Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and President Uhuru Kenyatta. [Photo: sde.co.ke]
Details have emerged of how Mzee Jomo Kenyatta stroke a deal with the British Government in order to become president.
According to reports, Kenyatta entered a deal that would require him not to interfere with the pattern in which the colonial government allocated land to white settlers after the country’s independence in 1963.
By vowing to do this, the British would declare him the first Kenya’s independent leader.
According to the ‘Kenyans’ online news platform, the late Sir Michael Blundell, a white settler who acted as a mediator between Kenyatta and the British government possessed the papers bearing the secret pact.
The Britain had decided that Kenya would become independent in 1960 but it appears that they had not settled who was to become the president.
Those poised to have had an upper hand to take up the country’s leadership mantle included Tom Mboya who according to Blundell, was a very strong Trade Unionist and extremely wealthy for he had a lot of American friends.
The second one was Oginga Odinga who was described by the white settlers as ‘demagogic’. He enjoyed great support from the rural African setup but the fact that he was under the sponsorship of the Soviets factored him out.
Ronald Ngala was supported by the settlers and he is described as ‘eccentric’. What however worked against him was the fact that he could not muster enough numbers from where he stood on his coastal setup, to hold the new country together.
The last possible candidate was Jomo Kenyatta who is described in the paper as ‘the wild card in the native politics of the colony.’
The colonialist explored this possibility and as he was in prison, it was easy for them to table their demands and have him drop all his anti-white extremism.
Kenyatta later on reportedly told local leaders that he had entered into a binding agreement with the whites that land change in this country will only happen on a willing buyer willing seller basis.