The non-violent liberation heroes from Ukambani

With the exception of such national figures as Paul Ngei, Muindi Mbingu, Syotune wa Kathukye (Syokimau) and JD Kali, little else is known of freedom fighters from the Kamba community. 
Paul Ngei was jailed, alongside founding father of the nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and four others) for their anti-colonial government activities. But in the most, the resistance of the Kamba to the colonial rule was peaceful.

Potrait of Shujaa Syokimau

Syokimau led a peaceful demonstration to protest the confiscation of Akamba cattle by the British colonial masters, while Mbingu was arrested for leading another protest to recover land and cattle appropriated by the British around Mua Hills.

In 1938, Mbingu led a major protest from Machakos to Nairobi with the intention of handing a petition in regard to seized livestock to the colonial governor. The protestors camped at Kariokor for a month, until the governor’s wife intervened. During their meeting with governor it was agreed that their livestock would be released. Mbingu would later be arrested and held for seven years in Lamu.

“Using Nubian askaris, the (British) came burning our houses at night, killing the people and taking our animals. They forced some people to flee to the forest where they became prey to wild animals. The livestock the white man took by force were taken to the Kenya Meat Commission in Athi River and slaughtered for the military. The Mzungu then took away the land he had driven the Akamba people from,” recalls Musembi Mutia of Machakos.

Squatting punishment

Mutia fled to his relatives in Ndia, Kirinyaga where he joined the Mau Mau fighters in the forest. In 1953, together with his brothers, he was arrested and taken to Kandongu Prison in Embu, where collaborators and the British soldiers tortured them for days on end before transferring them to Karaba Detention Camp for further torture, including squatting for five hours nonstop.

“The first time I assumed this position, I could not take it for more than two hours. I went limp and sat down. For this, I was shot in the hip. The force of the shot threw me to the barbed wire fence and the wire split my thigh open,” said Mutia.

With his wounds unhealed, he was forced to join the others in preparing the rice fields of Mwea. It took four months for Mutia to regain some semblance of good health. Many others were not so lucky.

Ngei, together with Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Achieng Oneko, Fred Kubai and Kung’u Karumba were imprisoned in Lodwar following the declaration of the state of emergency in 1952. In prison, Ngei once stopped a prison warder from beating Kenyatta, which earned him Mzee’s eternal gratitude.

He would later serve as a Cabinet minister in both Kenyatta and the subsequent President Daniel arap Moi governments from 1964 to 1990. Ngei, for whom Kenyatta had instructed attorney general Charles Njonjo to cause a change of the law in Parliament so that he (Kenyatta) could pardon him of an election offense, was adjudged bankrupt in 1990.

He died a miserable man following the amputation of his leg due to diabetes at the age of 81 in 2004.

By Kelvin Mutwiwa