Tom Mboya
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Tom Joseph Odhiambo Mboya (August 15, 1930 - July 5, 1969) was a Kenyan politician during Jomo Kenyatta's government. He was born near Thika town in what was called the White Highlands of Kenya. Mboya was assassinated on July 5, 1969 in Nairobi. A street in Nairobi is named after him.
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[edit] Education
Mboya was educated at various Catholic mission schools. In 1942 he joined a Catholic Secondary School in Yala, in Nyanza province, St. Mary's School Yala. In 1946 he went to the Holy Ghost College, Mangu, where he passed well enough to proceed to do his Cambridge School Certificate. In 1948, Mboya joined the Royal Sanitary Institute's Medical Training School for Sanitary Inspectors at Nairobi , qualifying as an inspector in 1950. In 1955 he received a scholarship from the [British Trades Union Congress] to attend Ruskin College, Oxford, where he studied industrial management. Upon his graduation in 1956, he returned to Kenya and joined politics at a time when the British government was gaining control over the Mau Mau uprising.
[edit] Politics
Mboya's political life started immediately after he was employed at Nairobi City Council as a sanitary inspector in 1950. A year after joining African Staff Association, he was elected its president and immediately embarked at molding the association into a trade union named Kenya Labour Workers Union. This made his employer suspicious, and in 1953 he was dismissed. He however was able to continue working for Kenya Labour Workers Union as a secretary-general, before his studies in Britain. Upon returning from Britain, he contested and won a seat against incumbent C.M.G.Argwings-Kodhek to become the first African to join the colonial Legislative Council. In 1957, he became dissatisfied with the low number of African leaders (only eight out of fifty at the time) in Legislative council and decided to form his own party, the People's Congress Party.
At that time, Mboya developed a close relationship with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who like Mboya was a Pan-Africanist. In 1958, during the All-Africa Peoples Conference in Ghana, convened by Kwame Nkurumah, Mboya was elected the Conference Chairman at the tender age of 28.
In 1960, Mboya's People's Congress Party joined with Kenya African Union and Kenya Independent Movement to form Kenya African National Union (KANU) in an attempt to form a party that would transcend tribal politics, and as a preparation for the Lancaster House Conference held at Lancaster House in London where Kenya's constitutional framework and independence were to be negotiated. As secretary general of KANU, Mboya headed the Kenyan delegates. After Kenya's independence in 1963, Mboya became Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, and later Minister for Economic Planning and Development. In this role, he wrote the important Sessional Paper 10 on Harambee and the Principles of African Socialism (adopted by Parliament in 1964), giving a model of government based on African values.
[edit] Death
He retained the portfolio as Minister for Economic Planning and Development until his death when he was gunned down by Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge, who was convicted for the murder and later hanged. After his arrest, Njoroge asked: "Why don't you go after the big man?"[1]. Who he meant by "the big man" was never divulged, which has led to much speculation, as Mboya was seen as a possible contender for the presidency. During Mboya's burial, a mass demonstration against the attendance of President Jomo Kenyatta led to a big skirmish, with two people shot dead. The demonstrators believed that Kenyatta was involved in the death of Mboya, to eliminate him as a threat to his political career, though this is still a disputed matter.
Mboya left behind a wife and five children.
