Sanyatti
Member
Nairobi City Council Councillors in 1950. Muchohi Gikonyo was the only African Councillor having been nominated in 1946.
In 1950 Fred Kubai who had just been jailed for leading an illegal strike was brought from prison and charged afresh with attempted ****** of Councillor Gikonyo.
Gikonyo had been shot at while in Eastlands but the bullet missed him. Kubai would later be released for lack of evidence. He was rearrested two years later alongside other members of KAU on accusations of supporting and sponsoring Mau Mau.
Muchohi was later nominated to the Legislative Council. Before the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in London, Governor Evelyne Baring , chose him as the representative of Kenya Africans at the coronation.
However, there were some disquiet among the settlers who claimed that Muchohi was a Kikuyu who had never spoken strongly in support of the war against Mau Mau in the LegCo.
Baring was hesistant to exclude Muchohi Gikonyo from travelling to London since he was already planning to arrest Walter Odede who had taken over as the leader of KAU after the arrest of Kenyatta.
He had already arrested the Kapenguria six, and he feared that excluding Gikonyo from the Queen's coronation at a time when he was planning to arrest Odede, would make him appear to Africans as a person who was pursuing a vendetta against their political leaders.
He therefore made a decision to expand the African delegation by adding loyal Kikuyu chiefs to the list. Because of the impending arrest of Odede , he decided to add Chief Paulo Mboya. The reason for this as he told the Colonial Office in London was to serve as a friendly gesture to the Luo people who were going to be upset with the arrest of Odede.
It is worth knowing that Councillor Muchohi Gikonyo was also a cousin to Julius Gikonyo Kiano. When Gikonyo returned from the US with a PhD in 1956, the colonial government refused to give him any job. Instead he got a job in the private sector as a management trainee with Shell oil company.
This annoyed his cousin Muchohi Gikonyo who was among the few Africans who were close the colonial government. As a result, Muchohi bullied his way to see Governor Evelyne Baring at Government House where he complained bitterly.
"You mean to tell me that the best thing this government has to offer a young man returning here with all the education is a job pumping petrol?" Muchohi erupted.
The incident paid off when , the government hired Julius Gikonyo as a lecturer at the Royal Technical College Nairobi now University of Nairobi.