HOW A BITTER CHIEF KOINANGE WA MBIYU SECRETLY ORGANISED A REVOLUTION AFTER LOSING ANCESTRAL LAND

Описание: Unknown to most, one of Kenya's greatest heroes of the liberation struggle was a colonial Chief: Koinange wa Mbiyu who died in 1960 aged almost 90 years. Listen to this extensive interview which his son, Leonard Karuga Koinange, graciously granted us and you will understand why Chief Koinange must rank among Kenya's greatest historical figures. A lover of modern education, he played extreme deception to the colonial government with ease for many years, serving as a Chief during the day while organizing the anti-colonial war at night. His home was the venue for the famous Kiambaa Parliament, to which Muhimu reported. All the African nationalists from around Kenya gathered here, and both the Kabaka of Buganda, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and the famous African-American diplomat, Ralph Bunche, among others, visited Koinange's home. Chief Koinange's fame is often overshadowed by that of his Pan-Africanist son, Mbiyu Koinange, the first Kenyan to earn BA and MA degrees, who went on to serve as *Jomo Kenyatta’s most trusted confident and as Minister for State in the President's office. Chief Koinange wa Mbiyu, a soft spoken man of a diminutive stature, was an enigma personified. He embodied the quintessential character of the Kikuyu as White people viewed it: hard working, untrustworthy, conspiratorial, intelligent. The source of Koinange's oftentimes obscurity stems from the fact that, on the one hand, he was a colonial chief, so he is often lumped in the popular imagination together with the other chiefs who collaborated with the colonial regime; on the other, Chief Koinange was arrested and jailed in Marsabit for being intimately connected with Mau Mau. It was at Chief Koinange's home that the Mau Mau movement was born, as it is where the first nationalist oaths were taken. It was also at his home where stolen guns started being stockpiled in readiness for war as far back as in 1946, and where top Mau Mau Generals such as Dedan Kimathi, Stanley Mathenge, and Musa Mwariama, amongst others, were commissioned and sent forth to lead the war. One of his sons died while servicing a gun, death that was taken as the fulfilment of Mugo wa Kibiru’s prophecy that Kenyan independence would come only after the sacrifice of a "hairless goat" (a human being has "no hair"). At the same time, Chief Koinange was arrested for alleged involvement with the assassination of Chief Waruhiu, who had earlier inherited Koinange's administration jurisdiction upon his de facto demotion, leaving Koinange with the hollow title of Senior Chief without portfolio. At a meeting in Kirigiti Stadium at the height of Mau Mau agitation, Chief Koinange told the rally that he had seen many white people, but none of them owned land in Kenya, since land could only be owned through the *Mbar*i system (family kinship group), and white people were clearly not members of any African Mbari. Much earlier, Chief Koinange had formed the *Kikuyu Association, one of the earliest modern nationalist organizations, in the early 1920s. Koinange was also one of the key figures behind the construction of Kenya Teacher's College, Githunguri, that hub for Kikuyu political radicalisation in the lead-up to the State of Emergency. In this interview, Karuga Koinange was clearly a very bitter man, and this interview explains why in great detail. His speech in front of Parliament in Britain in the early 1930s triggered the formation of the Morris Carter Land Commission that released its report in 1934. This commission defined all land as belonging to the British crown and drew boundaries beyond which Africans could not own land. Chief Koinange was also one of the key figures behind the construction of Kenya Teacher's College, Githunguri, that hub for Kikuyu political radicalisation in the lead-up to the State of Emergency. In this interview, Karuga Koinange, unpacks the long and illustrious history of the man who was once labelled "the evil genius behind Mau Mau". Mr. Karuga not only has a great grasp of historical events and his father's role in the liberation struggle, but is also a great narrator of history; the details he shares here are remarkable for their succinctness. In this interview, he was accompanied by his friend, Hon. Kamau Icharia, who was a young teacher when Chief Koinange was still alive; he fills in in important details about Chief Koinange. As our viewers know, all our interviews are worth watching but this one has outdone itself! We hope you will like the interview, share it widely and subscribe to our channel for more content about Kenya's and Africa's liberation struggle.

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