Dawson Mwanyumba, the first Coast minister in Jomo independence cabinet

    




He was among the pioneer Coastal politicians and a no- nonsense leader, sharp in his ideas as he was fast with his fists. In fact the only politician who could have matched Dawson Mwanyumba in those days was Paul Ngei who had also earned notoriety for spoiling for fights with those he disagreed with.

    Mwanyumba made history as the only minister from Coast region in Jomo Kenytta’s first cabinet.

   As minister for power and communications, he oversaw the ambitious expansion of the country’s electric power generating capacity in the 1960s, including the building of the 150 megawatt Kindaruma power station.

   Undocumented reports say that at one time Mwanyumba locked horns with a leader in the provincial administration who was said to be at the beck and call of Kenyatta.

   Mwanyumba was reportedly summoned to State House Nairobi where it’s said Kenyatta literally caned him till the minister cried out like a baby.

   Mwanyumba attended Alliance High School which was then the leading boy’s school for Africans in 1943.

   In 1947 he joined Makerere Unversity College in Kampala Uganda which was then the only institution of higher learning in East Africa where he graduated in 1949 with a Diploma in education.

   After that he taught at Coast Girls secondary school in Wusi and later Maynard and quit teaching in 1955 to venture into business and politics.

   He formed the Taita Citizens Union which came a cropper and later joined KANU where he opened the party branch in Wundanyi and became its chairman in 1960.

   In 1961 a constitutional provision created 12 specially elected seats for the then Legislative Council(Legco), 4 for Africans, 4 for Europeans and 4 for Asians.

   Being a steadfast supporter of KANU in a region that was predominantly KADU earned Mwanyumba one of the four nomination slots to the Legco.

   In 1962 Mwanyumba was among the KANU delegates at the behest of the party leader Jomo Kenyatta who attended the second Lancaster House Conference in London which spelt out the terms of the Kenyan constitution and the road map to African self rule.

   During the Wundanyi elections held on May 27-28 1963 , Mwanyumba beat Edward Nyambu of KADU by garnering 11,408 votes against Nyambu’s 623 votes.

                                                               Achilles’ Heel

   However, Mwanyumba’s quick temper was his Achilles’ Heel. A trained Mathematics teacher , Mwanyumba literally boxed his way into politics.

Former Taveta MP Eliud Mcharo who was Mwanyumba’s student at Maynard Intermediate School , traces his rise to the day he(Mwanyumba) defied summons by the district education officer in 1953.

   DEO Delany who was based at Wundanyi had traveled to Mbale to seem Mwanyumba at the office.

   When he did not find him, the DEO sent a teacher, one Ayub Mwaluma to call him from class.

Mwanyumba was by then in class eight preparing candidates for the Kenya African Primary Examination (KAPE). He told Mwaluma to tell the DEO to wait until the class was over.

  The DEO suffered a fit of pique and in that state of annoyance vowed to teach the “insolent” teacher a lesson.

   Mwanyumba had secured a scholarship for further studies in America and was planning to join his peers Julius Gikonyo Kiano, Ronald Ngala and Robert Matano who had already began their undergraduate studies.

   However, this was not to be as Mwanyumba’s scholarship was withdrawn under mysterious circumstances.

   He was later to learn that his dream of pursuing higher education in America had been shattered by the DEO he had been rude to at Maynard.

   On learning this, an angry Mwanyumba made a beeline to Wundanyi , stormed the DEO’s office and beat him up for cancelling his scholarship.

   Mwanyumba then resigned from teaching and later convinced his wife who was also a teacher to resign, fearing that she could also be targeted by the vindictive colonial education officers.

  However, though Mwanyumba was credited for bringing developments to the larger Taita including the tarmacking of the Mwatate-Wundanyi road through Josa his home area, members of the Taveta community have always haboured ill feelings for Mwanyumba and other Taita leaders who came after him for neglecting Taveta in favour of their own area.

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