Jomo Kenyatta (1894 – 22 August 1978) was the leader of Kenya from independence in 1963 to his death in 1978, serving first as Prime Minister (1963–64) and then as President (1964–78). He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation.
He was a well educated intellectual who authored several books, and is remembered as a Pan-Africanist. He is also the father of Kenya's fourth and current President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi's main street and main streets in many Kenyan cities and towns, numerous schools, two universities (Kenyatta University and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology), the country's main referral hospital, markets and housing estates are named after him. A statue in Nairobi city centre and monuments all over Kenya stand in his honour. Kenya observed a public holiday every 20 October in his honour until the 2010 constitution abolished Kenyatta Day and replaced it with Mashujaa (Heroes') day. Kenyatta's face adorns Kenyan currency notes and coins of all denominations (save the 40 shilling coin), but this is expected to change as Kenya's 2010 constitution bars the use of the portrait of any person on Kenya's currency.
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, as he was popularly known, was an important and influential statesman in Africa. He is credited with leading Kenya to independence and setting up the country as a relatively prosperous capitalist state. He pursued a moderate pro-Western, anti-Communist economic philosophy and foreign policy. He oversaw a peaceful land reform process, oversaw the setting up of the institutions of independent Kenya, and also oversaw Kenya's admission into the United Nations.
However, Kenyatta was not without major flaws, and did also bequeath Kenya some major problems which continue to bedevil the country to date, hindering her development, and threatening her existence as a peaceful unitary multi-ethnic state.
He failed to mould Kenya, being its founding father, into a homogeneous multi-ethnic state. Instead, the country became and remains a de facto confederation of competing tribes.
His authoritarian style, characterized by patronage, favouritism, tribalism and/or nepotism drew criticism and dissent, and set a bad example followed by his successors. He had the Constitution radically amended to expand his powers, consolidating executive power.
He is also criticised for having ruled through a post colonial clique consisting largely of his relatives, other Kikuyus, mostly from his native Kiambu district, Offspring of former colonial chiefs, and African Kikuyu colonial collaborators and their offspring, while giving scant reward to those whom most consider the real fighters for Kenya's independence. This clique became and remains the wealthiest, most powerful and most influential class in Kenya to date.
Kenyatta has further been criticised for encouraging the culture of wealth accumulation by public officials using the power and influence of their offices, thereby deeply entrenching corruption in Kenya. He is regularly charged with having personally grabbed and accumulated huge land holdings in Kenya. "The regime of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, was riddled with land grabbing which was perpetrated by him for his benefit and members of his family...between 1964 and 1966, one-sixth of European settlers’ lands that were intended for settlement of landless and land-scarce Africans were cheaply sold to the then President Kenyatta and his wife Ngina as well as his children...throughout the years of President Kenyatta’s administration, his relatives friends and officials in his administration also benefited from the vice with wanton impunity." a report by Kenya's Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission was recently quoted as saying:
His policies are also criticised for leading to a large income and development inequality gap in the country. Development and resource allocation in the country during his reign was seen to have favoured some regions of the country over others. His resettlement of many Kikuyu tribesmen in the country's Rift Valley province is widely considered to have been done unfairly. One of his famous sayings is the following : “When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.”