My encounter with Eliud Mathu, a man of many firsts

Eliud Mathu.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Then he became the first Kenyan ambassador, first Kenyan to sit in Parliament, first Kenyan to register a national political party and first controller of State House.
  • For his top performance, Mathu earned full scholarship to then best university in black Africa, Fort Hare in South Africa.

On this day – September 27 – 31 years ago, I began a three-day serialisation in the Kenya Times newspaper about a man of many firsts. His name is Eliud Mathu.

It was a personal achievement because Editor-in-Chief Philip Ochieng gave instructions that I immediately be removed from the list of correspondents and put on the payroll as a “permanent” employee.

Allow a little digression. I have put “permanent” in quotes because I always muse why people would say they are on permanent jobs when life itself isn’t permanent!

Not long ago, there was even a coveted job in this country with title “Permanent Secretary”, yet the head of state would dismiss you on a whim and via a one o’clock radio announcement!

 *** ***

Mr Ochieng, wasn’t just pleased that my story was so detailed that he ran it for three days, but that I had “discovered” that the old nationalist – he was 87 at the time – was alive, when media had concluded he had “departed to be with the Lord”.

In those days, there was no “Google” and the internet was yet to get to Kenya.

So, when famous people like Mathu went out of the public radar, everybody concluded they had crossed over to the other world! Anyway, Mathu finally passed on in May 1993. And here is his story of many firsts.

 In 1926, the colonial government allowed an alliance of churches to establish a secondary school for Africans in Kikuyu, Kiambu. The school was named “Alliance” in the spirit of the founders.

The first class had 27 boys. In reality though, they were not boys. The youngest, Mathu, was 20 years old, which made him be given admission number 20. Seven of the “boys” were in their 30s.

It reminds one of Bob Collymore’s “boys club” where the youngest was journalist Jeff Koinange in his 50s!

Incidentally, Jeff’s stepfather, Mbiyu Koinange, aged 20-something, was one of the Alliance 27 “boys”.

So old were the “boys” that Alliance headmaster, Rev G.A. Grieve recorded in his diary of their first day in school: “The boys looked very big when they put on the school uniform of khaki shorts and a shirt”.

Mathu turned out to be one of most brilliant in the class.

His class teacher would write in his school leaving certificate: “Mathu was the cleverest boy who had passed through our hands. He couldn’t be kept back. He was the type who decided to learn shorthand and mastered in three months a course which takes a year.”

For his top performance, Mathu earned full scholarship to then best university in black Africa, Fort Hare in South Africa.

Going AWOL

He was first Kenyan to be admitted to the university.

On graduation, Oxford University wanted him for a master’s degree, but Rev Grieve convinced the colonial governor that Mathu comes back to Kenya to be the first African to teach at his old school as way of inspiring other Kenyans.

After a stint in the classroom, Mathu proceeded to Oxford.

On return to Kenya, the colonial government gave Mathu another first.

He was appointed the colony’s ambassador to Ethiopia, the first diplomatic appointment for a Kenyan.

He told me that when in Addis Ababa serving in the court of Emperor Haile Sellasie, Ethiopians nicknamed him the “Black White man” because he was only African in that capacity.

World War II broke out and Mathu was quickly recalled home since Italians had overrun Addis Ababa.

Later, the British – with great contribution of Africans, including my father – chased Benito Musolini’s army from Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, the British got Mathu another job. In 1944, he was nominated the first African to sit in Legislative Council (Legco).

That made Mathu the first Kenyan to have the title: “Honourable Member” (Mheshimiwa).

 *** ***

At the same time, agitation for the independence of Kenya was taking a bigger militant and more nationalistic angle. Yet the white settlers and government could not allow Africans to form a political party.

Mathu, who the British could trust as an MP, conspired with Africans to register a deceptively educational national organisation called Kenya African Study Union (Kasu), which, in reality, was a political outfit that later became the Kenya African Union (KAU), and finally Kenya African National Union (Kanu).

Just before independence, another first came for Mathu. He landed a job in New York. Today’s sheng generation say kwenda majuu (finding honey abroad) – that is before Donald Trump happened!

Mathu became first Commissioner at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa then based in New York before relocation to Addis Ababa.

Come independence and Jomo Kenyatta offered Eliud Mathu the job of Controller of State House/Private Secretary to the President – another first.

Mathu told me his first instinct was to decline the job and remain in New York.

He accepted the offer when he remembered it is Jomo Kenyatta – then known as Johnstone Kamau – who took him to Alliance on motorbike on the day of admission, March 20, 1926.

Shared history

Early in the morning, Jomo had dropped his younger brother James Muigai to be admitted to Alliance as student Number One.

When controller of State House, only Mathu, Koinange and cabinet minister James Gichuru whose story I will tell next – would casually relate with the head of state, owing to their long shared history.

 At one time Mathu went AWOL (away without official leave), and President Kenyatta allowed him to be “suspended” from official duties for two years.

But that did not stop them meeting as old buddies – to have bite of mutura ...and a chaser.

Postscript: It is sad that determination on succession cause on the estate of Eliud Mathu (that is the legalese way of saying sharing of wealth) has been pending in courts 27 years after he died.

Maybe – it is just a suggestion – His Lordship the Honourable Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court David Maraga – Mr Uhuru Kenyatta seems to forget there is another president in the country – will have the matter of Kenya Number One – Eliud Mathu – determined, before His Lordship vacates office in January next year.