From: Leo Odera Omolo
Date: Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 4:39 PM

THE DAY THE COLONIAL POLICE DEPORTED JULIUS NYERERE OUT OF NAIROBI AS THE RADICAL TOM MBOYA FACED THE WRATH OF THE LAW.

Historical News Background By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

It was in the middle of the month of September, 1959.The colonial police, in collaboration with the defunct all white members Kenya Regiment, the General Service Unit and other security agents, launched a midnight operation, to flush out of the Kenyan capital all the political agitators.

Close to 40 political personalities, who were giving the colonial administration the sleepless nights, were rounded up in this massive security operations code name “Operation Anvil”.

Those netted in this massive security operation, after being identified and sorted out, were bundled onto police trucks and driven back to the rural homes. This was done under the State of Emergency, which was still in force after its launching on October 20th,1952 by the colonial Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring.

Upon reaching their rural home district , the captives were released to their location chiefs, under the supervision of the white District Officers{DOS}, and were issued with firm instructions restricting their movement to within their locations.

Under the same orders, they were also required to report to the nearest police station and local District Commissioner on a monthly basis, and never to return to Nairobi .The unlucky ones, were dispatched to detention and restriction camps in the Northern Kenya, mostly in the small town of Maralal in the remote Samburu district.

Among the victims of the “Operation Anvil” was Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who was one of the leading nationalist in the struggle for freedom in the neighboring Tanganyika.

Mwalimu was a leader of TANU, a party which was the brainchild of a Kenyan technocrat working in Dar Es salaam, Mr. Dome Okochi Budohi, who I suspected had come from the Samia community in Western Province.

Budohi later returned to Kenya and joined the editorial of the weekly BARAZA, as one of its sub-editors, under the late Mr. Francis Joseph Khamisi, an excellent and prolific writer-cum-politician. In 1961, Mr Budohi deputized in LEGCO for the late Peter Habenga Okondo for three months. Okondo had gone overseas, and it was customary for the LEGCO members to appoint someone to warm up their seats whenever they went abroad.

The late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the then Member of Legco representing Central Nyanza, was the first to pick up someone to deputize in his absence. Jaramogi had picked up the late Dr. Isaiyah Owala Awino from Nyakach, an accountant by profession, who acted in his place for three months while Jaramogi was visiting India.

“Operation Anvil” security operation covered the entire Eastland’s areas of the City, where there was the biggest concentration of African population.

Nyerere was picked up at about 1.45 A.M at Mr Tom Mboya’s house No.38 in Ziwani Estate and driven to Embakassi Airport in the chilly and wee hours of the night and left in the cold. He was instructed to take the first morning flight to Dar es Salaam. It was purely an act of deportation without repatriation order issued by the government.

Nyerere had earlier on in the morning of the previous day had a brief stop-over in Nairobi, on his way to Dar es Salaam, after returning from a visit to Edinburgh in Scotland and London in the United Kingdom. He spent most part of the day paying courtesy calls on a number of Kenyan politician of the time. He met Ronald Gideon Ngala in Parliament Building and they had lunch together. He later paid a courtesy call on Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and the two had a lengthy discussion also in Parliament Building.

Later in the evening, Nyerere accompanied Mboya to his House at Ziwani Estate. They had long conversations, tackling many political issues affecting the entire Eastern African region.

On that day, I had gone to Mboya’s house and waited for a long time before the two arrived at about 9.p.m. I could not afford to walk back to Kaloleni Estate, where I was putting up with a relative, because it was too late. Mboya was so kind as to offer me accommodation at his house for the night.

I had an appointment to see him on personal matters. I was then a young budding writer, aged about 22.

I was introduced to Mr. Mboya by my aunt’s son, Mr Zacharia Orwa, who later served Kenya as a District Commissioner in many places, retiring at Busia district. Zack Orwa was Mboya’s contemporary. They all hailed from Rusinga Island in South Nyanza District and were almost of the same age, and close friends for years, until they parted upon death.

I was also born in Rusinga Island, but my parents had migrated to Kanyamkago in 1948 while I was a small boy, and we later settled in East Sakwa Location, Rongo district where I grew up. Mr.Mboya came to our home in Rongo in 1949 in the company of his boyhood friend Zack Orwa. The two had brand new bicycles which they bought in Nairobi and I admired their bikes.

I suspected the two were looking forward to meet with a young lady who was a primary school teacher in our neighborhood at he time. They used me as a conduit in arranging for the young school teacher to meet with them at our homestead, which was then located at Rinya-Pikwar area. The two left after a brief meting with the young lady, and I never saw Mboya again until I heard over the Radio that he had won a Legislative Council seat for Nairobi area, and that he had also secured some scholarship for Kenyan youths to study in the American Universities It was a big euphoria and every young educated men and women in our villages were talking about going abroad under Mr.Mboya’s patronage.

I too wanted to try my luck. But due to the fact that I had inferior educational background, I did not qualify to benefit from the program. But Mr.Mboya had detected some writing talent in me and advised me to developed my writing knowledge. And owing to my skillful knowledge of Kiswahili writing I became an instrument in writing some of the reports appearing in UHURU, a PCP’s political newsletter edited by the late Elijah Omolo Agar. This endeared me to Mr.Mboya, and at times, I used to spend some evening time with him.

Back to the fateful night at Ziwani. The police came past midnight. They were in several lorries and land-rovers. They parked outside Mr.Mboya’s small two bedroom house. I had settled for the night on a sofa seat, while Nyerere slept on Mboya’s main bed. His host settled on a small spring bed, but the two were in one room where they chatted away until later hours of the night.

At about 1.20 .A.M, there was a big bang on Mr.Mboya’s main door. The bang was so loud that it woke me up. I jumped on my feet and quickly peeped my eyes outside through the window. I saw a large number of policemen, both black and whites. The black African policemen were carrying big rifles while the white officers were armed with pistols of service revolvers.

The banging was accompanied with a harsh tone of someone commanding in Kiswahili. “Fungua Fungua lango sisi ni Polisi”. I panicked and ran towards Mr.Mboya’s bedroom. I knocked and told them about the presence of a large number of policemen outside the house. Mboya told me politely to open the door for them to come in. I obliged and opened the door, and about ten or more policemen, both blacks and white and a Sikh {Kalasinga} burst in.

That was when some of them took away Mwalimu and escorted him to the airport.

These policemen ransacked Mr.Mboya’s house and turned everything upside down, while looking for certain documents. Mr.Mboya, wearing only a night sleeping gown, sat on innocently and patiently, while sitting on a small stool, as the search continued for three hours, only stopping at about few minutes to 5 am.

The policemen then asked Mr.Mboya to accompany them to his City Offices, which were located at Alvi House on the then Queensway {Now Tom Mboya Street}.There the search continued for another four hour, ending at about 8.30A.M, when Mr Mboya .was driven back to his Ziwani Estate house in a police land rover, looking tired an dejected.

A huge crowd of on lookers and sympathizers had gathered outside the house, inquiring to know Mr.Mboya’s fate. His long time political friend and staunch supporter, Mr Alfred Aketch Mingusa, was the first person to arrive. But he, and other friends, immediately hired a taxi to the City Centre, to find out what had happened to their friend {Mboya}. Both of them came back few minutes later traveling in a police land rover.

While waiting to board a plane for his Dar Es Salaam home, Nyerere had phoned Mboya’s house at about 7.A.M. I picked the phone and lt was Nyerere on the other side of the line. He told me that he had left a number of important files and one of his brief cases in Mboya’s house. He requested me to ask Mboya to make concerted efforts to ensure that these files were delivered to him in Dar Es Salaam within a week..

The next morning, the EAST AFRICAN STANDARD, which was then the only daily newspaper, came out with a banner headline reporting of the major security dragnet in the City. It carried some photographs of the victims who included Elijah Omolo Agar, Stanley Mathenge, Jesse Mwangi Gachago, J.M Oyangi Mbaja, M.D.Odinga, F.W.J Mukeka and about 30 other leading politicians. Some of those who were detained were sent to restriction camps or deported back to their rural homes by the colonial government. Hundreds of ordinary job-seeker were also netted under the law of vagrancy and emergency regulations.

Uhuru, the PCP newsletter, which I was actively writing for, immediately ceased publication following the detention of Mr.Omolo Agar, its editor.

Before the end of the same week, and while Nairobi was still smarting from the effect of one of the biggest security operation, I was dispatched by Mboya to Dar Es Salaam. The purpose of the journey was to deliver the Nyerere’s files, which the TANU leader had hurriedly left behind at Mboya’s Ziwani House Nairobi. It was one experience which I shall never forget in my lifetime. This is because it was the first time when I took a flight in a plane. Indeed it was a harrowing experience, for the one and half hour flight, in a Comet Plane..

Mboya had instructed me to trace either Mr. Michael Kamaliza, a trade unionist or Mr. Rashid Mfaume Kawawa, the Secretary General of the TFL {Tanganyika Federation of Labour}, which was an equivalent to the Mboya headed KFL, and that any of the two would help me trace Mwalimu Nyerere in Dar Es Salaam. I did that and met Mr. Kamaliza, who took me to an African location, a place called Kinondoni, where Mwalimu was addressing what looked like a seminar or a workshop of TANU cadres. Mr. Kamaliza booked me for two night in Mawesi Hotel..

The next day, Mr Kamaliza took me to Nyerere’s office. Mwalimu looked worried and very much concerned of what had happened in Mboya’s house the previous week and inquired if anything bad happened to Mboya. He told me that they had spoken over the phone, but he was still a worried man..

Malimu told someone whom I can’t remember his name to give me some out of pocket cash money for my upkeep while in Dar Es Salaam, but when I insisted that I had sufficient money given to me for the trip by Mboya, Mwalimu insisted that since I was his personal guest, that was the way the Tanganyika people treat their guests. So I was given Tshs 2020/ at the TANU office, This was a lot of money at that time. Even the whole members of the Legislative Council were only earning a monthly salary of Kshs 830/-per month.

Reading through the files, I realized they were containing minutes and programs of the PAFMECA. The Pan African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa, which Nyerere and Mboya, and others had launched at Mwnza the previous year. Some of the files were connected with the university of Edinburgh and TANU matters.

Before I boarded a plane back to Nairobi, Mwalimu entertained me to an afternoon tea at the Africana Hotel, where I met him with the late Mr.John Rupia, Mr Nsilo Nswayi, Bibi Titi Mohamed and his old friend, Mr Paul Bomani. This meeting became a milestone to my future operations as a journalist in this region, because these people helped me to meet with many politicians of the day in Tanganyika and I became very intimately attached to them. I was actively writing articles and feature reports to the DRUM Magazine {East Africa’s Edition} under the editorship of Mr.Alan Rake, Mr.Mboya’s Englishman journalist friend. He had a small office portioned from Mboya’s KFL offices at Alvi House. Perhaps my association with Mr. Rake and the late Boaz Reza Omori, the former Editor-in-Chief of the DAILY NATION had actually shaped up my writing prowess and professionalism.

I remained in contact with Mwalimu until his death. He had such a sharp and wonderful memory. Whenever he saw me during regional and international conferences, such as the OAU annual meetings of heads of state and governments summits in Addis Ababa, Mwalimu would jokingly shout at me saying, “Mtoto wa Mboya”.

On one memorable occasion, I escorted the late Dr. Robert John Ouko to Nyerere’s rural home in Butiama, near Musoma. Ouko had just taken over from Joseph Odero Jowi as the Minister for the East African Affairs based in Arusha. Ouko was requested to deliver a personal message to Nyerere urgently by the late President Jomo Kenyatta. Ouko apparently had seen Dr.Nyerere talking to me intimately in Arusha during one of the international gatherings, and thought I would be a better conduit for him to use to reach Mwalimu Nyerere.

I accompanied him to Butiama via Migori, Sirare and Musoma. But upon arriving, we found Nyerere engaged seriously in the game of Ajua with some local elders, so we waited for two hours. He greeted me, telling Dr.Ouko that he had known me since I was a very young and slender man. But now I was bulky, may be due to eating too much of “Nyerere in Kisumu”.

Ouko was surprise that Mwalimu wa also fluent in Dho-Luo vernacular even better than Milton Obote, who is a closer cousin of the Luos.

Ends

Leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

About the author. Leo Odera Omolo is a veteran journalist now living on semi-retirement and living in the lake side City of Kisumu. He can be reached on Phons Nos 0722 486181, o733 509215.Or use . BOX 833 Kisumu

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Subject: The Day the Colonial Police deported Julius Nyerere out of Nairobi