From Holy Bible to bullets: How church paved way for British rule

Achieng’ Oneko. [File, Standard]

Oginga Odinga, as he was then known, was very emphatic about business operations, while I was not. Later, both of us would compromise our stands to restart with a better understanding. Publishing and printing consumed a great deal of my time and as a result I missed crucial Municipal Council meetings.

In addition, I failed to attend the usual KAU committee meetings in the evenings. My whole concentration was on the public activities and I felt unhappy when decisions were made in my absence.

A challenge arose from an observation by Eliud Mathu, who was a nominated Member of the LEGCO, after he toured Nyanza Province. During one of the committee meetings, Mathu commented that while he was in Kisumu town, he tried to meet independent leaders to discuss local affairs but there were none. However, he eventually traced Oginga Odinga, who was operating from a room in a charcoal yard which, in his opinion, was not a good area for the kind of business that had brought him there. I was not amused.

I stated that the area might not have been good enough compared to a large godown in a Nairobi railway yard taken over by the Gikuyu General Co-operative Society that had been swept clean through theft and resulted in its closure.

I rubbed salt in the wound by informing Mathu of my membership number in the society. All the same, in spite of my well-informed rejoinder, Mathu had made a point that prompted me to travel home to meet Oginga Odinga.

Oginga had mooted the idea of joining forces for greater business in Kisumu through the Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation. He observed that it was going to be impossible for one man to make headway in Kisumu, our area, where every educated person was geared to service in the government.

I smiled, simply because he was echoing my thoughts when I had appealed to him to hasten his resignation from teaching. I had accompanied him to the High Court in 1946 when he was pleading with the chief secretary to be allowed to retire. I myself had problems retiring two years earlier. All civil servants were still under military regulations, which placed them under very strict controls.

We agreed to meet at 4.00 am, so that I could travel back to Nairobi after that. “It is you who should return home to join me so that we can realise our development plans in business,” he said as we began our discussion.

My reaction was plain, and based on the condition that I would pursue my political activities in the area. Oginga answered that I should be aware of the prevailing war situation and conditions, and that the local administration was very wary about politics in Nyanza. He added that business must come ahead of politics, because we needed money to do politics.

My response was candid and calm. I told him that economics was a part of the political realm. The deal was closed. From that day, we organised to transport the printing press to Kisumu and agreed that I would relinquish my responsibilities in Nairobi. We also agreed that I would forward the name of Ambrose Ofafa as my replacement on the Municipal Council in Nairobi.

Within a matter of a year or less, we had embarked on the construction of Luo Thrift Ramogi House, the first building in Kisumu to be owned by Africans. We invited Apah Shahib Pant, India’s first High Commissioner to Kenya, to open it.

Luo loyalists to the colonial government were well known. I had encountered some of them. I wrote about them in my newspaper ‘Ramogi’ and mentioned them by name, although I knew that I had to be careful about what I said in the paper. In Luo tradition, you can deny an elder food, but you cannot deny him respect.

This is his birthright. In one incident I described some county councillors as “shaggily dressed,” and said that they looked like persons working in a rural slaughterhouse. They took great exception to the description, but I escaped condemnation because I had drawn attention to the need for leaders to be ready and smart at all times.

I agonised a lot about the colonial presence. The harbingers who presaged the coming of foreigners to our land carried with them the Holy Bible and hymnbooks. They explained their purpose as enlightening our people to know God.

Soon, traders and businessmen arrived. They carried weapons that they used to annex property and protect both themselves and the property. They declared Kenya an imperial protectorate under the British Crown in 1895 and a Crown colony in 1920. The third influx was that of the settler community, which came to claim permanent settlement in Kenya. The Colonial Administration did not envisage possible dangers likely to occur as a result of the White man alienating land in the country for free, and calling it his.

All resistance by the owners was ignored.

The visitors did not pause for a moment to wonder why Africans were resisting European occupation. In most instances, across the entire continent, African resistance was suppressed with extremely violent retaliatory action. This happened during the invasion of Uyoma in 1899, leading to many deaths when a whole village was wiped out.

The massacre of the Nandi in 1890–1906 was another glaring case of unprovoked foreign intrusion and violence against indigenes. The Nandi people were brutally forced to succumb to the powerful pressure exerted by the British and to give up their land.

Stories were told of settlers who even scolded the Governor of Kenya for allowing the native populations to come to Nairobi. There was the case of a settler farmer who complained that he was being forced to slow down his car on the road to avoid damaging it by hitting natives.

His concern was not any harm that may be inflicted upon a native human being, or loss of life, but damage to his car.

The history of political development in Nyanza was hindered by the involvement of Christian church leaders, whose strategic purpose was to isolate the area from political agitation elsewhere in the country. They manipulated the people to form the Kavirondo Welfare Taxpayers Association with wider sinister implications.

One European who played multiple roles in this region was the burly Scotsman who was given the sobriquet of “Owen of Kavirondo.” His hand was everywhere in social, religious and political activities in the region.

Archdeacon Walter Edwin Owen of Kavirondo was an acknowledged leader of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) for many years. He arrived in 1904.

His operational headquarters was in the present-day Sunrise in Maseno. He spoke the Luo language and appeared well-versed in the customary laws and practices of both the Luo and Luhya people here. But on one occasion, he ran into a comical incident when he encountered a group of excited young men who were dragging away a young girl, trying to force her to accompany them. The girl seemed resistant.

She was trying to make it clear that she did not want to go with them. The gigantic Scotsman came down from his motor vehicle and challenged the young men to leave the young woman alone. The captors paid him no heed and insisted on dragging the woman. Owen was angered and threatened to call the police to arrest them.

The young men did not understand why he was unaware that brides did not openly walk to their groom’s homes on their first day of marriage. They had to be ‘persuaded’ in this manner. The priest did not know that the bride was meant to perform a mock resistance, even after dowry was paid and her parents had acquiesced to her marriage. The young men simply laughed off his ignorance and continued on their way. The dauntless Scot was not discouraged. He reported the incident to the DC, citing “the harassment of a young woman.”

He wished to replace the traditional practice of marriage with that of church marriage ceremonies that are prevalent today.

The renowned clergyman-cum-politician played a significant role in the politics of present-day Nyanza and Western provinces in the early part of the 20th Century.

I first saw him in Uyoma. He had arrived with a group of people who were digging and collecting stones from a portion of land that is now part of my homestead in Kunya Beach in Uyoma. My next encounter with him was in 1934 when he visited Chianda Sector School in his capacity as inspector of schools.

He was concerned that many children were behind with the payment of school fees. I was one of the culprits because I had failed to pay my fees in time. I remember him saying in good Dholuo, “Achieng’ Oneko, ariembi chutho. Kiny idwogi gi chudo (Achieng’ Oneko, I am sending you off. Come back TOMORROW with the fees).”

The following year, 1935, Owen performed a very important Christian ceremony on me when he baptised me, Richard. I do not think he remembered that I was the same boy he had suspended from school the year before for non-payment of fees.

My last meeting with this sturdy priest came about because of an order from my friend and principal of Maseno School, Edward Carey Francis, who wished to have me confirmed in the Anglican Church. The Bishop of Mombasa, the Most Rev. Crabb, was visiting Nyanza Province in 1939 to perform sacred ceremonies as part of keeping alive his contacts with his flock in the region. Maseno was high up on his list of places to visit.

Francis noticed that my name was missing from the list of those to be confirmed. He immediately sent for me to find out why I was not on the list.

I told him that I could not present myself for the ceremony because I had misplaced my baptism card. He was extremely angry at this flimsy excuse. He gave me a letter to take to the Archdeacon at Sunrise Station but, fortunately for me, he was away on safari.

I returned to school with the letter and refused to report to the principal. I had already developed a recalcitrant attitude towards the church. I should have known that I was fighting a losing battle. He met the stone collector ahead of me and saw from the register the date on which I was christened. He sent me over to collect the duplicate of my card, ready for the confirmation.