KENYA

Among African nationalist leaders who had studied in Europe or America in their youth, Jomo Kenyatta (1890s–1979) was unique. He took his doctorate at the London School of Economics and Political Science with a fascinating study called Facing Mount Kenya: the tribal life of the Gikuyu. The war of liberation (Mau Mau) of 1952–58 made him the most famous ‘prison graduate’ of his generation. A towering personality with a pragmatic approach to politics he became president at Kenya's independence in 1963. Hailing from Kiambu in Kikuyu, he enhanced the role of the Kikuyu in Kenyan politics: most of his ministers came from the same district. He called his political programme ‘Harambee socialism’ (‘Let's pull together’). Refusing to attach himself to any organized religion of the Church, he nevertheless ‘believed in God’ and his political speeches were studded with Biblical references.

His successor as president, Daniel arap Moi, grew up with that most fundamentalist of Kenya missions, the Africa Inland Mission and faithfully kept to that community, preaching in the chapel whenever invited to do so, taking for granted that any of his public meetings be opened with prayer to God. He found a Swahili term for his own political ideology, Nyayo, meaning ‘footsteps’, eventually defined as ‘Peace, Love and Unity’. His Nyayo-ism, Moi claimed, is derived from three sources: African traditions of public affairs; Christian faith; and, pragmatism in governmental politics. As a devoted Christian he regarded the Church as part and parcel of the government.