Margaret Kenyatta was the daughter of Kenya’s founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his first wife Wahu.
She was only three years old When Mzee Jomo Kenyatta left for England
The next time she saw him was at the age of 18 in 1946 when he arrived in Dagoretti from England accompanied by his former colleagues in the KCA who included Jesse Kariuki ,Mbiu Koinange and James Njoroge .
Although Margaret had very little memory of her father when he left ,she had no difficulty in recognising him since he used to send his photographs.
The first statement she heard her dad utter immediately he arrived was :
“Although i have been away a long time,i have not forgotten my people and my language.”
It was also the first time Margaret ,who was about to take her exams at the church of Scotland Mission school to Join Alliance Girls High School ,heard her dad talk about independence.
In 1952 Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and other leaders of KAU were arrested after the declaration of the state of Emergency .
Because ,all independent schools in Kenya were closed during the Emergency including Githunguri Teachers college where she worked as a teacher ,she moved back to Nairobi where she joined the freedom movement.
In prison,Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was allowed only one letter a month ,and out of all the piles of letters he recieved he would only select Margaret’s.
She made good use of this opportunity by passing stories of what was happening inside Lokitaung to the Drum ,the only magazine which befriended Kenya’s independence struggle.
When Mzee Jomo Kenyatta came out of prison and placed under house arrest in Lodwar ,Maralal and Kiambu ,Margaret became more of his secretary ,always standing by his and taking notes whenever he addressed the press.
Mzee trusted Margaret so much that whenever there was a lady he was interested in ,it was Margaret he used to send.This was before he married Mama Ngina.
In 1960 she ventured into politics as a nominated councillor representing Dagoretti which was part of Kiambu.
She joined competitive politics in 1963 and was elected a councillor in Nairobi.
She spent some time in Israel around this time ,as a special guest of Golda Meir,Israel’s Foreign Minister later Prime Minister , who was a very good friend of her father.
She served as Mayor of Nairobi between 1970 and 1976 when she retired to take up her new post as the permanent representative to the United Nation Environment Programme.
MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE.
