Historian Charles Hornsby recalls the first two years of the Jomo Kenyatta presidency in jarring words, “As both a charismatic leader and founding father, Kenyatta needed no philosophy of rule. He was the king, or the elder of the nation who had suffered for his people, and his right was divine in 1965.”

He goes on, “There were even no references during the 20 October celebrations of Kenyatta Day to his “Last Supper” with colleagues before his arrest. His style was no longer that of a man of the people – he was a man apart, to whom access was carefully controlled by bodyguards and supporters.”  

His five comrades-at-arms in the infamous Kapenguria trials got steadily marginalised while the founding president steadily transformed not just into a lion, but an imperial monarch. Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o recalls those heady days in a 2007 paper titled Profiles of Courage: Ramogi Achieng Oneko, “Post-independence politics led to differences between Oneko and Kenyatta that became somehow irreconcilable. Oneko strongly believed in championing the interests of the poor, particularly with regard to access to land.”