Pheroze Nowrojee Road

When Nairobi renamed Galana Road to Pheroze Nowrojee on 4 May 2026, it transformed a road into a tribute and elevated the name of one of Kenya’s most respected constitutional defenders into the city’s living memory. Senior Counsel Pheroze Nowrojee (84) died on 5 April 2025. His passing prompted a global outpouring of tributes to the lawyer, constitutional scholar, poet, and human rights defender. Veteran lawyer, agemate and International Commission of Jurist’s Jurist of the Year Award 2025 John Khaminwa urged his wife Viloo Nowrojee at the funeral service; “Kenya should name a street after Pheroze.” Pheroze and Viloo had both known the challenges of renaming Nairobi’s streets. Before Pheroze had died, the two had successfully advocated for a road in Westlands/Parklands to be named after the late Pio Gama Pinto several decades after he was assassinated in 1965.Then, as it is now, in Kenya and globally, public space governance is highly political and contested. The naming of public spaces defines and frames. It also uplifts or erases the communities that occupy them. It took several decades of U.S. civil rights organising to inspire more than 900 streets to be renamed after Martin Luther King Jnr. It took the powerful anti-apartheid movement in the United Kingdom to catalyse many local councils to rename streets after Nelson Mandela. Sixty years of settler-colonialism has littered Kenya with the names of colonial administrators, soldiers, and settlers. The 1960s saw many buildings, roads and airports named after the post-colonial nationalist elite. According to Open Street Map, Nairobi County may have as many as 47,000 roads, streets, lanes, highways, alleys and other thoroughfares in 2026. Of the 148 more well known street names, about ten per cent are currently named after famous civic, political and business leaders. Presidents, Ministers, the privileged and the powerful dominate them. Most roads are named after former districts and other places in the country. Naming is always an exercise in state power and privilege. Who is named, by whom and why, are always political questions. Five years ago, Roysambu MCA Peter Warutere passed a motion to rename Dik Dik Gardens, Francis Atwoli Road without any public consultation. The motion kicked off a crisis that led to the Dik Dik Gardens read more...