My favourite passage from the many books written by the great African writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who passed away on Wednesday at the ripe age of 87, was from his 1981 book Detained. It was about his detention for a year from 1977 to 1978 by the Kenyan government headed by President Jomo Kenyatta, which continued for some months under Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi. I have quoted this passage a few times in the past decade, whenever a Nigerian government agency changed its name.
The writer known as James Ngugi changed his name in 1970 to Ngugi wa Thiong’o, saying he dropped a colonialist name. Kenya’s cantankerous Attorney General Charles Mugane Njonjo was speaking in parliament on some issue related to the University of Kenya, where Ngugi was a lecturer in Literature. Suddenly, he veered off the theme and said, “Concerning the Department of English [sic], I would like the Assistant Minister who is present here today to ensure that only people with the right qualifications are appointed to teach in it. Some people who are teaching in this faculty [sic] think if you call yourself Kamau wa Njoroge, you are a very important person, or a lecturer with a lot of know-how. You no longer call yourself James Kamau. You call yourself Kamau wa Njoroge…”
It was a poorly-veiled innuendo. Everyone knew who he was referring to. May Ngugi’s great Africanist soul rest in perfect peace.
