Secret land deal that made Kenyatta first president

Fresh evidence pieced together by the Sunday Nation confirms widespread speculation that Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta entered a secret pact with the British government not to interfere with the skewed land distribution at independence.

In return, the British would clear his way as independent Kenya’s first leader which looked impossible only three years to freedom. Kenyatta would later extract a similar pledge from his successor, retired president Daniel arap Moi.

The information is contained in the secret papers of the late Sir Michael Blundell, the white settler leader who acted as the go-between Kenyatta and the British government in sealing the deal.

It is corroborated in the secret notes of Kenya’s second vice president, the late Joseph Murumbi deposited at the Kenya National Archives. The land question haunts the country to this day, an entire generation after Kenyatta’s death.

Early this year, the country was engulfed in the worst incident of bloodshed, displacements and destruction of property since independence.

Though the excuse for it was the disputed results of 2007 election, many agreed the underlying tinderbox was the historical disputes especially on the land issue.

The background to the secret pact is a memo Blundell wrote to then Kenya’s colonial governor Malcolm MacDonald on the possible leader of independent Kenya after it was decided the country must be granted freedom in early 1960s.

Blundell zeroed in on four men. Tom Mboya who Blundell described as, “a robust trade unionist and political schemer who had deep pockets, thanks to his American friends”.

The second was the “demagogic Oginga Odinga who held great charm with the rural African folk but was clearly in the payroll of the Soviets”.

Ronald Ngala was the third man and who Blundell described as “an eccentric coastal preferred by the settlers and supported by the small ethnic communities, but who could not muster enough numbers to hold the new country together”.

The last possibility, wrote Blundell, was Jomo Kenyatta who he described as “the wild card of native politics in the colony”.

Kenyatta was in prison at the time on charges of managing the outlawed Mau Mau movement.

Compromise candidate

Blundell recommended Kenyatta as the “possible compromise candidate who could bring together the two major African blocs headed by Mboya and Odinga and probably reach out to the minority group led by Ronald Ngala and Daniel arap Moi”.

On the basis of Blundell’s assessment, the colonial governor sought permission from London to quietly explore the possibility of Kenyatta as first leader of independent Kenya.