Jomo Kenyatta a 90-day interim period. In October he was unanimously elected KANU President and subsequently declared President of Kenya itself. Moi emphasised his loyalty to Kenyatta—"I followed and was faithful to him until his last day, even when his closest friends forsook him"—and there was much expectation that he would continue the policies inaugurated by Kenyatta. He nevertheless criticised the corruption, land grabbing, and capitalistic ethos that had characterised Kenyatta's period and expressed populist tendencies by emphasising a closer link to the poor. In 1982 he would amend the Kenyan constitution to create a "de jure" one-party state. Kenyatta was an
Jomo Kenyatta insisted that it was necessary; in a March 1961 speech, he described Kenyatta an "African leader to darkness and death" and stated that if he were released, violence would erupt. This indefinite detention was widely interpreted internationally as a reflection of the cruelties of British imperialism. Calls for his release came from the Chinese government, India's Nehru, and Tanganyika's Prime Minister Julius Nyerere. Ghana's President Nkrumah personally raised the issue with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and other UK officials, with the Ghanaian government offering Kenyatta asylum in the event of his release. Resolutions calling for his release were produced