Sir Michael Blundell. He identified Kenya's problem as racial
integration, ethnic suspicions, the land question. PHOTO | FILE | NATION
MEDIA GROUP
I interviewed Sir Michael Blundell at his home in Nairobi’s Muthaiga estate a few months before his death on February I, 1993.
Sir
Michael had come to Kenya in 1925 and settled as a farmer. Later he
became a politician and was at pole position in the power play and
intrigues attendant to Kenya’s independence in 1963.
I
met him when he was 85 and confined to a wheelchair due to the vagaries
of old age. He was a humorous man. On shaking his hand, he had
commented in half jest: “Why come to interview me when I have gotten
shorter. My memory has grown shorter just like my height!”
It
was his way of making fun that he was in a wheel-chair yet assuring me
his memory was still intact, which I confirmed in a short while.
We
hit it off immediately. It was about nine in the morning and I knew the
old man wasn’t about to let me go soon when he instructed his cook to
prepare lunch for the two of us to be served at one.
Good for me because I enjoy the company of the old and wasn’t in a hurry to leave.
LEBRADORS
The
Englishman, much as he loved his two Labradors, extended his courtesies
to me by chasing them away when he realised I wasn’t comfortable with
the canines creeping into my space. I only like dogs when they are
locked in the kernel.
We sat in
the veranda where the old man and daughter Suzzie, who lived in
England, had just been going through his memoirs published posthumously
in the title: Love Affair with the Sun
When
I told him I had come to record the story of his life, he made an
uproarious laughter and said: “Then be prepared to sit here for the next
10 years. Why don’t I just give you the story of the role I played on
the road to Kenya’s independence?”
WIND OF CHANGE
“Good enough, sir”, I replied.
This
is the story as he told it to me. Early in 1960s, British Prime
Minister Harold McMillan made the famous “Wind of Change” speech where
he declared the UK intended to give independence to all her colonies.
British
settlers in colonial Kenya who had come to believe Kenya was their
eternal home went berserk at the announcement, and threatened to make a
unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) from Britain, the same
white settlers in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) had done in 1967
before independence came to the country 13 years later with Robert
Mugabe as Prime Minister.
A UDI
for Kenya would have meant bloodshed in a massive scale coming at a
time when Africans had taken up arms to demand independence.
SOBER MINDS
British
Intelligence recommended that level-headed moderates among the British
settlers be picked and mandated to negotiate a middle-ground position
where independence would be granted to Africans, but white settlers also
be accommodated in the new Kenya. Sir Michael was top in the list of
sober minds picked to negotiate the middle-ground position.
His
first task was to convince the whites that Jomo Kenyatta, then in
colonial imprisonment, was the most suited African leader to support and
do business with.
It was a
swim upstream waterfall, Sir Michael, told me. The mere mention of the
name Kenyatta to the white settlers attracted a riot. The latter would
have loved to strangle him with bare hands given the earliest
opportunity.
Neither did the
British authorities have any love lost for Kenyatta who the colonial
Governor, Sir Patrick Renison, had described as “leader unto darkness
and death”.
Sir Michael told me
he talked to the Governor long past midnight seeking permission that he
visit Kenyatta and talk to him in prison. Feeling sleepy and no more
tobacco to burn in his pipe, the Governor said to him: “Well, go try
your luck with that bastard and give me a report”.
SETTLER'S CONCERNS
Alone
in his prison cell, Sir Michael told Kenyatta of the settlers’ concerns
and why they thought he was the devil-incarnate. After a considerable
pause, Kenyatta, Sir Michael told me, said: “Well, I have no bitterness
with the white man, and all evil they think I will visit on them could
just be a figment of their imagination. If the black man can have his
rights in his own country, I would have no problem at all with a white
man living in this country and partnering with us to make our country
great!”
With that assurance,
Sir Michael made a report to the British Governor: “Kenyatta is a man
who, on balance, may well be a constructive force in this country … I am
certain he should now be released and that, if he wishes to enter
politics, we must allow him to do so.”
Upon
Sir Michael’s recommendation, Renison cabled the colonial secretary in
London to say: “My recommendation made with a heavy heart is that you
make an announcement in the House of Commons (British Parliament) that
Kenyatta will be set free and that we, possibly, will engage him in
finding a solution for Kenya.”
SOLUTION
Sir
Michael’s next headache was finding an amicable solution to the land
question. He had since been appointed minister for Agriculture in the
caretaker government leading to Kenya’s independence.
The
land problem mainly revolved around how to get back the land forcibly
seized by the white settlers and what to do with Kikuyus uprooted from
their lands in central Kenya and living as squatters in European farms
in the Rift Valley where they worked.
Sir
Michael recommended white settlers who wished to remain in the country
not be forced to leave, but those who wanted to leave be allowed to
dispose of their land on a willing-seller, willing-buyer arrangement. He
also came up with what was called “One million-acre scheme” where the
independent Kenya government would be loaned money to buy land from the
departing whites to resettle Africans in two categories of small-scale
and large-scale land holders. The aim was to retain large-scale farming
which was the mainstay of the Kenyan economy, but at the same time
resettle thousands of landless Kenyans displaced by white settlers.
KIKUYU SETTLEMENT
But
a bigger problem loomed in the horizon. The Kalenjins who had assumed
land in the bigger Rift Valley belonged to them were not in a mood to
entertain Kikuyu settlement in the region.
A
leading Kalenjin politician, William Murgor, had made the position
clear during negotiations for Kenya’s independence in London, where he
declared: “If Kikuyus are settled in the Rift Valley, we will blow the
whistle (meaning war cry) and have them ejected. They belong to Central
Province and should vacate Rift Valley the soonest possible.”
Back
home, a clandestine movement had come up in Rift Valley known as Kamau
Maithori (Kamau in tears) which threatened violence on any “outsider”
acquiring land in the Rift Valley. Intelligence reported the Kikuyus,
too, were regrouping to “go back to the forest” and revive Mau Mau
movement if they weren’t given back their land in central Kenya and not
allowed to buy land in the Rift Valley.
KALENJIN POLITICIAN
Sir
Michael once again kept busy. British Governor, Sir Malcolm McDonald,
assigned him to search for a moderate senior Kalenjin politician to
negotiate with the Kikuyus on how to co-exist in the Rift Valley.
Sir Michael discovered Daniel arap Moi and got him working with Kenyatta.
In
a secret cable to the secretary of the colonies in London, MacDonald
had said: “Kenyatta and Moi have been persuaded to get closer. As a
result, Moi now goes direct to Kenyatta instead of coming to me with his
petitions as President of the Rift Valley region, and may hold the key
to cooling tempers in the volatile Rift Valley.”
FAIR DISTRIBUTION
Sir
Michael’s last assignment at independence was to find an amicable
settlement to the question of fair distribution of the national cake.
The small communities fearful of domination by the two largest
communities at the time – the Kikuyu and the Luo – had come together in
Kadu party and wanted Kenya organised as a US style federal state with
six semi-autonomous regions.
Sir
Michael threw his weight with the Kadu axis but their bid was out-voted
by the majority Kanu. Sir Michael told me that while in the corridors
of the Lancaster House in London during the independence talks, he had
told Kanu Secretary- General Tom Mboya that one day he will regret why
he was so much opposed to the Majimbo constitution which guaranteed fair
distribution of the national cake.
kamngotho@yahoo.com
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