MY DAD TOLD ME NEVER TO JOIN THE POLICE OR TO BUY BACK OUR ANCESTERAL LAND - PROF KABIRU KINYANJUI

In this tell-all interview, Prof. Kabiru Kinyanjui, reveals his Dorobo ancestry and also tells of the dispossession his family was put through when their land in Tigoni was grabbed by white settlers while they were moved to a less fertile perch facing Ndeiya, a drier part of Kiambu. Later the family was moved to a detention village. Prof. Kabiru has powerful memories of the atrocious life in the village which were built after the Lari Massacre and the murder of Chief Waruhiu. He talks of deep divisions within families as a result of religion and ideological differences, all wrought by colonialism. The grabbing of his family land so riled his father that he forbid his children from ever buying the land back as that would amount to double jeopardy. His father also forbade him from ever joining the police because of the brutality that the colonial police meted out to Mau Mau survivors. It is a good thing he didn't join the police force; Kenya would not have had such a fine academician, technology policy administrator and business leader.