Leonard Mambo Mbotela during a media briefing in Nairobi on October 19, 2022.
Leonard Mambo Mbotela who died on Friday February 7, 2025, was a broadcaster’s broadcaster. He was the benchmark by which successive generations of broadcasters in East Africa measured their skill, expertise and professionalism.
It is impossible to think of one personality, outside politics, that has straddled different spheres of national life in Kenya in the way that Mambo did in a professional career of 60 years. From his signature programme, Je Huu Ni Ungwana? to his edge-of-the-seat football commentary, his contribution to music, as a presenter and an entertainer, Mambo was an all-round talent whose influence and popularly transcended the borders thanks to the power of radio.
Donald Mboleta, 81, and his wife Mary Mboleta 70 mourn the death of his elder brother and veteran broadcaster Leonard Mambo Mbotela at their Khamis Estate home in Changamwe, Mombasa County on February 7, 2025.
It was that influence as a credible voice that placed him at the centre of one of the most dramatic events in the history of independent Kenya.
On the morning of August 1, 1982, renegade soldiers from the Kenya Air Force commandeered Mambo from his residence at the Government Quarters, in Nairobi’s Ngara, and drove him to Broadcasting House to make the announcement on the Voice of Kenya that the government of President Daniel Moi had been toppled. His was the voice that the soldiers knew Kenyans across the length and breadth of the country recognized and trusted.
Listeners switching on their radio sets that Sunday morning were stunned to hear the distinct voice of Mambo declaring that the Government of Kenya was now in the hands of the military and police were under orders to remain as “raia” (ordinary citizens).
“I am Leonard Mambo Mbotela and I am here with Hezekiah Ochuka (coup leader). The government of President Moi has been overthrown. Police officers are now ordinary citizens. All prisoners have been released. Please stay at home and do not loiter in the streets.”
In between regular announcements on the coup, he was playing Tabu Ley’s hit Maze which was the only record available in the National Service studio. Ochuka wanted martial music to be played but such records could only be accessed in the Gramophone Library which was shut at that early hour of the morning.
Just before 9am one of the Air Force soldiers stormed into the studio frantically informing his comrades that they were under attack from Kenya Army officers.
Civilians caught up in the attempted coup of August 1, 1982 walk on the streets while displaying their ID cards.
“They all fled and left me in the studio alone. I was confused, not sure if I should follow them or stay put,” Mambo recalled.
When he emerged from his hiding place, he found an Army officer’s gun pointed at him.
“I am Leonard Mambo Mbotela and I work here,” he said, as he explained that he had been abducted by the mutineers and ordered to make the announcement of the coup at gun point.
Shortly after, he was back on air, this time with loyalist forces, announcing that the coup had been crushed.
“This is the Voice of Kenya, Nairobi. I am Leonard Mambo Mbotela and I am here with General Mahmoud and other officers from Langata and Kahawa Barracks. I would like to assure you that the Government of President Daniel arap Moi is firmly in control. The events of this morning should not worry you. The country is under the protection of the Nyayo forces,” he said.
The events of that Sunday morning and the subsequent days when he had to spend days and nights in the studio providing updates amidst a nationwide curfew would forever change the course of his life and elevate him into a national figure.
Leonard Mambo Mbotela, a descendant of a freed slave from Malawi who was among those rescued and settled in Freetown, was born on May 29, 1940 in Mombasa.
In his 2023 autobiography, Jee Huu Ni Ungwana? he writes that his great-grandfather, Mbotela Senior, was from the Yao Clan in Central Malawi.
“My grandfather had been captured to be sold as a slave but was later freed and started life at the Kenyan coast. He gladly accepted the offer to settle in Mombasa. I’m sure he did not have an idea of how to travel back to Malawi. Furthermore, having been forcefully separated from his family – and traumatised in the process – it was better to be a free man in a foreign land than being sold as a slave in Europe,” he wrote.
Leonard Mambo Mbotela’s book, ‘Je, Huu Ni Uungwana.’
The veteran broadcaster added that he could not claim to be a Yao since he was not born or brought up among them.
“I don’t know any relative there; and I have never lived with them. But that’s where my origin can be traced back to. None of my relatives ever attempted to trace our origins in Malawi,” he wrote.
His love for broadcasting started during his primary school days in Kericho where his father was a Deputy Principal at Kabianga High School.
He loved listening to his father’s radio and admired the pioneer broadcasters, Steven Kikumu, Simeon Ndesanjo and Joseph Kiema. He would hold a bottle to imitate a microphone and mimic his idols on the African Broadcasting Service (ABS), either reading news or presenting football commentary. After completing school in 1961, he worked as a printing press operator at Baraza Newspaper in Nakuru even as he remained a passionate radio listener and a salaams fan.
His big opportunity in radio came in 1964 while he worked in Nairobi as a correspondent for Baraza. A manager at the renamed Voice of Kenya asked him to report to the station to replace a presenter who had been fired for absconding duty. After a period of orientation and training, Mambo went on air presenting the entertainment show Salamu za Vijana in which he would read listeners’ greetings and play their favorite records from the emerging pop stars of newly independent Kenya, like Paul Mwachupa, Daudi Kabaka, Fadhili William and Fundi Konde.
In 1965 he launched the programme that would come to define his broadcasting career. Je Huu Ni Ungwana?, was a commentary programme where Mambo used anecdotes to call out reprehensible behaviour in society. Whether it was parents setting a bad example Infront of their children or bosses harassing their juniors in the office, or rude customer attendants, Mambo used his unique ability to satirize offensive behavior.
For many years, the programme was transmitted at the prime time 12.30pm every Sunday just as families were back from church and seated by the radio to listen to the week’s musings. Remember this was a period when radio was king; Voice of Kenya television operated for just a few hours in a day and in any case few households owned TV sets.
Je Huu Ni Ungwana? may have defined Leonard Mambo Mbotela but his broadcasting talents were not one dimensional. During his stint at the Presidential Press Unit from 1984 to 1991, he kept the country abreast of the Head of State’s ubiquitous travels across the country and the world. “I travelled the length and breadth of the country with Moi,” he once told this writer in an interview.
“I remembered we were once up in the north where the only shower facility was outside the rooms we stayed in and the Presidential guards had to keep everyone at bay as the boss had a shower,” he said with typical gaiety.
The rumour mill went into overdrive when his stint at the PPU ended in 1991 with claims that the president’s handlers had not been amused when Mambo referred to the President’s attire in one of his commentaries as “suti ile ile ya kawaida” (the same old suit).
In later years, he dismissed such allegations as pure gossip and pointed out that, in fact, he was recalled to the Office of the President after that where he served in the PPU until 1996.
Mambo had a gift for colorful radio commentary that brought home the excitement of football matches from the local Kenya Football Federation (KFF) league matches to regional and continental tournaments. Many fans will remember the finals of the 1982 Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) Senior Challenge Cup between Uganda Cranes and Kenya’s Harambee Stars played at the iconic Nakivubo Stadium in Kampala. Kenya led for much of the game until the hosts were awarded a controversial equaliser.
Harambee Stars players protested that the referee had awarded a goal when ball had not crossed the line. in the melee, Mambo told astonished listeners that legendary goalkeeper Mahmoud Abbas had punched the Minister for Social Service Paul Ngei who had taken it upon himself to persuade the players to get on with the game.
As it turned out, there was only some pushing and shoving as Kenyan players threatened to leave the pitch. But that was Mambo: often gung-ho when he held the microphone, Just as he had done all those years ago with a bottle in Kericho while imitating his broadcasting idols.
Mambo had a great love for music presenting his radio shows with the characteristic verve and enthusiasm, and was often on stage with the house band at his favorite social haunt in Nairobi West singing the classic rumba songs (zilizopendwa)
Leonard Mambo Mbotela retired from the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation on May 31, 1997, after 33 years of service but continued producing his signature Je, Huu Ni Ungawana? Programme..
