The “Nyakua” philosophy has not only created tensions among Kenyan different tribes, but has also caused the economic disparities and inequalities in Kenya. Its recent development into major economic corruption and election dishonesty, is threatening to create hatred and drive the country into untold civil war. Most of us who were old enough, remember the 1960s and 1970s when Kenyatta personally took upon himself to promote the “NYAKUA” philosophy in the newly independent Kenya.
I was a young boy then and I used to really get scared because it sounded like declaring war among Kenyans. What the philosophy really meant was that whoever is able to grab should grab all that he could whether land or goods including financial resources. We all remember Magendo and Chepkube business. It was a philosophy of “survival for the fittest”, law of the jungle style. In my community, people talked of Kikuyus coming to take the land and render the locals landless or kill them. Every time Kenyatta spoke on the radio, especially because he was fond of addressing the nation in Kikuyu, many felt that the Kikuyu who were strategically positioned in the government, were preparing to start MAU MAU war against other Kenyans so that they could grab (nyakua). Now it seems that the fears were precisely what they were. At that time, the coastal people requested Kenyatta for tractors and farm machineries to help them till their land and Kenyatta responded well; he sent Kikuyus in thousands to till the coastal land. He, himself Nyakuad (grabbed) thousands of acres there. So, the land tilling problem was solved in the coast. In the Rift Valley, thousands of Kikuyus were moved from central province to grab the huge farms left behind by the white settlers. But it went beyond the white settlers’ farms. In some areas like in Molo/Olenguruone, about fifteen thousand(15,000) Kikuyus were moved from central province and given free land against and at the expense of the locals. I remember when my 70 year old father was beaten up (canned six strokes) by chief’s askaries for trying to resist the takeover of his 100 acre land by Kikuyus in 1974/75. I and my 5 brothers and 6 sisters were squeezed to a 5 acre plot. I still remember the names of every Kikuyu who took-over the land. We became friends and freely lived together for years while the tension simmered underneath. From the experience, I now understand the Kalenjin behavior and psychology than I thought I did.
They rarely express their real inner feelings until when they cannot hold it anymore. From the takeover of my father’s land, the resistance by the Kalenjins intensified and I remember my father and the neighbors taking their bows, arrows and spears to go to war against the Kikuyu and the government. They managed to win the first day pushing the Kikuyus and the government surveyors and askaries towards Molo. But then,they pounced back few days later fully reinforced with police armed with guns and many of the local people were shot dead or wounded. Many including my father chose to give in and lost their land. Our land was gone forever. The land was later recovered during the 1992 war but it went to the kalenjin grabbers who by then had acquired good skill in the Kenyatta’s “nyakua” philosophy. So, the landless are still landless despite the reclaimed land. The fear and tension still simmers from within. During the early years of independence, people from central provincewere provided loans from the government and banking institutions to buy land in the Rift Valley. They formed many land buying companies to acquire such lands. I guess the locals did not see the need to rush to grab because they believed the land was rightly theirs only taken away by the whites settlers and that the government was only making a serious mistake to declare their land available for every one. So they stayed put while others rushed to Nyakua. Today the suspicion and the “wait, watch and see” attitude is turning into real bitterness and hatred. Why did the government in the first place utilize the law of the jungle to in sharing out the resources? Is it not similar to what is happening in Zimbabwe today? White people have been dispossessed of the land haphazardly causing the worst food shortage in Zimbabwe’s history. Not only that, but there is now tension among the Africans themselves because the acquired land is going to the selected few. Mungiki of Central Kenya now know that the government dispossessed them of land in central and damped them in Rift Valley in the name of Nyakua.
Seeing what was going on in Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the then vice president, wrote the “Not Yet Uhuru” book and as a result, fell out of favor with Kenyatta government. Moi on the other hand compromised and stayed on to take the presidency in 1978 for 24 years but brought the country to its knees economically.
Chepkube and Magendo business was part and percel of this “Nyakua” policy. I remember those days along the Nakuru-Eldoret-Kisumu or Nairobi-Uganda highways were opportunities for a few to get rich. Many Kikuyus lined up or hid in the bushes around Mukinyai, Salgaa, Aremi in Elburgon and Sachangwan hills waiting for slow moving lories so that they could climb up and offload the goods while the lorry negotiated the difficult terrain. This was completely an accepted moral by Kenyatta as long as you were not caught. And if by bad lack you were caught, Kenyatta often in his radio address explained that you mention not his name in your defense. What kind of moral foundation did this trend impact on our modern society overtaken by corruption and especially central province people who are notorious in breaking banks and other economic installations? Is it not the cause for the fear, suspicion and tension in the country today?
2007 GENERAL ELECTION AND THE NYAKUA BUSINESS
It was all about Nyakua. What happened in last year’s general election has now raised the fear of the Kenyan people to another level. Over 350,000 people were displaced from their homes, their properties destroyed and many killed in the most brutal manner. Reasons? “Nyakua”. The government tried to nyakua the elections and democratic rights of the Kenyan people. Did this have t to happen? Could it have been prevented? Can it be prevented in the future? Could it happen again? According to the way the situation has been handled by the government, many now feel it is no longer whether there will be another crisis in Kenya, rather when it will happen. Of course, Kenyans are optimist people and talk against this fear. But many IDPS have complained that distribution of humanitarian aid has followed the “Nyakua” policy in favor of one community. That the state resources have been used to construct police stations to protect one community against the other. Most state corporations and parastatals are headed by people from one community. The coalition government has failed to portray true power sharing. The Mt. Kenya leaders including the justice and constitutional affairs minister continue to incarcerate innocent young people who were rounded up in Kisumu, Eldoret, Kericho, Coast and in Kibera, Nairobi. These were mainly the opposition strongholds. The big guys responsible for the mess are still free and earning millions in office. Nothing is being done to fix the past inequalities and injustices. In reality, to the common Kenyan, it implies that the policy is still the same: to silence the rest of Kenyans and continue the policy of Nyakua. The fear, justified or not, is that the past mistakes have not been addressed. Until the past is confronted honestly, the fear will continue to build momentum and explode at a vulnerable time.
The “Nyakua” policy Today
The fear now is no more pegged on Kikuyu-phobic, than in the fear of the system itself. The “NYAKUA PHILOSOPHY” has now embedded itself in the system and in every social-economic fabric of the country to its core. Many point to the recent repossession of Grant Regency Hotel and its mysterious sale plan as part of the “Nyakua” ideology. Another good example is our own mps and leaders who are among the best paid in the world and yet they resist every suggestion that their pay be subject to taxation like every other Kenyan. They earn up to a million shillings monthly while the ordinary 50% of Kenyans earn average of 10,000 shillings a month. The rest of the population up to 40% in the rural, earn nothing at all. Leaders can no longer be reliable. They change their stance every day depending on who takes them home for dinner and what and how much they can grab for themselves in a particular party affiliations. Today they will talk about new constitution, but next day, they go into oblivion of silence watching to see what they will gain from that step. It is no longer about the interests of the country but self greed and self interests. It is about grabbing for one self in the shortest time possible. It is about “Nyakua” business.
YOU CAN ONLY ACHIEVE AS MUCH AS YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS. BUT REMEMBER, WITH GOD NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE, SO KEEP DREAMING. PSALMS 37:5; HE SHALL BRING IT TO PASS
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Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:09:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: david bett
Subject: Re: KENYATTA’S NYAKUA PHILOSOPHY WILL DESTROY KENYA