Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is an international airport in Nairobi, the capital of and largest city in Kenya. Located in the Embakasi suburb southeast of Nairobi's central business district, the airport has scheduled flights to destinations in over 50 countries. The airport is named after Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president and prime minister. The airport served over 7 million passengers in 2016, making it the seventh busiest airport in passenger traffic on the continent. Plans for the airport were drawn up in 1953, work started in January 1954, and by mid-1957 it was found possible to
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