By Njeri Irungu
The air at Entim Sidai Wellness Sanctuary in Nairobi was heavy with emotion and purpose as Africa’s first Reparations Festival, Wakati Wetu: It’s Our Time, opened its doors. Beneath the calm of the sanctuary’s gardens, artists, thinkers, and activists from across the continent gathered to do what history so often forbids — to remember, to resist, and to reclaim.
Convened by African Futures Lab, Baraza Media Lab, the African Union’s ECOSOCC, and Reform Initiatives, the two-day event marks a continental milestone in the movement for reparatory justice. Under the theme “It’s Our Time: To Resist, Repair and Reclaim,” the festival blends art, activism, and scholarship into one unified call for moral and historical repair — a reawakening of Africa’s own story.
The opening address by award-winning Kenyan author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor drew the audience into a deep silence. “Reparations is first an act of moral autopsy and then moral exorcism,” she said softly, yet her words cut through the air. “There is no repair or healing without walking into, around, and naming the wound in its fullness.” Her reflections were as poetic as they were piercing — a challenge to the crowd to reject the hollow comfort of sanitized justice. “Why would we want to integrate reparations into development,” she asked, “fold justice back into the very economic model that produced injustice?”
Dr. Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Director of the Politics and Governance Programme, followed with a proverb from her father — “The cup that was meant for your lips will never pass you by” — a reminder that history, however long it waits, always finds its way back to those it belongs to.
That sense of reckoning deepened when veteran lawyer and former MP Paul Muite took the stage. Having been central to the Mau Mau reparations case against the British government, Muite spoke with the gravity of lived experience.
“In order for reparations cases to succeed, the starting point is research — accurate records of who was who, who did what, with their names. It’s not just about those who were detained. Justice begins with truth.” His voice, measured and mournful, carried the memory of betrayal — the colonial violence, the torture, the mass detentions — and the post-independence silence that followed. “Even after freedom,” he said, “the third betrayal came from those who took power from the colonial masters, who did not want to hear about Mau Mau or the freedom fighters.”
Throughout the day, conversations shifted from memory to media, tracing how stories of power have been written and rewritten. In a session titled “Ubuntu: Media and Memory,” journalist Ngartia Mūrūthi reminded the audience that colonial conquest did not only happen with guns — it happened with headlines.
“For the colonial project to succeed, it had to manufacture consent,” he said. “Newspapers were the biggest tools of propaganda. Kenya was advertised as a white man’s country, painting the land as empty and available.” Christine Mungai, a media scholar and editor, added that resistance begins in the courage to tell uncomfortable stories. “For a journalist, it takes bravery to go against the grain — to resist conventions and tell stories that make power uncomfortable. That courage is part of repair.”
As the afternoon sun dipped, the conversation turned toward identity and rebirth. Philosopher Yoporeka Somet reflected that reparations are not merely economic but existential.
“You cannot talk about renaissance if you do not know your history,” he said. “If we want to talk about reparations, we must first heal ourselves by reconnecting with what we were before our story was disrupted.” Dr. Natasha Shivji built on that thought, urging African states to stop waiting for validation from abroad. “The language of reparations is not simply a demand on the outside world,” she said, “it is a demand on the state — to organise its people, to organise history into a revolutionary platform, not a pleading for sympathy.”
By evening, the festival transformed into a celebration of art as resistance and healing. Under the theme “Confronting the Silence,” musicians, poets, and filmmakers turned memory into motion. Eric Wainaina’s soulful performance wove seamlessly into the rhythms of DJ Talie, Koko Koseso, and NiK DJ, while poets painted their voices across walls that became living archives of resistance. The films If Objects Could Speak and How to Build a Library challenged the audience to confront the ghosts of stolen artifacts and silenced histories.
For festival convener Liliane Umubyeyi, Executive Director of the African Futures Lab, the event was more than remembrance — it was renewal.
“We are here because justice is both a political and cultural question,” she said in her closing reflection. “Our shared creation has the power to renew our understanding of our place in history. The time is truly ours. Ni Wakati Wetu!”
The festival continues through October 23, with sessions exploring tax justice, climate reparations, and gendered reparations, culminating in a keynote by Brian Kagoro titled “Vision for the Future.” A closing concert featuring Sitawa Namwalie and June Gachui will mark the end of the inaugural edition — a symbolic moment that looks toward the African Union’s Decade of Reparations (2026–2036).
In the quiet night air of Karen, it feels as though a new chapter has begun — one where Africa no longer pleads for justice, but defines it.
