Kenyatta was born as Kamau, son of Ngengi, at Ichaweri, southwest of Mount Kenya in the East African highlands. His father was a leader of a small Kikuyu agricultural settlement.

About age 10 Kamau became seriously ill with jigger infections in his feet and one leg, and he underwent successful surgery at a newly established Church of Scotland mission. This was his initial contact with Europeans. Fascinated with what he had seen during his recuperation, Kamau ran away from home to become a resident pupil at the mission. He studied the Bible, English, mathematics, and carpentry and paid his fees by working as a houseboy and cook for a European settler. In August 1914 he was baptized with the name Johnstone Kamau. He was one of the earliest of the Kikuyu to leave the confines of his own culture. And, like many others, Kamau soon left the mission life for the urban attractions of Nairobi.

There he secured a job as a clerk in the Public Works Department, and he also adopted the name Kenyatta, the Kikuyu term for a fancy belt that he wore. After serving briefly as an interpreter in the High Court, Kenyatta was transferred to a post with the Nairobi Town Council. About this time he married and began to raise a family.

The first African political protest movement in Kenya against a white-settler-dominated government began in 1921—the East Africa Association (EAA), led by an educated young Kikuyu named Harry Thuku. Kenyatta joined the following year. One of the EAA’s main purposes was to recover Kikuyu lands lost when Kenya became a British crown colony (1920). The Africans were dispossessed, leaseholds of land were restricted to white settlers, and native reservations were established. In 1925 the EAA disbanded as a result of government pressures, and its members re-formed as the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). Three years later Kenyatta became this organization’s general secretary, though he had to give up his municipal job as a consequence.

Entrance into full-time politics

In May 1928 Kenyatta launched a monthly Kikuyu-language newspaper called Mwigithania (“He Who Brings Together”), aimed at gaining support from all sections of the Kikuyu. The paper was mild in tone, preaching self-improvement, and was tolerated by the government. But soon a new challenge appeared. A British commission recommended a closer union of the three East African territories (Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika). British settler leaders supported the proposal, expecting that internal self-government might follow.

To the KCA such a prospect looked disastrous for Kikuyu interests; in February 1929 Kenyatta went to London to testify against the scheme, but in London the secretary of state for colonies refused to meet with him. In March 1930 Kenyatta wrote an eloquent letter in The Times of London setting out five issues championed by the KCA: (1) security of land tenure and the return of lands allotted to European settlers, (2) increased educational facilities, (3) repeal of hut taxes on women, which forced some to earn money by prostitution, (4) African representation in the Legislative Council, and (5) noninterference with traditional customs. He concluded by saying that the lack of these measures “must inevitably result in a dangerous explosion—the one thing all sane men wish to avoid.”

Again in 1931 Kenyatta’s testimony on the issue of closer union of the three colonies was refused, despite the help of liberals in the House of Commons. In the end, however, the government temporarily abandoned its plan for union. Kenyatta did manage to testify on behalf of Kikuyu land claims in 1932 at hearings of the Carter Land Commission.

The commission decided to offer compensation for some appropriated territories but maintained the “white highlands” policy, which restricted the Kikuyu to overcrowded reserves. Kenyatta subsequently visited the Soviet Union (he spent two years at Moscow State University) and traveled extensively through Europe; on his return to England he studied anthropology under Bronisaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics. His thesis was revised and published in 1938 as Facing Mount Kenya, a study of the traditional life of the Kikuyu characterized by both insight and a tinge of romanticism. This book signaled another name change, to Jomo (“Burning Spear”) Kenyatta.

During the 1930s Kenyatta briefly joined the Communist Party, met other black nationalists and writers, and organized protests against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The onset of World War II temporarily cut him off from the KCA, which was banned by the Kenya authorities as potentially subversive. Kenyatta maintained himself in England by lecturing and working as a farm labourer, and he continued to produce political pamphlets publicizing the Kikuyu cause.

Kenyatta helped organize the fifth Pan-African Congress, which met in Manchester, England, on October 15–18, 1945, with W.E.B. Du Bois of the United States in the chair; Kwame Nkrumah, the future leader of Ghana, was also present. Resolutions were passed and plans discussed for mass nationalist movements to demand independence from colonial rule.

Return to Kenya

Kenyatta returned to Kenya in September 1946 to take up leadership of the newly formed Kenya African Union, of which he was elected president in June 1947. From the Kenya African Teachers College, which he directed as an alternative to government educational institutions, Kenyatta organized a mass nationalist party. But he had to produce tangible results in return for the allegiance of his followers, and the colonial government in Kenya was still dominated by unyielding settler interests.

The “dangerous explosion” among the Kikuyu that he had predicted in 1930 erupted as the Mau Mau rebellion of 1952, which was directed against the presence of European settlers in Kenya and their ownership of land. On October 21, 1952, Kenyatta was arrested on charges of having directed the Mau Mau movement.

Despite government efforts to portray Kenyatta’s trial as a criminal case, it received worldwide publicity as a political proceeding. In April 1953 Kenyatta was sentenced to a seven-year imprisonment for “managing the Mau Mau terrorist organization.” He denied the charge then and afterward, maintaining that the Kenya African Union’s political activities were not directly associated with Mau Mau violence.

The British government responded to African demands by gradually steering the country toward African majority rule. In 1960 the principle of one man, one vote was conceded. Kenyan nationalist leaders such as Tom Mboya and Oginga Odinga organized the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and elected Kenyatta (still in detention despite having completed his sentence) president in absentia; they refused to cooperate with the British while Kenyatta was detained. In a press conference Kenyatta promised that “Europeans would find a place in the future Kenya provided they took their place as ordinary citizens.”

Kenyatta was released in August 1961, and, at the London Conference early in 1962, he negotiated the constitutional terms leading to Kenya’s independence. KANU won the preindependence election in May 1963, forming a provisional government, and Kenya celebrated its independence on December 12, 1963, with Kenyatta as prime minister.

A year later Kenya became a one-party republic when the main opposition party went into voluntary liquidation. At the same time, Kenyatta became the first president of Kenya under a new constitutional amendment. In this office he headed a strong central government, and successive constitutional amendments increased his authority, giving him, for instance, the power to arrest political opponents and detain them without trial if he considered them dangerous to public order—a power he used effectively though infrequently.

To forestall any tribally based opposition, Kenyatta consistently appointed members of different ethnic groups to his government, though he relied most heavily on his fellow Kikuyu. In general, Kenya enjoyed remarkable political stability under Kenyatta’s rule, though conflicts within KANU’s political leadership did occasionally break out because of ideological differences and tribal rivalries.

Kenyatta early on rejected socialist calls for the nationalization of property and instead preached a doctrine of personal and entrepreneurial effort, symbolized by his slogan “Harambee,” or “Pulling together.” Besides relying heavily on a free-market economy, he encouraged foreign investment from Western and other countries.

Largely as a result of his policies, Kenya’s gross national product grew almost fivefold from 1971 to 1981, and its rate of economic growth was among the highest on the continent in the first two decades after independence. But though economic growth benefited large numbers of people, it also led to tremendous disparities of wealth, much of which was in the hands of Kenyatta’s family and close associates.

This concentration of wealth, along with an extremely high rate of population growth, meant that most Kenyans did not realize a correspondingly large increase in their living standards under Kenyatta’s leadership.

In foreign policy, Kenyatta’s government was consistently friendly toward the West. Always—in spite of his imprisonment by the British authorities—one of the more pro-British of African leaders, Kenyatta made Kenya the most stable black African country and one of the most economically dynamic. After his death at Mombasa in 1978, Kenyatta was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi, who continued most of his policies.

David Mathenge (born August 1976), better known by his stage name Nameless, is a Kenyan pop artist signed to the Ogopa DJ’s record label.

He rose to fame in 1999 through a star-search contest on Kenya’s urban music station 98.4 Capital FM, which he won with his original song “Megarider.” The song was about a penniless young man who is trying to seduce a woman but only has enough money for Kenya Bus tickets, and not the rich lifestyle she desires.

He later recorded the track with producer Tedd Josiah and it went on to be hot on the charts for weeks. This was the turning point in his musical career. He went on to sign with the Ogopa DJ’s label in 2001 and collaborated with artists such as the late E-Sir on “Boomba Train,” and Amani on the regional hit “Ninanoki” in 2002 which broke Kenyan chart records by remaining 110 days at number one.

He has gone on to tour across the East African region and in the U.S.A and U.K. In 2004, he released his debut album On Fire, and has since won 3 categories in the 2006 Kisima Music Awards He won the Best East African Single category at the 2007 Tanzania Music Awards (Kilimanjaro Music Awards) with his single Sinzia

In 2004, Mathenge married Ogopa DJ’s label mate Wahu Kagwe. They have one child, a daughter who was born in 2006. He is also an architect and graduated from the University of Nairobi.

South African pop group Jamali’s wildly popular song “Maisha” was the subject to much scandal. It was alleged that Jamali stole the song from Nameless. However it was settled when Jamali released their CD/DVD of Yours Fatally and credited Nameless as one of the writers of “Maisha”.

He was among the controversial list of the 100 most influential Kenyans as selected by The Standard newspaper in August 2007

Richard Erskine Leakey was born in Nairobi, Kenya, a grandson of English missionaries. His father and mother, Louis and Mary Leakey, were distinguished paleontologists who had pioneered the archaeological exploration of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.

The second of three brothers, Richard Leakey spent his childhood trailing after his parents on archaeological digs, searching for the fossils of extinct species and human ancestors. He found his first fossil when he was only six — the jaw of an extinct species of giant pig — but he was more interested in tracking living animals in the wild.

In 1959, Mary Leakey discovered the fossilized cranium of an extinct hominid, Zinjanthropus in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The discovery of a presumed human ancestor of unprecedented antiquity focused the anthropological community’s attention on Africa as the cradle of mankind and brought the Leakey family international renown. But at 16, Richard Leakey wanted no part of squatting under the African sun, scratching the dirt for fossils. He dropped out of school and struck out on his own. He trapped animals and collected skeletons for research institutions, learned to fly, and started a business taking tourists on photographic safaris.

While still in his teens, he joined a former colleague of his parents’ on a fossil-hunting expedition to Lake Natron on the Kenya-Tanzania border. To his surprise, he enjoyed the venture, but lacking academic credentials, he received little credit for the team’s discoveries, so in 1965 he traveled to England to catch up on his school work, with the intention of resuming his education. When this proved more difficult than expected, he returned to Kenya, where he managed paleontological expeditions and worked for the National Museum of Kenya. In 1967, he joined a successful expedition to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. On a flight between Omo and Nairobi, he spotted an expanse of sedimentary rock on the shores of Lake Turkana, formerly known as Lake Rudolf. Leakey suspected the area was rich with fossils. When a return trip confirmed his hunch, he secured funding from the National Geographic Society to run his own excavation. With a crew of Kenyan fossil hunters who called themselves the Hominid Gang, he uncovered a rich vein of artifacts that startled the world. After years in his family’s shadow, Richard Leakey had earned a reputation as an outstanding fossil hunter in his own right.

In 1968, at the age of 25, he won appointment as Director of the National Museum of Kenya. Within a year, he was diagnosed with a terminal kidney disease and told he only had ten years to live. In spite of this diagnosis, he forged ahead with his life. He married zoologist Meave Epps , a primate specialist who had worked with his father at Tigoni Primate Research Center. As Director of the Museum, Leakey undertook intensive excavation at Lake Turkana. Over the next 30 years, the site yielded more than 200 fossils, including two of the most spectacular finds of all time, a virtually complete Homo habilis skull in 1972 and a Homo erectus skull in 1975.

By the end of the decade, Leakey’s kidney disease had grown severe, and he traveled to London to consult a specialist. He received a transplant from his younger brother Philip, but within a month, rejection set in. The drugs that suppressed the rejection weakened his immune system, and he nearly died from an inflammation of the lungs. Leakey survived, recovered, and returned to Kenya. In the eight months he had spent abroad, he wrote an autobiography, One Life , although the most dramatic chapters of his life were yet to come.

In 1984, his team found one of the most historic specimens of all, the nearly complete skeleton of a young male Homo erectus . The 1.6 million-year-old skeleton, nicknamed Turkana Boy, is one of the most complete hominid fossil skeletons ever found. Leakey described this discovery and its significance in the book Origins Reconsidered (1992). In 1985, the site produced the skull of a previously unknown species of extinct hominid, Australopithecus aethiopicus .

In nearly 30 years as Director of the National Museum, Richard Leakey had built the institution into a major international research center. In 1989, he accepted an appointment by Kenya’s President, Daniel Arap Moi, to serve as Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service. As Director he was called on to rescue the country’s chaotic park system and combat an epidemic of rhinoceros and elephant poaching. The illegal demand for the tusks of these endangered animals was pushing both species to the brink of extinction. Leakey created well-armed anti-poaching units, and when gentler measures failed, ordered the shooting of poachers. In 1989, Leakey staged a dramatic burning of 12 tons of confiscated tusks. The elephant population was soon stabilized and is now growing. Impressed with Leakey’s achievement, the World Bank approved substantial grants to the Wildlife Service.

Although Leakey’s accomplishments won international recognition, he had made enemies at home. In 1993, his plane suffered an unexplained equipment failure and crashed in the mountains outside Nairobi. The accident cost Leakey both his legs. An expert pilot, he had good reason to suspect sabotage by political enemies. Undeterred, Leakey returned to work, but political opposition forced his resignation in 1994. He recounted the experience in the book Wildlife Wars: My Battle to Save Kenya’s Elephants (2001). Long impatient with the corruption and inefficiency of Kenya’s one-party government, Leakey and other dissidents founded the Safina party in 1995. For two years, the government withheld legal recognition of the party. Government supporters subjected Leakey to public humiliation, death threats and constant surveillance, and finally attacked him with whips outside the courthouse, but Richard Leakey could not be intimidated.

As Secretary General of Safina, he won a seat in his country’s parliament, where he negotiated constitutional reform and introduced laws protecting the disabled. In 1999, international lending institutions cut off aid to Kenya because of rampant corruption in government. Leakey’s sometime adversary, President Moi, asked Leakey to join the administration as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Public Service, with a mission to restore the integrity of the civil administration. Leakey soon earned the confidence of international donor institutions, and lending to Kenya resumed.

Since retiring from government in 2001, Richard Leakey has served as a leading spokesman for Transparency International, a global coalition to fight corruption, and for the Great Apes Survival Project, a United Nations effort to defend mankind’s closest relatives. His books include The Origin of Humankind (1994) and The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Mankind (1995). His wife, Meave Leakey , and his daughter Louise carry on the family mission of searching for the evidence of human origins in Africa, while Richard Leakey continues his work as a highly public advocate for the disabled, for Kenya’s kidney patients, for the environment, and for the benefit of the continent that gave birth to the human race.

Dr. P.L.O- Lumumba is an Advocate of the High Courts of Kenya and Tanzania and Law Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Nairobi.

He is one of the Trustees and the Executive Director of the African Institute of Leaders and Leadership, Nairobi, Kenya. He received his LL.B and LL.M Degrees in Law at the University of Nairobi, followed by a PhD in the Laws of the Sea at the University of Ghent in Belgium.

Dr. Lumumba has attended several merit trainings including at the Afoul Wallenburg Institute at the University of Lund, in Sweden (Human Rights), Commonwealth Young Lawyers Course at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London), International Committee of the Red Cross for University Teachers in Geneva (Humanitarian Law), The International Visitors Programmes in the United States of America among others.

P.L.O- Lumumba has lectured at the United States International University, Nairobi, the University of Nairobi, Widener University (USA) Nairobi Summer Programs.

P.L.O-Lumumba whoa was a Student Leader in his student days has also served in the Law Society of Kenya and has received recognition by the Law Society of Kenya and the International Commission of Jurists (Kenya Chapter) as a member in good standing.

He is also the founder of several organizations including the P.L.O- Lumumba Foundation, a charitable organization that has been in operation since 1990. The Association of the Citizens Against Corruption (ACAC), Movement for Dialogue and Non- Violence (MODAN), The African Institute of Leaders and Leadership (AILL), a Trustee of Ufadhili Trust and a Director of Makini Schools.

P.L.O- Lumumba is a renowned legal practitioner recognized by peers as a leading litigator in Constitutional Law and Judicial Review Cases. Ha also has been recognized by the Kenya- USA Society as a Leader in the mould of Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. With several thousand speeches on diverse subjects delivered in and outside Kenya, Lumumba is recognized as one of the leading public speakers in Kenya. His selected speeches will be released in book form under the title, “The Searching Soul” and his inspiring expressions have been released under the title “The Quotables of Dr. P.L.O-Lumumba” edited by Luis Franceshi.

In the period between 2002- 2005, Dr. Lumumba served as the Secretary (Chief Executive) of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, the body that was mandated to collect Kenyan views and prepare draft Constitution for deliberations at the National Constitutional Conference.

P.L.O- Lumumba has attended and presented papers in a number of national, continental and international conferences. He has also authored a number of books including An Outline of Criminal Procedure in Kenya” and “Outline of Judicial Reviews in Kenya.”

He has published a number of articles on Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, Judicial Review, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Hon. Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, the vice President and minister for Home Affairs, was born on December 24, 1953.

He is a lawyer by profession and holds a Post Graduate Diploma (PGD)in Business Management from Mediterranean Institute of Management, Nicosia , Cyprus ; Diploma in Law from Kenya School of Law; Bachelor of Law from University of Nairobi .

He started Pupilage and as a Legal Assistant at Kaplan & Stratton Advocates; Manager (Legal Service), Comcraft services Ltd.; Private Practice, S.K. Musyoka & Co. Advocates.

He won the Kitui North By-elections in 1985 and was appointed an Assistant Minister for Works, Housing and Physical Planning. Re-elected MP in 1988 and elected Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Organizing Secretary of KANU and member of KANU National Executive Committee.

In 1992, he was re-elected MP and appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

He was re-elected in 1997 and appointed Minister for Education and Human Resources Development, Minister for Tourism and Information, Elected National Vice-Chairman of KANU, re-elected MP in 2002 and appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs before his current appointment.

Musyoka has traveled extensively as Head and Member of Government Delegations to various countries: addressed the UN General Assembly from 1993-1998, chaired and spearheaded peace initiatives within the framework of Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) peace processes for Sudan and Somalia, and within the Great Lakes Region.

After tirelessly working for the two IGAD initiatives, and therefore after witnessing the final conclusion, Hon. Musyoka had this into remark:

“I am keenly aware that each time, a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice; he sends forth a ripple of hope to those involved. This commitment inspires my contribution to the cause of peace in Sudan , Somalia and the Great Lakes region as a whole. I therefore pledge my continued engagement in the pursuit of peace and stability in the region. I was dearly humbled by the Somali peaceful election and the peace at large.”

President Mwai Kibaki was born on November 15th, 1931 in Gatuyaini Village, Othaya division, Nyeri, in the Central Province. He is the last-born son of the late Kibaki Githinji and the late Teresia Wanjiku. His siblings include Philip Githinji, Kinyua Kibaki, Anastasia wangui, Waruguru Kibaki (who are all deceased now), Ester waitherero, Bernard Nderitu and a half-brother Samuel Githinji.

Mwai Kibaki went to Gatuyaini village school where he completed what was then called Sub “A” and sub “B” which is the equivalent of standard one and two. He then joined Karima mission school for the three more classes of primary school. He later moved to Mathari School (now Nyeri High School) between 1944 and 1946 for Standard four to six. Here, he learnt carpentry and masonry because students would repair furniture and provide material for maintaining the school’s buildings. He also grew his own food as all students in the school were expected to do.

Kibaki extended the art of self-reliance to his school holidays where he earned extra money by working as a turn boy on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union.

After Karima Primary and Nyeri Boarding primary schools, he proceeded to Man’gu High School where he studied between 1947 and 1950. He passed with a maximum of six points in his “O” level examination. He was influenced by the veterans of the two World Wars in his village and once considered becoming a soldier in his final year in Man’gu. This did not materialize because of a ruling by the Chief colonial secretary, Walter Coutts, which barred the recruitment of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru communities into the army.

After Man’gu he proceeded to Makerere University to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, History and Political Science. While at the University, Kibaki was the Chairman of the Kenya Students Association and the Vice-Chairman of Makerere Students Guild.

He graduated in 1955 with a First Class Honours Degree (BA) in Economics and took up an appointment as Assistant Sales Manager Shell Company of East Africa, Uganda Division. It is during the same year that he earned a scholarship to do postgraduate work in any British University. He enrolled at the prestigious London School of economics for a B.sc in public finance, graduating with a distinction.

He went back to Makerere in 1958 where he taught as an Assistant Lecturer in the economics department until 1960. In December 1960, he quit Makerere and returned home to take up a job with Kanu as an Executive Officer. Earlier in March 1960,he had been involved in the founding of the KANU party.

In 1962, Kibaki married Lucy Muthoni, the daughter of a Church Minister, and together they have four children: Judy Wanjiku, Jimmy Kibaki, David Kagai, and Tony Githinji. They also have three grandchildren: Joy Jamie Marie: Mwai Junior and Krystina Muthoni.

In 1963 he made a debut in elective politics by contesting the Donholm Constituency (now Makadara) in Nairobi Province, which he won on a Kanu ticket.

He was made the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance from 1963 to 1965 and in 1965 he was appointed a minister at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry where he served until 1969.In the same year, Mwai Kibaki was re-elected the MP for Donholm Constituency on a Kanu ticket.

He was later moved to the strategic ministry of Finance and economic Planning where he served from1970 to 1978. During this period Kibaki, moved his political base from Nairobi to Othaya and was re-elected in 1974 to represent Othaya constituency on a Kanu ticket. He was re-elected MP for the same constituency in the subsequent elections of 1979, 1983 and 1988. Besides being MP, Kibaki was the Othaya Kanu branch chairman from 1974 to 1991 when he resigned from Kanu to found the Democratic Party (DP).

Kibaki was appointed Vice-President in 1978 when Daniel Arap Moi took over the reins of power following the death of founding President, Jomo Kenyatta. He continued to serve in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning until 1983 when he moved to the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Heritage .He served until 1988 when he was again moved to the Ministry of Health. Kibaki was also the Leader of Government Business and Chairman of the Sessional Committee from 1978 to 1988.He was the Kanu vice-President from 1978 to 1988.

Kibaki founded DP on December 25th, 1991 and vied for the Presidency on its ticket in the 1992 elections.He came third after Daniel Moi and Kenneth Matiba.

In 1997 he contested for the Presidency again on the same ticket and came second to Kanu’s Daniel Arap Moi.He became Member and Chairman of Public Accounts Committee from 1997 to 2002.

In January 1998 DP became the Official Opposition Party hence Kibaki assumed status of the Leader of the Official Opposition Party. He also became a Member of the House Business Committee from 1998 to 2002.

Mwai Kibaki was sworn in as President on 30th December 2002 after winning in the preceding General Elections held on 27th December 2002. He is Kenya’s 3rd President.

Prime Minister. Previously has been the Minister for Roads and Public Works. Was born at Maseno in Nyanza Province , the second son of nine children of the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Mama Mary Emma Odinga.

After attending the Kisumu Union School, Maranda High School and the Herder Institute, Odinga spent 1965 to 1970 at the Technical University (Otto Von Guericke), Magdeburg in Germany leaving with a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering (Special field: Production Technology).

Returning to Kenya , he joined the University of Nairobi – Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he taught until 1974.

In 1975, he was appointed Deputy Director of the Kenya Bureau of Standards, a post he held until 1982 when he was arrested and subsequently detained without trial by the Govemment.

He has also attended courses at the British Standards Institution in London , the National Bureau of Standard, Washington D.C. and the University of Denver in Colorado , and has several publications both technical and political to his credit.

In the dark days of political repressions in Kenya , Raila was detained three times without trial for a total period of 8 years. In 1991 at the height of the struggle for democratic change, he had to briefly seek asylum in Norway in order to escape a fourth detention.

After the re-Introduction of multi-party politics, Raila vied for the Lang’ata Parliamentary seat, a multi-ethnic constituency within Nairobi City and won.

Following disagreement however, within the leadership of the Party, he in December 1996 resigned from both FORD-Kenya and Parliament, and joined the National Development Party of Kenya (NDP). He contested the ensuing by-election in his former constituency on an NDP ticket, in March 1997. and retained the seat.

Raila was elected the Party Leader of the NDP and was the Party’s Presidential Candidate in the 1997 General Election, coming third in a field of fifteen (15) candidates.

The ill fated merger between NDP and KANU of March 18, 2002, lasted for three months before cracks emerged. Raila who had been elected as Secretary General along with a number of colleagues disagreed with KANU and teamed up with others in the opposition to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), which won the 2002 General alection with a big majority.

He is currently the Prime Minister of the Republic Kenya.

PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (born October 26, 1961) is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance. He is the Chairman of Kenya African National Union (KANU), the former ruling party, which is currently part of the Party of National Unity (PNU).

Nominated to Parliament in 2001, he became Minister for Local Government under President Daniel arap Moi and, despite his political inexperience, was favored by President Moi as his successor; Kenyatta ran as KANU’s candidate in the December 2002 presidential election, but lost to opposition candidate Mwai Kibaki by a large margin. He subsequently became Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. He backed Kibaki for re-election in the December 2007 presidential election and was named Minister of Local Government by Kibaki in January 2008, before becoming Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade in April 2008 as part of a coalition government. He is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president (1964–1978). His name, Uhuru, is Swahili for “freedom”.

To his supporters Uhuru Kenyatta is a visionary leader. To his detractors the heavy-smoking man is a reluctant politician. Being the son of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Uhuru’s upbringing was steeped in politics.

According to Uhuru, “Growing up in the Kenyatta household taught us many things. My father taught us to treat everyone fairly. He taught us the essence of justice and fairness, he told us to learn from history but not to live in history.”

He attended the prestigious St Mary’s School in Nairobi, where his former schoolmates remember him as one of the brightest students. From there he went on to study political science at Amherst College, USA. He is also reputed to be a shrewd businessman, having long played a central role in the vast family business empire.

Political life

His initial entry into politics came through his election as the chairman of his hometown branch of the ruling party, KANU, in 1997. This came with the tacit approval of President Moi. At the time, many saw the election as a calculated move to prepare Uhuru for bigger things.

In the general election held the same year, Uhuru contested the Gatundu South Constituency parliamentary seat, once held by his father. It was assumed he would sail through. But that was not be: Uhuru lost to Moses Mwihia, a little-known Nairobi architect. After losing the election, Uhuru’s friends say that he was extremely upset and that he vowed to quit politics altogether.

He hurriedly retreated to the family business empire that includes five-star tourist hotels, airlines and commercial farming. Little did Uhuru know that President Moi was still intent on propelling him onto the national political scene.

In 1999 Moi appointed Uhuru the new chairman of the Kenya Tourism Board, where he worked with Kenya’s political power-broker Nicholas Biwott, a very close confidante of the president. Apparently the young Uhuru was undergoing even more intensive training. Then came October 2001 and Uhuru was nominated to parliament and subsequently to the cabinet as Minister for Local Government. In March of this year Uhuru Kenyatta made it big on the national political scene when he was elected as one of the four national vice-chairmen of KANU.

President Moi paid a heavy price for ensuring Kenyatta was KANU’s presidential candidate, with several senior party figures, their own ambitions thwarted, resigning to set up another party (the Liberal Democratic Party).

In the presidential election held on December 27, 2002, Kenyatta was soundly defeated by opposition leader Mwai Kibaki, taking only 31% of the vote against 62% for Kibaki; this marked the end of KANU’s continuous 39 years of rule since independence. Many attributed Kenyatta’s defeat to his association with the retiring President Moi, whose long rule was widely regarded as hopelessly corrupt and ineffectual. He was also seen to be lacking experience and his campaign team lacked the big names, most of whom had left KANU to join the opposition NARC. Despite losing the presidential election, Uhuru Kenyatta won an MP seat at the Gatundu south constituency.

Since he joined Moi’s inner circle, Uhuru Kenyatta has been fighting to prove that he is his own man and not Moi’s stooge. In late January 2005, Uhuru Kenyatta defeated Nicholas Biwott for chairmanship of KANU, taking 2,980 votes among party delegates against Biwott’s 622.

Uhuru led his party Kanu in Campaigns against the draft constitution in 2005, having teamed up with the Liberal Democratic Party to form the Orange Democratic Movement. This saw Kenyans humiliate the government by rejecting the draft constitution by a noticeable margin.

In November 2006, Kenyatta was displaced as KANU leader by Biwott, although Kenyatta said he would not accept the decision. On December 28, 2006, the High Court of Kenya reinstated Uhuru Kenyatta as KANU chairman. However, further court proceedings followed. On June 28, 2007, the High Court confirmed Kenyatta as party leader, ruling that there was insufficient evidence for Biwott’s argument that Kenyatta had joined another party.

On September 13, 2007, Kenyatta withdrew from the December 2007 presidential election and said that he would back Kibaki for re-election. He said that he did not want to run unless he could be sure of winning.

Following the election, which proved extremely controversial when Kibaki was declared the victor despite claims of fraud from challenger Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Movement, Kibaki appointed Kenyatta as Minister for Local Government on January 8, 2007. After Kibaki and Odinga reached a power-sharing agreement, Kenyatta was named Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade on April 13, 2008, as part of the Grand Coalition Cabinet. He is the Deputy Prime Minister representing the PNU, while another Deputy Prime Minister, Musalia Mudavadi, represents the ODM. Kenyatta and the rest of the Cabinet were sworn in on April 17.

Kenyatta was moved from the post of Minister for Trade to that of Minister for Finance on January 23, 2009, while remaining Deputy Prime Minister.

“I am asking you to believe.
Not just in my ability to bring real change in washington…
I am asking you to believe in yours.”

Barack Obama

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British.

Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack’s parents met. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.

Barack’s father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.

The College Years

Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.

The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.

He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

Political Career

It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama’s life – growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas – that have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today’s public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose – a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.

In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges of a globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and a politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress.

As a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. And knowing the threat we face to our economy and our security from America’s addiction to oil, he’s working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars.

Whether it’s the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, live on Chicago’s South Side.