Untold story of Tom Mboya’s love life: ‘Forgotten’ first wife speaks

The two love-birds had started dating as school-going teenagers and cemented the relationship in a customary marriage that Mboya’s biographer David Goldsworthy said was little known to many Kenyans.

This week, 69 years after the momentous ceremony in Karachuonyo, I traced Margaret Ogweno, now in her 90s, to Uyoma Katwenga near Madiany market where she remarried after separating from Mboya in 1959.

Even though she is struggling with her memory due to old age, she recalls how she met Mboya, who was then a student at St Mary’s school Yala in Siaya County. 

“He was a close friend of James Amayo Ogwang, a young man from my village, who was also his classmate at Yala. So they used to come to my village whenever schools were closed ,” she says, “Mboya’s aunt Nereah Amisi was also married in my village.”

It was through these connections that she and Mboya got to know each other.

“He really liked me,” she said before her daughter quickly interjects, “Didn’t you love him too?” At this point we all burst into laughter as Margaret quips, “Of course I also loved him.”

After dating for a while, Mboya decided to seek the consent of Rweya and his family to marry their daughter. “They first came for ayie and brought some money but I can’t remember the amount,” she says. 

Ayie, which literally means “I agree or accept”, comes before dowry payment and is the first stage in a traditional marriage among the Luo people. It involves the man’s family approaching the woman’s family on behalf of their son. During this ceremony, a token is given to the woman’s parents and negotiations take place on the dowry the prospective groom has to pay.

With all the prerequisites of a customary marriage having been met, Mboya and Margaret now had the blessings to live together as husband and wife. In line with tradition, Mboya built for his new wife a hut in his father’s homestead on Rusinga Island in present-day Homa Bay County.

Mboya was almost 23 years old, and had just started working as a sanitary inspector for the Nairobi City Council after qualifying at Jeanes School, Kabete. At that point, there was little indication of him playing a major part in Kenya’s political future. Allan Rake in his book, ‘Mboya Young Man of New Africa’, writes that at the time “he (Mboya) saw himself for what he was, an ordinary, educated African with every chance of making a success of his career.”

Even though he was greatly involved in trade unionism, it was the arrest of Jomo Kenyatta during the state of emergency declared by the colonial government that inspired him to join politics. In his book, ‘Freedom and After’ , Mboya wrote, “ I was very incensed at the way this (arrest) was done and, like many young people, I felt excited at the thought that this was an opportunity for us to play some part in ensuring that the nationalist movement did not collapse.” He joined Kenya African Union (KAU), becoming its treasurer before the union was also proscribed.

Soon, his political activities became a major concern to his employer and resulted in the Medical Officer of Health, who was his immediate boss, personally giving him a warning. Mboya was eventually fired.

It was during this period that he brought Margaret to Nairobi and lived with her in his two-bedroom house in Kaloleni Z1 near City Stadium. Margaret started attending classes at Jeanes School Kabete and subsequently became a teacher . In 1953, they had their first child, Rosemary Alakie Mboya. A one-time renowned thespian, Alakie is currently suffering from cancer and has been asking for assistance to help her undergo treatment. 

In the recent interview, Margaret recalls how while pregnant with Alakie, she hated the smell of onions that she kept off the kitchen. Luckily, she says, Mboya was such a caring husband and always went to the kitchen to cook for her. 

Marriage broke down

“He liked to cook for me ugali made out of millet flour from Mbita.” She would praise Mboya by calling him “ Andura wuod Adongo”, while he would call her “Nyar gi Omollo.”

In 1958, they had their second daughter, Jane Akinyi Mboya, who just like Alakie is a carbon copy of her father. However, along the way, the marriage between Mboya and Margaret encountered difficult times and broke down. Mboya took Alakie to Rusinga and left her in the care of his parents, Leonardus Ndiege and Marcella Awuor Ndiege, while Jane Akinyi remained with her mother Margaret before being sent to Karachuonyo to be with her maternal grandparents. The separation with Mboya is something Margaret prefers not to talk about more than six decades later, simply saying, “That’s how things happened.” 

A paper on Mboya by the British colonial government prepared by the Special Branch Headquarters Nairobi, dated July 1960 and marked “Top Secret and Personal “ claimed, “Mboya, despite his claim to be a devoted idealist who will not marry, or deficit himself from the struggle until Kenya gains independence, in fact leads a life which can by no means be called simple or celibate. 

He was divorced from his wife Ogweno (Margaret) d/o Rweya largely due to his hatred of children, which developed after the birth of his daughter, and his easy command of English and polished social behaviour have made him a great ladies’ man.” Regarding these claims, Margaret told me: “That’s what they said but it is not true.”

For some time after his separation with Margaret, Mboya never had any serious romantic relationship and mostly dated white women. 

In a top secret paper prepared for the colonial governor titled “Mboya as a threat to security” , the head of Special Branch wrote, “ For one of the most striking things about him is that he has been able to maintain so many European girlfriends.” 

His close friend, Alan Rake, who had spent time in Kenya working as editor for the Drum East Africa magazine narrated how a European farmer complained to him, “That fella Mboya’s politics are bad enough but his main trouble is that he is…too interested in our women”. The European girls who went out with him admitted that they couldn’t resist his charm and sex appeal, but complained that he was never committed to one girl.

Mboya's assassination

One white ex-girlfriend wrote, “I am sure he asks practically every girl he invites out the same questions and tells them he loves them and I think at the moment he says he is sincere , but on the next morning it means nothing , just nothing to him.” 

Mboya, on his part, told Rake that he never took “such serious interests in a girl that it goes to the point of commitment — in fact I treat them lightly.”

While going out with these women, Mboya concealed his emotional stand not to be entangled with them. 

However, when he met Pamela Arwa in 1959, he never thought twice for she was the woman destined for him. She was the daughter of Walter Odede, a nationalist who was detained in Samburu on allegations of spreading Mau Mau in Nyanza after he had taken charge of Kenya African Union (KAU) following the arrest of Mzee Kenyatta. Pamela was a student studying Geography, English and History at Makerere University in Uganda when Mboya met her. 

Soon she was on her way to the US after Mboya secured a scholarship for her. They got married in a star-studded wedding ceremony in 1962, and were blessed with five children: Moureen, Susan, Patrick, Peter and Lucas.

Margaret went on to remarry in Uyoma, and had seven children with her second husband, three of whom died. 

Just like most Kenyans at that time, she was shocked when Mboya was assassinated in 1969. She travelled to Rusinga to bid him farewell but was not allowed to throw soil into the grave due to tradition. 

It was argued that since Mboya had not claimed back the dowry payment, their customary marriage was still valid. And, therefore, if she had thrown soil into the grave, she wouldn’t have gone back to where she had remarried.

The writer is a London-based Kenyan journalist and researcher. [email protected]