Calls are growing in Kenya for the UK to return the remains of a revered tribal leader who fought against colonial rule more than a century ago. Koitalel arap Samoei led for more than ten years, from 1895, fierce opposition to the construction of the “Lunatic Express”, a railway linking Mombasa, a Kenyan port in the Indian Ocean, to Lake Victoria, in Uganda , via Nandi, in the Rift Valley.
Thousands of people who joined in resistance against this project were killed in the repression of the movement. According to Kenyan historians, the colonial authorities lured Samoei to a meeting in October 1905, ostensibly to negotiate a truce, in fact to shoot him and several of his fellow fighters. Samoei, spiritual leader of the Nandi people, was beheaded and his head taken to England as a war trophy, according to Nandi community elders.
The Kenyan government has been working for months with several Western chancelleries to obtain the restitution of a certain number of objects of its national heritage. Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who was visiting Kenya in 1952 when she became monarch, several voices have been raised calling on the UK to address the atrocities committed by the colonial regime.
“There was no compensation”
The Nandi people are demanding the return of the head of Samoei to his ancestral land in order to offer him a proper burial, a call widely relayed and shared on social networks in Kenya. In 2006, personal effects that belonged to the tribal chief, a cane and a stick, had already been returned to Kenya.
The Queen “meant so much to so many people […] despite the history of the British Empire and its atrocities”Nandi County attorney George Tarus told AFP: “But as the world mourns the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, perhaps now is the time to implore the UK government to do what is right: hand over Koitalel Samoei’s head and publicly apologize to the Nandi people. »
According to Me Tarus, who estimates the number of people killed during the popular uprising at 20,000, the British authorities also owe compensation to the inhabitants of the region for having seized fertile land, now exploited as tea plantations by British multinationals. “To date, there has been no compensation from the British government”says the lawyer, who is leading legal efforts to seek justice from the former colonial power.
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