OUR EDUCATION IN UGANDA WAS CUT SHORT AND WE WERE SENT BACK TO KENYA - PETER ITOTIA

One of the greatest but unremarked tragedies that occurred after the State of Emergency was declared was the curtailment of educational opportunities for the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru youths. It is no wonder that Mau Mau youths who emerged from the forest couldn't be given jobs since most of them were illiterate. In this interview, Mau Mau veteran Peter Itotia narrates how he and his fellow students were rounded up in Uganda where they had gone to pursue education, cheated that they would be transferred to schools in their localities in Kenya, only for them to be detained by the police and forcibly sent to farms where their parents worked for white settlers. Itotia also tells of how he took the oath, and how he went into the forest, following an unexpected murder of an innocent man who accidentally came to face with Mau Mau fighters who in turn considered him a risk and therefore decided to finish him off. He also talks about land and how their dream of acquiring it went up in smoke.