How Excessive Drinking Saw Kenyatta Expelled From Church

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya, was one time kicked out of his church over excessive drinking.

The church was concerned with Kenyatta’s drinking but Mzee owned a popular alcohol joint called the Kinyatta Stores at Dagoretti.

During those times there was an archaic colonial statute that barred Africans from selling, let alone drinking bottled beer.

Kenyatta was suspended from receiving the Holy Communion, ex-communicated, and strongly advised to live with his first wife Grace Wahu, only after getting legally-married.

The clergy was against Wahu, Kenyatta living with Wahu then a student at the Church Missionary Society girls' school in Kabete whom he wished to wed in "privacy" to avoid paying dowry.

Running a local pub

Kenyatta agreed to a customary wedding but refused to quit the bottle, according to his biographer, Murray-Brown.

Earlier in his life, missionary teachers at the Thogoto Church of Scotland Mission Station thought Kenyatta didn't have a future beyond masonry.

He defied them and became the first President of Kenya although he had a tough time securing a job when the missionaries suspended him from the church.

Later as a wage collection clerk, Kenyatta earned Sh250 taking home more than European clerks, he would build a hut for Wahu and their firstborn son, Peter Muigai.

Until 1926, Kenyatta showed no political inclinations until Joseph Kang'ethe, the then secretary-general of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) urged him to join KCA because of his command of English.