“The Kenya government has declared that it was their desire for her majesty the queen to become queen of Kenya, and Mr Ngala on behalf of the opposition, expressed his support for this. My Rt Hon. Friend has conveyed this request to her majesty, who has been graciously pleased to approve.” — Letter sent on 13th November, 1963, from the Secretary of State of the Colonies to Rt Hon Malcolm McDonald, then governor of Kenya.
“The Kenya government has declared that it was their desire for Her Majesty the Queen to become Queen of Kenya…”
The sentence sits in an old colonial letter dated November 13, 1963, written just weeks before independence. It sounds absurd now. Like the kind of thing a drunken district officer would scribble on the back of a napkin after too much gin and boiled goat. Yet it was real. The empire was leaving, but still wanted to own the furniture.
And Kenya, trembling at the gates of freedom, was apparently offering the Crown a spare key to the house.
History in this country does not end. It simply changes clothes.
Last week Nairobi hosted more than 30 African heads of state — including the president of Abegistan — for the Forward Africa Summit, a grand diplomatic gathering headlined by French President Emmanuel Macron and choreographed with all the soft lighting of a luxury advert.
Delegates flew in. Convoys screamed through roads where hawkers still sell socks and boiled eggs under clouds of exhaust smoke. Helicopters hovered above corrugated rooftops. Nairobi became what Nairobi always becomes during international summits: a city temporarily rented out to foreigners and local elites while citizens are instructed to clap from behind barricades.
And what a summit it was.
The banquet menu alone looked like it had been assembled by Kenyan chefs trying to confuse native Kenyans.
There was “Spirit of Kenya Hibiscus Royale,” which sounds less like a drink and more like a gated estate in Kiambu where wealth and poverty stare awkwardly at each other across electric fences.
There was goat cheese snow in a country where many children have never even seen ice. Cassava crisp. Sea bass with lemongrass beurre blanc. Avocado mille-feuille. Smoked trout rillette with yuzu. Tomato consommé. Pistachio dacquoise. Hibiscus gelée. Sweet potato mousseline. And a dessert called Umoja 47, supposedly symbolizing unity across Kenya’s counties.
Tea described as having “soft minerality and floral notes,” served alongside Purple Oolong Tea that was said to “complement without overpowering.”
Sea bass and salmon with lemongrass beurre blanc and sweet potato mousseline. Refined amuse-bouche of orange carrot, sweet pickled beet and hibiscus gelée. Pre-dinner canapés of smoked trout rillette with yuzu and cassava gougère taken with brioche crisp. Comté-style cheese, grilled banana and chicken liver parfait with coffee dust, avocado lime royale, and Kenyan nyama choma sliders — a polite nod to ordinary Kenya.
A pistachio dacquoise layered with white chocolate mousse, orange curd and strawberry-mint crémeux represented “the unity across Kenya’s 47 counties.” Petit fours — macadamia praline, coffee jaggery truffle and vanilla-tea sablé — arrived beside coffee and tea.
The banquet showcased ingredients from across the republic: Timau lamb shanks from the freezing slopes of Mt Kenya, smoked sukuma wiki and millet ugali, Malindi lobster, Hass avocado mille-feuille and Rift Valley tomato consommé.
Rift Valley vegetables. Timau mushrooms. Indian Ocean seafood. Kirinyaga tea. Murang’a coffee. Coastal cashew nuts.
Wines and beverages reflected what organizers called a strong Franco-Kenyan pairing: Champagne Duval-Leroy Brut Réserve, Côte du Rhône whites and Bordeaux reds beside Kenya’s signature purple and hibiscus tea infusions.
Organizers said every ingredient was selected not only for flavour but for its cultural and geographical significance.
The only words most Kenyans recognized from this gastronomic fusion are nyama choma and tea because the rulers and the ruled are increasingly living in different countries while sharing the same borders.
Social media exploded into laughter. Not joyful laughter. The kind that says: we see you.
Meanwhile, outside the banquet halls, Kenya continued being Kenya. Young men in oversized jackets loitered outside betting shops calculating odds on European football matches. Women in markets argued over the price of onions with the seriousness of constitutional lawyers. Matatus painted with the faces of American rappers screamed through traffic carrying passengers who have perfected the art of surviving disappointment.
Inside the summit, however, Africa was being “reimagined” as delegates drank French wine while discussing African futures.
You must understand the choreography of these events. They are not summits. They are theatre.
The African president arrives first, smiling too hard. The European leader arrives later, smiling calmly, like a bank manager approving a loan he already knows you cannot repay. Then comes the handshake. Cameras flash.
The two dealers signed 11 agreements aimed at strengthening cooperation between Kenya and France in transport, energy, digital transformation and trade.
The automatic five-year renewable defence deal includes partnerships in maritime security, intelligence, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and disaster response. France has already deployed 800 military personnel to Kenya, with officials saying they will provide training for KDF officers.
The agreement reportedly allows convicted French personnel to serve sentences in France for crimes committed on Kenyan soil.
Kenya’s military engagement with France complements existing security agreements with countries such as the UK and the US, both of which maintain military presence in Kenya. Supporters argue the partnerships strengthen counter-terrorism efforts against threats such as Al-Shabab terrorist group.
Critics, however, see something darker. USAID was funding Al-shabab and Boko Haram terrorist groups.
“When the imperialists looked for a military to use in Haiti, they came to Ruto and he gave them. When the United States came for Kenya’s health data, he signed. When the British army molested, killed and maltreated Kenyan women while destroying land during training exercises, he did nothing. Now the French want military footholds and immunity from Kenyan law under the language of cooperation,” one Kenyan user wrote online.
Behind every speech sits the old ghost of empire adjusting its cufflinks.
Across West Africa, Paris has steadily lost ground. Mali pushed French forces out. Burkina Faso pushed them out. Niger followed. Senegal drifted away. Chad became uncertain. The old Françafrique architecture — built on military deals, pliant elites, intelligence networks and economic dependence — is cracking loudly in the Sahel heat.
France’s history on the continent remains long, intimate and deeply brutal. From the Thiaroye massacre of African soldiers in 1944 who fought for them against German Nazis then asked for their promised salary. Massacre!
France has assassinated 23 African presidents in the last five decades when they didn’t toe their insatiable line of demands. Right now they are sponsoring terror groups in the Sahelian region trying to bring down their governments for uplifting the lives of their people.
They poisoned Haiti’s first leader Toussaint Louverture for demanding an end to slavery and the liberation of his people in 1803. Hunted down and assassinated Cameroon’s independence leader, Ruben Um Nyobe in 1958 before independence was granted. Orchestrated the assassination of Silvanus Olympio of Togo in 1963. Armed and protected the murderer of president Thomas Sankara.
Supported the destabilization that led to the overthrow and death of Modibo Keita of Mali and printed millions of fake currency destroying the Guinea Franc after 8 failed assassination attempts at president Sekou Toure because he demanded independence and they played a prominent role among the forces that assassinated Patrice Lumumba coordinating with Belgium and the CIA.
A country that has been on the forefront of the enslavement of Africa and Africans and that has created numerous coups all over the continent, is now coming as a friend. But a leopard doesn’t change its spots.
After rejection in parts of West Africa, East Africa suddenly looks attractive. Stable enough. Strategic enough. Fertile enough for renewed influence.
Kenya, always eager to audition for the role of regional prefect, opened the door enthusiastically. Officials call it partnership. Critics call it recolonization with PowerPoint presentations.
Because Africans have learned something important about modern empire: it no longer arrives on ships. It arrives through memorandums of understanding.
The new colonizer does not wear khaki shorts and carry a Bible. He carries a development framework, a military agreement and an innovation summit badge.
And Kenya’s political class adores these things.
Our leaders love international validation the way insecure teenagers love Instagram likes. Nothing excites them more than a European president saying “strategic partnership” while standing beside a Kenyan flag. They beam. They puff their chests. They suddenly begin speaking English with violence.
President William Ruto proudly announced that Kenya was honoured to host the summit outside Francophone Africa for the first time. State House purred like a well-fed Cheshire cat.
Then Emmanuel Macron stepped forward and declared himself “a true pan-Africanist.”
History nearly fainted.
France’s relationship with Africa is soaked in contradictions: intervention, extraction, diplomacy, military cooperation, cultural influence and economic dependency all braided together into one long toxic marriage.
“I want the youth of France to understand that our fate is tied to the African continent’s fate. We will succeed with Africa,” Macron said.
But many Africans — Kenyans included — increasingly feel exhausted by these declarations of partnership from powers that once built fortunes from conquest and violent oppression.
Modern geopolitics has perfected the art of selective amnesia. Yesterday’s occupier becomes today’s strategic ally. Yesterday’s extraction becomes today’s investment partnership.
And because memory in Africa is constantly interrupted by poverty, survival and elite propaganda, the cycle continues.
Still, ordinary Africans are remembering again. That is what frightened many governments about the internet.
Social media has become the new village square where official narratives go to die humiliating deaths. During the summit, Kenyan users on X turned into digital snipers. Celebrities who associated too closely with Macron were dragged with terrifying efficiency.
Marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge escaped relatively unharmed after jogging with Macron through Nairobi streets because Kenyans adore Kipchoge. He belongs to the nation in a way politicians never will.
But others were not spared.
Dennis Ombachi — better known online as the Roaming Chef — found himself roasted more aggressively than any nyama choma he has ever prepared.
Ombachi is one of Kenya’s internet success stories: a former rugby player turned culinary creator filming beautiful meals from a Nairobi balcony. His content feels warm, local and aspirational. A digital son of the republic.
Then Macron appeared on the show.
Suddenly the comments section became a civil war.
People accused him of sanitizing colonial power. Of normalizing foreign influence. Of serving aesthetics while citizens struggled under taxes, unemployment and police brutality.
Since 2024, Kenya has faced recurring waves of political unrest driven by public anger over taxation, economic hardship and governance. To critics, the possibility of deeper foreign military presence feels less like security cooperation and more like insurance for an increasingly fragile political order.
The outrage spread further when musician Bien-Aimé Baraza appeared at a French-linked celebrity dinner. Kenyan fans — particularly online women who usually defend him with alarming devotion — announced dramatic breakups with his music.
One sensed less political analysis than emotional betrayal.
Because this is what politicians still fail to understand: young Kenyans are angry in a deeply cultural way. They no longer separate entertainment, politics and identity neatly. Everything is political now.
The meal. The selfie. The handshake.
And beneath all this sits the larger Kenyan anxiety: that the country is quietly being sold piece by piece while citizens are distracted by hashtags and fuel prices.
Foreign military agreements. Foreign loans. Foreign data deals. Foreign mining contracts. Foreign influence everywhere. Kenya sometimes feels less like a sovereign republic and more like an Airbnb for global interests.
This is why many Kenyans viewed the summit with suspicion rather than pride. The optics were impossible to ignore: leaders feasting on lobster while ordinary people skip meals. Delegates discussing innovation while university graduates ride motorcycles delivering food they cannot afford to eat themselves.
Outside luxury hotels, Nairobi smelled as it always does after rain: wet dust, roasted maize and unfinished dreams.
The contrast was almost literary in its cruelty.
Yet perhaps the strangest moment of the summit came during Macron’s now-famous jog with Kipchoge.
Schoolchildren lined the roads. Adults gathered with phones raised high for selfies. Security officers hovered nervously. Macron smiled, waved and slowed down for greetings.
But he was completely ignored by the kids and adults. Instead they scrummed for selfies with Kipchoge.
Some kids even asked the mzungu, “Who are you?”
It was a perfect Nairobi moment. Unscripted. Slightly chaotic. Accidentally profound. Because empire always assumes it is being watched. But increasingly, Africans are looking elsewhere.
Not toward Paris, London or Washington. Toward themselves.
Toward the athlete who runs impossible distances. Toward the market woman surviving inflation with mathematics no economist understands. Toward musicians, creators and ordinary citizens trying to reclaim dignity in systems designed to exhaust them.
That old colonial letter from 1963 suddenly feels less distant and more present. Back then, Kenya seemed willing to remain emotionally tethered to the Crown even while becoming formally independent.
Today the language is different.
Now the vocabulary is military access, strategic partnerships, intelligence cooperation and investment corridors. The language has evolved. The appetite feels familiar.
And Kenya stands again at that uncomfortable intersection between sovereignty and surrender. History, after all, does not end.
It simply updates the menu.
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