AKINLOLU FAWEHINMI: HISTORICAL CORNER

THE MAUMAU GENERAL

Remembering Field Marshal Muthoni wa Kirima (Born 1931), the highest ranking woman fighter of the Mau Mau (Kenya Land and Freedom Army). 

In her twenties at the start of the Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960), Kirima first worked as a spy, Before joining the fighters in the forest. 

Rising quickly through the ranks due to her innate talent as a military tactician, she quickly attained first the rank of General then Field Marshal. 

She was never captured. Although the Mau Mau Uprising “officially” ended in 1960 the units she commanded did not come out of the field until Kenyan independence in 1963, making her the second longest serving high ranking. 

Involved in some of the heaviest fighting in the forest war. 

Injured several times, once so badly she suffered a miscarriage so bad she became unable to ever conceive. (“Kenya is my only child”, she told a reporter in 2012) 

Commander after Field Marshal Musa Mwariama. 

She died on 4th  September 2023. 

Dr. Akinlolu Fawehinmi writes from Lagos, Nigeria