HE Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta

Some of the most enduring photographs of Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta’s childhood capture him as a young boy with his father, Kenya’s founding President, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta with visiting heads of states and diplomats. 

They are pictures of a boy mingling with powerful men and women shaping global history, unaware that decades later, it would be him holding the pen and the responsibility of writing his country’s destiny.

What might have appeared at the time to be simply the privileged childhood of the son of Kenya’s first president would, decades later, become part of the story of Kenya’s political succession. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta would go on to become Kenya’s fourth President, serving from 2013 to 2022.

His journey began in the maternity wards of the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi, at approximately 11:10  a.m. on 26 October 1961, when Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta was born to Jomo Kenyatta and Mama Ngina Kenyatta. He was Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s second-born child and first-born son with Mama Ngina. In accordance with Kikuyu naming traditions , he was given the name Muigai, named after his paternal grandfather, Muigai wa Kung’u.

His given name, Uhuru, carries an  unmistakable connection to Kenya’s political moment. The Swahili word means freedom, reflecting the aspirations surrounding the country as it moved towards independence.  

Uhuru Kenyatta is one of the four  children of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Mama Ngina Kenyatta, Mzee’s fourth wife. His siblings include Christine Wambui Pratt, the firstborn daughter ; Anna Nyokabi Muthama Kenyatta; and Muhoho Kenyatta, the youngest child of Jomo Kenyatta and Mama Ngina.

Uhuru’s family rural home in Ichaweri village, Gatundu South Constituency of Kiambu County was an important part of his childhood and remained closely associated with the family throughout his father’s presidency.

The popular assumption that he simply grew up inside State House does not tell the whole story. 

Uhuru himself clarified that his family lived in Gatundu, and that State House was a place he visited rather than simply the home in which he spent his entire childhood.  

His childhood nevertheless gave him an extraordinary proximity to Kenya's political establishment. Photographs from the period show him alongside his father and other national leaders, offering glimpses of a young boy growing up at the centre of the country's political history.

For the young Uhuru, however, getting to school was itself part of the experience. He spent much of his childhood at the family home in Gatundu, reflecting his father Jomo Kenyatta’s preference for life away from the capital. As a result, Uhuru and his siblings, Muhoho and Nyokabi, made the long journey from Gatundu to their schools in Nairobi each day. They were driven by a General Service Unit (GSU) officer, making the daily commute a familiar part of their childhood routine.

Uhuru’s formal education journey began in 1964, at the age of three, at Lady Northey Nursery School, located along State House Road in Nairobi. He later proceeded to Loreto Convent Valley Road, which at the time operated as a mixed institution.

He moved to St. Mary’s School in Nairobi in 1971, where he continued his education through to his secondary years. Founded in Parklands in September 1939 by the Archdiocese of Nairobi, St. Mary’s began as a preparatory school before moving  in 1946 to its present 85-acre site at St . Austin’s [Parish] in Muthangari. Over the years,  the school became one of Kenya’s notable educational institutions, producing generations of prominent alumni.

As a student at St. Mary’s, Uhuru was much like any other teenager , balancing his academic commitments with the social and sporting life of school.  Beyond the classroom, he took an active part in school games and played rugby as a winger for the St. Mary’s Nairobi team. 

In 1979 he graduated from St Mary’s after his Advanced-level examinations marking the end of his formal schooling in Kenya.

Uhuru would travel to the United States to attend Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he studied economics and political science.

He graduated from Amherst in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, completing an educational journey that had taken him from a nursery school along State House Road, through Loreto Convent, the long daily journeys from Gatundu to St. Mary’s, and ultimately to the classrooms of an American liberal arts college. 

After graduating from Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1985, Uhuru Kenyatta returned to Kenya and became involved in the family’s extensive business interests. For much of the 1980s and early 1990s, he maintained a relatively low public profile, although his political interests were beginning to emerge.

His first notable political involvement came ahead of the 1992 General Election, when he campaigned for Kenneth Matiba, the Ford-Asili presidential candidate, who was challenging President Daniel arap Moi. His association with the opposition at the time was relatively brief, and by the mid-1990s Kenyatta was increasingly drawn towards the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU).

In 1997, Kenyatta formally entered elective politics. He became chairman of the KANU branch in Gatundu and contested the Gatundu South parliamentary seat, a constituency historically associated with his father, founding President Jomo Kenyatta.

The attempt was unsuccessful. Kenyatta lost to Moses Mwihia, a relatively little-known architect who ran on the Democratic Party ticket. The defeat appeared to mark a setback for the young politician, and accounts of the period indicate that he briefly retreated from active politics.

Yet the defeat did not end his political career. Instead, his association with President Daniel arap Moi would soon open a path from local politics to the national stage.

In 1999, President Moi appointed Kenyatta chairman of the Kenya Tourism Board. The appointment was significant: it brought the relatively inexperienced politician into a prominent public position and gave him his first major national-level role.

As the question of Moi’s succession began to dominate Kenyan politics, Kenyatta’s political fortunes changed rapidly. In 2001, Moi nominated him to Parliament. He was subsequently appointed Minister for Local Government, placing him directly within the Cabinet and at the centre of national political affairs. He was later elected one of KANU’s vice-chairpersons.

The speed of his rise attracted considerable attention. Kenyatta had moved from a largely private business life to Parliament and Cabinet within a few years, despite having limited experience in national electoral politics.

The succession question intensified as Moi approached the end of his constitutionally permitted tenure. Within KANU, several senior politicians were positioning themselves to succeed him. Kenyatta’s emergence  as a potential  successor therefore amazed  many of the party’s established figures

On 28 July 2002, Moi publicly declared Uhuru Kenyatta his preferred choice to take over KANU’s leadership after his departure from office. The declaration was a turning point. Moi was effectively backing a 41-year-old politician with limited experience against several senior KANU figures who had spent decades in government and party politics.

The decision  triggered a major crisis within  KANU. Senior politicians resisted to Kenyatta’s nomination left the party or openly challenged the succession process . The controversy culminated in KANU formally choosing Kenyatta as its presidential candidate for the December 2002 General Election.

Kenyatta entered the 2002 election as KANU’s presidential candidate and Moi’s chosen successor. His candidacy represented one of the most consequential political transitions in Kenya’s post-independence history. Moi was retiring after 24 years in power, while Kenyatta was attempting to retain the presidency for KANU. 

The election, however, produced a decisive victory for Mwai Kibaki and the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Kibaki won approximately 62 percent of the presidential vote, compared with about 31 percent for Kenyatta.

Kenyatta’s defeat marked the end of his first presidential bid, but not the end of his political ascent. His rapid journey from businessman and local KANU politician to Cabinet minister and presidential candidate had established him as a central figure in Kenyan politics, setting the stage for the political career that would eventually take him to State House.