Review: Mbugua Githere- A handful of Terere

This novel is excellent for the simple reason that its rare for anyone who is remotely influential in Kenya to write about how they did it. Presumably because the wealth acquiring wasn't straight.

I was interested to know how Mbugua survived the Emergency period of 1952-56 because my understanding was that it was ruthlessly enforced in Central with kipande required for daytime movements and curfews keeping you company at night. Collaborators were also key Mau Mau targets. Answer, he greased the homeguards' palms; gave money to the Mau Mau cause and lent his lorry to the colonial masters to go and arrest Mau Mau in the forests.

As with many entrepreneurs, he started with one idea and grew his confidence and financial muscle from there. Terere, is a naturally occurring weed in many parts of Central, but was in his formative years, popular food with Wahindis. He'd help his mother pick, carry and sell the stuff to Parklands, Ngara and those areas. So its true some Kiuks did benefit from the proximity to Nai, but when you read what they had to endure (under payments, chased away without being paid), you can't really call it an advantage. Having survived the emergency and colonial period, the Uhuru day found him and others like his friend Njenga Karume very liquid and they were able to partake in the only sport of the day. Acquiring assets being disposed by Odiero. Of note for NSE investors is that he at one time held 6% of the then recently listed Pan African.

The book suffers in having been written by a fictional writer. Mwangi Gicheru of "Across the Bridge" fame has brought his fictional style to bear and IMHO it spoils the book. The best biographers are journalists who know how to record and tell events. 2ndly, as with Ndegwa's autobiography, A handful of Terere suffers from poor editing.

Overall, its a page-turning rags to riches tale of a man who (again like Njenga Karume), was barely literate. Its very important that we get more of these types of books because they become a later-day reference for our grandkids.

A review of Duncan Ndegwa's Walking in Kenyata struggles

As a quick preamble, there are very few useful books out there that give Kenyans a glimpse of how their government actually operate. Secondly, there are very few books that attempt to bridge the gap between the mythological beginnings of many a Kenyan tribe and their history pre the mzungu's invasion.

This is one of few that I have read that does attempt to do both.

As I suspect it is the case with many of my posts, the book could have done with extensive editing to give it some chronological order. I really enjoyed the first half of the book which looks at the history of Kenya at the beginning of last century has lots interesting detail on Agikuyu practices before we fell hook line and sink for mzungu-culture; very funny bits about growing up in those and especially when they first encountered whites and the various struggles against colonialism in its virulent stages when you could get shot for looking at a white lady!

The second half of the book suffers from neglect from a good editor. The story jump back and forth from the period after Uhuru to years downstream to the Kapenguria jail period and so forth. It does include a lot of nuggets. Moi apparently offered 7 GEMA Mps the VP post in 1978 before settling on Kibz. Kibz would have been minister of finance (to replace the perpetually drunk James Gichuru) earlier than he did but for his closeness to Tom Mboya (the two jointly did the 5 year development plan of 1965). His explanation of why his civil service commission allowed civil servants to own businesses is laughable and shouldn't go any further.

Ndegwa idolises Kenyatta, but in the end paints the old man as nothing better than a tyrant who punished those who didn't show absolute sycophancy. Recalling m-o-1's rule the Kanu circus of late 80s when Mps were treated like schoolboys, you can say he was just following mzee's nyayo.