BY MACHARIA WANGUI
At the slopes of Aberdares, about 116km from Kenya’s capital Nairobi, is Kinyahwe village in Kinangop constituency, Nyandarua county.
The sleepy little known village is in Tulaga scheme, from where the famous Tulaga Bus Company draws its name from. Residents are teased for travelling in “lorries”.
Kinyahwe is home to one of the greatest mathematicians in Kenya, John Bosco Wainaina Kahugu, who has authored several books for secondary school curriculum and yours truly, renowned vernacular journalist Macharia Wangui.
In this village, 1km from the Njabini–Ol Kalou Road C 69 and next to Tulaga Secondary School, stands a more than 100-year-old building that holds rich history in Kenya’s colonialism and fight for independence: The Kinyahwe colonial courthouse.
If you approach any resident and request them to take you to ‘Igoti-ini’ translated to “the court”, they will easily do so as it is well known.
And if the walls could speak, they would tell the sad stories of the atrocities and torture meted out on detained freedom fighters during the fight for Kenya’s land and independence.
Those who were captured in the Aberdare forest, the hideout for the Mau Mau, were frog-marched to the underground section of the building to face the wrath of the colonialists for disturbing the peace, while it was actually the British colonialists who were the intruders.
The building was a fortress, built to stand any intrusion and is said to have been owned by the Royal Family, a claim that has not been substantiated.
The floor is covered in wood, largely because timber was easily and readily available but also to keep the occupiers warm as Kinangop is quite a cold area. The glasses, though some shattered, were of high quality.
Other small houses that were adjacent to the main building still stand, though the cell in which freedom fighters were locked up was demolished.
The building has had other useful utilization since the colonialists left.
The Judiciary established a court there at a time people used to walk from far and wide to attend court in only three stations: Nyahururu, Naivasha and Kinyahwe.
The government used the building before migrating to more developed areas of Nyahururu, then under Nyandarua district, Naivasha and later to Ol Kalou at the onset of the devolution system.
The village elder has to-date tried all he can to ensure the documents that were left during the migration are intact. I am informed there is a more than 70-year-old safe but no one knows its contents. It’s such a fortress that no one can break it.
The building is significant because when the provincial administration took over, the District Officer was housed there. When the provincial administration left, the Administration Police was housed there, improving security in the area.
The building is significant to the residents there because many, including my mother (RIP), benefitted.
When the AP left, the village elder liaised with the District Officer and allowed people who couldn’t afford to rent, then about Sh300 to Sh500, to live there.
We were given a room to live in until my mother passed away and we relocated to my grandma’s house. Many others benefited from the scheme and to date, some people still live in the building, though their stay could be short-lived, if indeed a proposed museum project will be actualized.
Though the building is dilapidated at the moment due to neglect by successive governments, a call was made by the remaining freedom fighters to rehabilitate and preserve its history for future generations.
Speaking to vernacular Mt Kenya TV in 2019, Mau Mau War Veteran Association pleaded with the government to rehabilitate the building to preserve its history. The request was heard.
Former Nyandarua Governor Francis Kimemia started the process of rehabilitation by erecting a fence around the two-acre piece of land.
THE PUSH AND PULL
But a battle is brewing between leaders and Nyandarua residents regarding the museum, awakening the rather sleepy-little known village.
While the previous administration of Governor Kimemia allocated funds to honor their request, his successor, Dr Moses Kiarie Badilisha, has other ideas. He has decided to shift the proposed museum from Kinyahwe to Ol Kalou, a not so welcome idea by some residents.
During a visit to the Central Kenya region, leaders requested President William Ruto to help establish a museum and to their surprise, he announced the national government has already allocated Sh50 million to facilitate the project
Indeed, if the museum is established at Kinyahwe, it will be a huge win for the community in terms of development as the area is surrounded by a colonial village and the residents there stand to benefit.
Already, the access road to the Kinyahwe area, where the proposed museum will be (Tulaga- Gathara- Biginano road) is being upgraded to bitumen standard.
When you approach Nyandarua county from the south, Kenton in Magumu, to the far North (Karamton in Ndaragwa), you will notice a significant number of colonial buildings. Most of them were taken over by farmers’ cooperative societies.
For example, 200 metres from Kinyahwe Court is a building locals used as a dryer for pyrethrum. Today Tulaga Farmers Cooperative Society has installed a milk cooler. It should be the case with the museum to spread development.
Macharia Wangui is a broadcast Journalist in Kenya.
machariawangui@gmail.com
0713491552
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