Jirongo on mudavadi biography

Moses Sabstone Mudamba Mudavadi wasn’t just an accomplished educationist, strict disciplinarian and later on a powerful cabinet minister, but he was also a traditional African man who believed in raising his children a certain way.

They had to find their own path in life and not ride on his name, and had to spend as much time in the village as possible, where for his political and social stature, Mudamba Madavadi was christened the King of Mululu. Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi, his eldest son, lived to tell the tales.

‘‘From primary school,’’ Mudavadi says when we speak at his Musalia Mudavadi Center office, a souped up old bungalow located in a gated community at the tailend of Riverside Drive, ‘‘my father’s rule was that exactly two days after closing day, I was whisked away to Mululu on either Taifa Bus or Nairobi Bus Union, where I would stay until just two days before schools reopened, when I would make the trip back to Nairobi.

This happened in first ter