Kenya Demographics 1963

Formerly a British colony (and partially protectorate), since 12 December 1963 it has been a republic within the Commonwealth. At the 1969 census the popol. overall was 10,942,705 residents (11.7 million in 1971). The great majority of the residents are Africans, mostly Kikuyu (2,200,000), Luo (1,520,000), Luhya (1,450,000) and Kamba (1,200,000), with a significant presence also of Kisii (700,000), Meru (550,000), Mijikenda (520,000), Kipsigis (470,000), Nandi (260,000), Turkana (200,000), Masai (155,000), as well as smaller groups of Suaheli, Arabi, Somali and Galla.

The policy subsequently implemented by the Kenyan government forced many Asians and even other non-Africans to leave. The Kenya, which is now divided into seven provinces, plus the urban district of the capital, Nairobi, has changed its distribution twice since independence. The six constituencies that existed when British control ended first rose to seven and then to the current eight. The very large re-arrangement has led to the creation of the Eastern, North-Eastern and Western provinces, to the clear identification of the district of Nairobi, autonomous in the past, but considered part of the Central province. The Northern and Southern provinces have been suppressed, and the remaining ones have been profoundly modified in the surface, with the obvious consequences on the population,

The capital, Nairobi, in 1973 had 630,000 residents (with small European and Asian minorities). Other important cities are Mambara (274,000 residents in 1969), Nakuru (47,150), Kisumu (32,500).

Economic conditions. – Only 3% of the land area is arable land and woody agricultural crops; about 7% to permanent meadows and pastures and 3.2% to woods: the rest is uncultivated and unproductive.

Agriculture is still the main production sector in the Oaese, to which exports are mostly linked. Industrial crops are those of coffee (750,000 q produced in 1975), tea (562,600 q), tobacco (1,500 q), sugar cane (1.8 million q of sugar) and pyrethrum (with 14,400 tons in 1971 Kenya is the world’s largest producer). Crops linked to local consumption include wheat (1.6 million q in 1975), corn (16 million q), oats, rice and sesame. Other typical products are those of agave sisalana, coconut and pineapple, while the minor productions include millet, potato, cassava, peanut, banana.

The zootechnical patrimony amounts to 7.6 million cattle, 7.5 mil. of sheep and goats, modest amounts of pigs, horses and camels.

In the gold mining industry he has given 557 kg in 1969 but only the kg in 1974; the brine, 35,000 tons in 1973; 206,000 t of soda ash were then obtained in 1973, as well as copper (100 t of metal in 1972), asbestos (100 t in 1967), magnesite (1500 t in 1973), diatomite (1500 t in 1972), niobium, wollastonite. The production of electricity, between 1962 and 1973, went from 220 to 723 million kWh, of which 381 are water. The installed power was 186,000 kW in 1971, of which 71,000 were water (82,000 and 26,000, respectively, in 1962).

As for the industrial sector, in addition to the existing refinery at Mombasa, and the cement factories (792,000 t in 1973), there is considerable activity in the processing of iron and steel, in the manufacture of fertilizers, bricks, tobacco processing and sugar and beer production.

The railways, from 2340 km in 1953 had already risen in 1969 to 4125 km. The rolling stock in 1973 consisted of 5500 km of main roads (of which 2489 asphalted) and 41.000 km of secondary roads (asphalted for 465 km). Main airports are those of Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.

History. – In the constitutional conference of February 1960 – when the violent action of the Mau Mau movement was now completely exhausted and the Africans had been granted (1959) the possibility of settling in the highlands – the process towards self-government was accelerated (he entered in the Legislative Council an elective majority and in the Executive Council a majority of non-official members, 4 of which African, 3 European and 2 Asian) and the goal of independence was set, with only the opposition of the most reactionary part of the European dissidents. In the 1961 elections, held on the basis of a single college, the African representation was won overwhelmingly by the Kenya African National Union (chaired by J. Gichuru), in which the two main ethnic groups, the Kikuya and the Luo, were allied. However, KANU refused to establish the government due to the preliminary request for release of the leader J. Kenyatta, and the cabinet was formed by the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) chaired by R. Ngala, expression of ethnic minority groups. Other constitutional stages were reached in 1962, with the formation of a coalition government, and in 1963 when the Kenya obtained full internal self-government: the Legislative Council was replaced by a bicameral system (House of Representatives and Senate) while seven were constituted. Regional assemblies; the new prime minister, J. Kenyatta, showed balance and restraint, reassuring the Europeans of their stay in the country. Independence was proclaimed on December 12, 1963; the constitution maintained the bicameral system and established a complex structure of regional autonomies.

The government (with British help overcome a coup attemptin January 1964), however, affirmed in practice a centralist tendency, concretized in a new constitution which also marked the passage to the republic from 12 December 1964 (vice-president Oginga Odinga); from 1964 a de facto one-party regime was established, with the spontaneous merger of the KADU (14 out of 27 senators and 23 out of 104 deputies) into the KANU, within which however a conflict between the moderates polarized (headed by T. Mboya, supported by President Kenyatta) supporters of economic ties with foreign countries, and the radicals of O. Odinga (who had followed among the former Mau Mau and among the less well-off) in favor of nationalization and reforms. Internal tensions intensified (the government in 1965 increased control over the trade union organization) and in March 1966, after a victory of the moderates in the KANU conference in Limuru, Kenya People’s Union, however electorally defeated and then subjected to restrictions. In 1967 the Trade Licensing Act established rules for the Africanization of many sectors of work to the detriment of the Asian minority, much of which moved to Great Britain.

According to recipesinthebox.com, the assassination of Mboya in July 1969 opened a period of crisis: the conflict between the two ethnic groups, the Kikuyu, who had assumed dominance in public responsibilities, and the Luo reignited; following riots, with some dead, during a Kenyatta trip to the Luo region, in October the KPU – which had fully assumed the character of a Luo tribal party – was banned and Odinga was arrested. A large turnover of men in the elections of December 1969 and the gradual progress of Africanization in the commercial and agricultural sectors initiated a détente, only momentarily disturbed by the discovery of a subversive attempt at the beginning of 1971 (in March Odinga was released). In September 1974 Kenyatta was re-elected president of the republic for a third term; political elections were held in October, with a new large turnover of elected representatives; in recent times there has been a certain tension in political life. Kenya’s relationship with the other two was much debated partners of the East African Community, in particular with Amin’s Uganda. Kenyatta died suddenly on August 22, 1978.