Kenyans ought to now understand that ‘fighting’ for our independence was a far more foreign idea from a Nigerian lawyer and the British and which came as  an ‘imperial euphoria for reformed occupation’.
Mau Mau,  as an illegal vigilant group’s intention was to solely acquire and  posess land’ and not to fight for Kenyan’s national independence.

First and standing by at a  carpenter’s bench (Kamau wa Ngengi) Jomo Kenyatta,  as a 14-15 year old young man and wearing a Khaki shirt and a plane in his  hands, was a tribal radical in the making. The thin, lanky young man  had no striking features except his ‘questioning’ eyes. He was born  about the year of the sweet potato (1897) or the year of the jigger  (1898) at Ng’enda ridge, the  year of the jigger Mbari ya Magana (land of Magana), Kenyatta’s  great-grandfather’s namesake.

While  young he encountered Agikuyu ritual and magic. His great-grandfather  was a magician, fortune-teller, healer and practiced witchcraft, though  he was referred as mundu mugo (medicinemen). On several  occasions he could carry the magician-craft for his grandfather apart  from learning the art as part of the Agikuyu culture and traditions.

While at Watson Memorial Church in Thogoto, he did not directly denounce  ‘Satan and all his works’, or renounce strict Agikuyu culture, with  all its tenets.
In 1913, Kenyatta underwent a  traditional circumcision ceremony by the river Nyongara outside Thogoto  with his age-group as Mubengi.
      

Though he was baptized as  Johnstone Kamau, he was (baptized) Kinyata, a Maasai-made ornamental  belt that he worn, after seeking refuge in Narok among his Maasai  relatives to escape press-gang raids imposed by the British on the Agikuyu.
      

On 22nd October 1920, Kenyatta was summoned before the Kirk Session at Thogoto  to be tried by church elders. The charge being that he had been seen  drinking (njohi)  traditional liquor and taking snuff which he pleaded guilty of and later  suspended from Holy Communion.
      

In  the 1920, Agikuyu women had in many cases persuaded their husbands to  take oath and were often very militant. Mary Muthoni’s death  contributed to the involvement of women in the Agikuyu land affair.  They put themselves in danger to steal guns and ammunition and drugs from colonial occupants. There were many instances when they had to  kill the ‘enemy’ to get the precious supplies. They also chose instead to fight alongside the men and many proved themselves the equals of men.
Contrary to previous beliefs,  ‘freedom fighter’ Dedan Waciuri Kimathi, was the chief architect of Mau Mau  oathing that spread to Thompsons Falls and Ol Kalou area. He was the  leader of his oath administration campaign. While at Karunaini School  at 15 years, he had with him qualities and skills of military  organizations. He was circumcised at Ihururu  dispensary (against the Agikuyu custom) at the age of 18 years. He was charged with recruiting vigilant groups of young men (Mungiki) for the armed  struggle.

Come May, 1928 Kikuyu  Central Association (KCA) first published the muigwithania newspaper.  This was after KCA realized that former president Jomo Kenyatta  had a good command of the English language. Previously, Kenyatta had  surprised many, while as a security guard at the municipal council’s  water department he bought the queens language to the ears of the  locals. This is when his political career that lasted for fifty years  was born. Although his first major role was that of an interpreter  before the Hilton Young Commission in Nairobi.

The Muigwithania editor,  Johnstone Kenyatta, was commonly referred to by the locals in Nairobi  as Jonstoni or Joni.
  

But what did Muigwithani  stand for?

The  monthly paper provided readers with a collection of news and articles.  Some about the Kikuyu culture and their ways of life. The paper encouraged the Agikuyu to improve their agricultural methods and to  advance themselves educationally. It was a major voice of the Agikuyu.  Additionally, Jomo Kenyatta used  the paper to emerge as the leader of the Agikuyu.
On the other hand, the KCA was  busy collecting funds to sponsor him for a trip to England.  With a Bible in his hand and soil in the other, he swore before a  gathering at Pumwani that he would not betray his Agikuyu people. He had left for London  mainly to defend the ‘tribal’ land interests. But his host, Ladipo  Solanke, a Nigerian barrister, lawyer and intellectual, was already talking about independence and not the land issue. There was more for him to do than just presenting a ‘land’ petition to the colonial office in London.
On  his return to London from other foreign countries, in 1929, after his  tribal interests were put aside, he wrote an extensive article for the Sunday Worker, the communist party  newspaper in Britain, on 27th October 1929,  entitled “GIVE BACK OUR LAND”.  

Part  of it read; “discontent has always been rife among the natives, and  will be so until they govern themselves-(with their land)”.

When Kenyatta came back to Kenya he had grown from being a Mogikoyo nationalist to a fighter for the ‘tribal’ land of the Kenya territory.
  

   Later, the Daily Worker  published an article by him in January 1930, describing the Thuku Riots  of Nairobi  as a ‘General Strike’. This move displeased the missionaries and the  colonial office. Kenyatta had learnt the art of parrying a useful  weapon in any politician’s arsenal. He had become a ‘real’ politician.  In the same year, 1930, had enjoined themselves in verbal battle with  the Agikuyu. The quarrel was over female circumcision, which the  missionaries sought to abolish. The majority of the Agikuyu fought against this sentence of death on their culture. Kenyatta supported the  majority and ‘female genital manipulation’ (FGM) to the disappointment  of the white men.
  

When he went back to London  in 1932, Kenyatta ran into other political groups like the pacifists, ­though he met Mahatma Gandhi in November of that year, he  continued writing letters to the Manchester Guardian about Kikuyu  land grievances.
While in Moscow, Russia,  at the instigation of George Padmore, he helped Kenyatta receive para-military training and economics at the revolutionary institute.
Later Kenyatta, under the  Stalinist policies in 1933, was forced to leave Russia the same year, he wrote an article in the Labour Monthly, attacking British for  their greed in stealing lands at the Abaluhya in the gold rush of 1931.
  

In Facing Mount Kenya,  in  1938, Kenyatta’s thesis relayed the Agikuyu’s socio-economic systems and their ‘superior’ integrity to anything that the colonial system  could offer.
      

By 1935, Kenyatta had grown a beard and unkempt hair as a gesture of his  support to the monarch and campaigned against the Italian presence in Ethiopia. Meanwhile  in 1938, he wrote, My people of Kikuyu and the Life  of Chief Wang’ombe, a reflective legendary history of ‘his’ people. By 1951,  the radical young men in Kikuyu  land had resolved to settle the score with the British forest through  blood, and Kenyatta bestrode this social force. He became a detainee  and found guilty of managing Mau Mau and  sentenced to seven years of hard labor. Mau Mau at that  time was a very proscribed society.
    

The seven years of loneliness and  deprivation is what brought Jomo Kenyatta maturity including leadership and  politics. As an old ‘Mzee’, he was no longer a tribal radical activist but a shape-up leader with ‘Uhuru na Kenyatta’ as his next agenda to  participate, for the first time in fight for independence.

Dedan Kimathi, the other ‘freedom  fighter’ was brought down by a police constable from his own area; Nyeri away  from Aberdare  forest where his home was. Also, his militant partner, Muriuki KImotho alias  General Tanganyika, was also executed, in 1956 and who lived at the Mt.  Kenya forest. Before his death his troop was identified as ‘Hika Hika’  battalion led by General China.

Another  fighter, Kariuki wa Chegge, who later repatriated from the Rift Valley,  in 1953 to his home area, Murang’a is believed to have planned and  carried out ‘tribal’ battles using guerrilla tactics to great  advantage. He would attack unexpectedly, quickly and move away from the  scene just as suddenly as he had com. His name and presence kept many  ‘guessing’ due to his unforgiving valour. When he died, his other  fighters lost a ‘genius’ in guerilla warfare.

Certainly,  these ‘freedom fighters’ may have been the architects of the now  prescribed Mungiki vigilant group as an illegal self-made battalion of  yester-years.
          
  Regards,
  Mundia Mundia Jnr.