Nairobi’s Mausoleum

Visitors to Nairobi should take time off to view the mausoleum in the city centre where the remains of Kenya’s founding president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta were interred at the parliament grounds.

I say ‘view’ because actual visiting of the site requires prior arrangement and permission that is largely unlikely to be allowed beyond the heavily armed security sentinel who guard the entrance round the clock.

The mausoleum that is a stone’s throw away from Nairobi’s Hotel Inter Continental is a beauty to behold with its well paved, flag decorated approach and life sized statues of lions at the entrance connoting the man whose body lies within had the bravery and strength of the perceived ‘king of the jungle’.

The simple looking mausoleum has routinely been the scene of annual ceremonial commemoration every August 22, the day Kenyatta died in his sleep at the coastal town of Mombasa.

During the colourful occasion, complete with military parades, the serving president lays a wreath on Mzee’s tomb accompanied by close family members led by former first lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta and the nation’s top leadership prior to attending a memorial service at the Holy family Minor Basilica, a walking distance away. Crowds can only watch curiously from a distance across parliament road.

Clamour that the mausoleum be open to the public and possibly be a tourist attraction has not borne fruits over 30 years since the founding president’s death, leaving the ordinary Kenyan and foreigners alike to only wonder how its interior looks like and to contend with rumours that the embalmed body can be cranked through mechanical means to the surface for close viewing. Kenyatta’s reign lasted from independence on December 12, 1963 to August 22, 1978 when he died to be succeeded by Daniel arap Moi. He served for a year as Prime Minister with the British monarch as the head of State until Kenya became a sovereign republic in 1964.

His actual age at death is a subject of conjecture, though it is assumed that he died at the ripe age of 89, having been born in 1898.