MBOYA, TOM (KENYA)

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06891165
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2021
• Case Number: F-2021-00126
• Publication Date: December 26, 1967

Approved for Release: 2021/05/11 C06891165
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KENYA
Minister for Economic Planning and Development
Tam Mboya, Kenya's Minister for Economic Planning
and Development, has for many years played a major role
in the labor, political, constitutional and economic
life of Kenya. Articulate, brilliantly logical, and a
master political tactician, Mboya is by far the most
able and intelligent man in the Kenya Cabinet. He is
also perhaps the most controversial political personality
in Kenya today. In the behind-the-scenes race already
being run for the Presidential succession to Jomo Ken-
yatta, Mboya suffers from the liabilities of being too
young (he is 37), too Westernized and too long in the
forefront of Kenya politics.
Tom MBOYA
Although he has surrounded himself with bright, moderate politicians(b)(1)
and civil servants who look to him for leadership and guidance, Mboya
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is opposed
by the young Kikuyus
and by many members of his own tribe, the Luo, who support
former Vice President Oginga Odinga, long Mboyais arch rival,,
For a long time Mboya was better known abroad than any other Kenya
olitician.
His opponents have used this close identifi-
cation with the VS as: a weapon against him; in 1965 one of his fellow
Luos in the House of Representatives referred tO,MbOya as the "American
Ambassador to Kenya."
It is a reflection, nevertheless, of Mboya's competence and
resilience that he has been able to survive the jealousies and rivalries
of Kenya politics and to remain an important political factor in the
country. He realized that he has no real chance 'to suoceed-Kenyatta as
President in the immediate future and he is now deliberately playing a
low key, waiting game. Having established his reputation as a non-tribal
politician from a Nairobi constituency who was mainly interested in the
problems of the urban worker, Mboya is now trying to build up the image
of himself as a Luo leader who is interested in the fate of the peasantry.
Born of Luo parents on 15 August 1930 on Rusinga Island, Lake
Victoria, Mboya was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church with the
name Thomas Joseph Adhiatbo. He was educated at Kabaa mission, St.
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Tom MBOYA -(cont.)
Mary's and at Holy Ghost College (a secondary school), withdrawing from
the last when his father could no longer afford to help with the tuition.
Shortly afterward Mboya was accepted for training as a sanitary inspector
and three years later he took the Royal Sanitary Institute Certificate.
He was appointed a sanitary inspector in Nairobi where he served for the
text two and one-half years.
About 1951 Mboya became president of the African Staff Association
and built it into the Kenya Local Government Worker's Union, becoming its
national general secretary. By 1953 he had become secretary general of
the KFL--a post which he held for the next 10 years and which served as
the foundation for his future political successes. He first became
generally known in 1955, when he served as mediator in a Mombasa strike
and won a large pay raise for the dockers. The next year he obtained a
scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, and visited the US and other
countries. In the course of his travels he made a number of contacts in
the ICFTU
During these years Mboya's political star began its rise. In 1953
he vas treasurer of the Kenya African Union just before it was proscribed
for its alleged connection with the Mau Mau. In March 1957 be won the
Nairobi seat in the first African constituency elections. He proceeded
to bind the eight African elected members into a solid group strongly
opposed to the Lyttleton constitution, under which they had been elected,
and to demand that the British government recognize that Kenya is an
African country and shoUld be advanced gradually to independence. His
tactics were largely responsible for the breakdown of the constitution
and for the subsequent imposition of the Lennox-Boyd constitution on
the Kenyan government, which gave the-Africans six more elected members.
Mboya became president of the Nairobi People's Convention Party about
1957. Two years later, after disagreeing with the Constituency Elected
Members Organization on land policy, he helped to form the Kenya Inde-
pendence Movement.
In April 1960 Mboya became general secretaTi of the newly formed
Kenya African National Union (KABU)--a post he still bolds. The follow-
ing year he was re-elected to Parliament by an overwhelming majority.
In April 1962 he was named Minister of Labor. During the ensuing year
he was credited with Kenya's successes in constitutional talks with the
UK and was rewarded with the portfolios for Justice and Constitutional
Affairs in the first all-KANU Cabinet in June 1963. In this post he
performed brilliantly in preparing the Republican constitution and in
seeing it through Parliament.
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Tom MBOYA (cont.)
When Kenya became a republic in 1964, Mboya was given the Ministry
of Economic Planning and Development. The post, though Important, repre-
sented something less than Mboya wanted but he has worked hard and ener-
geticly at it. In 1965 he presented a paper defining African Socialism
which Kenyatta said would become the "bible" of Kenya and would guide
national policy.
Mboya has held responsible positions in several international
organizations, including the African Trade Union Confederation, the All-
African Trade Union Federation, the TUTU, the Pan-African Freedom Move-
ment for East, Central and Southern Africa, the All-African Peoples
Conference and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
Personable and articulate, Mboya is a superb orator in both English
and Swahili, and usually speaks extemporaneously. His answers in any
interview are so well organized that they be printed as spoken with-
out: any change. He generally has his emotions well under control at all
times.
In 1959 Mbbya was awarded an honorary degree of Doctom .o�'. Laws. by
Howard University. In 1963 he published a book entitled Freedom and
After. Mboya, who has had two unsuccessful marriages outside the church,
was married in a Catholic ceremony in 1962 to Pamela Odede,
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The Ms now have four children
BAM:tmt 26 December 1967
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