His demise is significant in many ways. His life and times too is significant much more perhaps than his death.
Maruge's life is a clear picture of Africa's history traversing the political, social and economic spheres. It is a life well lived but informing in many ways. His late life sojourn for knowledge is a real testimony of many Africans struggling to fulfill a life's vision which is about to be shattered by so many mitigating factors which cuts across the aforesaid spectrum.
A Reflection of Despair and Neglect
His life represents the ambitions of many a struggling lot in society which have remained a distant dream consigned to limbo by African leadership to a large extent and also Western greed and alienation which has seen many dreams shattered.Maruge also represents the lost chance which surfaced during independence in most African countries only to disappear shortly after and in its place power, with its attendant prodigy-greed, selfishness, discrimination, paranoia and finally extermination of the shared vision which kept the freedom fighters going on in the forests of Africa.
The elite and their relatives and friends secluded themselves from the common destiny and made the African struggle a masterpiece of fiction. It is no wonder in most African elite families the liberation struggle is only revisited during national holidays marked with pomp and colour while the underlying realities are better handled as an African man's sympathy tale tell.
Hope personified
On a positive note, Marugi represents a virtue best exemplified in the undying spirit of a man trying to pursue a vision once written in the template of his heart more than eight decades ago. That he enrolled for primary school at the age of eighty five is an encouraging thing that time is no hindrance to man's achievement.In September 2008 Marugi was in New York under the auspices of the Global Campaign for Education to address the United Nations on the importance of free primary education. With the custodians of power and authority, he shared a platform. Himself a beneficiary of free primary education, Marugi called on the UN to help some 115 million children denied education because of poverty. "To me, Liberty is going to school and learning," he said.
A Life well lived
A week ago, Marugi's candle went off after close to a century of struggle, hard work and determination chasing his dream. His travails in pursuit of a fulfilling life were halted when he finally submitted to an eternal call of nature. He had indeed lived a life worth emulating. Time could not allow him to see his dream come to pass. He had once intimated that he wanted to learn arithmetic to enable him count the money he was to receive from the British government as reparation for loss during the colonial period. He holds the Guinness World Record.A Dream frustrated, resisted and ultimately killed
In his sunset years, Marugi lived a horrible life subjected to terror, lack and menace. He had been rendered a refugee in his own country and consigned to an internally displaced persons camp as a result of post poll violence which visited the country in 2008. Perhaps it reminded him of moments in the cold fighting the white man whom he was to take the podium and address years later on in New York. This time around though, his motherland had gained self rule and was independent from a direct colonial power.His health was frail, a dream disappearing into the oblivion by the minute, a reminiscence of a struggle of a lifetime, a quest to conquer life's challenges then, finally, the candle went off and Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge's sojourn in the sands of time came to an end.
The Forum salutes you Monsiuer Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge for a life well lived.
