African Books

THE VOICES OF THOSE WHO have played critical roles In leadership and administration in Kenya are rarely heard after they have left the stage. Many have carried the memories of their personal stories with them to the grave. Gone with them are significant elements of the collective story, and the institutional national memory. It has been left to commentators and sundry writers to frame them in various ways, depending on the intended purposes for each frame. In this volume, Eliud Mahihu breaks the ranks with those who served in his times, to give a candid rendition of his experience in the corridors of power, spanning wide times across the British colonial rule, the Jomo Kenyatta regime and the Daniel Arap Moi years. Mahihu was especially in his element in high level decision making spaces during the 15 years of the Jomo Kenyatta government The reader of the Mahihu story has a rare opportunity for incursion into this first-hand narrative on the life and times of one of the people who were at the centre of power in some of Kenya’s most defining moments and happenings. The rendition is crowned by eye-witness accounts and participatory narratives that capture the Jomo Kenyatta State House, and the eventual passing on of the country’s founding president on 22 August 1978, and the aftermath.