Word: luo
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Only 38, the handsome, articulate Mboya embodied many of the qualities so urgently needed by the fledgling nations of black Africa. He was a member of Kenya's second largest tribe, the Luo. But he saw his real loyalties to Kenya's detribalizing urban classes and made them his constituency. He was an early and fervent apostle for his country's freedom, inspired by Jomo Kenyatta. But he deplored the violence and bloodshed of the Mau Mau uprisings against the British and refused to participate in them. He became the architect of independent Kenya's major...
...Western, with close ties both to the U.S. and Britain (he spent a year at Oxford), Mboya had no use for Soviet and Chinese efforts to gain a foothold in Kenya. It was on that issue that Mboya and his principal political enemy, Oginga Odinga, collided. Odinga, a Luo like Mboya, is an emotional, radical tribalist with Communist leanings and support. Mboya helped oust Odinga as Vice President...
Mboya had many political enemies on the right as well as the left. He also had personal enemies, for he could be arrogant, brittle and ruthless in political infighting. As a Luo, Mboya was given only a scant chance to succeed Kenyatta, a member of the country's dominant Kikuyu tribe. His talents were such, however, that he might have been assassinated to head off any possibility of his presidency. Kenyatta described his death as "a loss to Kenya, to Africa and the world...
...with fellow tribesmen. Houphouet-Boigny keeps Baule kinsmen in key posts. In his heyday, Ghana's deposed Kwame Nkrumah heavily favored aides from his Nzima tribe. Mboya, for all his brilliance, may never reach top power in Kenya because he belongs not to the dominant Kikuyu, but to the Luo. So it goes: the central fact of Africa is that no leader can ignore the tribal grouping of peoples linked by common ancestors, speech and customs...
...Reds, last year promoted a unique experiment in one-party elections: his Tanzania Africa National Union put up two candidates for each post, with the result that several of his own Cabinet ministers were defeated. Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta has overridden the intense tribal rival ries of the Luo and his own Kikuyu and made a national fetish out of harambee (togetherness), winning the good will of most white settlers in the bargain. Even the disappointments have not been total. The personal tyranny of Ghana's Nkrumah has been succeeded by a military regime that is miraculously popular...