Former President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah at the White House in March 8,
1961. He had requested British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan to have
Kenya's first President Jomo Kenyatta exiled in Ghana. PHOTO | FILE |
AFP
Jomo Kenyatta would have been sent to exile in Ghana three years
before Kenya’s independence if efforts by pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah
had succeeded, documents from the British Prime Minister’s office show.
Concerned
by the inhumane conditions in which Mr Kenyatta was being held in
Lodwar by the colonial government, Dr Nkrumah, then the President of
Ghana, privately asked British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan to
transfer the Kenyan independence hero to Ghana.
Dr Nkrumah was in London to attend the Commonwealth prime ministers’ conference on May 2, 1960. Mr McMillan, however, gave the offer a guarded welcome and instead advised Dr Nkrumah to discuss the matter with the British Colonial secretary Iain Mcleod — a task the Ghanaian leader delegated to his Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Ebenezer Ako Adjei.
According to
the declassified documents, the two government officials held a meeting
on May 23, 1960 during which Mr Mcleod asked Dr Adjei to thank Dr
Nkrumah for his offer and also promised him that he would consult the
Governor of Kenya, Sir Patrick Renison.
This offer was eventually rejected by the Governor of Kenya who stated that “there could be no question of allowing Kenyatta to go into exile in Ghana or anywhere else at present”. According to the documents the colonial authorities feared that “Kenyatta’s establishment in Ghana would tend very strongly towards the presentation of both Kenyatta and Mau Mau as legitimate form of African nationalism”, something the colonialists wanted to prevent at all costs.
Mr
Macleod, therefore, directed that this decision should be communicated
orally to the Ghanaian Government through Sir Arthur Snelling, the
British High Commissioner to Accra, as follows: “As he undertook to Mr
Ako Adjei, he (Mr Macleod) has consulted the Governor of Kenya who is
most grateful for the offer of the Ghana Government to receive and look
after Jomo Kenyatta but regrets that he cannot take advantage of it
because of the serious security repercussions which any change in
Kenyatta’s present status would bring.”
RELEASE PETITION
Mr
Macleod also gave instructions that a copy of the statement by the
colonial Governor of Kenya on May 10, 1960 — in which the he reaffirmed
his decision to continue holding Mr Kenyatta by outlining the dangers he
posed to Kenya — be given to Ghanaian Government. The
Governor’s statement was in response to a petition calling for Mr
Kenyatta’s release presented to him at Government House in April 1960.
Three
weeks after receiving the petition Governor Renison stated that: “The
case of each person under restriction is regularly reviewed. Government
policy remains as previously stated that no person will be released
while he is a danger to security. The Governor remains of the view that
in prevailing circumstances, the release of Jomo Kenyatta would be a
danger security.”
He reiterated that Jomo Kenyatta was
the recognised leader of the non-cooperation movement which organised
the Mau Mau, perhaps in reference to the Kenya African Union.
He
concluded the statement by asking leaders who were campaigning for the
release for Mr Kenyatta to ponder deeply about what he had earlier said
about light and darkness and what the colonial Government was trying to
do for Africans and other people living in Kenya, adding that his
concern was “security and a full stop to the use of violence, witchcraft
and intimidation for political or any other ends. From the security
viewpoint, I think that Jomo Kenyatta’s return to political life in
Kenya at the moment time would be a disaster.”
A copy
of the above statement and the oral message from the colonial secretary
were delivered by British officials to junior officials at the Ghanaian
ministry of foreign Affairs in July 1960 after Minister for Foreign
Affairs refused to meet them claiming he was on sick leave while his
assistant minister claimed he was outside Ghana.
Although
Dr Nkrumah’s offer was rejected, sustained pressure from different
world leaders, the United Nations and civil right movements forced the
colonial government to soften its stance on Mr Kenyatta’s release.
On
February 21, 1961 the colonial secretary informed the cabinet chaired
by the British Prime Minister that although Mr Kenyatta had completed
his sentence, the Governor of Kenya saw it necessary to keep him under
restriction for his release could prejudice political developments and
security especially with the upcoming elections.
He,
however, told the cabinet that Governor Renison did not think that
Kenyatta should be kept under restriction for long and for that reason
he had already arranged for him to be moved to a healthier but remote
location in to erode “the exaggerated public conception of his
significance”.
The cabinet unanimously supported this
proposal by the colonial governor although there were fears that the
transfer of Mr Kenyatta to a remote place was likely to be criticised
internationally and also boost his influence.
PERMANENT HOUSE
In April 1961, Mr Kenyatta was transferred from Lodwar to Maralal where a two-bedroom permanent house had been built for him. In
readiness for his arrival, the colonial Government had posted Dr De
Carvallo at Maralal Hospital and gave him a house nearby.
Before
moving to Maralal Hospital, Dr Carvallo who was the Medical officer at
Eldoret Hospital had complained to his senior asking why he was being
sent to such a remote place.
Little did he know that
apart from his new role as the medical officer Maralal Hospital he had
also been appointed as a doctor to Mr Kenyatta and his family.
Mr
Kenyatta had more freedom at Maralal than Lodwar. He had a Somali
bodyguard and his home was guarded round the clock by two policemen.
On July 25, 1961 the colonial secretary presented a memorandum proposing his release before the cabinet.
He
informed the Cabinet that colonial policy committee had already
approved a proposal made by the Governor of Kenya that Mr Kenyatta be
transferred on August 1961 to Kiambu where a house was already being
built for him and that all restrictions imposed on him should be lifted
shortly after his arrival.
The decision to build Mr
Kenyatta a house angered some members of the central province advisory
council, who maintained that neither the house nor the land should be
handed over to Mr Kenyatta as a gift .
They argued that
“a dangerous precedent would be set and other ex-detainees would claim
similar privileges from the Government.” They were of the opinion that
if the house had to be given to Mr Kenyatta as a gift then it should be
handed through Ronald Ngala by pretending it was a gift from the Kenya
African Democratic Union. But the group was assured that both the land
and the house would remain government property.
Mr
Kenyatta was transferred to Kiambu in August 1961 and set free shortly
after the restriction order imposed on him was revoked by the colonial
government. The next hurdle on his path to leadership
was a prohibition in the colonial constitution which disqualified
anybody who had served a prison sentence of more than two years from
contesting in an election.
The colonialists were so
keen on using it to avoid Mr Kenyatta’s leadership at all cost by
delaying any amendment or revocation which would allow him to join the
Legislative Council. According to “Minute 6” of the British cabinet
meeting held on July 27, 1961 they feared that “if the prohibitions were
revoked Kenyatta would shortly be elected to the legislature and it
might then be difficult to resist pressure for his appointment as Chief
Minister.”
Mr Kenyatta would, however, eventually join the LegCo in 1962 after Kariuki Njiiri stepped down for him.
The writer is a researcher and journalist based in London
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