My comment strictly relates to the 1992 elections where I feel it was to wrong to have matiba as a candidate. He should have said "Jaramogi tosha". Otherwise I have great respect for him for his courage, public service, politics and entrepreneurship.

@Masukuma what is this fetish you have with killing white people. Who told you mau mau was set up to kill white people? It was a struggle against an oppressing system of which the white people looked like beneficiaries. That militia is what inspired the civil rights in the US with Malcom X was also pro-mau mau kinda struggle in the US. Nelson Mandela says that "in my 27 years of imprisonment I always say the images of fighters such as Kimathi, China and others as candles in my long hard way against injustice...it is an honor for any freedom fighter to pay respect to such heroes"

Even the fight by Matiba for second liberation was eventually done by the donors and American pressure. It was the donor aid conditions that made Moi cave in because by then we were bankrupt attempting to run the colonial state.

This is what folks don't get that the colonial system in Kenya and the apartheid system were set up by first impoverishing the african by introducing the poll tax and hut tax to force the african to be a provider of cheap labour to work in mzungu farms or in SA in the mines. The taxes the colonial state collected were not used for the benefit of the african it was just used to fund "happy valley" lifestyles for a minority few. This imperialist economy is what Matiba and Co inherited and perfected using state patronage to advance their interests. Without state patronage the empires of Odinga, Michuki, Njenga Karume also seemed to crumble. I heard Paul Muite say that Matiba in his last days was concerned about that gap between the have and havenots.

Every good working thing was run by the missionaries be it hospitals, the good schools. Look at the youtube videos of colonial kenya and operation anvil and see how poor and rugged our ancestors looked. Our economy was founded on plundering the resources of others using state machinery. No change has ever been done to that imperialist economy. We engage in high corruption to acquire resources to cross the divide.

Anyway Steve Jobs said that death is the agent of change it clears out the old to give way to the new. The younger generations need to learn this history as they work to build their own story. Matiba RIP

unlike what people think - there were 4 large factions/Groups
1) the United Kingdom Empire or British
2) the colonial government a.k.a. the settler' government
3) the Native African political movement - Kenyatta and Co.
4) the Native African armed resistance - Akina Mau Mau

After the world war where Africans had been sent abroad and came back - there was a realization that Kumbe mzungu ni mtu tu... there were poor white people. Kwao sio paradise... they bled and died! Their culture was not as great as it had been made to be by the missionaries and colonial governement.

The empire had signed the charter with the US to give 'independence' to all colonies and that is why countries were getting independence right left and center. Akina Kenyatta wanted this independence but some good intentioned by misguided Africans (Akina Mau Mau) started a conflict. The settlers used this noise making to convince the british government to send someone who was sympathetic to their cause - Evelyn Baring! The man who rode on the Mau Mau violence claiming that inflicting “violent shock” was the only way of dealing with these Mau Mau insurgents! It was a war that yielded results in the Media huko UK. He was heavy handed and really did quash the resistance and in a case of killing 2 birds with one stone - lumped up Kenyatta and Co. in the same pot as Mau Mau. If my memory serves me well - it's news of the Hola massacre that made it's way to British media - the public was displeased on how the colonial government had handled the whole situation. By then Mau Mau was all but dead!
I argue that We lost precious years during the well intentioned but misguided resistance! akina Kenyatta would have gotten results on getting Black majority rule perhaps with civil disobedience in full glare of the british media than a bush war with homemade guns and machetes. India got it in the same way.

The case of Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (present day Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi)

Unlike Kenya, the mzungus in Rhodesia and Nyasaland were more deliberate in wanting independence for themselves from the UK as far back as 1953. They formed the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland! it was to appease those calls for UK to grant independence to its colonies, while deriving the greatest economic benefit from the union, without granting any actual rights to Africans. These were not only agricultural colonies but also had lots of mineral wealth like Copper!
Zambia's Black majority rule did not have a 'Mau Mau' type revolt - it was all a product of political activities of akina Kaunda, Nkumbula and Chona. These fellows were very deliberate in reminding black people that self-government would be achieved through the channels of the constitution rather than at the end of an AK-47. Any uprising was quickly quashed and so these political parties relied on protests that finally yielded fruit by the intervention of the British Colonial Office! They got Black majority rule in October 1964.

Nyasaland (now Malawi) also tried an armed struggle to kick itself out of that Federation and it was quashed! Hastings Banda was jailed! It was then that his Nyasaland African Congress changed tact and morphed into the Malawi Congress Party and talked to the British government on constitutional reform for independence and Black Majority rule. They got independence in June 1964.

Unlike Zambia - Zimbabwe's struggle was decidedly more militaristic! Fighting against the settlers and of course this did not endear the Natives to the British, Akina Ian Smith got their own independence from the british and now this became a civil war type event that finally yielded results in the late 70s. they got black majority rule in 1980. I tend to think that Zim and Namibia were rather unfortunate to have their borders with Apartheid South Africa where support came from. Considering SA was already independent as from 1910 or so.

As I said.. IT WAS WELL INTENTIONED! It did not yield the results it wanted... something else did.

Clean Kabisa! People need to read his book "Aim High", most of these wivu guys are just commenting from ignorance, very inspiring man, a great leader!

Surely one can earn there wealth from trading stocks properly and investing properly, he demonstrates this ably in his book, and isn't that what wazua "serious talk about wealth" is about, ama ni complaints about everyone who has something small, and this small chums of his will change Kenya! Explain what he stole?? I have never heard in the press or anywhere matiba being associated with scandals and thefts, and by global standards this men are quite poor, but tukichomeka na stocks then we come to bitch here without any justification about someone who made the effort long ago to explain himself business wise is weird.

Very true. Unlike in other areas of kenya where mzungu ruled by remote control, the mzungu displaced okuyos and took their land and forced them to work on the mzungu farms for slave wages. That is why they had to resist. Mluhyas, joluos, mkambas etc were never put in villages and never had their land taken or provide forced labour and that is why they belittle the mau mau struggle. Central (and parts of RV) was considered prime land for coffee (black gold) and tea. Laikipia was good for ranching. Mzungu feared malaria in nyanza and western. The other parts of the country were too arid.

True. Their territory nearly doubled. They gained Nyandarua, nakuru, laikipia etc. Okuyus should be grateful for colonization otherwise I don't know how they would be fitting today in their precolonial lands of nyeri, muranga, kiambu and Kirinyaga.