The ruling class accumulated huge tracts of land initially owned by White settlers but taken over by the State for resettlement of the squatters. The British government gave £ 50 million to a land transfer scheme from settlers to African squatters, but Kenyatta used the money to buy land from settlers and either dish it out to his closest cronies or apportion to himself. That caused a rift between Kenyatta and the late J.M Kariuki who was later assassinated. According to a Kenyan legislator who knows the Kenyatta family well, the land on which Kenyatta and Jomo Kenyatta Universities are built initially belonged to Basil Criticos. The government bought the land from him under the above scheme, but transferred it to Kenyatta on the same day Criticos transferred it to the government in 1972. It was through such fraudulent processes that Kenyatta family and close associates acquired much of the prime land in the country. The land owned by the Kenyatta family includes Taita Taveta farm (74, 000 acres), Kahawa Sukari farm (29, 000 acres), Gatundu farm, Thika farm, Brookside farm, Muthaita farm, Green Lee Estate, Njagu farm in Juja, Kasarani farm (9, 000 acres), Nakuru farm in Rongai near Moi’s home, a quarry in Dandora, Naivasha Ranch and several farms in Nairobi. Government sources say that KPLC is currently under pressure to buy the family’s Karen farm at Ksh. 350 million to add to Uhuru’s campaign kitty. The combined acreage of all the land owned by the Kenyatta family is equal to Nyanza province, sources at the Lands Ministry say. Close associates of Kenyatta such as Mbiyu Koinange, Kihika Kimani, Isaiah Mathenge, Eliud Mahihu, Jackson Angaine, Paul Ngei, Daniel Arap Moi, Njoroge Mungai, Charles Njonjo, Mwai Kibaki, Njenga Karume among other power brokers of the time, were encouraged to acquire, and did acquire, as much land. The Moi government has more or less followed similar policies. The political clique around Moi, for example, is known to own huge chunks of land round the country, much of which is lying fallow while the production that it is meant for has ceased. In the North Eastern Province, for example, the current crop of politicians in government owns chunks of land that, according to official sources, they do not even know the location. The land is used for collateral mortgage for bank loans. Having acquired land in this manner, the Kenyatta government lacked the moral authority to effect any fundamental land changes. The white settler community had trust and confidence in him. Jeremy Murray Brown writes in his book, Kenyatta, that the white community was happy when Kenyatta showed that he was not going to push hard for land transfer and, instead, acquired huge chunks of land for himself and his cronies. It was for the same reason that the minority but influential Britons in Kenya impressed upon their home government to support Moi’s ascendancy to power. Above all else, Moi was seen as a moderate who espoused Western capitalism that glorified wealth accumulation. Moi had been assimilated into the British system early when they plucked him from his teaching career to make him a representative in the colonial Legislative Council and he was a major plank of the colonial administration in the suppression of the struggle for independence. Through the then powerful Attorney General, Charles Njonjo, and cabinet minister, Mwai Kibaki, Britain covertly and overtly supported Moi’s ascendance to power while Moi gladly embraced them when he eventually took to the throne [6] Large-scale corruption on the part of Kenyas elites is not a new phenomenon. It actually started in the colonial era. Now, one of the great coincidences of modern African history is that the ethnic group of the sitting President is seen to and often does actually prosper more economically than other ethnic groups. This is especially true in a context where power is concentrated in the hands of the Executive. And so during the Kenyatta era Gikuyus are believed to have accumulated wealth with disproportionate ease compared to this countrys other ethnic groups. They had easier access to top government jobs, public contracts, loans from state-owned banks and land allocations. Many of the activities entered into by members of the elite around Kenyatta in the process of accumulating their wealth would today be described as corruption. Evidence of this wealth is still evident and clearly still enjoyed by those who acquired it. In other words, in Kenya, as a method of accumulating wealth corruption works, it works extremely well. This reasoning is often used to justify the corrupt activities of Kenyas current ruling elite and their associates. It is as if there is an unspoken understanding that in this country I can be corrupt by taking advantage of my connections to the State, accumulate wealth, consolidate it and then sit back once I have transformed my economic circumstances and say with a straight face that I know corruption is bad thing. I know it is bad thing but look, the Gikuyus who ate during the Kenyatta years are still enjoying their wealth - they own property and big businesses, their children study in expensive schools and go only to private hospitals. So dont complain if I eat now, dont point at me if you are not going to point at those who ate before me and are clearly still enjoying their loot. This makes it difficult to fight corruption sometimes. Many times I have been asked the question, Githongo, would you Gikuyus be complaining about corruption today if President Moi was a Gikuyu? How come you dont talk about the corruption under Kenyatta? Even you are a fat man who has gone to private schools and has enjoyed the fruits that Kenyatta gave to Gikuyus. Let the Kalenjin also have an opportunity to eat a little. [7] Early 1964… The government of President Jomo Kenyatta is just settling in at State House. However there is one concern that is rapidly emerging. For the infant government to fully establish itself it has to come to terms with the power that white land- owners have had in the country. The policy of Africanization that is mooted soon after is with the realization that real power and control can never be divorced from money and financial wealth. The policy is to help indigenous Africans acquire land that belonged to previously powerful white settlers. But what starts out as a noble idea quickly changes into something very different. Those close to the President use it to enrich themselves and their reasoning seems to make sense. In order to protect the government it is important that those with the wealth are close to the government. In the years that follow, a number of Kenyans who are seen as real or imagined obstacles to this Africanization policy are brutually cut down. This is the reason for the famous JM statement, “I would not like to be in a Kenya of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars.” JM’s remains (with the genitals cut off) are found by a Maasai herdsman one morning in 1975 somewhere in Ngong Hills, after days of a circus in which Kenyans were at one time made to believe that he was on an impromptu business trip to Zambia. It is instructive that JM was a former Press Secretary to President Kenyatta and must have observed at close quarters exactly what was going on. Earlier, nationalist, Tom Mboya had what seen what was going on and had changeg his earlier views on how African countries should be governed and the need for a constitutionally powerful leader to act as a symbol of unity and a uniting factor for the people. He is too smart to confront the government directly but rumours abound in Nairobi. Some of them say that he will stand for President and expose all the evil in the forthcoming general elections. Nobody doubts his organizational abilities. Surely the man who brought the powerful colonial regime to its’ knees (and more than anybody else engineered independence for Kenya) should have no problem with the young Kenyatta government. We will probably never be able to establish the truth of those rumours because Mboya never lived to see those elections. He stopped two bullets on a Nairobi street outside a chemist, in broad daylight, one afternoon July 5, 1969. [8] I am not too sure about the permanency of these websites and there is a lot of text to cut thro, so thought to do a cut and paste job with the sites acknowledged. A more experienced editor (if need be) may help if what I have done is decidedly unwiki Non-aligned foreign policy? The article says non-aligned foreign policy. Kenyattas foreign policy was actually quite pro-Western. He was anticommunist and one of the most outspoken pro-Western leaders in Africa. Do you have a source for that? We should cite a source either way. — Matt Crypto 09:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC) The Africans by David Lamb The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.159.26.242 ( talk • contribs ) 16:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC) Thanks for providing these. — Matt Crypto 17:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 18:34:43 +0000
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