Tom Mboya Memories

Tom Mboyo One Of Kenya Founding fathers, Also A Pan Africanist, Trade Unionist And Educationist, Who Made Barack Obama Sr To Travel To USA

Tom Mboya was born on August 15, 1930 in Kenya. In 1946, he went to the Holy Ghost College (later Mang'u High School ), 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 Britain's Trades Union Congress to attend Ruskin College , University of Oxford, where he studied industrial management. Upon his graduation in 1956, he returned to Kenya and joined politics. He was elected in the kenya Legislative Assembly

He was elected secretary of the African Caucus (called African Elected Members Organization - AEMO) and continued a campaign for  independence, as well as seeking freedom for Jomo Kenyatta and other political prisoners. 

In 1959 during the All African people's conference in Ghana, organised by Kwame Nkrumah. Mboya was elected  as the conference chairman at the age of 29. 

He used his incredible diplomacy skills to get support for the independence movement from foreign countries.

In 1961, Jomo Kenyatta was released and together with Oginga Odinga and Mboya, they formed the Kenya African National Union. 

It negotiated with the United Kingdom and colonial government to set conditions for Kenya's independence in 1964. Mboya was instrumental in the talks.

He also designed the Kenya flag

Immediately after Kenya Independent, he was appointed by the New Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta as the first Cabinet Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs

Tom Mboya intelligence, charm and oratory won him admiration all over the world.

Mboya worked with president John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr to create  educational scheme label Airlift Africa. Which was geared towards awarding scholarship to Eastern Africa students to studied at the US universities. It was on this ticket, president Obama's fathers, Obama Sr got a scholarship to study at the US. Where he met Ann Dunham Obama's white mother's at the University of Hawaii. Kenyan Noble laureate Wangari Maathai was also recipient of the scholarship. 

Mboya was gun down on the 5th July 1969, while leaving a pharmacy. A guy name Nahashon Njoroge was convicted for his murder and later hanged. 

After his arrest, the killer asked "Why don't you go after the big man? Who he meant by the "big man" was the late president Jomo Kenyatta and his Kaimbu mafia. Since Mboya was seen as a possible contender for the presidency.