The Mt Kenya region has lost an astute academician and scholar in Prof. Henry Stanley Mwaniki Kabeca, who finally bowed out of the scene at the end of March 2023 after years of researching and documenting the Embu people in volumes of anecdotes.
Nobody will ever know Professor Mwaniki Kabeca better than the late presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi, who unleashed the dreaded Special Branch intelligence police on him and other scholars in the 70s and 80s to literally follow, monitor and make reports on what they were up to.
Those were the days when simply interacting with academics or presumed government enemies was dangerous; it could land one in trouble as any criticism of those regimes was enough to spend years in prison.
But Prof Kabeca’s love for history and his urge to impart learners with that knowledge saved him; he would spend most of his free time giving public lectures across hundreds of secondary schools and colleges while away from Kenyatta University where he taught.
Fellow eminent Professor Macharia Munene, paying tribute to him, said the late scholar traversed lecture halls and headed departments in a number of universities as an administrator.
“Although he could also get agitated against those who distorted the Mau Mau narrative, he did not get into many controversies,” Munene added.
According to Prof Munene, Kabeca kept out of the raging debates in the 1980s and hence remained safe from the authorities. He adopted a safe scholarly lifestyle to survive both in the lecture room and outside.
Students of oral literature have lost what could rightly be called “the Embu History Dictionary”, and many acknowledge that Prof Kabeca’s lectures and books, including “Embu Traditional Song and Poems” and “Embu Historical Texts”, helped them pass their oral literature research papers at the then A- level education.
In the early 1980’s, the university lecturer, in his trade mark khaki shorts and short sleeved shirts, would traverse schools in Embu giving lectures that mentored many to want to pursue their education to university.
His unassuming demeanour and simple mode of dress melted the ice between him and students, who used then to think university scholars were sophisticated, complicated and unreachable to ordinary mortals.
Prof Kabeca goes into history as one who remained religious to his calling as an academic that even in old age, he would be found with volumes of books while walking along the streets of Embu town or sitting with friends in a restaurant.
He also enjoyed a few gigs supervising doctorate students in a number of universities in Kitui and Machakos counties, all along maintaining a friendly interaction with the people he worked with.
When curtains fall on such a scholar, one is left wondering how he can be remembered apart from his written works.
The huge scholarly successes of the late Prof should prick ears of scholars to consider donating books to libraries in localities such as the Kenya National Library Service (KNLS) to nurture a reading and academic culture.
As we say rest in peace to Prof Kabeca, who was interred at his Mutunduri Village in Embu, we all need to mobilize our intellectual energies and rekindle the fire that was lit by the good old man, better articulated in the Embu phrase “Muthuri Mwega”.
Perhaps we may need a Lenny Kivuti to revive the Embu Academic Day, which was a popular pedantic engagement among students in the county not too long ago.
By Robert Nyagah
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