By TED MALANDA Monday, August 4th 2014 ( http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/campus/article/2000130396/the-military-genius-kenyans-never-heard-of?pageNo=1 )
Let us reflect on the exploits of the bravest and greatest Bukusu hero of all time.
But that man is not Moses Wetang’ula, Michael Wamalwa Kijana or Musikari Kombo. He is not even the legendary Masinde Muliro or Elijah Masinde of the Dini ya Musambwa fame. He is Mukite son of Nameme.
Mukite was a man of unrivalled steel and courage imbued with a finer sense of nationhood than most of our leaders combined. He was a military general without peer; warrior who would have sorted out the Westgate circus in minutes.
I know the barrel-chested men who bark orders in the Kenya Defence Forces are saying, “What has this idiot been smoking If Mukite son of Nameme was so dangerous, how come Military Intelligence don’t have him in their files”
Well, let me tell them a story. In days gone by, say 1800, long before the white man came and cheated us that walking half naked was a bad idea (thank goodness we have wizened up and gone back to walking butt-naked in Nairobi), the Teso were fierce warriors.
The Bamia, as they were called, would brazenly raid Bukusu villages in broad daylight. They would burn homes, loot and destroy crops and property, leaving the land desolate as the hapless Bukusus fled into exile, at some point to Port Victoria where Abanyala men crudely climbed on their wives.
And then came Mukite son of Nameme. Beating drums of war, he went to the territories where his kinsmen had fled and appealed to them to return home. “Return to your country; do not leave your country in ruins,” he cried.
When people hearkened to his call and came back home, he radically reorganised military training and organisation. He built forts and manufactured serious weapons – spears, bells, knives, headgear and clubs.
He taught them cutting-edge military skills, such as ‘the art of jumping high up in the air in the battlefield’.
Most vital, he taught them guerilla warfare, discouraged his troops from fleeing like chicken and divided his army into three divisions – intelligence, an advance division and a rearguard.
The result The hitherto cowardly warriors stayed put, hammered the Teso and recovered their land. They thrashed the Abatachoni, Abasamia, Abawanga and the Luo of Ugenya.
Heck, they even beat they daylights out of the fierce Wakwavi (Uasin Gishu Masai), whom they drove ‘weary and bewildered into the Kuywa River’.
Seething with rage, Mukite led his warriors to Port Victoria and taught the Abanyala who had so callously raped married Bukusu female refugees a lesson.
By the way, I only learnt about Mukite in Professor Gideon Were’s classic, A history of the Abaluhya of Western Kenya, which a friend bought for me in London. Kenyan bookshops don’t stock it because Kenyans only read the history of white people, you know.
