The little-known Somali who ‘secretly’ funded the Mau Mau that fought for Kenya’s independence

Mohamed Hassan has been described as one of the freedom fighters of Kenya who funded the nationalist movement Kenya African Union (KAU) and the Mau Mau, a major nationalist revolutionary movement that originally sought to reclaim land that the British settlers had taken away from them in the 1950s. The group would eventually contribute to Kenya’s independence.

Despite his enormous contributions, when discussing the history of Kenya’s struggle for independence, Hassan is usually ignored and this is mainly because he is Somali.

According to historians, Somalis in Kenya, who are over 2 million currently, were largely ‘ostracised’ after Kenya gained independence. This was caused by the Shifta War that followed a desire by the Somalis to join the larger Somalia.

In 1962, a year before Kenya’s independence, a referendum was held to find out whether Somalis, who were then living in North Eastern Kenya and cut off from the greater Somalia, wanted to remain Kenyan or to rejoin Somalia.

They voted for rejoining the greater Somalia, but the British government refused and the Kenyan government, since 1963, has held on to the borders. Somali nationalists seeking secession from Kenya eventually took arms against the Kenyan government, and even though the war was over by July 1967, it has influenced Kenya-Somalia relations till date.

That is perhaps why the story of Somali businessman and freedom fighter Hassan has been hardly discussed. 

Today, Hassan’s shop, which is currently one of the remaining pillars of Kenya’s independence struggle, is rotting away.

Despite being a structure that contains the history of the freedom movement and inter-race relations in colonial Kenya, as well as, the story of the place of the Somali community in the freedom struggle, it has been ignored by authorities.

The Somali businessman was compelled to close the shop and it was occupied by some Indian traders after independence.