In Memory Of Tom Mboya - 52 Years Down The Line

It has been over five decades but Kenyans still hail Tom Mboya, a statesman whose life ended on Moi Avenue courtesy of an unknown gunman. At 38 years of age, Mboya had achieved a lot locally and gained admiration internationally. His memories are preserved in a statue in Nairobi's Central Business District.  

Thomas Joseph Mboya was hailed for his unmatched oratory skills, intelligence, focused leadership style, and ability to charm his way into seemingly hostile grounds. The gentleman from Ol Donyo Sabuk was 38 years old at the time of his death, a period within which he had achieved more than what many take a lifetime to attain. 

Although the gunman remains unknown over five decades later, it is believed that Mboya was stopped in his tracks as part of a plot to curtail communism in Kenya. This is explained in the tell-all book  ‘The Reds and The Blacks’  by one time US Ambassador to Guinea William Attwood, and which was banned in Kenya in 1966.

It is interesting to note that British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had the news of the brazen assassination even before Kenya's national broadcaster Voice of Kenya (VOK). Mboya was married to Pamela, the daughter of a fellow politician, Walter Odede with whom they had five children; Maureen Odero, Susan Mboya, Lucas Mboya, and twin brothers Peter and Patrick. Patrick died at the tender age of four while the remaining twin, Peter lost his life in 2004 after being involved in a motorcycle accident. After Mboya's death, Pamela had another child with her late husband's brother Alphonse Okuku named Tom Mboya Jr. 

As the case remains unsolved, Kenyans only have a statue to look at as the only memory of a leader who never achieved his prime after being felled inside a chemist on Moi Avenue (formerly Government Road). His remains rest in a mausoleum on Rusinga Island which was built in 1970.