Dedan Kimathi

Dedan Kimathi Waciuri was born in 1920 in Nyeri district. He joined the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, the movement the British called Mau Mau, and rose to lead its fighters in the Aberdare forests.

During the emergency declared by the colonial government in 1952, Kimathi organised forest fighters and became the British authorities' most wanted man.

He was captured in October 1956, tried and executed on 18 February 1957. His burial place has never been officially confirmed. In 2007 a statue of Kimathi was unveiled on Kimathi Street in central Nairobi.