mzeiya
Elder Lister
One day in the early 70s, broadcaster Leonard Mambo Mbotela was invited for tea at the Panafric Hotel. While there, they encountered a self-entitled patron who kept banging the table while screaming at the waiters. The friend urged Mbotela to speak about the incident on one of his radio shows. The idea of "Jee Huu Ni Ungwana?" was born. His boss at VOK, Richard Koske, gave him 15 minutes on Sundays after lunchtime news. But the program became so popular with the masses that the time slot was doubled, as common wananchi started sending in contributions. That is the show for which nearly every Kenyan knew Mbotela.
What you didn't know was that the Mbotelas had Malawian roots. At the tail end of the slave trade, a ship carrying slaves captured from Malawi was cruising through the East African coast, headed for Europe to sell them. Incidentally, the decree ending the trade had just been issued, so the British Navy intercepted the Arab slave ship and released all the slaves in Mombasa, including Mbotela's great grandfather and his brother. There was no chance of risking a voyage back to Malawi, because rogue slave agents still roamed the seas, and in any case, there was no credible means to get back to Malawi, when nearly the only means of transport for such travel was by sea.
After settling in Freretown, Mombasa, Mbotela's great grandpa married Halima, a Zanzibari woman, with whom they sired Mbotela's grandfather Juma, among others. Juma himself later married a woman from Seychelles, with whom they had James Mbotela, Leonard's dad, among others. Upto that point, you can't begin to allocate a nationality or tribe to the Mbotela clan! And by this time, two generations of the Mbotelas had joined the British missionaries working in Kenya and Africa, travelling the world with them and becoming some of the earliest consumers of Western education in Kenya. This is how Leonard was born and raised in Ukambani and speaks fluent Kikamba.
For a long time, Leonard's predicament during the 1982 coup has come to define him and his work. Coup plotters, Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo, in the early hours of 1st August 1982, kidnapped a VOK driver at Broadcasting House, Nairobi, and forced the fellow to take them to Leonard's house in Ngara. He was driven to the studio and forced to announce that Moi had been overthrown and that the Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, was now President. When Army men finally stormed in later in the day, Leonard, hiding under a table, was lucky not to be shot as he raised his hands, because the troops led by Maj Gen Mohamoud Mohamed were shooting every moving object. Leonard says that when Gen Mohamed entered the studio, saw and identified him, the only question asked was "wewe Leonard, ni mambo gani hiyo unatangaza leo asubuhi?"
But for months after that, Special Branch and State House operatives kept calling to threaten him on the phone, believing that Leonard was not merely a victim of the coup plotters, but had probably been in on the entire plan. The harassment only ended in 1984 when Lee Njiru, Moi's communication guru, called Mambo and asked him to report to State House to join the Presidential Press Service immediately. It is then that Mambo discovered that his father, James, had been Moi's teacher at Tambach. PPS gave Mbotela the chance to dine with the high and mighty and travel with the President.
But that wasn't the first time he was hobnobbing with the top dogs.. Mambo (who by the way had acquired this name in his childhood for being a very talkative kid) had been a close friend of the great JM Kariuki too. One day in the early 70s, JM invited him to be the MC at his event in Nakuru. Mambo arrived two hours late. JM asked why. The journalist narrated how he had suffered in a bus on the way to Nakuru, as it developed mechanical issues. JM asked Mambo to go to the showrooms in Nairobi, identify a car and send him the invoice. Mambo went back, chose a brand new Subaru and JM wrote a cheque to the dealer. Mambo thought the cheque would bounce. It didn't. He got his first car! So you can imagine what it felt for him when JM was murdered. Oh, and when Mboya had been shot in 1969, Mambo was also first on the scene and the first member of the public to tell the gathered crowd that the random man lying dying next to a Mercedes car was Tom Mboya!
And now a fun fact; During his regular Salamu za Vijana shows on Radio, Leonard had this fan who lived in Eastlands and would call in on the show. But the man liked to say "I am calling from California, USA", before he and Mbotela would laugh it off, with Mbotela pointing out to the man that he knew his exact Eastlands "California" hideout. Incredibly, when the City Council built a housing estate there, launched by Mayor Margaret Kenyatta, they named it California!
Another fun fact;
Mbotela's uncle Tom, who had dabbled in politics through Kenya African Union (KAU) and was a nominated councillor in Nairobi, was murdered by the Mau Mau in 1952 along Jogoo Road, for collaborating with the colonial authorities. A day later, Ambrose Ofafa was murdered in similar fashion. Both gentlemen had housing estates named after them, Mbotela Estate and Ofafa Estate in Eastlands.
Leonard Mambo Mbotela tells his story in a simple, easy-to-read way, while also consistently painting the dignity and class that is a hallmark of the Mbotela clan. The book is also relatively small, so you won't take long to finish it. But one Kenyan legend has told his story. We hope for more.
~ Author
