Mama Ngina’s sense of déjà vu, 59 years later

It was a picture that provided one of the most poignant images in the run-up to the departure for The Hague.

Former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta cupped in her hands the bowed head of her son, Uhuru Kenyatta; offering fervent prayer and blessing ahead of the eight-hour flight to face the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

She did the same for Mr William Ruto, one of her son’s co-accused out of Kenya’s descent into post-election carnage.

Indeed, the past few weeks must have brought back a sense of déjà vu for Mama Ngina. Though The Hague in the Netherlands might be miles away from colonial power Britain, the cause of her grief 59 years ago, the parallels are strong in her mind.

The man she describes as a “model son, the best a mother can hope for” is accused of some grave crimes.

The accusations come 59 years after her husband was taken away from her on accusations of being a member of the Mau Mau movement, then the terror of the British colonialists.

Mama Ngina is now 79, and facing perhaps her greatest grief since the death of her husband in August 1978, or the day in 1952 when he was taken away from her.

She was Jomo Kenyatta’s fourth wife when she got married to him in 1951.

She was 18, he was 57, but he she was the daughter of a chief (Muhoho), getting married to a man whose destiny was greatness and reverence as the Founding Father of Kenya.

Her grief was certainly visible last Monday when she addressed the crowd at Gatundu Stadium, a few kilometres from her home in Ichaweri, at the special prayers for her son, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta.

She had rarely smiled since the beginning of the rally, where MPs spoke defiantly against the ICC and railed at Uhuru’s perceived enemy, Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

She maintained her impassive look even when popular Kikuyu gospel artiste Lois Kim performed a song of encouragement that she had specially prepared for her.

In the end, her address was only four minutes long, but she dwelt on the dominant theme of the day; that the charges against her son and five other Kenyans were politically manipulated and marked the return of colonialism.

It is a comparison many of those who spoke harped on, but one that seems wildly exaggerated in the circumstances.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was arrested for fighting to free Kenya from colonial rule.

The Ocampo Six are accused of crimes against humanity in which innocent fellow Kenyans were the victims.

“This being the last day of prayers, I know God will take care of us because it is clear the people of Kenya love their country. They have displayed that wherever the MPs have gone,” she told the silent crowd.

“Kenyans have shown that they are not ready to go back where we came from (as a country),” she said, encouraged by the massive crowds mobilised to receive Mr Kenyatta, and Mr Ruto during their farewell tour.

She also said a book about “where Kenya has come from” is on the way.

Historians will certainly hope she will have the courage to candidly document how she moved from the home of Chief Muhoho to become the fourth wife of a man still referred to as “muthamaki” (king) in Gatundu.

She could also write about life with the legendary first President, how she felt after his death, and how she has held the family together in the absence of the patriarch.

She spoke for the first time about life after leaving State House in a 22-minute interview with Kameme FM last year at the anniversary of Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978.

At State House Mombasa on that early morning in August, she was with her children Uhuru, Muhoho and Nyokabi Kenyatta, a nurse who was treating the President and Kimotho, a bodyguard, she said.

Mama Ngina also made a statement she would perhaps have to explain in more detail in the book she is writing.

“Mzee had no money, but I sold some land to help educate (the children). I realised education was the only thing I could give them since with education and hard work, even without wealth, one can succeed,” she said then of a family fabled to be about the wealthiest in Africa.

Uhuru’s cousin and Mzee Kenyatta’s successor as Gatundu MP Ngengi Muigai said:

“Mama Ngina has been very blessed in her life, but she has also had to bear the greatest burdens”.

He spoke of Mama Ngina’s arrest soon after her husband had been shipped away to Kapenguria, and her incarceration at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for five years.

When she went back to her home in Gatundu, he said, she found that her house had been demolished “stone by single stone”.

She resorted to agriculture, planting maize, beans and potatoes on her farm, and selling the produce at the market at Gatundu like any other woman from the village.

She later joined Mzee Jomo Kenyatta when he was moved to Maralal.

Those days might be far behind her now, but the range of parallels stand out very well.

Among her husband’s greatest supporters then was Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who stood by the old man and prepared the ground for him to take the helm of the nation as soon as he had stepped out of jail.

That cannot be said of the two men’s offspring today.

Mr Kenyatta has taken on Raila Odinga, Jaramogi’s son, with the kind of verve his father would have admired when the fallout between him and Jaramogi then came out in the open. 

Those who knew Jomo Kenyatta say the expletives that issued from him when angry were unlimited, and it did not usually matter whether there was a crowd before him or that members of his Cabinet were sitting around him. 

Those who have heard his son now will testify that the fruit surely did not fall far from the tree.

The man who played a little Rugby at St Mary’s has not held back when it comes to dismissing Mr Odinga, the Prime Minister, who he has referred to as kimundu (nuisance bully) whenever he has discussed him in public.

Mr Odinga effectively scuttled Mr Kenyatta’s bid to rise from a Kanu-nominated MP to President when he led a mass walkout from the party after the young man was hand-picked by outgoing President Moi to carry the flag in 2002.

Circumstances and relationships had turned around by 2005 when they both found themselves on the same side against President Kibaki’s bid to have Kenyans approve a new Constitution.

That marriage was brief, and Mr Kenyatta was firmly behind the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, when he asked Kenyans to re-elect him for his final term.

Today, with Mr Kenyatta and the extended family troubled by the ICC, the fight with Mr Odinga seems like a sideshow. Mama Ngina appears keen on focusing her eyes on the future, her hope strong that her son will be rid of the ICC demons soon.

“We went through a lot of trouble to get freedom for Kenya, and we can’t go back there for the colonialists to come back and rule us,” she said in Gatundu.

That statement reflected perfectly how far the ICC issue has been milked for political advantage as Mr Kenyatta seeks unchallenged leadership among the Kikuyu.