Jomo Kenyatta and his successor Daniel arap Moi set the tone for ethnic and authoritarian politics which Kenya has wrestled to free itself from in recent decades.
As Nairobi grows ever taller, and as newer suburbs take over from the central business district as the city’s commercial centres, the Hilton stands as a landmark to a different era.
A choir performs during independence day celebrations in Kenya.
Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
Music has often been used as a political tool to urge Kenyans to forget the sins of colonial and post-colonial regimes.
Simeon Nyachae (right) welcomes President Uhuru Kenyatta to his alma mater, Kisii School in western Kenya, during the institution’s 80th anniversary in 2014.
State House Kenya/Courtesy
Kenya’s constitution-making process has exhibited a gyration pattern that often starts with a belief that governance reforms can rectify the country’s problems, but ends up as a power struggle.
Kenya’s founding president Jomo Kenyatta attends a ceremony in 1964 in Nairobi.
Photo by Anwar Hussein/Getty Images
The resilient Mau Mau freedom fighters failed to maintain revolutionary action after independence.
President Jomo Kenyatta, wearing a gold and scarlet robe and leopard cap, is installed as Chancellor of the University of Nairobi in December 1970.
Getty Images
Kenya’s history of electoral problems is interwoven with a political drama which pits one dynasty against another in a rivalry that goes back more than 50 years.
Rivals in the Kenya election Uhuru Kenyatta (left) and Raila Odinga.
Reuters/Thomas Mukoya
Although some complain that the differences between Kenyatta and Odinga are more rhetorical than real, one thing is clear: Kenyans have a real choice to make at the ballot box.
Hopeton Dunn, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
South African-Jamaican intellectual, activist and author Peter Abrahams died in January 2017. He will be revered for his contributions to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and the Caribbean.
Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations and Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the Witwatersrand
Associate Fellow at the HORN International Institute for Strategic Studies and Professor of History and International Relations, United States International University