THE Ugandan media has renewed the claim that Uhuru Kenyatta's grandfather might have been the legendary Bunyoro king Kabalega who fought a long guerrilla war against the British colonialists.
On Tuesday the present day Omukama of Bunyoro, Solomon Gafabusa Iguru, congratulated Uhuru Kenyatta on his election and recalled how the late Jomo Kenyatta often visited his father, the late Sir Tito Winyi.
Soon the social media in Uganda was full of talk about ‘Iguru congratulating his cousin’.
The theory that the first president of Kenya was the son of the Omukama Kabalega o f Bunyoro-Kitara stems largely from the remarkable resemblance between Kabalega and Jomo Kenyatta.
Kabalega and Mwanga, the deposed Kabaka of Buganda, were eventually captured in the plains of Lango in 1899 by a combined force of British, Baganda and Nubian troops. Kabalega was shot in the right arm which had to be amputated.
They were then marched into exile. On their way to the Seychelles through Kismayu, Kabalega’s wound became severely septic. His journey was halted and he stayed in Kenya at a place called 'Kikuyu' for two years to undergo treatment, according to colonial records.
While in the Kenyan hospital, a young Kikuyu nurse allegedly attended to Kabalega who then fell in love with her, bringing the young Kamau into being.
There are different reports of the date and place of Kenyatta’s birth. But historians agree that he was born Kamau Ngengi in a place called Ngenda between 1897 and 1901, around the time Kabalega spent two years in Kenya.
Historians agree that Kenyatta’s father died when he was young and his mother, who was a nurse, subsequently remarried. But she is said to have gone back to her parent’s home further north, where she died.
He was baptized in Johnstone Kamau in August 1914, but later adopted the name Jomo (Kikuyu for burning spear) Kenyatta (from the waist bead belt worn by natives then).
A guide to the Seychelles, where Kabalega spent 24 years in exile, mentions that "Kabalega was a father to a prominent politician in the region".
If Kabalega was indeed Jomo's father, the Kenyan son appears to have inherited the fighting spirit of the legendary Ugandan resistance leader.
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