In those dem days tukiwa watoto, 70s and early 80s on a day like this hakuna fearshara ilikuaga inafunguliwa hadi tuskize hotuba ya Mtukufu Rais kwa radio while the few lucky ones like @Ka-Buda would watch on their wooden tv boxes with legs. Duka zote had flags, each and every shop would be adorned in National colours, na siku hizi je? kazi kaa kawa. What happened.
We also had a NEC tv and by 9am the hse would be full, watoto tunaketi chini kwa floor while adults occupied the seats, the late comers had no option but to stand, how we loved the soldiers marching, there was quick match and slow match, The Kenya Army band was good as we would hum to the melodies, ya slow match was going like this “si raeliii mapinduzi ya baba na mamaa, walimpea kweli ni leah …”
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SHUJAA
will he get a mention.
When Mandela came here in the 90s ndiye aliuliza Moi bibi ya kimathi iko wapi during Kenyatta day celebrations
The only thing that used to piss me off is being forced to go for those celebrations in school uniform… Halafu the stupidiest of the teachers forced us to go to school first anatake roll call…
Wangari Maathai. SHUJAA
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The proposed Kenyan Times Media Trust Complex and the protest by the Mothers of Political Prisoners back in 1992, were two mutually exclusive matters, the coincidence being that both were linked to Uhuru Park, and both were concluded in 1992.
The Kenya Times Media Trust Complex was a joint venture between KANU and Robert Maxwell’s then giant conglomerate Maxwell Communications.The proposed KANU-Maxwell Communications venture took off around 1988/1989, when the then Kenya Parliament underwrote the huge loans that the Kenya Government would have to take to finance it’s part of the joint venture.
The Kenya Time Media Trust Complex was meant to be built on the entire length and breadth of Uhuru Park, all the way from Haile Selassie Avenue to Kenyatta Avenue, comprising two twin Towers that would have been the highest in Africa at the time, office complexes, apartments, shopping malls and a Statue of Moi raising his trademark Rungu.
As I remember, Uhuru Park was fenced off with corrugated iron sheets beginning around mid-1989, till March 1992.
Enter Professor Wangari Maathai and her Green Belt Movement, and their lone-ranger battle to stop the venture on environmental degradation grounds.She was an irritant to the establishment back then.
Bilateral and Multilateral Donors suspended foreign aid to Kenya in 1990, the country was restless socially and economically, plus there were the looming multi-party elections of 1992, so Moi was under rather tremendous pressure from different quarters as you can imagine. He weighed his options and decided to concentrate on the economy and the crucial looming General Elections of 1992.
Moi therefore swallowed his pride and threw in the towel regarding the proposed Kenya Times Media Trust Complex:Professor Maathai and her Greeen Belt Movement triumphed in the matter.One morning in March 1992,the corrugated iron sheets that had fenced off Uhuru Park for three years were gone.
Incidentally the corrugated iron sheets had all along been branded in the KANU colours, and the trademark KANU Jogoo.
Robert Maxwell in turn died a disgraced man. His business empire,that is, Maxwell Communications came crumbling down in the mid-1990s thereabouts.He had even gone as far as stealing from the Pension funds of staff that worked in his Companies.
The Rest is History.