It was in 1899 that Nairobi was founded with Kenya-Uganda Railway reaching the business centre and it being turned to the headquarters. Thus Masaku (Machakos) gave way to Nairobi as the new Provincial headquarters and Mvita (Mombasa) followed by, ceding its capital status in 1908.
The current city centre was the nucleus of Nairobi. Segregated from the on-set, a number of plagues out-break proved it unhealthy to have residential areas at the city centre. This was effected with such a plaque out-break in the Asians section in 1901. Westlands, Muthaiga, Karen – Ngong was white, Parklands was yellow and blacks in slum villages in the East where the rivers flooded, hence suffering from floods and mosquitoes – a common thing in other colonial cities as Accra - Ghana.
Some of the African slums were; Pangani, Marikini, Kariokor, Kileleshwa and ‘Mombasa’. Lack of water in these villages meant poor sanitation that led to frequent plagues. This forced a 1913 commission under Prof. Simpson to recommend further racial segregation of residential areas. In 1917 saw all those villages cleared and in 1923 Africans were wholesomely bundled at Pumwani.
Scarcity of housing and poor pay meant Africans couldn’t live with their families here in the capital town. Louise White, in her book, Prostitution in Nairobi – Domestic Labour in Colonial Kenya, states that this ancient trade was in fact encouraged by the white administration because it was four-fold; it ensured men appetite were satisfied thus labour was still available, too, labourer had to work to afford these women’s comfort. The women also received income from their services since women then were not employable. Needless to say, venereal diseases were a constant menace then.
In 1950, Nairobi got a city status but a report on African Housing in Townships and Trading Centres, by E.A. Vasey, looked to be endorsing these deplorable housing conditions for the natives. This was so because he stated that, not workers’ companies but ‘in the building by the African of houses for himself or for the accommodation of other Africans.’
World War to rendered Britain weak and broke hence not so great! She survived on U.S.A’s Marshall Plan – an economic aid scheme that benefitted the war weary nations of the west that had been badly bruised by the woes. Strings attached to this aid were amongst other, decolonisation and humane treatment of the colonised. Amongst directions to Britain, was, she increases her capital expenditure on the welfare of the colonised masses. Gimmickry, Britain came up with Colonial Development and Welfare Programme.
Pumwani Memorial Hall – UKUMBUSHO, was erected as a communal building to serve as African social life centre. A library, lecture and dance halls and an adjoining beer-hall were amongst the facilities here-in.
