Veteran Broadcaster, Leonard Mambo Mbotela, a household name in Kenya and East Africa has passed away while receiving medical treatment at the Nairobi Hospital.
His son, Jimmy Mbotela confirmed the journalist’s death.
Born in 1940 in Mombasa, Mambo Mbotela should have been 84 years old now.
Mbotela was married to Alice Mwikali who together had three children including, Aida Mbotela, Jimmy Mbotela and George Mbotela.
Leonard was essentially famous for his long running social commentary radio and Television Program, ‘Je Huu ni Uungwana?’ which became his signature outing with the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) and staple for East Africa.
However, Mambo is also remembered for the role played during the August 1982 coup attempt.
Mbotela, as he recounted later, was abducted from his home in the middle of the night by the mutinous Kenya Airforce soldiers and taken to the then Voice of Kenya (VOK) studios, clad in pajamas.
Once there, he was forced at gunpoint to announce through the radio that the government of the former Kenyan President, Daniel Arap Moi had been toppled.
Mbotela would repeat the same broadcast after every thirty minutes or so, after which he would be made to crawl under the table, awaiting the next sermon to broadcast the country take over.
The broadcaster was almost shot when the loyal members of the Kenyan armed forces stormed into the VoK studio after thwarting the coup attempts and restoring President Moi back to the state house.
The coup plotters later escaped to Tanzania, before the then President Julius Nyerere sent them back for trials.
Mbotela was among the few remaining broadcasters in East Africa who used fluent Kiswahili in their programs and not surprising because one of his relatives, Walter Mbotela was the language expert and ran regular Swahili features and columns in local newspapers, precisely the Taifa Leo publication.
Before joining electronic media at the Voice of Kenya which later became KBC, Mbotela briefly worked for print starting with Kenya Weekly News and later the East African Standard.
He actually started working for Radio in 1964.