After several weeks of missing in action, a prominent Citizen TV journalist Jeff Koinange has reminisced about how his close family members, including his father, were imprisoned before Kenya's independence.
Speaking during a morning show on Spice FM on Friday, December 12, Jeff went down memory lane, narrating how his father and grandfather were thrown in prison and served for 16 years.
According to the journalist, four years before Kenya gained independence, his father, Fredrick Mbiu Koinange, got married to his mother, Mary Nyambura. At the time, Kenya was still under colonial rule.
Jeff's father, Fredrick Koinange, was not an ordinary man; he was the son of Chief Mbiu Koinange, who played a crucial role in the fight for Kenya's independence.
He recounted his father being detained for seven years, while his grandfather endured nine years behind bars, and together they spent 16 years marked by torture and suffering.
During the duo's detention, there was no parole, no trial, and no assurance of return, adding that the detention was indefinite, designed to break both the individual and the family left behind.
"My dad was detained for 7 years, and my grandfather for 9 years. And together they served a total of 16 years," Jeff narrated.
15 Family Members Detained
However, Jeff revealed that the pain did not end there. Several other family members, about 15 of them, were also detained in prison during the precolonial era, a period.
The journalist claimed, that if put together, their detetion period could span over a century.
"Other family members were also detained during that time. If you put together the years all these people served can reach 100 years. There was no parole," he revealed.
According to the journalist, on December 12, 1963, when Kenya finally became independent, his father broke down at Uhuru Gardens as he witnessed the realisation of his dream after fighting for the country for several years.
Jeff Koinange recalled how his mother later told them that his father wept openly that day, remembering the detention, pain, and sacrifice he made.
"Four years after my parents were married Kenya was granted independence and my father was at Uhuru Gardens, my father was there, our mother told us later on that my father shed tears. He could not believe Kenya was independent," Jeff Koinange.
