Kenya's founding leaders: who they were and where to find them

Walk down Nairobi's Kimathi Street and you pass a bronze fighter with a rifle. Turn onto Moi Avenue and a man in a suit stands outside the national archives. Up the road, in the courtyard of the KICC, a seated statue of Jomo Kenyatta looks out over the city he governed. Each of these figures is honoured, and each is argued about, often by the same Kenyans on the same day.

Who founded Kenya? Not one person. Independence was won by a generation: forest fighters, trade unionists, students sent abroad, party leaders who negotiated in London, and women who organised at home. Some went on to rule for decades; several were killed young. This page gives short, balanced lives of the best known, with what each achieved and what each is criticised for, and tells you where to stand. We have kept the tone of a good history teacher: facts, sources and the controversies named. Our independence page tells the story of 1960 to 1964 itself.

Jomo Kenyatta, about 1897 to 1978

Born Kamau wa Ngengi in Kiambu, he became general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and spent most of 1931 to 1946 in Europe, studying anthropology at the London School of Economics, writing Facing Mount Kenya (1938) and taking part in the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester alongside Kwame Nkrumah and W.E.B. Du Bois. He led the Kenya African Union from 1947, was convicted at Kapenguria in 1953 in a trial widely seen as unjust, and spent nearly nine years in prison and detention in the north. Released in 1961, he became prime minister in 1963 and president in 1964, serving until his death in Mombasa in 1978.

Admirers credit him with holding a new, divided country together, with a policy of reconciliation toward settlers, steady economic growth and the harambee self-help movement that built thousands of schools and clinics. Critics point to the accumulation of land and wealth by his family and inner circle, the concentration of power around the presidency, the banning of the main opposition party in 1969, and political killings under his rule that were never solved. Where to stand: his mausoleum in the grounds of Parliament, seen from outside, and his statue at the KICC.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, about 1911 to 1994

A teacher and businessman from Bondo in Siaya, Odinga was elected to the Legislative Council in 1957 and from 1958 campaigned openly for Kenyatta's release, which made him a national figure; in 1961 KANU refused to form a government until Kenyatta was freed. He became Kenya's first vice president in 1964, broke with Kenyatta over land, foreign policy and the direction of the economy, resigned in 1966 and founded the Kenya People's Union. The party was banned in 1969 and he was detained for two years. His attempt to start a new party in 1982 helped prompt the law that made Kenya a one-party state, and in 1991 he was a founder of the movement that brought back multi-party politics.

Rivals painted him as a communist and a tribal leader; supporters saw a man who chose principle over office. His memoir is Not Yet Uhuru (1967). Where to stand: Kang'o ka Jaramogi, the family mausoleum and resting place at Bondo, where his son Raila Odinga, prime minister from 2008 to 2013, was also buried in 2025.

Tom Mboya, 1930 to 1969

A trade unionist by his early twenties, Mboya led the Kenya Federation of Labour during the Emergency, when most African political organising was banned, and became a brilliant negotiator and speaker. With American supporters he organised the Airlift that took hundreds of East African students to U.S. colleges from 1959 to 1963, the first 81 landing in New York on September 11, 1959, with the Kennedy family's foundation paying for flights in 1960. As minister for economic planning he steered Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965, the founding statement of Kenya's 'African socialism'.

He was shot dead on Government Road, now Moi Avenue, on July 5, 1969. A gunman was convicted and hanged, but who ordered the killing has never been established, and the assassination set off violence and deepened divisions between communities. Critics saw him as too close to the West and too ambitious; many Kenyans believe he would have been president. Where to stand: his statue on Moi Avenue near the Kenya National Archives, unveiled in 2011, and his mausoleum on Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria.

Dedan Kimathi, 1920 to 1957

Born in Nyeri, Kimathi became the leading commander of the Mau Mau forest fighters in the Aberdares and called himself field marshal. Captured in October 1956, he was tried and hanged at Kamiti Prison on February 18, 1957, and his grave has never been found. To many Kenyans he is the symbol of the armed struggle. To loyalist families he was a feared enemy, and accounts from within the movement describe harsh discipline and the killing of fighters accused of disloyalty. Where to stand: his statue on Kimathi Street, unveiled in 2007, and Nyeri, where a university bears his name. Our Mau Mau page tells the war in full.

Ronald Ngala, 1923 to 1972

A teacher from Kilifi, Ngala led KADU, the party of smaller communities that feared domination by larger ones and argued for majimbo, strong regional government. He led the government in 1961 and 1962 while KANU refused office, then took KADU into KANU in 1964 and served as a minister. He died after a road accident in December 1972. His legacy is the argument for devolution, which Kenya finally adopted in the 2010 constitution. Ronald Ngala Street in Nairobi carries his name.

Daniel arap Moi, 1924 to 2020

A teacher from Baringo and a co-founder of KADU, Moi became vice president in 1967 and president on Kenyatta's death in 1978, ruling for 24 years. His Nyayo era, nyayo meaning footsteps, brought school milk, new universities and a reputation for stability in a troubled region. It also brought the 1982 law making Kenya a one-party state, detention without trial, torture of dissidents in the basement cells of Nyayo House, the Goldenberg export scandal of the early 1990s, and deadly violence around the 1992 and 1997 elections that a judicial commission later linked to politicians. Under pressure at home and abroad he restored multi-party politics in 1991, and in 2002 he handed over power peacefully after his chosen successor lost. Where to stand: the Nyayo Monument in Nairobi's Central Park.

The Kapenguria Six and the radicals

Kenyatta's co-accused in 1952 were Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng' Oneko. Their later lives show the range of independence. Ngei became a long-serving minister and Kubai an MP and assistant minister. Oneko served as information minister, then was detained after joining the opposition. Karumba disappeared on a trip to Uganda in 1974. Kaggia was sacked as an assistant minister in 1964 for demanding free land for the landless, joined Odinga's party and lived modestly until his death in 2005, and is often held up as the conscience of the generation. The Kapenguria Museum in West Pokot keeps the cells where they were held; our Kapenguria Six page tells the trial.

Pio Gama Pinto, a Kenyan journalist of Goan heritage, supported the Mau Mau networks in Nairobi, was detained from 1954 at Takwa on Manda Island and later restricted, and after independence became an MP on the left of KANU. He was shot dead outside his home in Nairobi on February 24, 1965, Kenya's first political assassination after independence. Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, a former detainee and populist MP who campaigned against inequality, was murdered in March 1975; a parliamentary inquiry pointed toward senior security officers, and no one was ever convicted.

The women of the founding generation

Independence histories have long left women out. Muthoni wa Kirima fought in the forest and was one of the few women to hold the rank of field marshal in the Mau Mau armies. Grace Onyango became the first woman mayor of Kisumu in 1965 and in 1969 the first woman elected to parliament. Wangari Maathai, a student of the Airlift years, built the Green Belt Movement and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize; she has her own page. Earlier still, Mekatilili wa Menza led Giriama resistance on the coast in 1913 and 1914.

A founders' day in Nairobi

One day covers most of Nairobi's sites on foot and by car: Uhuru Gardens on Langata Road, where the flag first rose; Parliament and the Kenyatta mausoleum; the KICC courtyard and rooftop; the Kimathi statue; the Mboya statue and the Kenya National Archives on Moi Avenue, which hold the Murumbi collection of African art; and the Nyayo Monument in Central Park. Go with a Kenyan historian rather than a driver alone. The best guides will give you the case for and against each leader, and let you decide.

For Odinga and Mboya, add western Kenya: Kisumu, Bondo and Rusinga Island make a two-day loop around the Lake Victoria shore, and Kogelo, home of the Obama family, is on the same side of the lake.

Further reading

• Charles Hornsby, Kenya: A History Since Independence (2012)
• Daniel Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963 to 2011 (2011)
• Oginga Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru (1967), and Tom Mboya, Freedom and After (1963), in their own words