight for freedom.

She goes on to say: “While many died fight-ing for independence, it must be acknowledged that one of the first people to be killed by the colonialists in freedom fighting in Kenya was Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru during the Harry Thu-ku uprising in 1922. Why is it that there is no street named after her today?”

The author concedes that women have had a very raw deal in the historiography of Mau Mau.

“This is precisely the reason I call the wom-en who fought the unsung warriors. People say, ‘Oh, they cooked food’. Yes they did, but they did so much more. Without them, men would not have managed. Women were involved in all the activities of freedom fighting.”

Historians say one reason for lack of research on women’s nationalism is that scholars followed the line taken by the colonial government.

“Even today, we still read the history that

the colonisers wanted us to. It is sad that after over 40 years of independence, we have not cor-rected the wrong history,” says Claude Mwenda of Kenyatta University.

“The only accessible history in books is wrong. I fear that our children will have no proper sense of where we have come from,” he observes.

“It is no wonder widows of many freedom fighters are poor and get no recognition. In this country, there is no belief in the saying that ‘be-hind every successful man there is a woman’,” says Rhoda Awino who is studying gender and development in an American University.

Courage“I think the story of courage and determi-

nation of the women who fought for freedom was deliberately ‘blacked out’ to keep Kenyan women oppressed for ever. Imagine if we had the whole account about the struggle for free-dom?” Awino poses.

On the issue of not honouring women free-dom fighters, University of Nairobi lecturer Tom Odhiambo observes: “Who comes up with the criteria of who should be honoured? For exam-ple, why did it take so long to honour Mboya?”

Youth leader Janet Mbiuki observes: “Look around and see, there is no place that honours women.”

Even history books have scanty details on the role of women in the fight for indepen-dence. Sadly, this may never change unless his-tory is interrogated.

“I think the problem is the way the Kenyan history has been written. Those who fought for independence were classified by the colonialists as resistors and those who did not oppose were collaborators and only good things were writ-ten about them. Sadly, we inherited the same history and have never felt the need to ques-

tion it. How is fighting for your freedom a bad thing?” poses Macharia Kamau, who studied history at Kenyatta University.

Muthoni says: “We played valiantly, sacri-ficially, against the opposing team. We sweat-ed. We gave our lives. Then, at the end of the match, when we had won, the spectators ran away with the trophy.”

Even those who one way or the other par-ticipated in the second liberation are rarely rec-ognised. “Look at the history of Saba Saba and you will see women are barely recognised. We continue distorting history,” says Kamau.

It is hoped that the establishment of the pro-posed Kenya Human Rights and Gender Com-mission will be one of the ways to correct the ‘wrongs’ on the missing history on women’s role in independence struggle.

Some historians say civil society organisa-tions should start a petition to put our history in order. They say, perhaps, the historical per-spective can help women make a stronger claim when the gender ratio is not observed.

Where are our heroines?

Mourning Kenya’s trailblazers

By WILFRED MUCHIRE

In less than three months Kenya has lost two heroines in the academia.

The first woman professor of Mathematics in the country, Cecilia Wangechi Mwathi died on August 17 after a long illness. The Mathe-matics professor was born in Kaigonde Village near Gichira in Tetu District, Nyeri County.

Coincidentally, this is the same district and county where 2004 Noble laureate, the late Wangari Maathai hailed from. Their homes are separated by about four ridges.

Mwathi and Maathai were the trailblazers in their academic fields of Mathematics and Biology.

Although Prof Mwathi was not as widely known as Maathai, she remained a force to reckon with in the academic world. This is es-pecially because she excelled in Mathematics, an area of study that has long been considered a preserve of men.

Apart from academics, the two also had another thing in common; they had aspired to represent Tetu constituents in Parliament.

Tetu seatIn 2002, when Maathai captured the Tetu

parliamentary seat, Mwathi had also attempt-ed but gave up after losing in the nominations. She had, however, vowed to be in the ballot papers for the same position during the 2012 General Elections but this was not to be.

Mwathi died about nine months after she hosted a colourful homecoming party in her home after she was crowned the first woman professor of Mathematics in the country.

The family did not disclose what killed the mathematics professor who was buried in her Juja farm on August 25, exactly a month be-fore Maathai met her death.

The party, held on December 4, last year

was attended by scores of top scholars from various parts of the country. It also includ-ed a motivation talk at her former primary school.

In her informative schooling days at Kai-gonde and Gichira primary schools in Tetu District, Nyeri County, she endured walking for about five kilometres while barefoot and at times without taking breakfast.

After completing her primary education, Mwathi was admitted to Mugoiri Girls’ High School in Murang’a where she sat for her O-Level examinations and later at Chania School (now Chania Boys’ High School) for her Form Five and Six studies.

Thereafter, she went to Kenyatta University, then University of Nairobi College where she studied Mathematics and Physical Education (PE). Mwathi dropped PE due to its teacher bias towards girls.

After graduating she was posted to Garissa Secondary School before being transferred to Kenya High School. Later she stopped teach-ing and decided to ‘explore the world of Math-ematics’.

Her moment of joy came 12 years ago when she was honoured with a doctorate in Math-ematics in Zimbabwe by the country’s president, Dr Robert Mugabe.

This is a day that was still fresh in her mind as she described it during the party: “Friday the tenth of July, 1998 was a very special day for me and a lot of other people. It was a fulfilment of a dream I had since those days when words like logarithm and algebra were ‘exotic’ to me. Little did I know that those words and a host of their relatives would be the vehicle to the realisation of my dream.”

As of last year, there were seven women holding doctorate degrees in Mathematics but she is the only one who was elevated to the sta-tus of a professor after over 18 years teaching at

Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Tech-nology (JKUAT).

Until her death, she was teaching the same subject at JKUAT in Juja and some of its constit-uent colleges among them Kimathi University College in Nyeri.

“There is nothing which so difficult that can-not be handled by either gender, so long as one has the willing power to counter it.” These were Mwathi’s words during the motivation talks she conducted in various parts of the country.

Mwathi was the fifth born in a family of eight and left behind five children.

Professor Maathai Nobel laureate Maathai was in the limelight

for most of her life. This is especially because of her persistent fight to conserve the environment that put her at loggerheads with the former Pres-ident Moi’s regime. She almost single-handedly fought Moi’s government bid to build a 60-storey skyscraper at Uhuru Park.

She also fought the encroachment on Karura Forest. In 2004, Professor Maathai won the No-bel Prize for peace. This further enhanced her visibility locally and internationally. Through working with grassroots women, Maathai spear-headed a tree planting campaign through her

organisation the Greenbelt Movement.Maathai was the first African woman to be

awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On the eve of her final journey, the African continent was again honoured when Liberian President Ellen John-son-Sirleaf and her compatriot Leymah Gbowee together with Yemeni Tawakkul Karman were jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize, almost a decade after Maathai.

Professor Maathai was the first woman to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa. She was also the first woman chair of a university de-partment and the first woman professor in the country.

Maathai’s role in the fight for the release for political prisoners is well chronicled where she led a group of women, mothers of political pris-oners in an almost year –long campaign agitat-ing for the release of their sons.

Despite the torture Maathai kept a low pro-file when her ill health became a challenge, ac-cording to some family sources. This explains her marked absence from the public gaze dur-ing the referendum campaigns. Maathai left the country on the eve of August 4 to seek medical attention in the US. As the nation mourns, resi-dents of Nyeri County mourn two of their illus-trious daughters lost in a span of a few weeks.

The departed trailblazers Professors Wangari Maathai and Cecilia Wangechi Mwathi. Pictures: Reject correspondent and Wilfred Muchire.

3U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t hISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Community want former detention camp recognisedIncarceration site is now a mixed secondary school in a remote village

By JOSEPH MUKUBWA

A former Mau Mau detention Camp in Mukur-we-ini District of Nyeri County is now a sec-ondary school.

As we celebrate Mashujaa Day, the school that served as a detention camp for the Mau Mau dur-ing the colonial period now wants the Govern-ment to convert it into a tourist attraction zone as it has historical sites that were put up by the British colonialists over 60 years ago.

Mweru Mixed Day and Boarding Second-ary School which is located about ten kilome-tres away from Mukurwe-ini town was used as a detention camp in early 1950s by the co-lonialists where Mau Mau warriors were de-tained, tortured and forced to reveal their se-crets to the colonialists.

The school has rich tourist attraction sites which have been forgotten by the Government. The sites should be remembered and recognised in order to attract tourists.

Several Mau Mau veterans who passed through the detention camp later after Kenya got its independence in 1963 decided to turn the detention camp to a boys’ rehabilitation centre in 1968. In 1972, it became a secondary school where sons of the Mau Mau warriors would go.

Torture roomIn one of the rooms, the writings attract every

visitor who tours the school: “Mau Torture Room, they hated injustice, they took the oath and went to the forest, they were detained, harassed and tortured. They died here for our freedom.”

Other sites include very old houses which were used by senior police officers at the camp. Some houses are over 70-years-old. The houses are now being used as school staff houses.

Halls which were used for grilling the Mau Mau have since been transformed into classes. The reporting office which also was used as a cell is still in good shape.

After independence the camp was taken by the community who started a secondary school in 1972 which they named Mweru. Among the attraction sites include a ten by ten feet room where Mau Mau followers were tortured. Many of the Mau Mau followers were tortured, maimed and died here.

Some of torture victims are still disabled or barren. Many died a long time ago and have been forgotten. Half of the room is made of stones and the other half was made with iron sheets. It has no windows.

Former Mukurwe-ini freedom fighters say that the school has very rich history as the Mau Mau members from Tetu, Othaya and Mukur-we-ini were brought to that detention camp and tortured here.

Many still remember the dark days saying the experiences are still fresh in their minds. Mwan-

gi Wambugu, 78, says the camp was the most dreaded due to torture. Many people who were taken to the camp rarely left alive. “The memories of the camp are too painful to forget though we have forgiven our colleagues who betrayed us yet they still live within our midst,” he says.

Wambugu says that he was arrested in 1956 at Mackinon road in Nairobi and passed through many prisons including Yatta, Kisumu, Mageta Island, Gathigiriri in Mwea, Mukurwe-ini and then Mweru where he says that the one-year he was detained there was more than hell. He says the camp had four small torture rooms which measures ten by ten feet and were re-ferred as compounds.

“It was a nightmare here. If one was booked in here, one was not sure whether he would leave alive. We saw many men die here. We could not help since it was a detention camp. Only men from the Kikuyu community were detained here,” explains Mwangi who is among those who spent their lives at the camp.

The father of eight explains that the com-pounds were more like the secondary school education levels whereby in compound one, a person was grilled by fellow Kenyans known as home guards who were on the side of colonialists and if one revealed more of the Mau Mau secrets, he would then graduate to compound two.

He says they would be interrogated after one month and it took four months for the person who cooperated in revealing Mau Mau secrets known in Kikuyu as ‘kuhungwo mahuri’ to be set free.

“Though as young Mau Mau warriors we had taken an oath in the forest to kick out the mzungu in order to get our own freedom, we were forced to reveal all the secrets due to the torture we went through in this camp. Every time I visit this school and see the torture rooms, I always remember what we went through. I feel bad when I see politicians taking this country for granted,” he says.

Come outWambugu says that the word Mau Mau is a

reversal of the Kikuyu words that meant Uma, Uma, (Come out, come out). This meant that the Africans were tired of the white man ruling them and they wanted their freedom. Wam-bugu recalls one of the painful moments when he was shot on his left leg while at the camp and a huge scar serves as a reminder of what he went through.

Another freedom fighter, Joshua Gakuru nar-rates a similar ordeal to Wambugu’s and says the old buildings which were earlier used to house the colonialists are now being used as staff quar-ters of the school.

The buildings had a strong foundation and no Mau Mau veteran being held there could es-cape as they were made of concrete and guarded

24 hours. Asked why some of his fellow Africans were not supporting them in fighting for inde-pendence, Gakuru attributes their commitment to the white man due to greed for money.

“These people were not interested in get-ting freedom, all they wanted is money. They still live together with us but we have already forgiven them now that we have attained inde-pendence,” he says.

Ibrahim Mureithi 73, whose father was de-tained at the camp, says that he learnt much about of the camp from him. Mureithi says his fa-ther had warned him that if a young man landed in that camp, he would either leave it dead, impo-tent or crippled.

He says that the major reason why the camp was turned to a school is because their fathers were committed to ensure their children did not go through what they themselves had suffered.

“Our fathers wanted us to get an education as a way of reforming our country and to ensure their sons and daughters did not get into prob-lems like they did,” explains Mureithi.

He says that the school, which hosts 400 students has produced big people in Govern-ment and it continues to perform better. They want the school to be recognised as an institu-tion of fame as it contributed in making Kenya

an independent country.The school’s principal Joseph Mugo Nja-

ramba says that the mixed boarding is more of a tourist attraction site which if recognised by the Government would make those who fought for independence proud.

“There are many colonial sites here since this school which was a detention camp during the colonial days since 1954 to 1960. These sites should be rehabilitated and made tourist attrac-tion sites. This will in turn help to improve the performance of the school,” explains Njaramba.

He says the school’s performance will improve greatly as the students will feel motivated that they are studying in a heroes’ school and will not want to disappoint those who were tortured. An-other school which served as a detention camp is Kangubiri Girls’ High School in Tetu District and

Prime Minister Raila Odinga toured the site recently and said that the Government would excavate the remains of freedom fighter De-dan Kimathi who hailed from Tetu from the unidentified grave in Kamiti Prison and give him a decent burial. Among the old boys of the school include the former Mukurwe-ini MP Muhika Mutahi.

Clockwise: Mwangi Wambugu, gazes at the room where he was tortured during the struggle. The torture room is at present

day Mweru Secondary School. Some of the freedom fighters walk into the school and (seated) narrating their experiences. Staff

houses which were used by senior police officers at the detention camp during

colonial days. Pictures: Joseph Mukubwa

4 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

By GEORGE MURAGE

As the country’s leaders dine and wine, major-ity of war veterans can hardly afford a roof over their head nor can they put a meal on the table. They have been forced to rely on food dona-tions from well wishers.

Incidentally, on most national days, the vet-erans are called upon to entertain the crowd in attendance and one of them called to narrate to the public of how they fought the colonial gov-ernment.

This is where it all ends and the group, if lucky, is given a soda and wished well until the next celebration. For the over 500 free-dom fighters in Naivasha, their lives have been marked by suffering and regrets as the country marks its first Mashujaa Day under the new Constitution. Theirs has been a life full of pain-ful memories, broken promises, heartache and an unpredictable future.

Pangs of hungerFor them sunrise marks another long and

painful day and as the sun goes down, it marks another uncertain night with many not sure if they will live to see morning as their stomachs rumble from pangs of hunger.

As many of our leaders go around the coun-try grabbing all the available land, all the free-dom fighters are asking for is place where they can have a decent burial.

Under the Mau Mau War veterans associa-tion, the members, majority of whom are elder-ly meet in the ‘offices’ in Naivasha town every Monday morning to review the past week.

Their walk and empty eyes tell it all – as they troop to the meeting, many having resigned to their fate.According to the association district secretary Boniface Thuo, the Government has forgotten the veterans who are slowly dying, one after the other. He paints a grim picture of the Mau Mau veterans adding that many are just waiting to die in poverty and misery.

Forgotten“The Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki govern-

ments have forgotten us despite all the work we did for this country,” observes Thuo.

He says that the association was formed with a view of bringing the veterans together so they could seek compensation from the British gov-ernment. Their efforts to seek justice have been blocked by senior government officers who have never take them seriously.

“We have never received any as-sistance from the Government and as a result we and our families are living a life full of suffering and regret,” he states.

According to Thuo, due to the suf-fering many of the war veterans can-not afford to educate their children further worsening an already bad situation. “We consider ourselves the first internally displaced persons in the country as we were evicted by the colonial government from our land and the incoming governments have

failed to listen to us.”The war veterans’ hopes were lifted in

mid-2008 when Naivasha MP John Mututho brought the Mau Mau veteran motion in Parliament.According to the MP, the motion which was passed was meant to give each of the war veterans 2.5 acres of land and would allow them get minimum medical attention. “The Prime Minister answered the question in Parliament and promised that the State would look for land to settle the country’s heroes,” recalls Thuo.

Two years down the line, no action has been taken and the veterans continue to wait in vain.

Just like Thuo, Mututho points an accus-ing finger at some ministers who he accuses of blocking compensation for the Mau Mau.

“The President and the PM understand the pain of these people but some ministers are against this,” laments Thuo.

Mututho terms the suffering of the veterans as a shame to the country adding that it is time the group’s needs were addressed.

The suffering of the veterans is summed by 54-year-old Eliud Mathu Kimani whose par-ents were freedom fighters.

Though a child during the fight for freedom, he remembers some instances when the colo-nial master raided their home in Githunguri, Kiambu searching for Mau Mau adherents.

And once the country got independence, he knew that the fearful nights and evictions would be a thing of the past.

The family bought land in Upper Miriri in Narok in 1975 where they settled ready to for-get the painful and haunting past and develop the country.

“All was well and we started farming in the rich area as the past slowly slipped from us,” he says with a painful look.

Forgotten veterans raise the red flag

From top: Nyakinyua dancers, a group made up of Mau Mau veterans. Some members of the Mau Mau Veterans association attend a weekly meeting in Naivasha. Pictures:

George Murage

By JOSEPH MUKUBWA

Over 2,000 former freedom fighters who met recently under Mau Mau War Veterans Association said that the Government should approach the British Govern-ment over Dedan Kimathi’s grave.

The war veterans want a meeting with Queen Eliza-beth II to get Britain help them to locate Kimathi’s grave.

Speaking during a meeting held at Ruring’u Sta-dium in Nyeri County recently ahead of the Mashujaa Day, the freedom fighters urged the British Govern-ment to confirm to the world whether Kimathi is still alive or if he was buried in Kamiti or King’ong’o Prison.

The association chairman led by national chairman Elijah Kinyua Ng’ang’a alias General Bahati said that it was time to know the truth about Kimathi.

“We want Queen Elizabeth to help us trace the re-mains of Kimathi since it is still not clear where he was buried after all those years,” said Ng’ang’a.

The chairman who was accompanied by the Sec-retary General Mwai wa Muthigi also called upon the Government to immediately resettle all internally dis-placed persons to stop them from suffering. He said it will not be good if the long rains in April will find them at the camps.

Those who attended the meeting came from Cen-tral, Eastern and Rift Valley regions.

The former freedom fighters at the same time urged fellow fighters to remain united as they wait for compensation from the Government and British Government as many were maimed, killed and tor-tured while others lost land and property.

Freedom fighters want Kimathi’s body

Mau Mau Veterans Association officials Elijah

Kinyua Ng’ang’a alias General Bahati (left) and Mwai wa

Muthigi at Ruring’u stadium in Nyeri County. Women at

the above meeting. Pictures: Joseph Mukubwa

The association was formed with a view of bringing the veterans

together so they could seek compensation from the British

government. Their efforts to seek justice have been blocked by

senior government officers who have never take them seriously.

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District exposed some of the harrow-ing experiences they went through in the hands of colonial masters during the struggle for independence.

As they effortlessly fought back tears, some of the victims now in their advanced age narrated how men had their private parts exposed to safari ants while women had stinging leaves, thabai (stinging nettles) inserted into their vaginas by British soldiers as they tortured the freedom fighters.

CompensationThe elderly veterans expressed re-

gret that although the British govern-ment had indicated some good signs of possible compensation for those who suffered during the colonial re-gime, it will never erase what they suffered.

Majority of them will not live to re-ceive and enjoy the benefits due to the alleged slow pace of the compensation case that has been filed in London that is ongoing. They also accused the gov-ernment of failing to protect identified historical sites such as colonial prisons, detention holding camps and mass graves from grabbers.

”Historical sites can be used as tourist attractions and money collect-ed could directly benefit the now el-derly Mau Mau veterans and their kin, some of whom are now living in abject poverty,” says Charles Karaya Nkare, secretary of Narok branch of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association.

The veterans regretted that a church has already acquired a plot within the area believed to have been used for

mass graves in the outskirts of Narok town. Despite protests lodged by the Mau Mau members to the provincial administration, Nkare said a modern church building has been constructed at the spot where the independence struggle veterans were buried in mass graves. Deep open pits and colonial prisons buildings nearby gave the sur-viving veterans good ground to argue their case.

Silonka ole Kitikai saw it all happen because he was a victim and claims to have survived death by whisker when he was booked in the prisons by colo-nial soldiers.

“The prisons which were popularly referred to as jela ndogo (small jail) was a reserve for those identified as ‘hard core criminals’ from the locality. They were killed one by one when they were dropped in deep pits with their heads facing down,” says the elderly Kitikai. He adds: “All this happened after hours of rigorous torture by the merciless majohnies (soldiers).”

Amid deep moments of thoughts, Mzee Kitikai says how those who ex-hibited remorsefulness and softened their attitude towards the merciless British were moved to less protected detention camps at Entara area, about

11 kilometres away along the Mara River from Narok town.

“The detention camp was infested with wild animals and therefore any attempt to escape from the camp au-tomatically marked the death of the escapee,” explains Kitikai.

However, he sadly recalls that those who missed death through at-tempted escape were not lucky as a good number died from poisonous snake bites.

The other major cause of deaths in the camps was over congestion, star-vation and diseases among them ty-phoid, malaria and pneumonia. Ma-jority of the casualties were pregnant women and children.

“For as long as the detainees re-fused to confess their mistakes or re-veal identities of those who had taken oath to fight or plan attacks on colo-nialists, no doctor was invited to treat them,” says Loice Kinga who wit-nessed four defiant pregnant women clobbered to death.

Kinga herself suffered a thorough beating that left her with wounds and scars that dot her body today. She viv-idly recalls the undignified manner in which the dead were buried then. To-day the veterans are calling upon the

Government to exhume and rebury at the freedom corner Mau Mau vet-erans whose graves can be positively identified.

Ugali and saltPeter Muturi, now approaching

his late 80s narrates how the captives were given small tins of maize flour with no vegetables. “We were forced to lick salt to get the ugali to go down our throats,” recalls Muturi who re-fused to tell more of his life in deten-tion. Evidence of the existence of such a camp is the perimeter barbed fence and a vehicle inspection garage site.

Miriam Kisio, widow of General Kirito Kisio is calling on the Govern-ment to set aside funds for freedom fighters which could be given on a monthly basis for their survivors.

Amid sobs, Kisio displays to the Reject scars that dot her body which she claims were inflicted during the

struggle for the country’s indepen-dence.

“Most deaths in the camps and prisons occurred as a result of deliber-ate poor hygienic conditions we were subjected to,” says Kisio.

The discovery of historical sites in Narok district followed a major search for historical data and information related to struggle for the country’s independence by the Maasai and other communities. This was a project of the Narok branch of the Mau Mau Veter-ans Association. The project is a brain child of Karaya Ngare, the branch sec-retary who says some existing sites in-cluded prison rooms, restricted camps and pits of death that have been posi-tively identified by surviving victims of colonial captivities.

Ngare wants the Government to create a kitty to feed the independence struggle veterans some of whom are languishing in poverty.

Honouring the men and women of the struggle

The National chairman of the Mau Mau Veterans Association, Gitu Kahengeri greets the association’s Narok branch secretary Charles

Karaya Nkare on arrival at Karatina stadium where the veterans met recently. Picture: Kabia Matega

Maingi Maliti, Kimathi’s point man in Ukambani

By KEN NDAMBU

Although his national identity card shows he was born in 1918, Maingi Maliti looks younger than his 93 years.

Memories of Kenya’s liberation struggle are still fresh and vivid to the octogenarian and Mau Mau ex-freedom fighter as he recounts the role he played during World War II and his involvement in the Mau Mau.

Born in Kaveta Village on the outskirts of Ki-tui town, Maliti only went up to Standard Three at Kameme School, now Kitui Boys High School. He later went to Mombasa at 14 to evade the manda-tory tax imposed by the colonial government.

“Although the tax was only six shillings, it was difficult to get the money and many people fled their homes to evade the tax locally known as ‘koti wa kyongo’ (head tax),” Maliti recalls during an in-terview at his residence in Kitui.

In 1941, he came back home from Mombasa and was forcefully recruited by the colonial ad-ministration to the Kings African Rifles (KAR) and posted to Garissa when the World War II was at its peak.

Encounter“I met the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi

in Garissa. After four months of association with him, I left the military and became the ex-freedom fighter’s point man in Ukambani oblivious to the fact that I was headed for a harder task of liberating the country from colonialism,” Maliti remembers.

One of the tasks given to him was to distribute pamphlets critical to the colonial administration authored by John Gathingira.

“The pamphlets were brought and distributed throughout the night. My duty was to ensure that the pamphlets reached as many people as possible and that they were translated to Kikamba.”

After distribution, Maliti would brief Kimathi on the readers’ response.

Maliti’s participation in the Mau Mau move-ment gained momentum in 1951 when he joined Jomo Kenyatta’s three appointees from Kitui at a crucial meeting at Makongeni Sports Ground in

Nairobi. Others in the team were the late Samuel Mulandi and Thomas Kiteng’e.

After the Nairobi meeting, Maliti explains, Kiteng’e was appointed chairman of Kitui Mau Mau Branch, Mulandi (secretary) and himself assuming the position of the youth leader.

“Mzee Kenyatta personally mandated me to recruit 2,000 remnants in Kitui and make weekly briefs to Dedan Kimathi, an assignment I carried out with zeal,” reveals Maliti, who is one of the few surviving Mau Mau adherents from Kitui.

At one stage during the interview attended by his comrade Robert Katisya who also par-ticipated in the Mau Mau struggle for libera-tion of the country, Maliti wept as he recounted what he underwent during an oath taking cer-emony in Thika.

“It was horrific and terrifying as we took a concoction of blood and other substances as an oath to forbid us from revealing the secrets of the Mau Mau Movement and also pledging to kill and drink the blood of anyone who blocked our way in the fight to end the colonial administration,” recalls Maliti.

One of the commitments they undertook was not to reveal the whereabouts of freedom fighters, the movement’s plans and compel their wives to cook for freedom fighters without discrimination.

“One of many major advances was to fulfil an order by Kimathi to crackdown on chiefs sympa-thetic to the colonial government,” explains Maliti.

He says it was then that the Kitui based freedom fighters ambushed the late Senior Chief Kasina Ndoo and cut off his legs. An operation was then mounted by the colonial police led by Kitui District Commissioner John Kelly. Twenty freedom fight-ers were arrested and taken to Manyani detention camp where they spent three years.

“Unlike other chiefs, Kasina was a traitor in our midst and revealed our plans and movement especially when Kimathi visited Kitui,” says Maliti.

He dismisses belief that the Kamba community did little in the struggle for liberation of the country as most of the food supplies came from the region.

“As a youth leader, I got instructions from Kimathi and was responsible for collecting money

and coordinating food donation as well as ensuring it reached the Mau Mau leaders,” says Maliti.

He, however, admits that the Kikuyus played a major role in the struggle for independence cit-ing Manyani Detention Camp where most of them were tortured to death and scores left maimed.

“These are the people the Government should compensate fully because they brought the fruits the citizens are enjoying today,” avers Maliti.

PensionHe wonders why the pension the Government

set aside for those over 60 years is not benefiting those who shed blood for the liberation of the country.

“If the pension cannot benefit surviving free-dom fighters who else should it benefit?” he poses.

As appreciation for his role in the Mau Mau activities, Maliti was elected to County Council of Kitui unopposed in 1981 and again in 1983 when he became the chairman.

Maliti hopes in the new Constitutional dispen-sation, those who suffered to liberate the country from colonial administration will be recognised with creation of posts for them in the County gov-ernments.

Maliti displays a steel identification card issued by Dedan Kimathi to all Mau Mau

youth leaders. He was instrumental in Mau Mau activities in Ukambani.

Picture: Ken Ndambu

The role homeguards played

during Mau Mau By RYAN MATHENGE

Homeguards or collaborators as they were labelled during the crackdown on war veterans remains isolated members in the community owing to their past deed to their villagers during struggle for independence.

In many of the villages, families of those who collaborated with white ad-ministrators are easily recognised and la-beled as ‘ngati’, the Kikuyu pronunciation of home guard which was used derisively owing to misdeeds they did to the com-munity as they spied on their activities.

EducationHowever after independence, many

of the collaborators’ children were educated, making them prime candi-dates for plum jobs post independence leaving their Mau Mau counterparts uneducated. The children of the col-laborators also had the opportunity to proceed to Britain for further studies.

Benjamin Mwangi, a resident of Murang’a remembers how he saw chil-dren from the collaborators families eas-ily secure employment as the Mau Mau offspring missed out on such opportuni-ties due to their relative lack of education. “They enjoyed a lot of privileges since they were educated while other parents struggled raising their families,” said Mwangi, a resident of Weithaga location.

Retired Catholic Priest Father Joakim Gitonga says early education benefitted children of the administrators and col-laborators. He however said some of the collaborators leaked information of planned attacks to the Mau Mau in ad-dition to stealing ammunition from the stores and passing it on to the fighters. “Not all collaborators were bad, there is growing evidence that some tipped war generals on what the British military was planning,” said Gitonga.

“Most deaths in the camps and prisons occurred as a result of deliberate poor

hygienic conditions we were subjected to.” — Miriam Kisio

6 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

By JOHN SYENGO

When we approached her at Kyam-wiu Village home in the remote Kyuso District in Kitui County, we found the aging but amiable Waithera Mutemi reinforcing the iron sheet and wood planks gate at her home.

“I wanted to make sure this gate is firm because neighbours’ livestock have been pushing it open and mess-ing up the compound during my ab-sence. Once I add extra poles and a crossbar, the animals will no longer be able to push the gate open,” Waithera told the Reject recently.

Even as we explained the purpose of our visit, as this mother of eight and a grandmother of a legion did the final touches of the gate repair, noth-ing on the surface betrayed that fact that Waithera was part of the Kenya’s struggle against the colonial masters in the late 1940s and 1950s.

ResourcefulNot many of her neighbours in

the village just a few kilometres from Itivanzou Primary School in the newly created Kamuwongo Division know that Waithera is a resourceful person on the history of the Mau Mau struggle.

As it turned out during our chat in the early evening after she was through with repairing her gate, Waithera is no doubt one of the living but unsung he-roes of the freedom struggle.

Sharing with her a wooden log supported by two poles that served as our seat, Waithera was willing to give her story on the Mau Mau struggle but with a bitter taste in her mouth as she has not been rec-ognised nearly 48 years after Kenya attained independence.

Waithera is not sure of her age. However, the national identity card she holds gives her date of birth as 1950, a year when she was, as a bub-bling and energetic teenage girl in the thick of the Mau Mau struggle mainly as a gun bearer and spy for the free-

dom fighters. That notwithstanding, she easily agrees to a suggestion that that she could be nearing her 80s.

Waithera was barely in her teens when Mau Mau fighters forced mem-bers of her family, that at the time lived in the area between the present day Kahawa Barracks and the Githurai Es-tate in the periphery of Nairobi City, to join them.

“When our father, Njuguna who was a supervisor at a farm belonging to a Mzungu in the Kahawa area, was forced to have members of his family take the Mau Mau oath we were all bound as members of the freedom fighting movement and would not dis-close anything,” she recalls.

Waithera says both her parents could not protest when the Mau Mau Platoon that operated from the bun-kers along the Githuri River and the nearby thick forests demanded that she and her sister Wanjiku become part of the girls who would attend to the needs of the freedom fighters.

“From then on we became ac-tive participants in the Mau Mau struggle. We were part of the ten girls who served the needs of a platoon of between 30 to 40 forest fighters. We provided them with food and water as well as washed their clothes,” explain Waithera. She says intimate relation-ship between the girls and the fighters was strictly prohibited.

However, she says their services came in handy when the fighters de-cided to use them to move their home made guns although it entailed putting their lives on the line.

“Because we were young innocent girls, the fighters used us as gun bear-ers to carry their rifles and ammuni-tion. It was unlikely for the colonial askaris to stop and search us because they did not expect we would to in-dulge in such dangerous activities at our age,” she explains.

Waithera says during her two-year stint with the Mau Mau group headed by Kamau aka Mwana Mwende that launched attacks on colonial targets

and installation from their hideout in the Githuria bunkers and forests she did a lot of espionage and gathering of intelligence for the Mau Mau.

“We visited the homes of wazungus posing as desperate girls from poor families seeking employment but our interest was to gather information that would be shared with the fighters to enable them to launch attacks,” says Waithera. Such visits were also used to beg food and money that would be used for Mau Mau upkeep.

Besides the alms, during their beats especially in the area along the pres-ent day Thika Road covering Kahawa,

Ruiru and Thika areas, the girls would take to the Mau Mau fighters vital in-formation on the number of govern-ment soldiers, their routine and the weakest area as well as suggest the best time to launch an attack.

Besides, she says, the girls would use their ingenuity to sweet talk sym-pathetic government soldiers to give them bullets to be used by the Mau Mau. Although the fighters had the ca-pacity to make homemade guns, they did not have the know how for making ammunition. The girls at times stole the bullets from the Government sol-diers they befriended.

Armed womenWaithera says since their assign-

ment was extremely dangerous, the girls were shown how to use guns to ensure they could defend themselves in times of trouble.

“We were taken through rudimen-tary lessons on how to handle the gun and even shoot when necessary,” says Waithera as she uses a torch to dem-onstrate how to release the gun trigger.

During her errand as a Mau Mau operative she met and befriended a Kamba tribesman from Kyuso, Mute-mi Nzau who was to become her fu-ture husband. She says at the time they met, Nzau was working as a driver of a lorry that used to transport quarry stones from Kahawa area to Nairobi.

“When I met my husband, he was working for an Indian known as Kavu. Initially I used to take all the bullets we had marshalled to his house and would hide them in a hole I had dug under his bed. Because he was a Kam-ba, Government officials could not suspect that his house would be used for Mau Mau activities,” says the soft spoken woman.

She recalls a time she had a near brush with death as she ran errands for the Mau Mau. She missed death by a whisker when a Mau Mau fighter the girls had accompanied was gunned down by colonial government soldiers.

“We were walking side by side be-

fore I heard a gun shot and the fighter collapsed in a heap. We knew he was shot and the rest of us fled into the bush,” recalls Waithera.

She was also tortured by govern-ment soldiers at Lang’ata Barracks for her role in the Mau Mau onslaught.

“During a screening parade at Ka-hawa, a Mau Mau deserter identified me as one of the Mau Mau opera-tors. I was along with others taken to Lang’ata Barracks where I was severely and intensely tortured,” says the for-mer freedom fighter.

“I have never seen anything like that. The gun wielding soldiers were extremely cruel. They forced us to crawl on our knees and hands for a distance of over one kilometre of bal-last filled field. Those who could not bear it were shot dead. I endured but my knees and hands suffered serious wounds,” she says.

Waithera says even with the pain, she was undeterred and could not spill the beans and confess that she be-longed to the Mau Mau. She was later released after the soldiers failed to get any incriminating information that could link her with Mau Mau.

New lifeAfter her release even before the

Mau Mau uprising was over, she mar-ried Nzau and was taken to Ukambani to start a new life as a wife and mother. Today, as she approaches 80 years and whiles away time in Kyamwiu Vil-lage, Itvanzou Location of Kyuso Dis-trict, she wonders why nearly five de-cades after independence no one has thought of recognising her for the role she played in the freedom struggle.

“It is true I sacrificed a lot and put my life on the line to fight for Uhuru but I have nothing to show for it even as I approach my sunset years. No one has ever recognised the role I played,” she says. Waithera laments having been left out even as some of her col-leagues in the struggle for Uhuru were rewarded with portions of land next to the Baba Dogo area in Nairobi.

Waithera, yesteryear’s brave Mau Mau spy girl

Field Marshal Muthoni, damsel of the freedom fightersBy WAIKWA MAINA

She has an unquestionable air of au-thority about her. It is not difficult to understand why she rose to the rank of Field Marshal in the Mau Mau Movement.

With a lot of bitterness, Mau Mau freedom fighter Muthoni Kirima viv-idly recalls all about the fight like it happened yesterday.

She is bitter with almost every-one and every institution. She feels strongly that whatever they went to fight for has not been totally achieved. Not with black people of Kenyan ori-gin still living in along road sides, as squatters in villages, not to mention the thousands of unsettled internally displaced persons four years after the disputed 2007 general elections.

“My father worked for a settler. That is where I was brought up. Once you lived with them, you had to fight. We felt it was better to die in the for-est fighting them than to live without our freedom. We wanted our land and our freedom but I have nothing to be proud of today,” says Muthoni.

The Field Marshal recalls every-thing and how Dedan Kimathi died. When she mentions his name, one can easily notice the anger and des-peration in her tone and eyes, she drops some tears and gets emotion-al. It takes a few minutes before she

composes herself to continue with the narration of her experience in the forest. When she talks about the fate of freedom fighters after indepen-dence, there is a choke in her throat. She paints a haunting likeness.

“It’s like a competitive match. We were the team, we played valiantly, sacrificially, against the opposing team. We sweated, sacrificed our lives and families, but what do we have to show for it?” she poses. She adds: “Nothing, the glory went to the other party, the spectators and traitors, it is the children of Mau Mau and other freedom fighters that are jobless. They are the ones who live as squat-ters yet we are the ones who went to the forest.”

Muthoni recalls that during the war, there was no enmity between black Kenyans, not even with those that worked for the white settlers since it was due to ignorance that they worked for and supported them.

She adds that even the white man was not the enemy of the black Af-ricans by virtue of the difference in skin colour but simply for taking away their rich virgin land as well as introducing draconian and oppress-ing laws to the African community.

Muthoni says that freedom fight-ers were betrayed while they were in the forest, an injustice that she argues is yet to be addressed locally by the

Kenyan Government or by the Brit-ish government.

“While we fought and risked our lives in the forest, another strategic war was taking place in the politi-cal arena. Parties were being formed to fight for the rights of Kenya all the way to Lancaster House. Our educated brothers were agitating for the rights of the black man in the legislature, through constitutional means. Though their approach was non violent, some of them were our inspiration but they distanced them-selves from us after independence in 1963,” she observes.

Muthoni says after independence, freedom fighters willingly gave up their weapons and returned to their villages, unaware that as they were in the forest fighting the enemy, land consolidation had taken place in 1960. That is how thousands of freedom fighters were left landless. Their land was taken away and given to others.

The other disadvantage on their side was that as they were in the for-est, those who remained got edu-cated. It is the educated lot and their children who got to hold good jobs.

“We had no problem with that since the hatching government need-ed the educated class to form the Government, we felt it was a win-win situation,” she recalls. She blames lies,

selfishness, nepotism and corruption as major issues that have led the coun-try to where it is today. According to Muthoni, patriotism died soon after independence. She says had the spirit of patriotism been cultivated even the last general elections skirmishes could not have occurred.

What lacked was equal distri-bution and sharing of natural re-sources, while due to selfishness and nepotism, Kenyans were unable to embrace each other as true brothers and sisters.

The situation was aggravated by emergence of groups of people call-ing themselves Mau Mau, a move that created enmity between the true Mau Mau heroes and imposters.

She strongly believes that the im-posters are a project of prophets of doom who want to frustrate justice and capitalise on the confusion to ei-ther benefit or frustrate efforts by the original fighters’ access justice.

Muthoni is of the opinion that those who took over power at inde-pendence may have been scared and thought that those who went to fight in the forest will conspire and go back into the forest to fight them. They then decided to frustrate and condemn the fighters and that is why it took years before the law criminalising Mau Mau was repealed.

Muthoni joined the freedom fight-ers in 1951, just three years after she got married to her late husband.

“It was unlikely for the colonial askaris to stop and search

us because they did not expect we would

indulge in such dangerous activities

at our age.” — Waithera Mutemi

Field Marshal Muthoni at her house where a cherished picture of Dedan Kimathi hangs on the wall. Picture: Waikwa Maina

7U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t hISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Mau Mau witnessMama Kaloki’s account on what she

observed during the struggle for self-ruleBy OMWA OMBARA

Ask her about the Mau Mau struggle and she instinctively bursts into song. It is a song of freedom and celebration that is loaded with the story of Kenya’s independence.

Susan Kaloki Wambua, 82, wit-nessed the struggle for independence at the heart of what has become one of the darkest moments of Kenya’s history.

The day Jomo Kenyatta was released from Kapenguria is alive in her memo-ry. “When Kenyatta was released from Kapenguria, we walked from Makuyu to Kapenguria chanting. There were thousands of us singing and jubilant. You needed to have been there to know the sweetness of freedom. We went cra-zy with joy,” an excited Wambua says as she reveals an infectious, toothless smile.

“We screamed, shouted, danced and laughed hysterically. We hugged one another, male and female and together rolled on the ground as if we had an epi-leptic seizure. We did not know how to express our joy. It was amazing,” she told the Reject.

On that day others were transported to Kapenguria in army lorries free of charge. Kenyatta sat calmly in the mid-dle of the crowd, waving his flywhisk. They were with Mama Ngina. “Then Mama Ngina was a young girl, as thin as that pen you are writing with,” Wambua recalls. What was even more interest-ing was that as soon as the white people learnt that Kenyatta was free, many could not handle the news and ended up committing suicide in their farms.

Suicide“I witnessed 30 bodies of white men

and women who had committed sui-cide,” says Wambua.

She calls herself a shero, not because she took arms and moved to the forest but because in her own little way she contributed to the struggle for Kenya’s independence.

Wambua lived in Murang’a, Makuyu in the farms of the “wazungus”. The year was 1956 and she was just a young girl. Her father, who worked on the white man’s farm, came home one evening looking sad. He said the white man did not want to see any cows belonging to Africans in their farms.

“We owned cows but the white man did not want to see them around. A decree came from above that all Afri-cans must remove their cows from the farms. So my father got land in Makue-ni,” she recalls.

Wambua remembers that period as one of the darkest in her life. Fear hang around everywhere and they all suf-fered sleepless nights.

“We were children. We feared the whites. If you took a Mau Mau oath, the white man mistreated you. We could not sleep. Those who refused to take the oath were also killed. It was a terrible,” she told the Reject.

IntegrityAccording to Wambua, the Mau

Mau never raped the women and chil-dren. It was the white majohni (soldiers) who raped women and children.” Al-though the Mau Mau took away money and the food we had prepared by force, they did not indulge in sexual crimes. We understood, though, when they car-ried our food away. They were hiding in the forest and could not prepare their

own food,” Wambua explains. She adds: “We made a lot of food so that they had enough to carry whenever they raided the kitchens.”

She says the colonialists made the Ki-kuyu, Kamba and Luo work on the same farm but separated their living quarters. They put a police post in the middle of the living quarters to ensure the commu-nities did not socialise after work.

The only nostalgic feeling Wambua has of the Mau Mau era is that there was a lot of food. “During colonial era there was plenty of food. There was no hunger and inflation like what we have today. We lived in Yatta but my father worked in Thika Sisal Farm as a mes-senger to a white man called Wa Thika.”

In her version of the Mau Mau story, Wambua admits that although many communities helped in the struggle, the Kikuyu bore the brunt as hundreds were killed.

Deserved“The Kikuyu really died in the Mau

Mau struggle. The Kikuyu women bought land everywhere in Nairobi after independence and in my opinion, they deserve it. They deserve to rule Kenya too,” she opines.

Wambua believes that despite the Mau Mau challenges, the good side is that it made women from the region came out stronger — independent and self-willed. The men were in detention and women heard to struggle to make ends meet. To date, they have remained the most ambitious and progressive women in the country.”

Wambua blames the colonialists for denying her and other women as well as children a chance to go to school. “I never went to school. There are things I don’t know . . . so many things. My fa-ther wrote in English and he became the white man’s messenger but I don’t know who taught him the strange language,” she says.

“When Kenyatta was released from

Kapenguria, we walked from Makuyu

to Kapenguria chanting. There were

thousands of us singing and jubilant.”

— Susan Kaloki Wambua

Ex-freedom fighter agitates for farmers’ land rights

By KEN NDAMBU

At 81, ex-freedom fighter Bernard Kogie Wathobio’s memory of his struggle to help the freedom fighters in Naivasha and Nakuru when the Mau Mau war was at its peak is still fresh and vivid. Despite the advanc-ing age, he is still pursuing a worthy cause to fight for farmers’ interests especially relatives of the ex-freedom fighters who have not been lucky to get land to settle in Maragua and Thika Districts.

In his tiny office in the heart of Thika Town, it is a beehive of ac-tivities as fatigued-looking peasants flock there to be helped to trace their parcels of land after buying shares at the trouble ridden Methi and Swani land buying farmers co-operative society. Methi, Swani and Kihiu Mwiri schemes are the oldest land buying companies established dur-ing the Mau Mau era with the latter meaning a society of members who underwent circumcision initiation with the founding father of the na-tion, the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

Recalling his involvement with the freedom fighters as a youth in 1952, Wathobio said he and other age mates were sympathisers of the remnants and used to take them food in the forest at night. “I was hired as the leader of the secret agent in charge of the youth to inform them of the movement of the colo-nial askaris so as to take cover,”recalls Wathobio. He adds that to succeed in the job, he was employed as a cook by one of the white settlers in Naiva-sha and through the relationship with the colonial administration; he helped the Mau Mau fighters achieve their mission.

RevengeOblivious that his mission as

a worker in the white settlement schemes was known, he says he was woken up one morning on Octo-ber 6, 1952 and shot in the leg by the bodyguard of his employer. “It was after the incident when I knew my mission was known and left the working place and went to Naiva-sha Town to mobilise the youth to revenge,” says Wathobio in an in-terview with the Reject in his Me-thi home on the outskirts of Thika Town.

He says from that time, he be-came a sworn enemy of the colonial askaris and after one month, he was arrested as he planned to stage a procession against the white settlers who had acquired large farms in Naivasha at the expense of the locals.

“This is when my struggle for equal land rights started,” says Wathobio adding that in December 1952, he was detained and jailed by the colonial government at Marigat and Naivasha detention camps. Wathobio was charged with sym-pathising with the Mau Mau fight-ers, loitering in the streets of Naiva-sha and refusing to work for the white settlers.

After eight months in detention, young Wathobio joined other youth groups who acted as helpers of the freedom fighters in the forest. In the course of discharging his duties, he was again shot and wounded in the leg, arrested and detained again at

Marigat detention camp. He was later transferred to Naivasha.

When Wathobio was at Naiva-sha Detention camp serving a six year jail term, the Mau Mau broke into the cells at night and set free all those jailed there. “It became hectic to the colonial administra-tion and to silence me, I was given a job at the Ministry of Agriculture and deployed at Pekera Irrigation scheme as a mechanic,” says Watho-bio. He served in Jacaranda Coffee Research Station, Nakuru, Garissa and Nairobi before retiring from the civil service in 1987 in the rank of driver cum plant mechanic.

As former chairman of the wound up Methi and Swani land buying society, Wathobio says he has been able to settle 3,187 share-holders of the society. “In a bid to ensure that the society does not col-lapse before settling the members, I have found myself on a collision cause with the law. I have been jailed for 28 days and detained sev-erally at Makuyu Police Station but the harassment has not derailed my mission to see justice done to the landless,” says Wathobio. For 15 years, Wathobio has been in the court corridors to block the sale of one of the estates of the society Ma-kindi River Bank Estate by a local bank for a debt of KSh2.7 million, the bank claims the debt has since accrued to KSh100 million.

SecretTrouble with the society started

in 1995 when the former directors authorised the sale of the estate to offset the loan acquired from the Co-operative Bank in 1978 without consent of the members. He ex-plains that the directors used part of the money to repay a loan got from the Agricultural Finance Corpora-tion. However, the loan accrued to KSh100 million which arose

suspicion among the members. “When my team of directors took over the society and even before the files were handed over to them, the Bank sold the Estate defeating the purpose of the society to settle some of its members in the estate,” says Wathobio. Wathobio says the move triggered prolonged court battles until the matter was referred to a constitutional court but the shareholders ended up losing as the society wound up before every member was settled.

Our rights“We fought the colonial govern-

ment to get back our land but what we are seeing now is no different from what was happening during the colonial government as most of the settlement schemes owned by the white settlers are owned by the rich,” avers Wathobio. He blames the problems afflicting land buying farmers’ companies to the Govern-ment’s failure to come up with a policy to safeguard the societies’ interests. “With liberalisation of the co-operative movement, man-agement of the societies have been left solely to the farmers who lack professionalism on how to manage them,” observes Wathobio.

The former ex-freedom fighter says greed among some directors of farmers’ companies, inadequate supervision, lack of proper records, collusion of some directors with banks to deprive the societies has led to collapse of most land buying societies. He says if courts final-ised cases brought to them by the societies in time, the marginalised small scale farmers who used the societies to buy land could not be squatters. “Time is ripe for the Government to regulate co-opera-tive industry to safeguard the small scale farmer who use land societies to acquire land,” notes Wathobio.

Bernard Kogie Wathobio displays a scar on his leg where he was shot and wounded by colonial askaris in Naivasha during

the Mau Mau war. Picture: Ken Ndambu

8 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Development bars elephants from breeding

By BUYO TUTI

Early this year, a team of Kenya Wildlife Ser-vice intelligence officers had penetrated the enemy territory in an operation mounted to capture poachers and impound a haul of el-ephant tusks on transit to Nairobi overnight.

The tense atmosphere was palpable as un-dercover officers and backup team had their jobs cut out for them. Here, 81 elephant tusks were at stake and recovering the ivory was do-ing justice to elephants. All the while, a contin-gent of armed officers in camouflaged patrol land cruiser vehicles had sealed all exit routes leaving Nthugi village along the busy Nanyu-ki-Meru highway.

The trader, on the KWS’s list of most want-ed poachers who has several court cases has been evading the dragnet over the past several months. He was not escaping this one.

As the trader and his clients made their way out of the homestead and onto the high-way towards Meru town, the officers emerged and blocked the road from all sides. With no escape route, the men surrendered and their consignment of 81 elephant tusks and the sa-lon Toyota car were all in the possession of KWS officers.

Ivory tradeSuch cases of bold action to curb illegal

trade in ivory in Isiolo and Meru counties are many. Over the past ten months, about 106 ivory tusks have been recovered in Isiolo alone. In October last year, ten tusks were re-covered and two men arrested.

At the beginning of the year, 81 ivory tusks were recovered and three men arrested. Three months ago, 12 tusks were impounded on transit to Nairobi. As of August, a case in-volving three ivory tusks is pending before an Isiolo court.

According to Isiolo District Warden Domi-nic Wambua, most of the jumbos are killed by poachers when they stray into unprotected areas.

However, he confirmed that some hardcore poachers killed elephants in the parks at night using sophisticated gadgets such as high sen-sitivity night vision binoculars and rifle scope which is mounted on the guns to aid in accu-rate aiming.

But why do the jumbos widely known for the sharp memory of their tracks stray into the unprotected areas away from their normal routes and fall victim?

The answer lies in the mushrooming trad-

ing centres along their migratory corridors and heavily fenced crop fields in areas previ-ously known to be elephant shades. These, coupled with development initiatives com-ing up in both Isiolo and Meru counties, are threatening the population of the jumbos in the region.

One such development venture that has sent panic waves in the elephant kingdom is the expansive three kilometre Isiolo International Airport.

“When designing a facility of such magni-tude, planners should consult to avoid conflict between wildlife and human beings since once their corridors to other habitats are closed, the animals tend to stray into unprotected areas if not into homesteads or farms,” laments Wam-bua.

The elephant corridor crossing from Ruiri and Meru forests to Shaba National Reserve in Isiolo and those heading back to the forest have been blocked by the Kenya Army 78 tank battalion and the Isiolo International Airport which is under construction. The situation has been complicated further by numerous vegetable farms on Gambela swamp along the Isiolo-Garbatula road.

On the other hand, the jumbos altered routes from the cold Mt Kenya Forest to warm lowlands of Buffalo Springs and Samburu na-tional reserves could not get easy passage since the routes have been altered by large onion farms stretching from Maili Saba along Isiolo Nanyuki road to Leparua westward.

The destructive jumbos therefore invade into farmland and unmanned rangeland where poachers prowl.

According to Mzee Ibrahim Duba, a com-munity elder in Gafarsa, a village along the river Ewaso Nyiro, he has over the years learnt that the months of May through to July is the breeding season for the elephants in the re-gion. He noted that, the long strip of acacia forest along the river has attracted jumbos to

Gafarsa area where they are not hunted by lo-cals.

“The long strip of acacia forest along the river is cold even when the sun is hot around here and the elephants love this particularly when they have calves,” says Mzee Duba.

Though he could not confirm Duba’s observations, Wambua blames the human settlement along the corridors used by the el-ephants to migrate to other habitats. As sea-sons change, this forces the jumbos to stray into other areas where they are vulnerable to poaching since they are unable to retrace their tracks.

Naturally, Wambua says the thick acacia canopy is the favourite habitat for the jumbos

where they raise their calves after birth in the nearby Ruiri, Mt Kenya and Meru forests. Oth-ers migrate from Marsabit and Samburu to the banks of Ewaso Nyiro River in Isiolo during dry seasons but their incubators have been de-stroyed by roaring power saws as demand for charcoal in urban centres rises.

According to Wambua, the elephant popu-lation will keep dwindling if their corridors are not respected and protected. He added that their numbers had reduced by over two per cent over the past decade.

Human settlement“People have settled in their corridors

while government development plans such as the Isiolo International Airport is one of the activities which has configured the elephant migration routes hence changing their breed-ing season,” said Wambua.

Though the five military establishments around Isiolo are also blocking the corridors, the undisturbed acacia forest has become a sanctuary as the stranded jumbos take refuge in the barracks during the breeding seasons.

“The officers often call us to drive away the animals from their barracks but those acacia forests have saved many elephants which would have been poached if they wandered away into the plains,” said Wambua.

“When designing a facility of such magnitude, planners should consult to avoid conflict between wildlife and

human beings since once their corridors to other habitats are closed, the animals tend to stray into

unprotected areas if not into homesteads or farms.” — Dominic Wambua, Isiolo District Warden

An elephant grazes at Buffalo Springs National Reserve.

KWS officers impound a haul of 82 elephant tusks from suspected

poachers in Isiolo early this year. The officers

blame the blocked elephant migratory

corridors for the rise in poaching on elephants

as they stray into the unprotected range

lands. Pictures: Buyo Tuti

Turning fish farming into a profitable endeavour By WANDERI NJENGA

It is good news for fish farmers in Kiambu County as the government unveils plans to turn fish farming into a lucrative business opportu-nity. The Permanent Secretary in the ministry of fisheries development, Professor Micheni Ntiba said that the government will ensure that farm-ers who engage in fish farming gain good profits by providing the necessary technical support and infrastructure required for massive produc-tion and marketing of fish.

Ntiba said that due to the perishable nature

of harvested fish, farmers are being given ade-quate training of post harvest fish management to ensure that no losses are incurred before the fish reaches the consumer.

The government, he said, aims at construct-ing a fish cooling and mini processing plant in each constituency where harvested fish can be preserved and prepared for marketing. Ntiba said that the project had already kicked off and is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The PS added that the government will also be installing fish pellet production machines in the constituencies to upscale the fishing

programme. Most farmers in the county have complained about the high cost of fish feed with some resorting to using low quality feeds such as maize germ and bran which leads to stunted growth in the fish and dismal economic gains.

Professor Micheni said that farmers will be trained on how to use the machines to produce fish feeds from locally available and cheap raw materials adding that the standard fish feed should have at least 25 per cent protein and be in pellet form.

It was relief to the farmers when the PS an-nounced that the government has recruited

more fisheries extension officers who will be posted to the constituencies. This will ensure that farmers get adequate technical assistance in good time. He said that the county will re-ceive 24 officers which will be distributed equally with each constituency getting three. The PS was addressing fish farmers and other residents of Kiambu County at Gitamaiyu during a fish festival dubbed ‘more fish for a healthier, wealthier Kiambu’. Kiambu County has realised KSh6 million from fish sale since the government rolled out the economic stimu-lus projects on fish farming.

9U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t hISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

A roll of honour call for unsung heroesBy MUSA RADOLI

For decades through the successive post inde-pendence regimes, hundreds of Kenyan wom-en have achieved tough feats that transformed them into international heroines but unsung at home.

Right from the struggle for freedom of the nation from the British colonial yokes, hun-dreds of Kenyan women have fought alongside their male counterparts through Kenyatta and Moi regimes for democratic space. Most recent-ly they put the name of the nation on the world map through the new Constitution.

The women’s struggles and achievements have also been felt in the academia as well as gender and civil rights, equitable distribution of national resources and Judiciary among other spheres.

However, as their male counterparts are be-ing feted as national heroes with monuments, institutions, street names, roads and highways as well as buildings and stadia, public parks and gardens, women receive almost no recognition.

The story of such unfair imbalances in rec-ognition of the nation’s heroines does not just begin and end in the capital city Nairobi. It cuts right across the country all the way from Mom-basa, Nyeri, Embu, Machakos, Meru, Isiolo, Garissa, Naivasha, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kisumu, and Kakamega among other towns.

Recognised womenPerhaps the only prominent post indepen-

dence heroine who has been recognised with public entities being named after her is the first lady of post independence Kenya, Mama Ngina Kenyatta. There is Mama Ngina Street in Nairo-bi and Mama Ngina Drive recreation grounds in Mombasa that bear her name.

Otherwise freedom struggle heroines like Meketilili wa Menza, who led the rebellion against British colonialists at the Coast re-mained unsung for many years. It is only last year that celebrations were held in her recog-nition. When marking Mashujaa Day last year, members of the Kenya National Cultural Coun-cil and the Malindi District Cultural Associa-tion gathered to honour the liberation heroine.

Elders erected a statue in honour of Meka-tilili at Uhuru Gardens in Malindi. The garden was renamed Mekatilili wa Menza Garden in honour of the first African woman to resist British rule as early as 1913. During these cel-ebrations, the Malindi District Commissioner, Arthur Mugira castigated area women leaders for snubbing the celebrations saying: “The new Constitution has given the women free seats in the national and county assemblies, but it is only those who will come out that will ascend to those seats.”

Other heroines who struggled against British rule include Mama Elsie Mukami Kimathi, wife of freedom fighter Dedan Wachiuri Kimathi.

Right through the Kenyatta and Moi re-gimes despite the struggle and sacrifice that the old woman made for the independence of the country, she was completely forgotten despite her husband having sacrificed his life for the nation. None of the regimes including President Mwai Kibaki’s have tried to locate the remains of the late Kimathi for a decent state burial. His grave remains unmarked at Kamiti prison.

ForgottenThis state of affairs applies to Muthoni Bai-

munge, the wife of Kimathi’s closest friend and comrade in arms, Marête Baimunge. Both hero-ines are still alive. These are crowned by the late Wambui Otieno who died recently unfeted yet she was among the tough women who stood up for this country’s freedom.

Other personalities like the widows of the late freedom fighter Tom Mboya, Pamela Mboya and the late JM Kariuki’s widow Doris Nyam-bura. Whatever their husbands achieved, these women were the pillars behind them.

Maendeleo ya Wanawake chair person, Rukia Subow says: “This is a very sad state of

affairs because these heroines are the mothers of this nation. It is high time the anomalies were corrected in accordance with the provisions of the new Constitu-tion and our heroines right from before independence todate giv-en the recognition they deserve and feted accordingly.”

According to Subow, as per the Constitution’s stipulations, achievements in every discipline should see the heroines getting equal share of recognition. They should be included in the nam-ing of the streets, roads, resi-dential estates, highways, public parks, institutions and public buildings together with their male counterparts.

Heroines“I am talking about national

and international heroines like the late Nobel Peace laureate, Professor Wangari Maathai. Other include personalities like Professor Miriam Were, sports heroines like Catherine Ndere-ba and Tegla Lorupe as well as political luminaries Grace Onyango, Grace Ogot, Phoebe Asiyo and Julia Ojiambo among many more,” reiterated Subow.

Reports from Nyeri indicate that there are plans to honour Maathai by naming one of the town streets after her. They are talks of erecting a statue.

Inquiries at Nairobi City Hall indicate that the city planning committee in collaboration with relevant government departments/min-istries and stakeholders are the ones who sit to discuss and determine naming of streets, highways, roads and residential estates among other things.

Peter Mwangi, senior planning commit-tee officer says: “The history has been that the planning committee acts as the main co-

ordinator to rope in the other government departments/minis-tries and stakeholders to do this. However, with the new constitu-tional stipulations, this is going to drastically change.”

According to Mwangi, at the moment the Ministry of National Heritage is playing the leading role in implementing the Constitu-tional demands as far as recogni-tion and feting of national heroes is concerned.

Minister for National Heri-tage, William ole Ntimama says the new Constitution provides for a national day, designated as Mashujaa Day to be observed on every Oc-tober 20th, in which Kenya remembers those who contributed in the liberation struggle among other achievements.

Says Ntimama: “The Government through the Ministry has undertaken several initiatives to ensure our national heroes and heroines are honoured and the role they played remains in the consciousness of Kenyans who now enjoy enormous freedoms as a result.” He adds: “As part of this the Ministry constituted a Task-force on 20 March 2011 to carry out a coun-trywide data collection on the criteria and modalities for identifying, recognising and honouring national heroes and heroines.”

“In their report the taskforce defined what it considered as the core values of Kenya’s nation-hood, which include patriotism, unity in diver-sity and mutual social responsibility. The core values became the ground on which to anchor the proposed National Heroes and Heroines Honour System.”

Honouring heroes Ntimama says that the taskforce identified

functional areas with the relevant requisite qualities from which heroes and heroines may be identified. These include liberation struggle, religious leadership, indigenous knowledge, cultural values and practices, arts, sportsman-ship, scholarship, professionals and research, peacemaking, statesmanship, entrepreneurship and industry as well as philanthropy. A special case for people with disabilities was also pro-posed.

He says there are several ways of recognis-ing and honouring heroes. They include high respect that should be accorded to national heroes and heroines by the Government and

the society at large; putting up monuments in their honour; writing, publishing and display-ing their names and histories depicting their works for all to know; naming things after them including buildings, stadia, and streets; and popularising their names and acts in many other ways.

Roll of honourOther forms of honour include publishing a

National Heroes and Heroines Roll of Honour, providing appropriate security for the heroes and their families, and according them state burials when they die.

“Despite its relatively short existence and modest resources, the Ministry has successfully implemented a number of these proposals in honour of our national heroes. In 2003, the Gov-ernment lifted the ban on the legal notice which made it possible to recognise and honour the members of the Mau Mau movement,” explains Ntimama.

Ntimama said so far the mashujaa recog-nised are Mekatilili wa Menza, Mary Nyanjiru, Koitalel arap Samoei, Waiyaki wa Hinga, Muin-di Mbingu, Jevanjee Mulla, Markhan Singh, Pio Gama Pinto and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga among other names are examples of possible national consensus.

Also recognised as heroes, are the Kapengu-ria six who include Jomo Kenyatta, Paul Ngei, Bildad Kaggia, Achieng’ Oneko, Kung’u Karum-ba and Fred Kubai. The Ministry has constructed mausoleums for the late Paul Ngei, Bildad Kag-gia and Achieng Oneko.

The minister says that works are in progress for the construction of a mausoleum in honour of Fred Kubai while plans for the construction of a monument for Kung’u Karumba in this finan-cial year are underway.

From left: Mijikenda elders at the unveiling ceremony of Mekatilili wa

Menza’s statue in Malindi last year. Mukami Kimathi, widow of the freedom

fighter Dedan Kimathi. These women are some of the unsung heroines.

Pictures: Reject correspondent and AWC

“This is a very sad state of affairs because these

heroines are the mothers of this nation. It is high

time the anomalies were corrected in accordance

with the provisions of the new Constitution.”

— Rukia Subow

10 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Uncelebrated heroine

Meet Nyar Usigu, a woman devoted to teaching children

By OMONDI GWENGI

For the last 39 years, she has been in class with children making sure that they get the foundation of knowledge. Some peo-ple have appreciated what she does and have recognised her as a heroine who has made sure that the young ones get a firm foundation, but some take it for granted.

This is the tale of one Nyar Usigu as she is popularly known by the locals. Priscah Jura of Kanyibok Village, Bondo District in Siaya County has weathered many storms to be what she is today. While she should be busy playing with her grandchildren, the 62-year-old is still going strong providing early childhood education to the young ones.

Volunteer teacherAfter completing her college educa-

tion, Jura did not want to be idle and therefore decided to volunteer as a nurs-ery school teacher at Kanyibok Nursery School where she still works to date.

“After college, I realised that being idle would not help. I, therefore, decided to volunteer as a nursery school teacher,” explains Jura.

Today, she says, that the education sys-tem has really transformed. She, however, hopes that one day the Government will recognise the kind of work they do and employ them just like other teachers.

“I am not giving up anytime soon be-cause for the Government to implement this, it requires a lot of patience. I believe that we will be employed one day,” she says hopefully.

Unlike the old days when would just come from home to Standard One, Jura says that time has come that a child must pass through nursery school before he/she proceeds to primary school. She be-

lieves that early childhood plays a very important role in the education sector.

“When we were growing up, we would go to Standard One without passing through nursery provided that you could touch your ear,” she recalls.

However, Jura says that teaching these children re-quires a lot because of the nu-merous challenges that come with the job. A dilapidated classroom with no cemented floors is what greets one when you visit some public nursery schools.

Jura notes that they lack furniture and the children sit on the floor while some sit on stones which put them at risk of get-ting injured.

“Some of our classroom roofs are leak-ing and this interrupts the learning pro-cess as well as posing a health risk to the children,” she says.

Depending on the little money that the parents pay as school fees, it sometimes becomes difficult to provide quality edu-cation because some parents do not pay and this keeps some children away from school.

“Some parents are not co-operative in terms of paying the money required and this makes learning process difficult. Some opt to keep their children at home,” she says.

Another challenge that Jura cites on the education of children in this area is the lake. She confirms that most of the chil-dren come from families that do not value education and do not encourage their chil-dren to go to school.

“Living along the lake really affects learning of our children and it gives us a lot of work to disseminate the importance

of education to them,” observes Jura. She explains that fishing activities and the money that comes with it makes children drop out of school to start earning a living at a tender age.

Armed with her vast experience in the teaching profession, Jura says that she has also trained some teachers who are still new in the profession.

Training“I am happy to have trained a number

of teachers who are from college and oth-ers that are planning to join the profes-sion,” she boasts.

She says the job has helped her be in-dependent. Jura enjoys spending most of her time with the young ones.

“I would have been at home idle and instead quarrel with neighbours over pet-ty issues,” she observes.

Widowed three years ago, Jura says that things have not been rosy for her. She says that the society looks down upon the widows.

“Sometimes there is aid that comes for the widows and it is only a few who are recognised by our local leaders that re-ceive it. We’ve been left to struggle on our own,” she observes.

Lack of anti-snake venom poses a threat to rural Kenya

By AYOKI ONYANGO

Snakes are reptiles that many people do not like coming across. Millions of people live in fear of at least one of three major groups of venomous snakes, including vipers and co-bras. This is because they have poisonous bites which if not treated immediately may leave the victim dead or paralysed. In most parts of ru-ral Kenya, people become helpless when bitten by poisonous snakes.

A local television station recently carried a series of stories on how some of the dead-liest snakes are posing a threat to people in Mwingi District. However, this problem is not confined to Mwingi alone. A recent tour of rural Kenya was characterised by tales of snake bites. The snake bites occasionally lead to deaths and paralysis since most private and government hospitals lack anti-snake venom.

In the small village of Mituri in East Uyoma, Rarieda District, people complain that there are many cases of snake bites but health centres do not have anti-snake venom. They have been forced to resort to herbs or traditional methods of treatments.

In Machakos and Kitui districts, research

shows that snake bites are common, yet health facilities do not stock anti-snake venom. Un-like Uyoma, Machakos is nearer to Nairobi, where doctors and health facilities are concen-trated.

Anti-venomHowever, even in Nairobi chances of be-

ing given the life-saving anti-snake venom is limited. There has been rather alarming situ-ation in which surgeons at one of the lead-ing hospitals recently resorted to amputation of limbs to save victims of snakebites. These are common in Machakos, Meru, Kakamega, Isiolo and Kitui among other parts of the country.

There is a shortage or lack of anti-snake venom even in major hospitals because the Government lacks money to purchase the medicine. Doctors do not easily admit they fear administering the anti-snake venom because many of them are not prepared to cope with the side effects it has on victims. This is why they prefer to let them go for amputation. In some cases, doctors fear that the anti-snake venom may not be the right one.

Previously, there was demand that the

snake be hunted and killed to facilitate ac-curate identification of the anti-snake venom needed.

“Venom from snakebites can cause in-tensive paralysis in humans. And misleading signs of snakebites usually cause delays in the treatment of snake poisons,” said Professor David Warrell of Oxford University UK dur-ing a visit to Kenya.

He added: “Snakebites are also underesti-mated because of human suffering in Africa and other tropical countries.”

Warrell noted that the anti-snake venom is crucial for the treatment of snake poisons. He regretted that there is a crisis in using these anti-snake venoms because most doctors do not understand how to apply the treatment.

“Snake bite victims need 24 hours surveil-lance to save their lives and any doctor ad-ministering anti-snake venom must keep sur-veillance on his or her patient till recovery is achieved,” observed Warrell.

He said in Kenya fears of snakes killing people have been put under control because of the availability of highly purified polyvalent anti-snake venom serum, which ‘neutralises’ venom of Africa’s deadliest poisonous snakes.

Indeed one of the most effective and handy anti-snake venom, which could save lives, is Fav Africa, which is made from horses hyper-immunised with increasing amounts of venom from all deadly snake species.

According to experts, Fav Africa is a techno-logically advanced anti-snake venom with en-hanced purity and safety. Fav Africa is not a vac-cine as such but immune globulins. However, just like all vaccines, Fav Africa must maintain be kept refrigerated in order to remain inacti-vated to treat snake venom which are fatal. The vaccine takes care of bites from vipers like the Gabon viper, puff adder and saw-scaled viper.

Myths “It neutralises poison from spitting, Egyp-

tian and black-lipped cobra as well as the black mamba. In rural villages of Africa, treatment of snakebites range from the use of certain herbal extracts to ashes made by burning of snakes head or poison sac in combination with some herbs. However, these skills which are loaded with myths and misconceptions are fast vanishing and can be easily replaced by use of effective immune globulins or vaccines that can help in the management of snake bites.

Prisca Jura and a colleague in class with her students at Kanyibok Village, Siaya County. She has volunteered to

teach at the ill-equipped nursery school. Picture: Omondi Gwengi

11U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t hISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

By VALERIE ASETO

African governments have been called upon to consider sufficient budgetary allocation to re-productive health and family planning in line with the Abuja Declaration of 15 percent.

Globally there are 215 million women who want to use modern methods of contracep-tion, but are unable to do so, 78 million of these women live in Africa. Meeting the needs of African women would reduce maternal deaths in the region by 69 percent; newborn deaths by more than 57 percent, unintended pregnancies by 77 percent and unsafe abor-tions by almost three quarters.

According to Africa Women Leaders Net-work for reproductive health, a budget for family planning will help reduce maternal mortality that has been increasing as a result of inadequate access to health care services.

Health budgetsAccording to Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, a

member from Zimbabwe, most African coun-tries do not prioritise health budgets and thus the limited access to health care services.

Gumbonzvanda said there is need to mo-bilise public support and political commit-ment in order to promote reproductive health and family planning as an intrinsic part of the broader goals for sustainable development of a country.

Her sentiments were echoed by National

Coordinating Agency for Population and De-velopment (NCAPD) programme coordinator Karugu Ngatia who said the current budgetary allocation is still insignificant since the coun-try has robust population.

However, Ngatia urged the Network initia-tive to advocate for reproductive health bud-get especially on family planning. He said the move will help manage population growth in Kenya and realisation of the economic growth.

“It would not be easy to realise Vision 2030 if the country’s population keeps on rising. Family planning is the missing link in devel-opment and, therefore, ought to be taken seri-ously,” Ngatia said.

A member of the Network, Jane Kiragu said processes are underway to engage the Minis-try of Finance to prioritise the reproductive health issues during budgetary allocations.

Speaking at a workshop in Nairobi that drew participants from 15 countries across Africa, Family Health Options Kenya (FHOK) acting director Dr Muraguri Muchira said though Kenya is placed at a better position with two ministries spearheading health, much has not yet been realised.

“Kenya stands at a better position when it comes to representation on health matters. It is only this country that has the Ministry of Medical Services, Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation and within legislature there is also a commission handling health issues,” Muraguri reiterated.

Kenya also has in place National Repro-ductive Health Strategy (2009-2015) that highlights family planning as well as the socio-economic disparities in contraceptive preva-lence rate that is yet to be implemented.

“There are very good health policies, if only they could be implemented fully, maternal mortality would be a thing of the past,” Mu-raguri observed.

He is, however, optimistic that with the

new constitution women will be better placed in terms of access to health care services as in-dicated in Article 43 that says: “Every person has a right to the highest attainable standard of health which includes the right to health care services, including reproductive health care.”

Muraguri urged the women leaders to ad-vocate for women’s rights on matters pertain-ing to their health citing that women are the backbone of the country.

Unmet need for family planning leaves women vulnerable

Africa women leaders push for integration of

reproductive health servicesBy CAROLINE OYUGI

Commercial sex workers constitute a section of society that is frowned at and stigmatised because of the work that they do. However, African wom-en leaders decided to lead by example and paid a visit to commercial sex workers in Kibera as part of their field work before holding a stakeholders meeting on reproductive health in Nairobi.

The women who came from different parts of the continent were hosted by the sex workers who shared experiences and challenges they face in relation to sexual reproductive health.

The sex workers expressed gratitude to the Family Health Options Kenya (FHOK) for open-ing a youth centre for them in the slum. Accord-ing to these women, they can now get access to both preventive and curative services as well as drugs at no cost or at very low prices.

“Through this organisation, I got a scholar-ship and I am pursuing a diploma course,” one of the commercial sex workers said.

The women narrated how they are harassed by the police whenever they report rape. They said that the police usually dismiss them as com-mercial sex workers say that they asked for it.

Human rights“Before being commercial sex workers, we

are Kenyan citizens and would like to enjoy our rights like any other Kenyan as the constitution states,” one of them said.

According to Sylvia Ssinabuya, a Member of Parliament from Uganda, it is important to em-power the women. “Although sex work is not recognised as a legal source of income in most African countries, they still have a right to sexual reproductive health,” reiterated Ssinabuya. She added: “They also need to be educated on differ-ent preventive methods and the right contracep-tives to reduce the rate of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.”

The women leaders’ engagement in Kenya was to provide a forum for different stakehold-ers to engage on its implementation this far, es-pecially as concerns family planning. The second objective of the strategy is to reduce unmet needs

for family planning, unplanned pregnancies as well as social-economic disparities in contracep-tive prevalence rate.

The African Women Leaders Network for re-productive health and family planning (AWLN) members also visited FHOK Youth Centre in Eastleigh. At this institution, the women took a tour around the facility.

They were also entertained by the True Thes-pians, a group of peer educators who use their artistic talent in performance through drama, poems and choral verses to educate the public on reproductive health.

The women leaders also got an opportunity to buy bead ornaments and other pieces of art made by Binti Africa. Binti Africa, Swahili for daughter of Africa is a programme that offers vocational training to young girls who have either dropped out of school or are young mothers.

According to Angela Tatua, the youth coor-dinator at the institution, many young people have benefited from this. “The age of marriage consent in Kenya is 16 but we have cases where girls get married at 13 and this makes it hard for them to access family planning services because they are always asked to bring their parents,” ex-plained Tatua.

Binti Africa Project Manager Simon Wahome narrated how they have met and helped many girls who could not be accepted back to school after giving birth.

“Though our Constitution states that every child has the right to free basic education, many girls are not accepted back in school (after deliv-ering their babies). We, therefore, have to counsel and train them on income generating activities,” explained Wahome.

“I have a passion for working with the youth especially young girls. My dream is for them to have the right information and access to repro-ductive health services. I would also want stake-holders to make this available,” said Dr Hilda Tedna. Tedna is working on a similar project in Uganda. The women also visited FHOK clinic and maternity in Nairobi West. They met and shared with the volunteer educators from differ-ent parts of Nairobi especially the slums.

One of the volunteers, Esther Njoroge from Embakasi narrated the many challenges they face in their efforts to educate women on family planning.

“At times it is hard convincing other women to join us so that we can reach more people because we are not paid. They would rather be involved in something that has financial gains,” observed Njoroge. She noted that they were, however, lucky that the Presbyterian Church had been sup-portive. The church has been giving them time to

pass the information to their congregation. Addressing the stakeholders, Kenya director

of external relations and advocacy at Interna-tional Planned Parenthood Federation – Africa Region (IPFAR) Funmi Bolagun stressed on the importance of women having access to basic family planning commodities. She observed that women get married early and have longer life in marriage. “There is a very big problem when they do not have access and freedom to choose which method they are comfortable with,” said Bolagun.

During the meeting it was evident that wom-en need contraceptives that are cheap and easily concealed. Bolagun emphasised on the fact that peace and security is also important because whenever there is insecurity then women’s sexual rights are violated.

AWLN’s role is to lead and accelerate national domestic implementation of various sexual and reproductive health policies as well as increase budgetary allocations to sexual and reproductive health issues in Africa.

The Network called on African govern-ments to implement the Maputo Plan of action on sexual and reproductive health rights, 15 percent national budgetary allocation to health as per the Abuja Declaration, provide adequate and sustainable provisions of reproductive health services, including family planning commodities that are accessible, affordable and responsive to the needs of young women.

Women leaders who attended a reproductive health meeting interact with young women to discuss reproductive health issues. Picture: Courtesy

Some of the women who participated in a reproductive health policy meeting at a youth friendly clinic in Kibera. Such clinics help meet the need for family planning

services that are elusive for young women. Picture: Courtesy

“The age of marriage consent in Kenya is 16 but we have cases where girls get married at 13 and this makes it hard for them to access family planning services because they

are always asked to bring their parents.”— Angela Tatua

12 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Experts warn against consumption of

counterfeit drugsBy AYOKI ONYANGO 

Counterfeit drugs are circulating Kenya in large numbers. People are consuming them without knowing the dangers linked to it. Counterfeit medicine is one that is deliberately and fraudu-lently mislabeled with respect to ingredients. They may have wrong ingredients, inadequate amount of the correct ingredients or no ad-equate ingredients at all.

Counterfeit medicine may be targeted at the market share of either a well established patented or branded medicine of a well established generic medicine.  Counterfeiting medicines is therefore an illegal activity by unscrupulous criminals whose aim is to make money at whatever cost to life, health and economic development.

Economic crimesCounterfeit products gain entry into markets

worldwide by being disguised to look in virtually all conceivable ways like the genuine medicine that they pretend to be. The problem with coun-terfeit medicine manifests various levels mainly interference with normal markets activities in healthcare provision. As products of economic crimes, they hinder economic development and are associated with high morbidity and mortality, says former chairman of the Pharmaceutical So-ciety of Kenya, Dr Dominic Karanja. “The high-est attainable standard of health as a right pro-vided for under the new Constitution articles 43 (1) (a) can only be attained through a partnership between private sector, Government and indeed the citizens themselves”, adds Dr Karanja.

The private sector provides health solutions and medicine through heavy investments in re-search and development, production infrastruc-ture and marketing. Provision  has  been made  internationally  to  promote  invention  and in-novation  through  intellectual  property  right  protection  by  way  of patents.

With the principle of solidarity of the inter-national community  in  place, sustainability of

a system that guarantees continued availabil-ity of medicine depends on  the operation of normal market activities driven by  the forces of supply and demand. The resulting prices of medicine should reflect equilibrium in a nor-mal market.

The effect of counterfeit medicines is to dis-turb this equilibrium by creating an oversupply that is not backed by the production fundamen-tals.  This results in artificially lower prices and an inability to deal with existing and emerging diseases.

As a strategy to promote local production of medicine the Kenya Government put in place provisions in the Public Procurement and Dis-posal Act 2006 that as affirmative action provide for a 15 percent price differential for supplies of medicines from local manufacturers.

Local suppliers to KEMSA who declare local manufacture as the source and therefore enjoy the 15 percent price differential must supply only lo-cal manufactured products. Importing such sup-plies and fraudulently mislabeling them as locally produced makes them counterfeit. Although such products may have adequate amounts of the correct ingredients, they are counterfeit medi-cines, products of economic crimes that contrib-ute to poverty through reduced job creation and negative impact on technology transfer and even death to consumers.

Consequences“Wrong ingredients or inadequate amounts

of the correct ingredients in counterfeit medi-cine results in poor treatment outcomes in in-dividual patients. In life threatening conditions such as malaria and TB, it may have resulted in the loss of inexpensive treatments for malaria such as Chloroquin and the SPs (Sulfadoxine/Pyrimethamine) and forced the introduction of the more expensive ACT’s. “Rising resistance of TB treatment has resulted in quick deaths. It is and now serious public health concerns,” says Dr Moses Mwangi, the Chairman of the Kenya

Association of pharmaceutical Industry (KAPI).Counterfeits have therefore, increased mor-

bidity and mortality among Kenyans. It has also contributed to increased poverty, low produc-tivity and poor health that are devastating to a developing country such as Kenya” adds Dr Mwangi. “Manufacturers of counterfeits ruth-lessly manipulate to have wrong active ingredi-ents or no ingredients at all.”

“But since the enactment of the Anti-counter-feit Act, there are now stiffer penalties for those found with counterfeit medicines,” observes the KAPI chairman. The Act recommends that one is fined three times more than the value of the goods he or she is caught with. The Act also recommends a minimum fine KSh 500,000 for the offenders. At recent workshops in Meru and Nyeri, stakeholders used some of the stron-gest adjectives to describe counterfeiters- such as merchants of deaths, dealers in death, cold blooded killers, pirates, hard drug traffickers and terrorists among others.

To avoid failing victims by using illegal and dangerous drugs, one needs to get vaccinations to prevent falling  ill. This Dr Mwangi advises can be

achieved through vaccinations. He also calls for constant patrols on the Kenya-Somalia border as it is used to sneak in counterfeit medicines.

Consequences of taking counterfeit medi-cine include deaths, drug resistance, epidemics, paralysis and mental health problems such as insanity and schizophrenia.

It is clear from data available from studies by National Quality Control Laboratory and the School of Pharmacy at University of Nairobi and elsewhere that counterfeiting medicines is a real problem in Kenya, the region and the en-tire world. It requires top priority treatment by a partnership between Government and the pri-vate sector. It also requires that the professional bodies in health be empowered to contribute to its eradication. The public must be sufficiently informed to partner with professionals especial-ly pharmacists in combating this vice. The Anti-counterfeit Act 2009 needs to be strengthened especially in the penalties to make them pro-hibitive. “We suggest that provisions for com-bating counterfeit medicines be incorporated in reviewed Cap 244 provide the necessary focus” suggests Dr Karanja.

Peace initiatives taken to schools to ease border tensions By JOY MONDAY

After decades of elusive peace among pastoral-ists in the North Rift, a solution that has taken a bottom-up approach is being pursued to bring calm to the region.

Clan and tribal fighting has seen hundreds of lives lost and property destroyed. While initially the Government attempted to bring warring groups to the negotiation table after force failed, peace crusades have now been shifted to prima-ry schools. It is hoped this will help change the cultural attitude among the young generation and bring about long lasting solutions to rustling and tribal fights that have persisted between Tur-kana and Pokot communities.

To achieve this noble dream, World Vision is pushing the Government to introduce peace lessons in primary and secondary schools to nurture the young generation on patriotism and peace.

Cohesion“To promote peaceful co-existence between

the warring Turkana and Pokot communities, the organisation has unveiled a sport and edu-cational exchange programme targeting com-mon border schools. This will help change the children’s attitude on outdated cultures such as killing to prove braveness and raiding animals to acquire wealth and pay dowry,” says Josaya Rotino, World Vision manager in Orwa.

According to Rotino, the programme is aimed at discouraging the younger generation

from harbouring animosity. “We want to nurture them to be peaceful and

to shun cultural practices by the two communi-ties blamed for bloody clashes and retarded de-velopment in the region,” explained Rotino.

Speaking during the inter-communal sports activities at Turkwel, Rotino said their focus is on discouraging the younger generation from the current scenarios witnessed between the two communities.

EducationHe said they will use elites from the affected

communities to educate and sensitise the chil-dren on the importance of education and em-bracing peace.

“We want to use the elites to educate the upcoming generation on the importance of education and peaceful co-existence to enhance development which has been ruined by insecu-rity,” he said.

The programme offers the children the op-portunity to share life experiences and enhance interaction. “Our target is to sensitise the chil-dren on the dangers of cattle raids and revenge attacks and emphasize that education is the best way to acquire wealth,” he said.

The programme intends to bring the chil-dren together, make them friendly and also discourage fear among them through regular interactions.

“We aim to make them ambassadors of peace. We want to see them share resources and help bond the warring communities,” reiterated

Rotino. Pupils from Turkwel, Orwa, Marich Pass,

Lorongon and Kainuk primary schools partici-pated in the one day sports event. They recited emotional poems cursing cattle rustling as an enemy snatching away from children and wom-en their breadwinners and family members.

Bloody border clashes are common and oc-casionally lead to closure of the schools, paralys-ing learning. Farming along the agriculturally vi-able Turkwel River has been halted as the sound of the gunfire remains the order of the day.

Local provincial administration acknowl-edges that insecurity is the biggest enemy of

development in the area.District Commissioners from Turkana and

West Pokot counties have in the past weeks stepped up reconciliation bids to restore peace and bring harmony among the warring com-munities.

These efforts have yielded fruit with the re-covery of more than 50 stolen heads of cattle. Pokot Central District Commissioner Daniel Kurui said Pokot herders had returned 40 heads of cattle that were stolen from Turkana herders.

On the other hand, Turkana pastoralists have recovered and returned 134 heads of cattle earlier stolen from the Pokots in Salmach.

KEMRI officials burn counterfeit drugs that were seized from the market. Counterfeit drugs endanger the health of those who consume them. Picture: Reject

correspondent

Dr Fride Nilsson [second right], the

director of Faith Homes of Kenya

joins children of Sand-flower

Primary school in song and dance.

Peace efforts are now targeted at young children before they are

recruited into cattle rustling.

Picture: Joy Monday

13U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t hISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Farmers reap from lime application in Kakamega

Potato growers opt for contractual farming  

By SAMWEL KIPSANG

Joseph Kones, a horticultural farmer who has been planting potatoes, cabbages, beans and kales (sukuma wiki) is up beat about his farming activities. Though he recently earned very little money after selling sukuma wiki and cabbages, potato farming gives him a reason to smile. 

Kones is not alone in this. He is among many farmers in Bomet District who are upbeat about potato cultivation. These farmers are now work-ing in conjunction with the Ministry of Agricul-ture and other companies that require the veg-etable to increase and improve on what is known as on what is known as contractual potato farm-ing. Through this arrangement farmers form groups to get services.

According to Julius Kones, a member of Koi-tabai group, contractual potato farming is profit-able. He says: “Farmers who are not contracted are currently selling 150-170 kilogrammes of po-tatoes at KSh1700 while we sell at KSh1850 for 110 kilogrammes.”

In the last contract period, the farmers were selling potatoes at KSh2100 for 110 kilogramme. They were selling the same amount at KSh3000 in February and March.

Other than increased profits, there are other benefits to contractual farming which include training by extension officers and arranged loans from banks. 

“Before contract farming, there were times when we sold potatoes for as low as KSh600 per sack,” observes Kones.

Seed multipliers are also happy be-cause contract farmers are supposed to buy from them. Before the Ministry of Agriculture arranged for the contracts, these farmers were earning little and at times their produce went to waste.

Deepa and Norda are companies that are now connected to the farmers through the ministry which ensures that they sign contracts.

Contract farming is expected to help processors have a steady supply of high quality clean potatoes meeting specific needs. It also provides farmers with a ready market for their produce at fair prices.

Kenya Agricultural Research Insti-tute (KARI) has had a collaboration with many organisations that has seen an in-crease in potato production.

To handle surplus and fluctuating prices, the Ministry of Agriculture plans a ma-jor role in marketing by identifying potato seed multipliers and contractual farmers.

It also advises farmers to go into value addi-tion. “Value addition starts with planting clean high quality, and right type of potatoes. It in-cludes best agricultural practices and moves into sorting and processing,” explains Joseph Kering, Bomet District Agricultural Officer.

Kering says he is trying to secure a market for farmers through Common Fund for Commodi-ties, an affiliate of Food and Agricultural Organ-isation (FAO) that has secured contractual po-

tato farming for some farmer’s groups .

There are 42 potato groups, but at the moment only 15 groups have been trained and contracted. Contracted groups produce certain amounts of agreed quality of potato for the contracting companies and sell supplies through other outlets. It is these supplies that require cool stores of processing by farmers.

By TITUS MAERO                         

Maize farmers in Kakamega North District have in recent past been beneficiaries of calcium rich lime, a chemical substance that is used to en-hance health in acidic soils and increased crop production.

According to soil scientists at the Kenya Ag-ricultural Research Institute (KARI) Kakamega regional office, the general practice to reduce soil acidity is the application of agricultural lime. This is used to raise the soil PH resulting in enhanced availability of nutrients required by crops for improved crop yield.

In 2003, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), along with KARI launched a critical effort to counteract soil acidity which cuts maize yields by at least 30 per cent.

AGRA is a dynamic partnership organisation working across the African continent to help millions of small scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty.

Led by Senior Researcher on soil Mr David Mbagaya, the soil scientists said AGRA pro-grammes develop practical solutions to signifi-cantly boost farm productivity and income for the poor while safe-guarding the environment.

“AGRA advocates for policies that support its work across all key aspects of the African agri-cultural value chain from seeds, soil health and water to markets and agriculture education to farmers,” Mbagaya noted.

AGRA’s board of directors is chaired by for-mer Secretary General of the United Nations, Dr Kofi Annan and gets some of its support from the Rockfeller Foundation, Bill and Me-linda Gates Foundation and United Kingdom’s Department for International Development among other donors. AGRA maintains offices in Nairobi and Accra in Ghana.

KARI and Moi University started research in 2003 to look at how to contain soil acidity in Kakamega North District. The project was facilitated by the AGRA at KSh25 million.

Margaret Shionga, 62, a maize farmer at Ka-manget Sub-location, East Kabras Location in Kakamega North District, says before she started using lime on her two acre farm, she could only get five bags of maize. However, immediately

she started applying lime on the farm the yields increased to 20 bags per acre.

Speaking at a farmer’s field day organised by Kakamega KARI office, Shionga said she buys lime in small quantities due to inadequate funds noting that a bag of 50 kilogramme costs KSh200, while one acre requires 40 bags of lime application.

“The cost of lime is high, but I don’t look at that since the returns are great. I strive to buy lime whenever I get some money because I know I will harvest more bags of maize which I can sell at a profit,” she noted.

KARI convenes field days to train farmers and update them on latest lime technology. The farmers also pass on the information acquired

to those who do not make it to the field day. Shionga said she now in a better position

to educate her nine children and venture into other businesses as a result of improved yields from maize which is sold at KSh3,500 per 90 kilogramme bag depending on market forces.  

 According to Mbagaya, lime is supplied by Homa Lime Company Limited based in Koru, Kisumu County and Athi River Mining Com-pany in Nairobi County.

Narating her experiences, Shionga said the chemical can be used in dry or wet conditions one to two months before planting. The lime can stay in the soil for as long as four years be-fore another round of application is made on the farm. She said yields are improved if fertil-

iser like DAP or Urea is used to compliment lime.

“Due to the high yields of maize brought about by lime use, farmers in the area have formed a group to make monthly contributions and assist each other in farming and other re-lated activities,” observed Shionga.

Shionga noted that since they have two plant-ing seasons, the situation makes them reap more maize yields.

However, she decried the poor state of roads adding that during the rainy season it becomes difficult to transport maize to the market. Oth-er challenges experienced include pests and diseases which attack maize if not treated as required.

KARI Senior Research Officer David Mbagaya advising Margret Shiongo, a farmer who is using lime on her maize farm in Kimanget Sub location in Kakamega North District. Picture: Titus Maero

Some of the potato farmers engaged in contractual farming

at their farms. This arrangement has resulted in better yields and income for the farmers. Pictures:

Samwel Kipsang

14 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Widows benefit from property and land inheritance awareness                      

Mobile clinics help farmers

cope withpests, losses

By CHARLES NJERU

Peter Kaimuri can now afford to smile as his crops do not experience high incidences of pest and disease attacks. Six months ago, half of his maize harvests were destroyed by the notorious stem borer. This reduced his financial ability and he was unable to cater for his family.

In his five acre farm in Wangige, in the out-skirts of Nairobi, he has mostly grown maize and cabbages.

However, help has come his way. He is one of the 5,000 farmers benefiting from a mobile plant clinic project introduced in Kenya recently.

Pests and diseases affecting crops can now be identified by seeking advisory services of the plant doctors.

The farmers in 16 districts are beneficiaries of clinics introduced by the government and Cen-tre for Agricultural Biosciences International (CABI) six months ago. The clinics also provide diagnostic services to farmers.

“I can say that it is a very good and efficient service. The plant doctors come to my assistance immediately. The mobile clinic specialists visit our farms immediately we report problems to them. As a farmer, I am not charged for my query,” says Kaimuri.

“Once I notice that my maize crops are not healthy, I report to them and action is taken immediately. Since the mobile clinics were in-troduced, I have had very few incidences of un-healthy crops,” says Kaimuri.

According to the project’s doctors, they are getting more than 5,000 queries per day from farmers.

Staff shortage“So far the project is a success. The only ob-

stacle is that we experience staff shortage. The few mobile doctors already employed cannot cope with the high demand,” explains Robert Mwaura, a plant doctor from the Ministry of Agriculture. He adds: “So far, maize has the highest incidence of disease, followed by the banana plant.”

The project coordinators hope to expand to the rest of the entire country. Kenya is second after Bolivia to come up with such an innova-tive idea.

“The project is good but in future we will spend more on equipment and staff. This is a major challenge facing the project. It is very encouraging considering the high number of farmers who turn up for our assistance,” says Mwaura.

He adds: “So far, we receive more than 5,000 queries a day from farmers in more than 17 dis-tricts across the country where the projects op-erate.”

With the exception of maize and banana dis-eases, nematodes (worms) in cabbages have also been a nuisance to farmers.

Mwaura observes: “Another issue is to create knowledge and awareness to farmers about this project so we can assist as many as possible. As we increase our budget, we hope to get access to as many farmers as possible.”

John Kamau from Wangige is proud of the plant mobile clinics and hopes they will be in-troduced all over the country.

“The issue of my crops getting diseases is not as common as it was in the early part of last year. A fellow farmer informed me of mobile plant clinics. I cannot complain about them as I have benefited,” says Kamau.

The project coordinators hope that within five years, they will not only have extended countrywide, but will cover the rest of East Africa. Farmers who have benefitted from this project have saved a lot of money.

By KEN NDAMBU

Memories of Ngei Mulwa’s death six years ago are still vivid his widow’s mind.

“Were it not for harassment and mistreatment by his relatives prob-ably I would not be remembering him that much,” says Christine Ngei as she narrates her ordeal in the hands of in-laws.

Talking of his death evokes emo-tions that often leave her in tears as she recalls the tribulations she has under-gone since her husband died.

After composing herself, Christine gains courage to share her experi-ences with the attentive stakeholders at a meeting held to discuss land and property disinheritance of widows and orphans.

After her husband died in 2006, Christine was left under the care her brother-in-law who first promised to help bring up his late brother’s chil-dren. However, these would later turn to be a thorn in the flesh.

EnemyTwo years later, the man who

Christine hoped would be the shoul-der for her to cry on suddenly became the enemy. He used all means at his disposal to have her ejected from the family home but the clan intervened and she stayed put.

“When he failed to achieve this mission, he devised another method of ensuring that there was no food for the family by letting his herd of live-stock graze in my farms destroying all the crops,” explains Christine assert-ing that she has lived with the prob-lem to date.

Christine is not alone in this. The story of Mithe Mulwa who lost her husband five years ago is the same. When she decided to sell one of the pieces of land left behind by her late husband to educate their children, the clan objected fearing that she will get the money and run away from her matrimonial home.

Instead, the clan, through one of the broth-ers-in-law decided to dispense  the sale on her behalf. However, once the transaction was over, she never got a penny and the children were forced to leave school to provide cheap labour to others.

Vicious cycleThe brother-in-law who helped the clan to

sell the land died before the transfer was trans-acted. Sensing danger of losing the land and the money, the buyer has now turned to the widow for refund of the money she never got.

“I am caught up in a vicious cycle as the same clan is forcing me to repay money I do not have,” narrates Mithe at the meeting held in Kyusyani market, Lower Yatta District, Kitui County.

Christine and Mithe are among widows and orphans in the region who are traumatised by myriad of problems of land and property dis-inheritance. They hope the new Constitution will empower them to inherit property of the deceased bread winners.

A programme dubbed Women and Prop-erty Watchdog has come out strongly to sen-sitise widows, orphans and other vulnerable groups on their rights on land and property inheritance.

Operating under the umbrella of Tei wa Woo community based organisation, the pro-gramme being piloted in five sub-locations in lower Yatta District seeks to equip widows and

orphans with knowledge and information on how they can be the sole beneficiaries of their husbands’ or fathers land and property.

“Challenges including harmful cultural practices stop widows and orphans from get-ting proper justice to have control over proper-ty once a husband or father dies,” says Jennifer Nyumu, Coordinator of Tei wa Woo organisa-tion.

She says unless all stakeholders are brought on board to find ways of dealing with the vice, widows and orphans will continue to suffer as the society’s lust for wealth increases.

The Kyusyani stakeholders meeting was or-ganised by Groots-Kenya. It brought together various stakeholders including lands officials, provincial administration, teachers, paralegals and churches whom the victims turn to for help when their property inheritance rights are infringed.

Kitui Paralegal Coordinator Josphat Kasina said most of the cases brought to his office by widows and orphans on land and property dis-inheritance are clan related.

Legal“Most of the cases arbitrated by the clan do

not favour the victims,” observes Kasina add-ing that there is conflict between customary law and the country’s legal mechanism hence need to draw the barrier between the two.

Customary law has always put widows and orphans on the receiving end when it comes to land and property inheritance.

“According to Kamba culture, a woman is not to speak on issues related to land and can-not take the infamous traditional oath known as ‘kithitu’,” says Kasina. He explains: “This means that a widow cannot come up and firmly defend land she believes belongs to her late husband.” However, he asserts that the community is not only ignorant of land and property rights but also lacks knowledge and information on how to administer properties of deceased spouses.

Although the new Constitution recognises the clan, traditional norms and cultural values which tend to impede justice to vulnerable members of the society should be done away with for fair justice to all.

OrphansGroots-Kenya Official Nyaguthi Mwangi

said the organisation strives to educate the widows and orphans at the grassroots level, where the vice is dominant due to high il-literacy levels, the best way to avert land and property disinheritance.

“Property disinheritance in most com-munities of Kenya has seriously marginalised widows and orphans. There is, therefore, need to contain the vice through community driven programmes,” observes Mwangi.

The organisation has projects in 18 regions in the country including Kitui, Kendu Bay, Ga-tundu, Nanyuki, Limuru and Busia where the communities have rich cultural practices likely to deny widows and orphans their right to in-heritance.

Some of the widows who have

been victims of land and property

disinheritance share their

experiences. Members of the CBO, Tei wa Woo

stage a play on land and property

disinheritance. Pictures: Ken

Ndambu

15U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t hISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

In defence of the makuti While fire threatens the coconut leaf, lovers say it is the best for the Coastal region

By KIGONDU NDAVANO 

For any visitor to the Coast, one plant emerges as a most domineering and towering across the farms due to its height and leaves.  

When not offering the green beauty of its leaves to the eye while filtering the sea breeze, the coconut tree’s leaves when dry gain a brown and grey colour which dominates the rooftops of small and huge houses.

The presence of small clusters of coconut trees closer and away from the coast indicates the presence of a homestead or settlement.

In majority of these homesteads, one will always find houses roofed with palm fronds lo-cally known as makuti.

While one piece of dry branch of the coco-nut is described as kuti, the Kiswahili plural of the word which is makuti indicates something different.

Popular roofThis is because the various branches of the

coconut require that they first be harvested be-fore being artistically fixed into approximately two feet pieces of holding wood to make one piece of kuti.

It is pieces of Makuti which have today final-ly turned out to be the single most important and popular roofing material for Coastal people including investors in tourism.

In areas like Malindi, Italian investors who control more than 80 per cent of the construc-tion industry have fallen in love with the mate-rial that apart from gaining popularity for de-signing attractive roofs, it is even being traded for income.

Malindi’s five star hotels are makuti roofed and have hosted great names such as the former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

The Lion in the Sun, home and holiday re-sort of the wealthy Italian formula one racing team owner Flavio Briatore is makuti roofed.

“Investors and Italian prospective villa buy-ers love the makuti roofed buildings,” says Fer-nando Vischi, Italian contractor.

Mijikenda makuti roofing artisans, some of whom get contracts from as far as Zanzibar, will create high roof structures before carefully ty-ing makuti on them. 

The sales are mainly based on advertise-ments of high and well finished makuti roofs in the international magazines. Most of those villas are usually set against the blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

Today, however, makuti which has been of great economic gain to the Coastal people could be facing threats due to fire accidents. Property worth millions of shillings from ho-tels, villas, cottages and private houses have all been reduced to nothing by fires in the recent past.

“I have used makuti in many villas in Ma-lindi and even in my own villa but now I am worried about the roofing material due to heavy losses being recorded in Malindi with fire ac-cidents,” observes Vischi.

FireFormer Malindi Mayor Mohammed Menza

faced attacks from the Coastal leadership when he suggested that local authorities ban use of makuti in the wake of the heavy loses incurred by the hotel industry.

Menza’s suggestion came after a fire de-stroyed more than 100 villas and cottages in-cluding the Palm Tree Club Hotel in Kibokoni area.

Coast legislators led by Malindi MP Gideon Mung’aro defended makuti as roofing material since it is a major source of income for the local populace.

“Banning makuti as roofing material will be tantamount to making useless one of the major sources of income for Coast people,” observed Mung’aro.

He explained: “The coconut tree products

including makuti are what coffee and tea is to some upcountry people. It is the main cash crop and to ban it would be economically disastrous.”

Such a ban, Mung’aro lamented, would affect the peoples’ income because makuti remains one of the most popular and easily marketable local and traditional roofing materi-als competing strongly with indus-trial products such as tiles and iron sheets.

“Instead of encouraging the ban-ning of makuti, the  product should be improved to make it fire resistant and beneficial to other Kenyans away from the Coast,” Mung’aro suggested.

More than 100 female makuti hawkers in Malindi appreciate that the roofing material earns them a steady income but feel they could earn more from the product if prop-er marketing and centres of making the products were established and protected. 

The traders also worry over mid-dlemen who end up ripping them off especially when handling large supplies for hotels and villas. Some Italian contractors are also known to acquire the material from the fe-male traders and make a kill from contractors.

Makuti tradersGladys Kadzo Karisa who has sold makuti

for more than 15 years along the Malindi road notes that when all is well earnings per months reach between KSh7,000 and KSh10,000. She and others acquire the finished makuti from farmers in rural parts of Coast and profit per bundle stands at KSh10.

Malindi based makuti roof designer and pioneer Italian constructor of the now popular high makuti roofs on villas Armando Tanzini holds the leaves dearly. He regrets that many makuti thatched houses which were built be-tween the 1960s and early 1980s, and were an attraction to tourists have had the roofs re-placed by other materials.

It was Tanzini who designed the huge Nai-robi Safari  Park Hotel’s domineering makuti roof creating an  attraction even for designers in Europe, several who till today borrow from that design.

“Makuti as a roofing material is a major marketing tool for Malindi and Coast in gen-eral and should be maintained,” says Tanzini who markets Kenyan art under the title Do Not Forget Africa.

According to Tanzini, Malindi’s coastline and its old towns were once dominated by beautiful roofs before residents started adopt-ing iron sheets.

He says: “The makuti roof was once a tourist attraction and way to identify the old towns of Malindi and its architectural style.”

On sunny and dry days Makuti Club created an ambience nearly similar to that of the Coast and many revellers always ended up under the makuti roof.

Several entertainment and eating places in Nairobi have over the years been roofed with makuti partly giving them a Coastal architec-tural design and ambience.

A well done makuti roof lasts between five

and ten years after which time it has to be replaced with fresh fronds.

Coconut fronds have also been transported to areas such as Nyeri and Meru all the way from the Coast and this earns the Coastal resi-dents income from the sale of the roofing mate-rial.

A leading architect Jerry Karisa who moved to South Africa a few years ago notes that the blend of Italian roofing styles with those of the Malindi artisans have been spreading through many tourist resorts in the coast of Southern African states.

The Mijikenda have used the makuti as a ba-sic roofing material for hundreds of years pre-ferring it to the modern iron sheets to block the hot sun from penetrating through their houses.

ReconstructionEven after years of accidental fires, builders

have returned to reconstruct the ruins of their dream hotels, villas, cottages and private houses using the makuti.

Vischi, who has for years made himself a name in Malindi for building some of the most artistic roofs on ordinary looking structures insists that the makuti offer designers the free-dom and flexibility to play around with roofs and create a rare beauty. 

For many years foreign investors in Malindi have lost their investments from fires. In some areas such as the Mtangani more than 20 vil-las which were destroyed by a fire more than 15 years ago have remained unreconstructed and some were abandoned completely.

However, resilient Italian investors have al-ways shown their appreciation of the makuti by rebuilding hotels destroyed by fires. The Scor-pio Villas which was destroyed by a fire close

to two years ago is back to its feet with makuti roofs as the main attraction.

To counter the fires, Malindi Municipal Council introduced a fire inspection certificate for all the hotels which must have fire fighting equipment.

Malindi based fire experts led by Barrack Oluoch defended makuti roofs amid heavy criticisms that they were the cause of the easy spreading fires. He argued that the fires could be controlled before they spread if enough wa-ter was available closer to water pumps.

Certain Italian innovators come up with a treatment to make makuti non-flammable. Various displays and exhibitions were done with hotel owners being encouraged to adopt the treatment of makuti against fire. Few adopt-ed the treatment and the idea was abandoned and forgotten.

Tropical Village Hotel manager Bruno Fon-tana defended the makuti saying that if the in-vestors were well prepared they could use water distributed through the roofs in pipes to cool the leaves by making them wet in case of a fire or pumping water from swimming pools to put out the fires.

Preventing accidentsFire fighting mechanisms presented by vari-

ous investors in defence of the makuti clearly show that will continue to be the preferred roof-ing material for hoteliers and owners of villas and cottages in Malindi and Coast in general.

However, another leading Italian contrac-tor Giulio Bianchi notes that in South Africa makuti is treated with a certain chemical which makes the roofing material non-flammable.

Giulio, however, notes that the treatment only makes the materials non-flammable for three months. The treatment of the makuti is also expensive because a simple four di-mensional six metre roof would require up to KSh50,000 to be treated. This would mean at least KSh150,000 extra expense annually for a house.

“Makuti is good and is still one of the best means of roofing for the tourism industry only when fire accidents are minimal and proper response and care is taken in case of a fire,” notes Giulio.

Ndovu Village Hotel Restaurant constructed with

makuti worth KSh3 million. A hand cart puller transporting

the precious commodity that is a

source of income for both large and small

scale traders. Pictures: Kigondu Ndavano

“The coconut tree products including makuti are what coffee and tea is to some upcountry people. It is the main cash crop and to ban it would be economically

disastrous.”— Gideon Mung’aro, Malindi MP

16 U n f i l t e r e d , u n i n h i b i t e d … j u s t t h e g r u e s o m e t r u t h ISSUE 049, October 16 - 31, 2011

Executive Director: Rosemary Okello

Editor: Jane Godia

Sub-Editors: Florence Sipalla, Omwa Ombara and Mercy Mumo

Designer: Noel Lumbama

Contributors: Kabia Matega, Wilfred Muchire, Wanjiku Mwaura, Joseph Mukubwa, George Murage, Joseph Mukubwa, Ken Ndambu, Ryan Mathenge, John Syengo, Waikwa Maina, Duncan Mboyah, Buyo Tuti, Musa Radoli, Omondi Gwengi, Charles Njeru, Carolyne Oyugi, Valerie Aseto, Samwel Kipsang, Titus Maero, Joy Monday, Ayoki Onyango and Kigondu Ndavano.

Write to:

info@mediadiversityafrica.org

The paper is produced with funds from

www.mediadiversityafrica.org

Ojijo Oteko stands out as an independence freedom fighter

By DUNCAN MBOYAH

The struggle for Kenya’s indepen-dence occupied the most important part of the country’s history.

Many things stories have been documented of the liberation strug-gle. However, not all books have the names of the people who fought for Kenya’s freedom hence denying the younger generation the rich part of this country’s history.

One person who does not fea-ture in tales of the liberation strug-gle is the late Daniel Ojijo Oteko. This is a man whose name is today visible on two roads in Nairobi and Kisumu, yet most people born after independence are unable to link him with the struggle for the coun-try’s freedom.

Save for the two roads in West-lands off Parklands in Nairobi and Milimani in Kisumu, the man is a subject of discussions in political functions in his native County of Homa Bay and the entire Nyanza Province.

At promulgation of the Consti-tution, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga hailed freedom fighters for their effort in ensuring that the country attained self rule.

“The dawn of the new era also portends tremendously well for our national pride, prestige and image in Africa and the world. We have regained our honour,” Raila said.

He named some of these heroes as Orkoi-yot Koitalel Samoei, Moraa Moka Ngiti, Waiyaki wa Hinga, Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi, Ojijo Oteko, Mekatilili wa Menza, Jomo Kenyatta and the ‘Kapenguria six’.

UnrecognisedBut for this gallant son of Karachuonyo,

Oteko’s role in fighting for Kenya’s freedom has never been recognised. No serious rec-ognition has ever come his way, even post-humously, as has been the case with some freedom fighters.

According to sources, Oteko waged a war against the British Colonial rule in Ke-nya right from the day he and some of his colleagues who were working in Maseno, Western Kenya formed Kavirondo Taxpayers Association around 1922. He later became its Secretary General in 1926.

The Association became popular by the name “Piny Owacho”, which loosely trans-lates as “The Country has said” and forged an alliance with the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) that was led by the late Harry Thuku.

Under this partnership, Oteko and his peers led the struggle for freedom in West-ern Kenya by mobilised the people to rise up against the British colonial rule.

The uprising became very powerful with the local people who christened Oteko “Polo mor Imbo” meaning the thunder of the west due to his organisation skills.

Oteko left Maseno and settled in his native rural home at Kanjira in West Karachuonyo.

His leadership qualities were soon identified by the local population who elected him to the African Local Native Council (ALNC).

At the peak of World War II, when Oteko was walking home, somewhere near Wagwe Health Centre in West Karachuonyo, Homa Bay County, he met with  soldiers driving a large herd of cattle, which had been seized from their owners at gunpoint.

The soldiers were under the command of a white man in the rank of a District Officer from Kisii town, what was then the district headquarters for South Nyanza, now split into four Counties.

A man known for being outspoken, Oteko inquired about the animals and where they were being taken. He was told they were des-tined for Kisii to be slaughtered. Oteko was told the beef would eventually be taken to feed African soldiers fighting alongside the British and allied forces against Adolf Hitler’s German forces.

TrappedThis was not to be. Oteko engaged the of-

ficer in an argument, reminding him that the Karachuonyo community had contributed hundreds of young soldiers to the KAR, and as such would not part with their animals. He ordered the animals be returned to their rightful owners.

The heated argument alarmed the sol-diers, who were armed. They got scared. Sensing the danger of possible rioting by the natives, the white officer concurred with Oteko and released the animals back to their

rightful owners. A short while later, Oteko travelled to

Kisumu to have his tooth fixed but did not return home alive. The information received by the family at the time indicated that this great nationalist had died while in an opera-tion room for the removal of one of his ach-ing teeth. The death raised eyebrows with the local people.

It was true he died and his body was brought back home under heavy police es-cort. The coffin was sealed. Nobody was al-lowed to come close to the coffin. The wailing relatives were also kept at bay.

Up to this day, no one could tell whether the casket containing his remains was in-terred in his homestead.

His death alarmed people because the way he was executed resembles a similar in-cident the colonialists did to the Nandi leader Koitalel Arap Samoei in 1905, after he was lured into a fake reconciliation meeting and shot dead by a white officer.

For Oteko and many other unsung heroes of freedom in this country, something needs to be done to make their contribution known. By keeping silent over this rich history is in itself a disservice to history students in this country and future generations.

The colonial government did silence him but we attained independence. Can this gen-eration and government go in history books as a people who care little about their heroes?

These unsung heroes too deserve recogni-tion and equal treatment that other freedom heroes have received in the past!

Forgotten women who

contributed to the struggle

By RYAN MATHENGE

The war for independence was voluntary as no one was forced to join in. However, courageous men and women abandoned their families to join in the fight against the self-imposed British rule.

Many were killed and many more were left injured as they fought the well-armed British sol-diers in various parts of Kenya.

However, as history of the war was written, some prominent persons especially women were omitted.

The name Nyanjiru from Weithaga Location in Murang’a is one that will not ring in the minds of many people in Kenya despite having been the first woman in Kenya to die protesting against British rule.

Owing to her courage, Nyanjiru demanded the unconditional release of Harry Thuku who had been detained for joining the struggle to drive out whites from Kenya.

In full view villagers in Koimbi area, she de-fied orders to abandon the protest before a soldier pulled the trigger.

Njanjiru hailed from Koimbi area in Murang’a County and became the first woman to be killed by colonial soldiers as she led protests demanding the release of Harry Thuku in 1922.

This among other stories show that despite women participating in the fight for freedom, their tribulations have never been highlighted.

It was a countrywide protest organised to exert pressure on colonialists to release Thuku who had become a political threat to British rule in Kenya.

Women contributed to the independence struggle but many remain nameless yet the foot soldiers could not have managed without them. Women ensured the injured were nursed and that the soldiers were fed.

Mary Mumbi remembers how her mother used to prepare food and place it at a strategic point for the Mau Mau to collect.

“I was young but I remember how every eve-ning my mother would prepare a lot of food and then place it under a Mugumo tree only to find it taken in the morning. I asked her about it but she remained tight lipped fearing soldiers could lay a trap for the fighters as they came to collect their ration,” says Mumbi.

The late Beatrice Nyambura from Nyagatu-gu Village is also widely known as a Mau Mau nurse.

Without any medical training, she used to sneak into the Aberdare Ranges attending to the sick and injured Mau Mau fighters.

Nyambura was the mother to Equity Bank Chairman Peter Munga who describes her as a friend. “I learnt a lot from my mother who en-sured I went to school,” says Munga adding that his mother followed up on everything he did.

“Even in my adult life, she would demand ex-planations over some of my actions,” observes Munga.

Retired Catholic Priest Father Joakim Gitonga says women played a key role in the struggle for independence.

Many were left behind taking care of their children as men took it upon themselves to fight the British soldiers.

“They ensured the fighters were fed and got medicine. They also acted as spies giving informa-tion to the war veterans on location of the soldiers before they attacked their bases,” says Gitonga.

Ojijo Oteko’s home.

Ojijo Oteko has been immortalized by having a road named after him. The road is in the Parklands area, near Nairobi Museum.

Picture: Henry Owino