How a fake Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s son fooled the world and married an Italian celebrity.
In 1950s , Memba Kenyatta, managed to seduce a beautiful Italian journalist by lying to her that he was Jomo Kenyatta’s son. The woman fell for the lies and the two got married in 1956.
In the attached photo dated 1960, Memba was in an Italian police van with his wife Julia Gonzalez and son after he caused trouble on the via veneto in Rome by insulting and spitting on passers-by, demanding the release of his “father” Kenyatta
When his wife tried to restrain him, he assaulted her too. The police consequently arrested him and took him to a mental hospital for cure.
Julia Gonzalez de Memba who was an Italian journalist, had married Memba in 1956 after he convinced her that he was Kenyatta’s son.
From that time onwards , Gonzalez became proud that her father in law was leading the fight for freedom in Kenya.
Little did she know that she was living with a conman. Throughout Europe Bernard Memba “Kenyatta” always boasted of being Kenyatta’s son, and at one point appeared on an Italian TV station calling for the release of “his father” from prison.
It was not until early 1962, when Julia Gonzalez discovered during a visit to Tanzania that her husband , Memba, was a masquerader and was not Kenyatta’s son as he had always claimed.
As soon as he realised, his lies had been uncovered, Memba fled from Europe to Africa abandoning his wife and child.
Gonzalez although abandoned with her baby, still maintained that Bernard Memba was still her husband. According to her, divorce never existed in her vocabulary, and her husband’s actions were not a reason enough to break her marriage.
On May 30 1962, she wrote to Jomo Kenyatta proposing to write his biography in Spanish. The only pay she wanted for this work was for Kenyatta to accept her child as his grandson even though she knew they were not related.
“I am requesting for little affection for the poor child with dark skin whose father has abandoned him and who still thinks of you as his grandfather,” Gonzalez wrote.
“For more than five years now I have been living completely convinced of the fact that you were my father-in-law and for this reason my son, to this day, calls you ‘grandfather”.
She also told Kenyatta how she had discovered during a visit to Tanzania that her husband was not Kenyatta’s son.. “While I was there I learned to my great disappointment that my husband is not your son. How then can one explain the greet affection he feels for you?”.
She told Kenyatta how her husband, Benard Memba “Kenyatta” had great love for him and had defended him in world press. She pointed out that it was because of him that she also developed her love and sympathy for Kenyatta as a Kenyan hero.
She also requested Kenyatta to use his influence to help her find her husband who had fled.
