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Britain returns archival data to Kenya
President William Ruto is shown an ancient buffalo with giant horns by the Head of Department, Earth Sciences, National Museums of Kenya Dr Emmanuel Ndiema during the unveiling of the Gedi National Monument as a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the Museum in Nairobi County.
Expect more documented details on what happened in Kenya under British colonial rule after more than 2,500 archive files and 300,000 images were handed to Kenya from its former coloniser.
Contained in the files are intelligence dossiers touching on Kenya’s first crop of post-colonial leaders, details of the Mau Mau resistance, and talks that led to Kenya’s first Constitution, among others.
The British High Commissioner to Kenya, Mr Neil Wigan, handed the digitised archives on Friday in the form of hard drives to President William Ruto.
This was a day after Kenya marked the 61st year since it attained self-rule.
A press statement from the British High Commission said the archives entail documents and photos generated between 1907 and 1968. In exact terms, it noted, the material handed over comprises 2,658 files and more than 307,164 images.
“[They are an] equivalent to 9.6 terabytes (TBs) of data across five hard drives,” it said.
To have an idea of how massive the storage is, consider a photo taken by a phone, which is roughly 2 megabytes (MBs). To fill up one terabyte of storage, you need 524,288 such photos.
Among the documents in the data handed over, the statement said, are dossiers of personalities such as Jomo Kenyatta, Paul Ngei, Oginga Odinga, Bernard Mate, Daniel arap Moi, Masinde Muliro, Joseph Murumbi, Tom Mboya, and Joseph Nyagah.
“By sharing these files, the UK hopes Kenyans will be better placed to tell their own history, whether at the national museum, within the Kenya National Archives or across the country. This is a significant step in working to better understand our shared history, deepening our relationship for a stronger future partnership,” said the statement.
“These archives, spanning 1907 to 1968, are a window into our shared history, meaning Kenyans can better tell their own story. [They also offer] an opportunity for reflection and understanding.”
The handover of the data, the High Commission said, followed a request made when King Charles and Queen Camilla visited Kenya between October and November 2023.
“In order to support the National Archives as they look to catalogue the extensive information contained in these records to better tell Kenya’s proud history, the British High Commission will also be funding the provision of new technology, including computers and a new digital database,” said the press release.
The handover was done at an event to mark the inscription of the Gedi National Monument as Kenya’s 8th Unesco World Heritage site at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) in Nairobi.
President Ruto said the responsible ministry would get Sh1 billion to construct a bigger building to store the documents.
