LAST WORD
On When Tomorrow
Comes
T
he day was Friday, 13th 1963, the
time was 7am and the day was
remarkable for the young Ochieng
as he had woken up to shouts of joy and
celebration and such bonhomie from his
father as he had never witnessed in his
short life up till then. It wasn’t long before the newspaper was
taken over as the official mouthpiece of
the settlers and a paper that specifically
fronted their agenda as the colonist
battled to retain control of a country that
the locals wanted back in the fight for
independence. These broadcasts were aimed at larger
tribal communities that were most
affected by settler activities and it was
aimed at African home guards and
collaborators that helped maintain British
rule and oppression by state controlled
misinformation.
Ochieng’s father was talking animatedly to
his mother and he then promptly left to go
and share whatever was making him and
his mother excited. The neighbor’s reaction
was a gem to see as he leapt in exhilaration
and hugged his puzzled wife. The newspaper was in effect the white
settler’s propaganda machine but there
were those colonists that felt that
independence was inevitable and preferred
to change the slave master relationship
that was Kenya to a more open society
shared by all. The government owned radio was to
add the television arm in 1962 and the
government by then had adequate control
of what people talked about and thought.
The government through the media had a
good share of the African mind.
Ochieng’s father and the neighbor then
trotted off in different directions to spread
the news and soon there was a gathering
of excited villagers all talking at once and
exhibiting behavior that was totally bizarre
to Ochieng who was watching all this
bemused.
It soon became apparent that nobody was
going to go to work that day as the bush
telephone, word of mouth, broadcasted
the news like wild fire and every recipient
of the news broke into song and dance as
they gave themselves what was to turn out
being a long celebratory weekend.
Apparently Ochieng’s father had heard on
his precious valve radio, which we were
never allowed to touch on pain of death,
that Kenya had been granted independence
from the colonial master Great Britain and
we were now independent.
Ochieng was musing on the fact that in
those days the radio was a trusted medium
of information, if you heard it on the radio
then it was God’s own truth and if you
further read it on the newspaper that was
likely to get to the village a week later,
God’s word was confirmed.
Those were the days of two newspapers,
one radio station and one television
station. For the newspapers there was The
East African Standard with its Swahili
counterpart Baraza that was set up in 1902
by an Indian entrepreneur.
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Another voice was clearly needed and in
1958 a new newspaper was established,
The Daily Nation with its sister Swahili
publication Taifa Leo, and this paper
soon established itself as the voice of the
locals and fronted their argument for self-
determination.
A radio service started broadcasting in
1924 purely as a service to the settler
community and this was a government
controlled medium that was used to
disseminate information to the settlers
and keep them in touch with the world.
By 1953 the colonial government began to
broadcast in selected vernacular languages.
The government was aware that there was
a growing agitation for independence and
radio was a powerful propaganda machine
that made governance easier.
If you take this background and remember
that the ability to read and write was sparse
you soon begin to see why the radio had
such an influence as it was the only way
that Africans got to know what was going
on in that distant place called Nairobi
where the white man governed from.
Unfortunately for Kenya when the
c