Dr Kenneth S. Ombongi, OGW
Associate Dean, Research and Postgraduate Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Nairobi

The death of Professor Godfrey Muriuki in Nyeri on 15 October 2026 marks the passing of more than an eminent historian. It marks the departure of a scholar who helped give African history intellectual legitimacy, institutional permanence and a distinctly Kenyan voice.

Yet his greatest legacy may lie beyond his publications. For 54 years, he remained at the University of Nairobi, building an institution while nurturing generations of scholars.

Muriuki belonged to the pioneering generation of African historians who challenged colonial assumptions that Africa possessed neither a meaningful past nor the intellectual resources to interpret it. Their task was not merely to recover forgotten histories, but to restore historical agency to African peoples. Through scholarly rigour and intellectual patience, Muriuki helped establish the intellectual independence of African history.

Born in July 1937, he rose from humble beginnings, distinguishing himself at Government African School, Kagumo, before proceeding to Makerere University College to study history. He subsequently earned his doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, between 1966 and 1969. His landmark book, A History of the Kikuyu, 1500–1900, remains a pioneering contribution to Kenyan historiography, demonstrating that African societies deserved the same seriousness of historical inquiry accorded to any other civilisation.

Yet the man was larger than his bibliography. After beginning his working life as a teacher in Mweiga in 1959, he joined the University of Nairobi, rising to professor in 1987. Between 1975 and 1989, he chaired the Department of History for fourteen years. He also held international appointments and fellowships, including at Stanford University, SOAS and the University of the Western Cape. His international standing was unquestionable; his decision to remain in Nairobi demonstrated his priorities.

By his retirement in June 2018, Muriuki had served the University for 54 years. He had become a living archive of its intellectual development and a custodian of its academic traditions. In an age when professional success is often measured by how far one travels, his life invites a different question: what does a scholar leave behind in the institution he calls home?

My answer to that question is deeply personal. When Muriuki retired, I was chairperson of the Department of History. I was young enough to have been his grandchild, yet he treated me with warmth and respect. One day, he found me sitting in the departmental chair he had occupied for many years. Addressing me by my first name, he announced that he was returning to the “Republic of Nyeri,” his affectionate name for his hometown. He gave me his postal address in Kiganjo and promised to fatten a goat for us when we visited.

I never made that visit. Two years later, when we planned to go, I had bought him a present. The visit never happened. Today, that unfulfilled promise hurts in a way no archive can repair. Historians preserve the past, but grief reminds us that some opportunities, once lost, cannot be recovered.

Muriuki was my senior, teacher, mentor and, above all, my dear friend. After completing my PhD at the University of Cambridge in the early 2000s, I joined a private university rather than the University of Nairobi. Muriuki personally called me. His message was unmistakable: the Department could not train its own scholars only to surrender them to other institutions. In essence, he told me, “Come home.” I returned.

Later, when I struggled to secure permission to spend six months at Cambridge’s African Studies Centre, his intervention helped resolve the matter. He encouraged me to go, learn and return. He understood that intellectual mobility need not become permanent exile from one’s academic home. When I eventually decided to marry, he offered me a cow for dowry, urged me not to delay and later gave me a generous gift exceeding the value of an adult cow. His teasing insistence that he needed grandchildren quickly revealed the warmth behind his academic authority.

My colleagues’ recollections confirm that this generosity was no private exception. Dr George Gona remembers Muriuki’s lively, jocular lectures on African history, which captivated him as a first-year student. Like many of us, Gona experienced the warmth of a senior colleague who addressed younger academics by their first names, making the Department a community rather than a hierarchy.

Dr Mwiandi recalls Muriuki’s guidance of his master’s and doctoral research in Kenya and London, while Pamela Ngesa remembers his selfless assistance with her master’s work. Such mentorship often extended beyond formal supervision. Muriuki understood that building an academic institution meant investing in people, sometimes long before institutional structures recognised their potential.

Perhaps his most profound legacy was his compassion for disadvantaged students. Dr Gachihi remembers a man shaped by childhood poverty, raised by a struggling mother and sustained by a loving grandfather. Having experienced hardship, Muriuki never forgot those still trapped within it. He helped needy students secure scholarships, meals and work-study opportunities, sometimes describing himself humorously as a “professional beggar” when soliciting assistance on their behalf. His honesty and commitment to fairness were legendary.

Here was a different measure of academic achievement: not simply producing graduates, but preventing poverty from destroying their prospects. He knew that intellectual excellence means little if a university remains indifferent to the circumstances that determine who gets to learn.

He also recognised that scholarship flourishes through intellectual exchange. Dr Nyanchoga recalls how Muriuki invited him, as an archaeologist, to explain to history students how archaeology could serve as a source of historical knowledge. The gesture reflected a generous understanding of scholarship: no single discipline possesses the past in its entirety.

Muriuki was also a man of the people who kept his family largely out of public view. Many colleagues did not readily associate him with Mama Margaret Njeri Muriuki, who served for years as manager of the University of Nairobi bookshop. Yet, among closer friends, he would introduce her affectionately as his “permanent girlfriend.” To those of us younger than him, who held Mama Margaret in the highest esteem, this was both fascinating and instructive. Beneath the humour lay a lesson in family life: affection need not diminish with age, and professional distinction need not displace the tenderness that sustains private relationships.

His death leaves us with uncomfortable questions. Can African universities nurture internationally accomplished scholars who remain committed to strengthening African institutions? Can we value mentorship and compassion alongside publication? Can we build universities where students are not merely registration numbers, but human beings whose futures are worth defending?

Muriuki answered these questions through his life. He went to the “Republic of Nyeri” intending to welcome us around a goat we never ate. That journey is now impossible. But the journey he made through Kenyan historiography, the University of Nairobi and generations of students remains unfinished, entrusted to those who follow him.

His departure diminishes us, but his example enlarges our possibilities. He showed us that a scholar’s greatness lies not only in the books he writes, but also in the lives he transforms and the institutions he leaves stronger than he found them. May his legacy live on in his scholarship, his students and the university he called home.