A friend sent me a list of books that Bookshops in Kenya dare not touch.
“something is happening my friend, there are some books that now seem to be out of print. Bookshops fear to stock them”, said the friend immediately forwarding me the list on my WhatsAPP.
Sometimes in mid-2019, The Struggle For Freedom and Justice, a book by Kenya independent hero Bildad Kaggia was very popular on social media as Kenyans discussed how Jomo Kenyatta’s history has been lying to Kenyans through revelations gotten from the book.
Immediately after, the book seemed to have gone out of print, never to be seen again despite requests by buyers. The enormous amounts of requests could have pushed the publisher to print and release another batch but that was not so.
“We have been waiting for the book, but seem the Kenyatta government banned it”, another client of the said bookshop had stated.
ALSO READ: Was Kenya Web Experts Threatened To Sabotage Sales of Miguna Books?
There have been rumours that these books: Treason by Miguna Miguna and Looters and Grabbers by Joe Khamisi’s book were banned by the government.
Those allegations might be true because, even after frustrating the entry of Miguna’s tell-all book about what transpired in 2017 elections, last year, the website of an online book store stocking book was taken down by Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC), which manages the dot ke domain that the online bookshop was using.
The popularity of Bildad Kaggia’s book was steadily rising before it was snapped out of bookshelves.
https://twitter.com/gabrieloguda/status/1141710685216411648?s=20
It is easy to assume that the government which bought off Daily Nation newspapers from the streets in order to hide corruption expose’s is capable of buying off all books it doesn’t like that it didn’t at first ban.
Reminded me of this from Bildad Kaggia’s book pic.twitter.com/kSbK6CZmlO
— #SwitchOffKPLC (@Nasewangari) August 23, 2019
The list of books that appear to have been banned are:
- The Struggle For Freedom and Justice by Bildad Kaggia
2. The Big Conservation Lie Book – out of print we with no explanation
3. Forward to independent by Fitz de Souza – stocked by only one bookshop
4. Not yet Uhuru by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga – out of print with no explanation
5. Kenya: A History Since Independence by Charles Hornsby
6. Looters and grabber’s by Joe Khamisi – stocked by only one bookshop
7. Migunas books – stocked by only one bookshop