I’m a flâneur. Every time I visit a new town, I like to take a walk, a run, and cycle around the area. I walk to discover the various points of interest – the smocha guy for example, the dispensary, the retail shop… To find out if the non-motorised transport lanes in the area are pedestrian-friendly, I run. A bike ride helps me map out the whole area in a short time.

So, the other day, when I visited Milimani in Kisumu, I conducted my usual routine and developed a really huge interest in the area. Why? Because, just like Nairobi, that side of the city has kept its street names, with the signposts well maintained and in position for all to see.

I spent the whole day walking around the area, noting down the street names which, interestingly, were all names of significant people in history. There was Adala Otuko Street, Omolo Agar Street, Awuor Otieno Street, Odiaga Street, Achieng Oneko Street, Ojijo Oteko Road, and many others. Each time I came upon a signpost, I asked myself: Who was Adala Otuko? Who was Omolo Agar? Who was Ojijo Oteko? I was intrigued, and once I got back home, I dug into history to find information about them.

Omolo Agar was Kenya’s first and only independent candidate to win a parliamentary seat under the old constitution. In the 1963 independence elections, Agar vied for the Rachuonyo parliamentary seat as an independent candidate and won. This was despite being rigged out of the KANU party nominations by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga in favour of his preferred candidate, Gogo Ochok. After that election, it was ruled that candidates could only vie for seats through political parties, a rule that remained until the promulgation of the 2010 constitution.

But even before that, Omolo Agar had been the Organising Secretary of Tom Mboya’s party – the Nairobi People’s Convention Party – in the years from 1957 to 1961. He was also the editor of the pre-independence newspaper Uhuru where he would harshly question the actions of the colonial government. Agar was detained twice, once in Lamu together with John Keen and the second time in Lokitaung. 

Omolo Agar had a Bachelor’s degree in Economics obtained in India and a Masters in Military Science from the University of Pittsburgh in the United States of America. He died in 1970, just a few months after the assassination of his best friend, Tom Mboya. Truly an important man in Kenya’s history.

Adala Otuko was Kenya’s first-ever ambassador to the USSR, taking office immediately after we gained independence in 1963. He went on to become the Ker (chairman) of the Luo Council of Elders in the years between 1998 and 2001 when he passed away. Otuko was father to Tom Mboya Adala, a former Assistant Director at the National Intelligence Service who died of suicide in June this year. 

Maseno School, one of the oldest educational institutions for Africans in colonial Kenya, opened its doors in 1906 with the objective of training young Africans to read and write so that they could become skilled workers. Its first administrator was Rev. Willis of the Church Missionary Society. In 1908, the students went on a strike because they felt that they were being given the very bare minimum education. Their pleas were heard and their curriculum was changed to resemble that of the Europeans. The schoolboy who led the strike was Elly Daniel Ojijo Oteko.

After leaving school, Oteko went on to form the Young Kavirondo Association together with other Luos and Luhyas who were against the repressive practices of the colonialists. He fought for the Africans’ right to do business, to plant cash crops, to keep animals, etc. Oteko died in 1942.

These three are just some of the prominent Kenyans who have been memorialised in Milimani, Kisumu. I asked a couple of friends from the area whether they knew about them but was surprised to learn that they had never even taken an interest in the names themselves. Street names, I was told, were a “Nairobi thing”. In the rest of the country people identify places by landmarks such as buildings and matatu stages. This got me thinking about the importance of street names, and whether they actually serve their intended purpose.

Sometime last year, the same conversation was had on Twitter about how people find their way around Nairobi’s central business district. Most people said that they identify locations by the buildings there rather than by street names; directions are given using buildings in the area rather than street names. People know the National Archives building but they don’t know Moi Avenue. They know Afya Centre but they don’t know Tom Mboya Street. They know RNG Plaza but they don’t know Ronald Ngala Street.

In their paper titled Street toponymy and the Decolonisation of the urban landscape in post-colonial Nairobi, Melissa Wangui and Kosuke Matsubara observe:

“Street names became representations of change in political leadership and ideology. Though they may appear mundane, their inevitable daily use makes them significant as arenas of public memory. They provide an opportunity to commemorate historically significant people.”

Thus, Tom Mboya Street was named so in order for us to commemorate the life of Tom Mboya. Just as was the case for Kenyatta Avenue (for Jomo Kenyatta), Kimathi Street (for Dedan Kimathi), Muindi Mbingu Street, etc.

But when the authors say, “They provide an opportunity to commemorate historically significant people,” do they take into account the fact that those daily on these streets may have no clue about the life and times of those whom they are named after?

Take the case of Wabera St. (the street running from McMillan Library to the Supreme Court); I’d be curious to know how many of us know about Daudi Dabasso Wabera, the first ever African District Commissioner, posted to Isiolo in 1963, and whose assassination just a few days after the first Madaraka Day sparked the Shifta War. Or the case of Tumbo Ave. (the avenue between Times Tower and Central Bank); how many of us know about Lieutenant John Charles Tumbo Kalima, who led the Kenyan military in fighting against the Shifta insurgency in Garissa and Wajir back in 1963?

So, this begs the question of whether we can actually commemorate something without having enough information about it (in this case Nairobi’s street names). I am, of course, assuming – hopefully I am right – that not everyone will go out of their way to look into the names and, therefore, into the people behind the names.

There have been a couple of initiatives to teach others this history, such as the Qwani Sketch Tours, where participants walk along a street, learning the history behind the buildings while making sketches of the surrounding environment. The Too Early for Birds theatre group has also taken the initiative to teach Kenyan history through entertaining theatre shows.

In a recent article about Walter Odede – Kenya’s forgotten hero and freedom fighter, Joyce Nyairo suggests the renaming of streets, observing that “heroism is not a permanent state of grace, it comes in moments. If we named moments, elevated deeds – Freedom Avenue ’56 or Justice 1965, rather than Kimathi St. and Pinto Ave. – we might be less wired to Messiahs and their inevitable betrayal.” While this too is a good idea, it is important that enough information about the new names is provided, that Kenyans know what happened in 1956 and 1965.

This could come in the form of plaques as is the case with the statues around downtown Nairobi (Tom Mboya, Ronald Ngala, Dedan Kimathi and the Kenya African Rifles soldiers). We could also have city guidebooks containing photos, maybe sketches, and stories about particular places archived online. Chao Tayiana’s initiative to digitise cultural heritage collections is a good example of how this can be achieved. 

In this way, we’ll be able to share this history better, be it about the people who contributed significantly to the country, or significant moments in our country’s history (such as June 25th). The effect of this would be an increase in the use of street names and the passing down of the history behind the names, which would, in the end, contribute to shaping the society’s thinking. It is something we must do.

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First Published on The Elephant