Hilary Boniface Ng’weno

He was born on June 28th , 1938 in Nairobi County. Ng’weno attended Mangu High School before leaving for Harvard University in the US where he became the first Kenyan to attend the prestigious institution. After finishing in 1961, he returned to Harvard as the first African fellow of the Harvard Center for International Affairs (1968-1969). 

Image Source: kenyahistory.co.ke

The Harvard graduate is a nuclear scientist and a retired journalist. However, journalism is what defines him, being one of Kenya’s most respected journalists. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in nuclear physics, he came back home to pursue journalism and became a reporter for Daily Nation. Within a short period of 9 months, he was appointed the first African editor-in-chief (1964-65).

After resigning from Nation, he went to work on his publications that included The Weekly Review, Kenya’s longest running political magazine (1975-1999) and The Nairobi Times (1977-1983). In 1883, he sold The Nairobi Times and was renamed The Kenya Times. After 24 years of ensuring The Weekly Review remained in print for its avid readers, he moved to television launching a TV station, STV. His time in TV production has seen him produce many TV programmes such as ‘The Making of a Nation’.  

Other Credentials to his name:

Member of the Board of Trustees of the National Museums of Kenya (1964-68)

Chairman of the Kenya Museum Society (1967-68)

Chairman of Kenya Wildlife Service (1990-93)

Trustee of World Wide Fund for Nature (1993-97)

Member of the Council of African Advisers to the World Bank (1991-94)

Chairman of the Kenya Revenue Authority (1995-97)

Member of Presidential Economic Commission (1996-99)

Member of the Population Advisory Committee of the MacArthur Foundation (1991-97)

Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Rockefeller Foundation’s African Forum for Children’s Literacy in Science and Technology (1994-97)

Books authored by Ng’weno:

‘The Men From Pretoria’ (1977)

‘The Day Kenyatta Died: Ngweno’ (1978)

Magazines he published:

‘Joe’ the full of humour magazine (together with artist Terry Hirst and Oscar Festus)

TV productions:

‘Makers of a Nation’, which won the Best TV Script: Hillary Ng’weno at the Kalasha Awards 2010

‘The Making of a Nation: Kenya’s Political History 1957-2007’, a 14 half-hour documentary based on the political course of Kenya from pre-1963 to 2007

‘Kenya’s Darkest Hour’

In 1968, he was awarded the John D. Rockefeller III Award.