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Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo

If Thomas Joseph (TJ) Mboya was the young man that Kenya wanted to forget, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga is the grand old man who Kenya can never forget. Jaramogi and Tom Mboya were both were nationalists of great distinction from the Luo community who as seasoned politicians posed a threat to the founding president Jomo Kenyatta’s autocratic national designs. Tom Mboya died young, by an assassin’s bullet, on July 5, 1969. Jaramogi died an old man, a mzee, at the age of 82 years on January 20, 1994, after having been tormented by both Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi regimes effectively from 1969 after his fall out with Kenyatta and through the 80s and 90s during iron-fisted Moi’s reign. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga death anniversary on January 20th, twenty-five years since his passing, was marked quietly in a manner that diminishes his immense contribution to the Kenyan national project.

If Thomas Joseph (TJ) Mboya was the young man that Kenya wanted to forget, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga is the grand old man who Kenya can never forget

No history book on Kenya would be complete without his mention. Jaramogi was the vice president of the nationalist party Kanu when Kenya African Union (Kau) merged with Kenya Independent Movement to form Kanu on May 14, 1960. He was later to become the country’s first Vice President, after Kanu won the 1963 general elections under Kenyatta. When his friend Pio Gama Pinto was killed in 1965, Jaramogi knew he was a targeted man because of his ideological position. Pinto, then was a nominated MP and an avowed communist who was Jaramogi’s confidante. Jaramogi would form the socialist party, Kenya People’s Union in 1966, banned in 1969 leading to his detention under house arrest by his former ally Jomo Kenyatta.

I first set my eyes on Jaramogi on November 16, 1991. Bethuel Oduo my collaborator on this writing project and my senior, had met Jaramogi much earlier, but this day in November, remains fresh in our memories. It was the first licensed political rally organized by the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford), the fledging opposition movement led by Jaramogi as the interim chair. Oduo and I attended the meeting held at the symbolic Kamukunji Grounds, a historic public space that hosted a number of significant nationalistic political rallies during Kenya’s pre-independent agitation struggles for freedom in the late 50s and early 60s.

This was my first time I was attending a political rally as an impressionable young man in my twenties. I had never seen such a mass of people in such diversity, gathered in one place for a common cause. The atmosphere was electrifying. I could feel the palpitations, as throngs of humanity waited anxiously for the address by the opposition leaders. 1991 was the year that Kenya restored political pluralism after being a de facto one party state since 1969. The old Kenya Lancaster negotiated constitution, previously criminalized a meeting of more than 10 people through Public Order Act 56, which was repealed, just like Section 2A, that proclaimed Kenya to be one party state.

I gathered that many people, young and old, had come specifically to see the legend Jaramogi, a man who had borne so much in the tumultuous and vicious climate of politics in Kenya. “I last saw and heard Jaramogi in 1969,” a man next to me said, “I wonder what he looks like today, but he’s going to talk to us today…what a great feeling.”

A group of emerging opposition politicians, christened the “Young Turks”, among them James Orengo, Paul Muite, Prof Anyang Nyong’o, Raila Odinga, Gitobu Imanyara banded together with veteran politicians Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro among others in what was threatening to be an unprecedented opposition coalition set to end Moi’s dictatorial 14 year rule. The force behind this movement was the enigmatic Oginga Odinga and the man of the moment.

Jaramogi was about to address his first meeting after 22 years of state imposed political isolation. Jaramogi spoke in a shrill voice. The microphone held by Prof Ouma Muga, one of the masters of ceremony for the event. The other master of ceremony was Kimani Wanyoike. Jaramogi seemed to voice my thoughts.

“I have never seen so many people gather in my lifetime,” said Jaramogi “This is the first time most of you are attending a political meeting out of your choice.” It felt like he was talking directly to me and he had my full attention as he launched into a 45 minute address.

“Why is Kenneth Matiba not with us today? Why is George Anyona, Edward Oyugi, (Augustine) Njeru Kathangu, Rumba Kinuthia, Koigi wa Wamwere, Ngotho Kariuki and many other freedom fighters not with us?”

“Why are our sons and daughters still in exile? Why are brilliant people who can teach in our universities wasting their lives overseas? Why was Robert Ouko murdered? Was he murdered for speaking about corruption? Was he murdered for speaking his mind in the cabinet? Why was (Alexander) Muge murdered? Was it because he exercised his freedom to preach the word of God to condemn sin and corruption?” He had captured the mood in the country in distress and the masses of people were beyond ecstatic.

Of the six ford movement founder members, Jaramogi Oginga, Philip Gachoka, Ahmed Bahmariz, Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro and George Nthenge, only Nthenge is alive today. George Nthenge who became Kamukunji constituency MP in the first multiparty elections in 1992 recalls the moment. “Jaramogi was an old man and he knew that if he brought nine other elders together, the government would not risk international condemnation by arresting us. This is how Masinde Muliro and Martin Shikuku were sent to recruit me. Ahmed Bahmariz was also recruited, but we could not get three other elders to bring the total to nine.” Today Nthenge still runs his curio shop at the City Market, a shop he has maintained for well over four decades.

Jaramogi was not only the doyen of opposition politics in Kenya. He was a noted Pan Africanist and his credentials remain unquestionable. In January 1992 during an interview with the Nairobi Law Monthly magazine, Jaramogi spoke of his relationships with people like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Nelson Mandela, who had just been released from prison in 1990. “Kwame lived before his time. He had seen Africa through and through. And he lived as if Africa was one country. He was very diligent, hardworking and a person that one could admire. He was instrumental in dedicating me to struggle for Kenya. He told me: ‘you fight in your own country for Kenyatta, Kenyatta is in London, but he is a nationalist of the first order’”.

Although exiled in Guinea in 1966, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s former President was very close to Jaramogi to the extent that he still found time to pen a foreword to his book Not Yet Uhuru, Kenya best political treatise to date.

On Nyerere, Jaramogi had this to say: “I know Nyerere as a very intelligent person and great nationalist. He refused a big salary and lived on the minimum that he could…Nyerere actually considered public opinion important.”Jaramogi himself would later talk of how he could not justify earning a salary, (making reference his role as VP in the independence cabinet) while his duties had been distributed to other cabinet ministers, in a bid to punish and tame him. So he quit government.

Jaramogi considered many global leaders and Pan Africanists as close friends. The list included Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Milton Obote, President of Uganda, Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, Ahmed Ben Bella former Prime Minister of Algeria and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia.

In the Nairobi Law monthly interview, Jaramogi also spoke on the icy relationship that had existed between him and Tom Mboya before his violent death. “Mboya was for the West and had a liking for America. On my part, I had been to the Soviet Union, China and Japan and generally the East to find out what went on there. People took this to mean I was the ‘good boy’ of the East and Mboya of the West.” The politics of the Cold War, the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union had ramifications on Kenyan politics.

Jaramogi was detained at Hola detention camp, a remote town on river Tana, Tana River county between 1970-1972. Former chief justice Willy Mutunga who spent a stint in Hola after the abortive (August 1st) 82 coup, remembers occupying the same cell as Jaramogi. “Jaramogi was a selfless nationalist, who was never interested in self-aggrandizement and Pan Africanist, who truly loved his country and continent,” observed the former chief justice.

After his release from detention in Hola, Jaramogi remained under house arrest in Kisumu until Kenyatta’s death in 1978. President Moi on assuming the power attempted to rehabilitate Jaramogi by appointing him the chairman of the Cotton Lint and Seed Marketing Board in 1979. It was a way of telling him to revive the cotton farming, which had collapsed after his disagreement with Kenyatta. Jaramogi said as much in the Nairobi Law Monthly interview: “The cotton industry had really gone down and Moi needed somebody to bring it up. I did my best and people actually saw that the cotton industry was coming up.”

But as fate would have it, in April 1981, Jaramogi’s tongue ‘slipped’ during a fundraiser in Mombasa when he sensationally claimed Kenyatta had been a land grabber and that is why they had differed with him. Subsequently, Moi relieved Jaramogi of his position. It is rumoured that the inner circle of Moi’s cabinet that included the powerful attorney general Charles Njonjo engineered the sacking. A retired politician from that era who requested anonymity recalls Njonjo allegedly telling Moi. “’If indeed it’s true you are following the footsteps of Kenyatta, is Odinga saying therefore, you are also a land grabber?” When Moi took over from Kenyatta, after his demise on August 22, 1978, he broadly proclaimed ‘Mimi nitafuata nyayo za Mzee, (I will follow in the footsteps of Mzee Kenyatta) and in a sense he had to save political face. That sacking essentially meant that Jaramogi was back into “political Siberia.”

In 1981, the then MP for Bondo, Jonas Ochieng Ougo suddenly tendered his resignation, occasioning a by-election. The truth of the matter was that he was hoping to pave way for Jaramogi, to be elected as the next MP. The Siaya Kanu sub-branch on orders from Moi effectively barred Jaramogi from contesting and that is how William Odongo Omamo aka Kaliech found his way back as the MP for Bondo. Ougo had been Jaramogi’s student at Maseno who would later teach Raila Odinga at Maranda School before moving on to become the head teacher at Friends school Kamusinga, in Kaimosi, Bungoma county.

When Moi took over from Kenyatta, after his demise on August 22, 1978, he broadly proclaimed ‘Mimi nitafuata nyayo za Mzee, (I will follow in the footsteps of Mzee Kenyatta) and in a sense he had to save political face. That sacking essentially meant that Jaramogi was back into “political Siberia

The idea to form another party came to Jaramogi after his attempts to re-enter parliament had hit a brick wall. The following year in 1982, teaming up with George Anyona, the firebrand politician from Gusii land, Jaramogi and Anyona walked to Sheria House and asked the registrar of political parties to register their party, the Kenya African Socialist Alliance (KASA). John Khaminwa had written Kasa’s constitution. This would mark the genesis of Khaminwa’s reputation as the lawyer for detained Kenyans; become a marked man by Moi’s regime. Indeed after the August 1982 abortive coup de ’tat, he was detained alongside politicians and university dons, considered rebels by Moi. Jaramogi’s son Raila would also begin his long spell of detention for his role in the coup but also as many believed for the sins of his father who Moi could not detain.

Always a paranoid man, Moi could not fathom another party rivaling KANU. It was the fear of Kasa that drove Moi to ask Parliament to pass one afternoon a bill that later become law stating that changed Kenya from a defacto to a dejure one party state.

With the return to plural politics in December 1992, Jaramogi was elected the MP for Bondo constituency in Siaya, while his son Raila was elected the MP for Langata constituency in Nairobi. For the first time, a father and son were both elected MPs. A year later, Jaramogi was dead and his first-born son Oburu Odinga replaced him. The two Odinga brothers were duly elected MPs of the August House.

When the Luo people migrated from Uganda and Sudan and landed on the other side of Lake Victoria in the 15th century, they were led by one Ramogi Ajwang, who is believed to be the patriarch of the Kenyan branch of the Luo. That is how Oginga Odinga acquired the name ‘Ja- Ramogi’. ‘Ja’ is a prefix which means ‘he who belongs to.’

In his life time, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga came to assume a persona that was larger than life and sometimes stranger than fiction. Mzee Odungi Randa, Jaramogi’s former handyman told us in Kisumu.

“Jaramogi was labelled many things by his detractors,” “Communist, dissident, rebel, tribalist, trouble shooter, rogue element, yet he remained firm and resilient and focused on his nationalist ambitions.”Although wealthy by all standards, he never flaunted it and throughout his life, he embodied the philosophy of egalitarianism, said Randa.

By the mid 1940s Jaramogi had formed Bondo Thrift and Trading Corporation. As the company grew, he toyed with several names to rename the expanding corporation. In 1947, he settled for Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation (LUTATCO). Jaramogi said he named the company Luo Thrift, because he wanted the Luo people to feel the company was part of them, hence proud of it.

“Kenya People Union was formed after Jaramogi felt those who risked their lives for Kenya to attain independence had been short changed and sidelined by the very same people they had fought colonialists together,” observed Randa. “It was the case of the Mau Mau freedom fighters versus the home guards that was repeating itself.”

In Nairobi, we went looking for Jaramogi’s one time neighbour at his Jerusalem estate houses in Eastlands. Thomas Onyango Daniel, now his late 40s, grew up in the same block that his family shared with Jaramogi. He remembers a quiet old man with an aura of wisdom. “It was not easy to see him leave or come to the flat,” recalls Onyango. “He remained an elusive figure to my mind until 1990, when the clamour for multiparty started in earnest. All of a sudden, Jaramogi’s house became a beehive of important people coming to see him”. Despite his elusive character, Onyango remembers Jaramogi as a kind man. “When he was around, he would invite us children to the house to drink brown uji (porridge).

Jaramogi had two houses near Jerusalem shopping centre: one on the ground floor and the other up the stairs. “When around, he spent most of the times in the upstairs one, that is where he would meet and entertain his guests,” said Onyango. “I remember him always dressed in a khaki shorts and his signature trademark, the akala (rubber sandals made out of motor vehicle tyre) shoes. All the time he was there, there was a constant stream of people flocking to see him.” To date, the matatu stage near his houses is referred to as Kwa Jaramogi.

Thomas Odoyo 65, from Agoro Nyakach recalled the year 1966 when there was a heated campaign rally in Pap Onditi, as two contestants went for each other’s neck.“Yusto Nyamolo Okal was running against Jaramogi’s candidate Ondiek Chilo. At the rally, fracas ensued between Okal’s supporters and Jaramogi’s youth wing led by Ndolo Ayah.” Odoyo described Ayah as Jaramogi’s ardent supporter. He could not stand Tom Mboya whom he had fundamental personal differences with.”

Interestingly, Ayah had been a student at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda in the early 60s. Together with him was Pamela Odede, the daughter of Walter Odede, the late freedom fighter and member of the Legislative Council (Legco). Ayah and Pamela were an item in college. On the invitation of the Makerere Students Guild, Tom Mboya, went to give a talk at the university campus. Pamela, who attended the inaugural lecture, was smitten with the young flamboyant politician from Kenya. TJ persuaded her to abandon her studies at Makerere, to become one of the pioneers of the 1961 airlift which TJ had organized. In her group, were Wangari Muta Mathai, Ojwang K’Ombudo, Muthoni Muthiga, Beth Mugo and Nicholas Mugo. Nicholas married Beth and Tom married Pamela and Ayah never forgave TJ.

It is at the Pap-Onditi rally that Jaramogi’s mystical powers came to light. “When the two opposing crowds became really hostile Jaramogi pointed at Nyamolo Okal with his left hand and told him in Dholuo, “Nyamolo Okal in ema iketho bucha kamae, wanane ka nine od bura?” (Nyamolo Okal, you are the one who is messing up my rally, we shall see whether you will see Parliament). After the confrontation, the rally aborted and people dispersed cursing the ‘spoilers.’ Nyamolo became a marked man in Jaramogi’s political terrain. Nyamolo was the first Kenyan to head Kakamega High School after graduating from Makerere.

“For being anti-Jaramogi Okal acquired Equatorial Printing Press located in Nairobi’s Industrial Area. The business was the first African owned commercial printing facility. He was rewarded by being single sourced to supply books and stationery to the then Kenya School Equipment Scheme,” said Odoyo. And true to Jaramogi’s word Nyamolo never saw the gates of Parliament. “He unsuccessfully contested the Nyakach constituency seat in 1966, 1969 and 1974. After the assassination of Mboya, things started going south for Nyamolo Okal. His business empire collapsed and he eventually died a poor desolate soul.” According to Odoyo, Jaramogi’s curse ‘his left hand’ had come to pass.

“Yes it is true that Jaramogi’s left hand was shorter than the right one, but really, did it have extraordinary powers to condemn people to political oblivion?” posed Mark Otieno. Otieno narrated a story about Jaramogi and his political son James Orengo. “One day in the mid-1980s, Jaramogi was in a good mood, so Ajimmy (as he referred to Orengo) asked Jaramogi whether it was true his left hand had magical powers and if he pointed at anyone with that hand, he would remain cursed. Jaramogi laughed sarcastically and replied ‘Mano ji ema wacho ok an” (It is hearsay and not from me).’”During this period, both Jaramogi and Orengo were constant victims of state humiliation.

“ Orengo took his frustrations to Jaramogi: ‘Ka en adieri, kare Moi machandowani ok isieme gilwetino chieng’moro owere kodwa.’ (If it is true about (Jaramogi’s hand), why then don’t you use it on Moi, who is giving us trouble, so that he can leave us alone?) Jaramogi ended that discussion by stating, ‘Piny nonene nyasaye ema ong’eyo’. The world (in reference to Moi) will deal with him…it is God who knows.)” Otieno said that was vintage Jaramogi: people tendered to build mystery around his personality. “Just like his son Raila, he was considered an enigma of sorts and invisible. Many of his staunch followers believed it was not easy to harm him in any way.”

Orengo was Jaramogi’s legal adviser and Jaramogi treated Orengo like his real son. Jaramogi knew Orengo’s dad, Apollo Orengo Onunga, who was a police inspector. That is why Orengo, being a son of a cop has on numerous times said he does not fear the police, because he grew up in a cop’s homestead. Still, Jaramogi’s dotted on Orengo because of his sharp legal mind.

“At the age of 29, Jaramogi made Orengo an MP for Ugenya constituency,” narrated Otieno nostalgically. “Jaramogi one day during the campaigns came to Ugenya, he didn’t get out of his car, but people gathered around it. He told them: ‘you know I’m not allowed to speak, so I was just passing by, but, by the way, when you see that son of Apollo, please pass my regards.’ The people quickly understood what Jaramogi had told them. Orengo was voted in overwhelmingly. His son Raila, somehow took over that mantle and whenever he endorses you, consider yourself elected.”

Mzee Solomon Owino told us that Jaramogi would deliberately give nicknames to some of his political friends and loyalists. “He coined names like Ondiek‘Chilo’Miguda, Okuto Bala (the former ambassador to Russia), Achieng ‘Nyakech’Oneko. Ondiek is the Luo word for hyena, okuto is salty rock and nyakech is an antelope or a gazelle. He nicknamed Oneko nyakech, because of his tall slender body frame. Jaramogi said some of his supporters in their great support for him were like the vicious hyenas. They would stop at nothing in his defense.”

Among the Young Turks, Jaramogi also had a special nickname for Paul Kibugi Muite: Obiero –the true son of the home. But the literal translation of Obiero in English language is placenta. “Jaramogi was fond of Muite because he would tell him he had the dark complexion of a Luo man,” opined Mzee Owino. Jaramogi surrounded himself with emerging young and versatile oppositionist politicians, who were quickly given the moniker Young Turks by the Kenyan mainstream media. They included, Gitobu Imanyara, James Orengo, Kiraitu Murungi, Mukhisa Kituyi, Paul Kibuge Muite, Prof Ayang’ Nyong’o and Prof Ouma Muga.

Achieng Oneko was a bosom buddy of Jaramogi. It is Achieng Oneko who introduced him to Jomo Kenyatta in 1952 in Kisumu for the first time before he was detained. They had a closed meeting at Maseno Store, a big shop that was part of LUTATCO initiative.

Elated by Kenyatta’s visit to Maseno Jaramogi would later write him a “thank you” note in his book Not Yet Uhuru.

“You can’t imagine the happiness I derive from your one day visit to Maseno on Tuesday. I really enjoyed your company heartily and hope we will have more moments like this in the coming days of our self-government. In this, I am your disciple to the hilt. You were so much at home and felt so very native to the house, as if Maseno had been your home Kikuyuni. I will never forget that memorable day…when you return again to us in August as you have promised to do. I hope to attend many meeting with you and give you as much assistance as will be possible from nationalist and businessman.

I remain, always,

Your disciple in nationalism.”

That meeting could possibly have been the first where the Luo-Kikuyu unity was mooted. In that meeting, Kenyatta told Jaramogi: “We must get to know one another. The Kikuyu must know the Luo thoroughly. The Luo should select 12 influential elders to tour Kikuyu country, to travel as far as Mombasa and that 12 influential Kikuyu elders would travel to Luo country. The conclusion of the two delegations would be inevitable; that we are Africans, one and the same. United, we would be formidable. I have lived with these people (whites) in Great Britain, I know they fear unity.”

Scholar David Odemba from Kaksingri in Mbita believes the silent but often times open rivalry between Tom Mboya and Jaramogicould have been a blessing in disguise. “The divergent ideological approaches helped advance academic achievement among the Lake people. Both the protagonists were competing to send as many students as possible to Europe and America,” pointed out Odemba. “The airlifts to the East and West were the foundation upon which the latter Luo youth found role models whom to date they emulate. Mboya and Jaramogi emphasized the need to acquire higher education as a form of social security. They saw the gift of formal education as the future community’s insurance in its sustainability. They are both credited with the deliberate glorification of academia in Luoland.”

Newspaper vendor Okungu Kerry of Kisumu, remembers Jaramogi fondly: “Jaramogi saved the Nyanza sugarbelt area from being grabbed by outsiders. The areas around Koru, Songhor, Muhoroni, Chemelil and Miwani were once occupied by Indian sugar cane farmers or white settlers. Through legislation on resettlement of landless Africans, Jaramogi ensured victims of floods from Kano plains were given first priority after Kenya’s first El-Nino rains of 1961.My grandfather was settled in Kibigori after their home was destroyed by the same floods.”

Many of his Jaramogi’s followers believe his political persecution led to the ‘Luo’ cash crops being targeted and profiled for destruction. “Either by design or default, cash crops grown in Luo land became political crops. Because of this the Luo farmer suffered greatly. This was a deliberate, quiet and systematic dispossession of their only source of livelihood. Cotton which was the agricultural mainstay of the Luo was the first to be wiped off. All the ginneries closed down and farmers were rendered paupers. Sugar remained the crop the people could rely on. Sisal had earlier succumbed to global technological changes that brought in synthetic fibre,”

Many Luo people believe that according to their ethnic epistemology, only one person can inherit a father’s strong genes and possibly mystical powers. There is a stark difference between the two surviving Jaramogi sons, Oburu Oginga and Raila Odinga. The first born Oburu is a colourless and uninspiring politician. “Oburu has never persuaded anyone that he is his own man,” said an observer of the Jaramogi dynasty.“One wonders whether he could ever survive politically without his younger brother Raila.”Plucked from a civil service job as a provincial planning officer and living in a humble Mosque estate in house in Kisumu, Oburu has remained in Raila’s shadow since 1994, when he replaced Jaramogi as MP for Bondo.

Jaramogi’s legacy will continue to be felt for a very long time especially in Nyanza where several iconic institutions have taken up his name. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital and Oginga Odinga Road are just some of the main landmarks that will forever keep his name alive.

Like his father Jaramogi, Raila has developed own his international networks making him known beyond Kenya. Twenty five years down the road, many of Jaramogi’s believers said his political fervour and determinism has been kept alight by his son Raila Odinga.

Jaramogi and Raila are political enigmas that very often defy easy classification and political analysis. Each personality comes with his own nickname. Jaramogi was initially named Obadiah Adonijah. In Not Yet Uhuru he says “I never liked the names. I never used them though in those days it was important to be known if you were Christian by your baptismal name”. He instead adopted Ajuma Oginga Odinga but the first name ‘Ajuma’ also fizzled out with time leaving the double ‘O’ intact. Raila is variously known by his nicknames like Agwambo, Tinga and RAO.

Whether the spirit of Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi has influenced the current working relationship between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila, their respective sons is a story for another day.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

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Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future. Follow us on Twitter.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future. Follow us on Twitter.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo

Published by the good folks at The Elephant. The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo

It was January 2017, and instead of enduring another bitter winter in my adopted home, I was having nyama choma with friends in Nairobi. It was refreshing watching the children playing nearby, as adults indulged in our national hobby- politics. Although the setting made me miss my children terribly, I was full of optimism. I was back in my motherland to play my part in making my country better. The call to national duty after over 15 years abroad justified the family, financial and professional sacrifices I had decided to make.

A friend tapped me on my arm. I had temporarily forgotten that this was not just a nyama choma event but a crash course from my friends on “how to survive in Kenya”. I listened attentively as my friends gave me tips. One reminded me that this was my opportunity to pay any outstanding mortgages and debts and invest in choice property in Nairobi. Another reminded me that every time I raise my hand to vote during board meetings, there should be an amount equivalent to my five fingers, in millions, deposited to my account. Yet another told me of how I needed to ensure that I surrounded myself with “my people” to protect me. Not to be outdone, another reminded me that since I could never understand how to “make deals” as a “foreigner”, I needed to introduce him to the person in charge of procurement and the rest would be taken care of.

It was not clear to me how much of this was serious talk and how much of it was said in jest – the sarcasm that those of my generation have resorted to in an attempt to escape the helplessness they face as the country careens into a pit. The advice nevertheless captured what I ended up experiencing throughout my time in Kenya. It is assumed that the only reason one takes up a public service position is to enrich themselves, their families and their cronies. And it is indeed not a far- fetched conclusion, in most cases.

I listened attentively as my friends gave me tips. One reminded me that this was my opportunity to pay any outstanding mortgages and debts, invest in choice property in Nairobi. Another…that every time I raise my hand to vote during board meetings, there should be an amount equivalent to my five fingers, in millions…Yet another told me of how I needed to ensure that I surrounded myself with “my people” to protect me… Not to be outdone, another reminded me that since I could never understand how to “make deals” as a “foreigner”, I needed to introduce him to the person in charge of procurement and the rest would be taken care of.

My conclusion at the end of my brief Kenya sojourn is that we, the professional elite, celebrate mediocrity, shun integrity and worship corruptly acquired wealth. The end justifies the means, even if this includes taking the lives of children, men and women. We easily forgive those that rob from public coffers and forget those that sacrifice their lives in the fight for justice and good governance.

Ours is a transactional country. It is therefore not a coincidence that Kenyans quickly satirised the 9 March 2018 “handshake” between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as a handcheque. Because how else could one explain the political convergence of views between those who disenfranchised millions of Kenyans by organizing violent protests against the sham October 2017 election and those that benefited from a circus of a presidential election? As a friend of mine reminded me in January, “it will be just a matter of time before the political elite sit around the table and share the loot”. I do not know whether there is any financial loot that has been shared. But certainly, we can all see the associated trappings of power being openly enjoyed by those who just two months ago were victims of State harassment.

Recent developments make it difficult to argue against those who have always held that politicians cultivate their ethnic bases to increase their political bargaining chips in preparation for the next ‘handcheque’. Even when the larger strategic interests of political parties and alliances are at stake, if there is an opportunity to make money, the financial imperative invariably wins the day. It reminds me of July last year when the lawyers of two opposing coalitions walked hand in hand to negotiate a procurement deal, which in the larger scheme of things would have negatively affected the chances of one of the coalitions “winning” the presidential election. But it appears that any opportunity to make money could not be left unattended.

Ours is a transactional country. It is therefore not a coincidence that Kenyans quickly satirised the 9 March 2018 “handshake” between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Raila Odinga as a handcheque. Because how else could one explain the political convergence of views between those who disenfranchised millions of Kenyans by organizing violent protests against the sham October 2017 election and those that benefited from a circus of a presidential election?

This partly explains why almost all the constitutional bodies, the media and even the legislature in the country are under State capture. At the moment, the Judiciary is the last bastion of hope. Now that President Kenyatta and his Deputy President have ‘apologized’ to Kenyans for unnamed trespasses, we should expect these institutions to remain under the spell of the looters. They have free rein. The press has caved in, civil society is severely constrained, bloggers and activists are constantly harassed by the State and the majority of Kenyans remain silent, puzzled as they watch those on whom they had pinned their hopes to “save” the country make numerous “handshaking” tours.

We who easily forgive have “moved on” and are leaving it to a tiny political elite to implement its Putin-esque plan. Let me refresh your mind on this.: in what the Russians call ‘castling’, President Vladimir Putin, restricted from serving a third consecutive term as president in 2008, had Dmitry Medvedev run for President while he took over the Prime Ministerial position. Putin was still the de facto President. In 2012, he formally returned as President and then “overwhelmingly won” his “second” term in this year’s election, assuring him of power until 2024.

This appears to be the model the political establishment is using, if we are to take seriously what we are hearing from informal regime mouthpieces such as Tiaty Member of Parliament, William Kassait Kamket and COTU strongman, Francis Atwoli. Hon. Kamket has proposed the creation of a ceremonial presidency and a premier position, while Atwoli believes that President Uhuru Kenyatta is too young to retire and must continue in power. This is the Ka-Putin plan, articulated in Kenyan- ese. In their thinking, the Luo will be happy to finally achieve their long sought-after presidential dream while the Kikuyu will maintain their own “young man” in power. It gives the plotters plausible deniability for not “paying back the debt” to the Deputy President and thus protect the Kikuyus living in the Rift Valley. In their wisdom, there are only three ethnic groups in Kenya. Once their interests are taken care of, all other socio-economic and grievances of marginalisation are a non- issue.

In what the Russians call ‘castling’, President Vladimir Putin, restricted from serving a third consecutive term as president in 2008, had Dmitry Medvedev run for President while he took over the Prime Ministerial position. Putin was still the de facto President. In 2012, he formally returned as President and then “overwhelmingly won” his “second” term in this year’s election, assuring him of power until 2024.

Constitutional changes to prolong terms of office or satisfy elite demands are the flavour du jour. Apart from the Russians, the Chinese have done it recently. Rwanda and Uganda have done it and the Burundians are set to give a soft landing to President Kenyatta’s agemate, Pierre Nkurunziza, when they change the Constitution on 17 May. It appears that our elite are itching to join the bandwagon. And as always happens with our national politics, there will be a bogeyman who has to be deterred by any means – the justification for the planned constitutional amendments. Kenyans will be reminded of the violence in the Rift Valley in 1992, 1997 and 2007 and be warned of Armageddon if the Constitution is not amended to deter the Deputy President from ascending to the presidency. Operation Stop Ruto is gaining steam and Kenyans will soon be convinced that this is the only way to save Kenya. A friend I have known for many years recently wrote to me: “The goose is cooked. No way of stopping that train. I am just scared of that guy.” I did not respond to the message. I could not. Not because I did not share my fear for the guy he was talking about – our Deputy President. I have been a victim of his threats and I know that they are not empty.

I watched how he remotely controlled and manipulated a constitutional body for which I worked. I still wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares of the ordeals I was subjected to, carried out with express instructions from him.

I did not respond to the message because it hit me that even those that I thought to be “progressive” have bought into the bogeyman notion, a red herring to turn public attention to the urgency of removing an individual, like we did with the Moi must go slogans, without questioning the underlying system that has allowed such leaders to thrive. I did not respond because as I was reading his message, the building bridges to nowhere initiative was being launched. And once again, the political elite were gaming the system, as they always do.

Let me be clear, I am not against reconciliation. It is long overdue. But building lasting bridges needs to be anchored in more than declarations and photographs of handshakes. The central motivation cannot be an attempt by a government to buy legitimacy after what was largely a sham October 2017 presidential election. It cannot be about an opposition party attempting to join the “meat eating” team instead of “salivating from the outside”, to use President Kenyatta’s own words. It cannot be about an icon in the fight for democracy seeking relevance as he ponders his next step. Nor can it be just about stopping the Deputy President from inheriting the big seat.

Reconciliation, building bridges, requires difficult conversations and hard work. It requires us to ask tough questions about our national ethos. It requires the kind of concerted effort that we witnessed in the1990s during the struggle for the Second Liberation, so called. The Young Turks who led that struggle are clearly now failing to practice what they previously espoused. When given the opportunity to govern after the controversial elections in 2007, they joined the looters, as narrated by John Githongo in his recent article, The State of the Nation: Corruption: A brief history- 1997 to 2018.

Back to the January 2017 nyama choma outing: I defied the advice on how to survive in Kenya. I chose not to join the looters. There are many Kenyans like myself. That is why, like Prof. Makau Mutua, I will still hold onto the naïve, childish optimism for a better Kenya. I still believe that there is a constituency of millennials ready to wrest the baton from the “Young Turks”. I still believe that millennials have a chance to fix the current crisis of leadership and develop an alternative leadership to the current elites that continue to divide the country rather than unite it.

The “Young Turks” have failed to deliver the vision they had in their heyday. They will resist change by any means necessary. They will conjure up the spectre of “Ruto bogeyman” to justify constitutional amendments precisely to entrench themselves in power or ‘return from the ‘cold’, as they are wont to put it. But the millennials have more going for them to deliver the change. History is on their side. The future of Kenya is in their hands, not in those busy building bridges to nowhere.

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Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo

Last week, I was in a taxi trying to rush home in the afternoon to avoid the infamous Nairobi traffic. Unfortunately, my hurry didn’t bore fruit because eventually I was caught up in the snarl-up. It was so heavy I considered walking home, but it was raining heavily. Looking outside, I could see thousands of soaked pedestrians, running as fast as they could in the rain. Noticeably, almost all cars had one occupant, or possibly two including the driver. It struck me, could we not solve the problem of our traffic congestion if we prohibited vehicles with less than four passengers from using the highways during specified hours, and instead use taxis and, better still, buses, to move people around – saving both time and money? This approach worked in Singapore and elsewhere. Would our aristocracy prohibit it?

The second thought made me most angry: the rich people were doing alright in their limousines, but the infinitely harder workers were left to walk in the heavy rain, seeing home only in the dark, with the limousines heedlessly splashing more muddy water on them as they sped past. For the ordinary mwananchi, many would arrive home from work completely wet for a miserable salary. Surely, I thought, we did not adopt the People’s Constitution to increase the disparities between them and the tycoons. Why are our politicians and the government doing nothing about these disparities? Have they no sense of the injustice the poor face daily?

We did not adopt the People’s Constitution to increase the disparities between wananchi and the tycoons. Why are our politicians and the government doing nothing about these disparities? Have they no sense of the injustice the poor face daily?

My cabbie was moved by my anger. And after realising the role I had played in Kenya’s constitution making process he changed the subject. Like other young people who I spend some time with, he was full of anger at the way the politicians, forming ethnic oriented parties, exploit the voters of their own tribe. “If only”, he said, “the Constitution had prohibited ethnic parties, we would not have got this manipulation. Parties would have been formed along policy issues, we would have been the better”. Somewhat cruelly I read to him Article 91 of the Constitution which explicitly prohibits parties based on ethnicity. Of course, parties are not explicitly ethnic, but we – including the IEBC and the Registrar of Political Parties seem unable to work out how to prevent essentially ethnic parties from operating in Kenya.

It is now crystal clear that, by and large, politicians care only for themselves. They steal from the coffers of the state or seek bribes from the rich and poor alike. Look at their approval of obscene compensation to former MPs who lost elections, and who doubtless made a great deal of money while they were MPs in the first place.

They have, for the most part, ignored constitutional values and objectives. This is the basis of the unity among them, regardless of party. And despite manifestoes that few read, including politicians themselves, there are in fact no real differences in policy between politicians. This too is obvious from the camaraderie between members of the two major parties following the March 9th ‘handshake’ between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga. Does the handshake represent nothing more than a settlement of minor differences within the same class regarding the sharing of the loot?

The Odinga Initiative

In the current Kenyan political landscape, Raila Odinga is the most distinguished and thoughtful of politicians. He is completely committed to constitutional values and objectives and indeed had a hand in their formulation. His proposals are wide-ranging, though politicians, particularly Deputy President William Ruto and his friends, have unthinkingly interpreted his agenda in terms of their own careers. In particular, the future presidential prospects of their newly acknowledged hero, William Ruto. Contrary to his position during the Bomas process, Ruto now doubtlessly opposes the parliamentary system because he perceives it as Uhuru Kenyatta’s way of getting out of his promise to sponsor Ruto’s presidential candidacy in 2022. Thus the persistent reminders by his proxies about how he secured the Kalenjin vote for Uhuru in 2013 and 2017. A number of eminent politicians are supporting the handshake in the expectation of high office. No surprise that our politics are barren of ideas and progressive policies.

It is now clear that, by and large, politicians care only for themselves. They steal from the coffers of the state or seek bribes from the rich and poor alike… Does the handshake represent nothing more than a settlement of minor differences within the same class regarding the sharing of the loot? It is true that Raila has proposed important constitutional changes: a shift from the presidential to a prime ministerial system, and the re-organisation of devolution to give people greater power to organise their lives. Both national and county level politicians are upset purely because the changes would affect them adversely. This again shows the pre-occupation of Kenyan politicians with their own benefits – and the barrenness of their politics.

I regard his constitutional proposals as of great significance – and to his list, I would add the electoral system so that we shift from first-past-the-post to the proportional representation system proposed by the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CKRC) – much fairer for a multi-ethnic state.

But now I turn to his other objectives: achieving the values of the Constitution – an approach shown by few other politicians. For all too long, as he and Uhuru reminded us in their handshake press release, “Ethnic antagonism and divisive political competition have become a way of life… Our people are crying out for leadership that shows the [constitutional] path to dignity, prosperity and security”. They note also that “Our political system has been unable to respond to feelings of alienation in sections of our people”.

Despite manifestoes that few read, including politicians themselves, there are in fact no real differences of policy between politicians. This too is obvious from the camaraderie between members of the two major parties following the ‘handshake’

The Kenyan people have longed for the priorities that Raila and Uhuru have set for the state. Among them is social and economic security. UhuRaila favour leadership that makes “a practical effort to ensure that those who are hungry or in distress are aided” – something that politicians never think of.

They also commit themselves to eradicating corruption, recognising that “it destroys lives, public trust and prosperity… It is undermining our public and private institutions, and will destroy them and our aspirations as a nation”.

They also recognise the importance of human rights – our Constitution has perhaps the most extensive and balanced Bill of Rights in the world. To quote them, “There is no Kenyan whose rights should be compromised no matter the interests against them. Kenyans have struggled hard for these rights and they are not for anybody to take for granted. At the same time, to attain and protect our rights, we must embrace our responsibilities. The two can never be separated if we are to have either”.

Raila has proposed important constitutional changes: a shift from the presidential to a prime ministerial system, and the re-organisation of devolution to give people greater power to organise their lives

So where are we?

Much of the current public debate touches on Raila’s proposals for constitutional amendments. In principle I support them, but my studies have shown that no government in Kenya has shown much regard for the Constitution. There is so much that is good in the Constitution as it is, that if it were to be honoured and implemented, Kenyans would enjoy a life of freedom, dignity, harmony, social justice, equality, and participation, as citizens of a united country. Maybe we should give Uhuru and Raila the chance to implement the Constitution, and show us theirs are not mere empty words.

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Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo

Kisumu city’s landscape, like the bodies of some of its residents, bears the scars of recent political protests and state repression in the aftermath of the August 8 election that was annulled by the Supreme Court and the 26 October “Jubilee election” that was completely ignored by four counties in Kenya’s western region (Homa Bay, Kisumu, Migori and Siaya).

The visceral scars are a testimony to a cityscape whose residents are yearning for a total break from the politics of despondency and for a muting or re-writing of its political history, a history that will not be absolved or corrected by the Uhuru Kenyatta–Raila Odinga handshake that took place on March 9, 2018, its bewildering symbolism notwithstanding.

The fact that the city yearns for a fresh start is apparent to David Ndii, the National Super Alliance (NASA)’s economic advisor and strategist, but not to the Raila-led Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) MPs, whose narrow articulation of the Uhuru-Raila rapprochement simply calls for the compensation of life or limb lost during the protests.

Crowds of protestors, some of whom are still nursing their injuries, may have dispersed, but their political aspirations are indelibly etched in the city’s landscape

Kisumu yearns for what Ndii refers to as Kenya’s kairos, but whether or not there is a consensus that this is the moment, and whether Kisumu’s scars equally constitute this moment, is debatable.

Crowds of protestors, some of whom are still nursing their injuries, may have dispersed, but their political aspirations are indelibly etched in the city’s landscape, especially along the highway road signage. Charcoal black powder from burnt car tyres pepper many intersections on Kisumu’s roads, despite the recent heavy rains. At the Kenya Commercial Bank’s T-junction, where the Jomo Kenyatta Highway and the Oginga Odinga Street meet, angry protestors scratched off Jomo Kenyatta’s name from the road sign. Like the silver surface of an airtime scratch card, this left a dull metallic gray centre on the white metallic arrows where the words Jomo Kenyatta had been.

Across the road, on the walls of the city park’s main building, also known as Od Mikai, the name JARAMOGI, Palimpsest-like, has been superimposed on KENYATTA’s name. Never in Kisumu city’s history have the residents expressed such a strong desire to re-write, mute or erase the Kenyattas from the city’s political history and to obliterate memories of the traumas inflicted by the city’s bloody encounters with state brutality.

Despite the 1969 political tragedies – the annus horribilis in Kisumu’s post- independence history when Argwings Kodhek, the Mau Mau lawyer, died mysteriously in a road accident, when Tom Mboya was shot dead in broad daylight in in Nairobi and when Jomo Kenyatta’s security forces massacred at least 100 unarmed citizens, including children, during the official launch of the Kisumu Hospital (Russia Hospital) – Jomo Kenyatta’s name has always held pride of place in Kisumu’s central business district. The biggest public park and the longest road in Kisumu are named after Kenya’s first president.

Raila, it seems, has abandoned the resistance struggle for the woolly cause of “national reconciliation and unity”, a political process which, unlike the 2008 political pact, is bound neither by a deadline nor by a timeline, nor by a credible threat that can hold either the Jubilee party’s or President Uhuru’s feet to the fire.

Further afield, Kisumu city’s market, officially named Jubilee Market, was popularly and hurriedly re-named Orengo Market by protestors in honour of the Luo lawyer and opposition leader James Orengo. Locally known as Chiro Mbero, it’s the market where the Kenyan historian, the late E.S Atieno Odhiambo, tells us the independence-era women traders sang “dine onge Odinga, nyithiwa dine Jomo otho e jela” (without Odinga, Jomo would have died in prison). Protestors scratched the name JUBILEE off the market’s signpost, and in uneven uppercase letters, scribbled the name ORENGO on the signpost’s half-scratched surface.

It seems Kisumu residents want nothing do with the Kenyattas or the type of government they represent. A few months ago, they swore to fight to the last man and woman standing for electoral justice. Angered by the conduct of the August 8 general election, the repeat presidential poll on October 26 and the state-orchestrated violence against civilians, many turned up for successive street protests, shouting in Kiswahili “ua ua…kill…kill” as volleys of teargas canisters were thrown at them by paramilitary or regular police and in defiance of the blood-curdling sounds of bullets that pierced through clouds of teargas.

Undeterred, certainly not by the rising death toll, these unarmed protestors were unflinching, angry, and contemptuous of the Jubilee government’s deadly use of force, shouting “ong’e ringo,” (no relenting) as they courted martyrdom, drawing cold comfort in the fact that their resolve to press for electoral justice was stronger than the government’s resolve to violently quell the unceasing protests. “Ok gi bi nego wa te,” (Kill they will, but they will not kill all of us.) Some of us will live to tell the tales of this war, others will be killed, but all will bequeath the next the generation with a different political world, they shouted.

Then, just when Kisumu residents thought they were done and dusted with the Kenyattas, Raila sued for peace in the name of “national reconciliation and unity”, pulling them out of their absolute resolve to detach themselves from their debilitating history and pushing them right back to the doorsteps of Harambee House, the seat of Kenya’s oppressive state power.

Raila’s handshake with Uhuru has effectively revived Kisumu residents’ cruel memories (memories they had hoped they could erase) of Kenya’s contested and chequered political history, a history that can neither be re-written from below, ORENGO Market style, nor from above, in the style of the famous handshake between the two leaders.

In the street corners of Kisumu, sounds of grand betrayal reverberate. The reverberations feel more like a spirited protest movement rather than the promising beginning of a national dialogue. At Kisumu’s K-city market, a scowl-faced middle-aged woman rhetorically asks, “Kalonzo, Wakamba osetho kodwa didi? Waluhya to….Nyithindo mane otho ne?” (How many time has Kalonzo, Wakamba died with us in this cause? And how about the Luhya…the children or the youth who died for him [Raila]?)

It’s ordinary times when one can use brute force and still talk about “development, peace and service delivery” while civil and political rights and the Judiciary – the last bastion of resistance against the Jubilee party’s quest for complete control of all the arms of government – are pulverised.

There is a feeling among Raila’s core constituency that he has betrayed his comrades and their support base for a brotherhood fellowship that is as confounding as it difficult to swallow. The net result has been the gradual disintegration of NASA, the once formidable opposition coalition.

“Wa chung Kanye?” (Where do we stand?), asks the woman at K-City market, as the news of the opposition NASA senator Moses Wetangula’s ouster and his replacement with James Orengo as the minority leader is broadcast in the car stereo next to the washing bay. It is now truly mindboggling to tell what either Raila Odinga or James Orengo now stand for after the handshake. Raila, it seems, has abandoned the resistance struggle for the woolly cause of “national reconciliation and unity”, a political process which, unlike the 2008 political pact, is bound neither by a deadline nor by a timeline, nor by a credible threat that can hold either the Jubilee party’s or President Uhuru’s feet to the fire. The handshake has left Raila’s political base utterly confused. It’s a covenant that recalls Thomas Hobbes’ pithy quip: “Covenants without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.”

Currently, only David Ndii’s take resonates with the protest scars on Kisumu’s cityscape. The protest crowds want to rake up the past. The ODM MPs’ talk of compensation as opposed to the 12-point gamut of the Uhuru-Raila handshake agreement certainly misses the significance of the marks on Kisumu’s roads signs.

In an interview with Citizen TV, Ndii strenuously and variously suggested that the handshake signaled Kenya’s Kairos – that opportune moment when the tensions and contradictions of Kenya’s neocolonial state, laid bare by the bloody 2007 presidential election, must be resolved. It is an opportunity for Kenyans, on their own or led by Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta, to reconstitute the Kenyan nation and its moral underpinnings and to resolve its contradictions: It should be a moment when Kenyans decide whether we want to continue with dictatorship or want to embrace democracy. It should be a moment where we decide to do away with ethnic domination and consider ethnic inclusivity, through cross-party and cross-ethnic dialogues.

Ndii seems to suggests that the handshake signaled the end of ordinary times, times for everyday Kenyan political talk of “development,” “peace,” “unity,” “power-sharing or nusu-mkate”, the stock- in-trade phrases that the state and many reactionary Kenyans bandy around to silence dissent and to dismiss critics as unconstructive and unworthy interlocutors. For Ndii, Kairos is the moment for a markedly different kind of political conversation and action, which could rescue Kenya from its existential threat and ethnic implosion.

This moment underpins the desires of the Kisumu protest crowds, who have become cynical about both ODM and the Jubilee party.

Both the ODM and Jubilee’s disparate talks seem to be rewinding the historical clock, away from Ndii’s kairos, a historical watershed, and back to the Aden Duale–Fred Matiangi’s chronos, ordinary times, when and where evils still pays, and the soul of the men in charge of the government’s coercive powers is unrepentant. It’s ordinary times when one can use brute force and still talk about “development, peace and service delivery” while civil and political rights and the Judiciary – the last bastion of resistance against the Jubilee party’s quest for complete control of all the arms of government – are pulverised.

ODM MPs, having smelt state power, now have a spring in their steps as they arrogantly exert their powers within the now wobbly NASA coalition. Orengo, ensconced in his new position as the Senate’s minority chief whip, has now also come to symbolise betrayal. Increasingly, these MPs’ talk seems to be narrowing down people grievances to mostly to one type of injury: physical injury. They are also shifting towards the development/peace talk within the party’s core support base.

Uhuru and Raila’s widely reported handshake is still evoking mixed feelings: a sense of betrayal and confusion, but now giving way to a creeping and begrudging acceptance of the promise of the Harambee House deal.

At a newsstand in Nyalenda, one of Kisumu’s bustling ghettos, a young man quips, “Kalonzo odhi omos Ruto…wan waduaro kwe…wanwiwa ruko…mono jopinje moko keto mwandu gi Kisumu,” (Kalonzo should go and shake Ruto’s hands…we want peace…our penchant for protest discourages others from investing in Kisumu.) It a remarkable shift, a shift that echoes mostly ODM party officials’ and MPs’ views regarding the handshake and which also elevates Raila above his comrades-in-arm, Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi.

It is a disappointing end to a protracted struggle driven from below by fearless foot soldiers who had put their lives on the line for electoral justice and a Raila presidency. Kenya’s nascent broad-based opposition coalition has suffered a major setback. And the Jubilee Party has scored a major victory, albeit a momentary one. The Jubilee securocrats believe that the opposition comprises dispensable actors in a liberal democracy, not insurgents who can defeat them through extralegal warfare. Uhuru and Raila’s widely reported handshake is still evoking mixed feelings: a sense of betrayal and confusion, but now giving way to a creeping and begrudging acceptance of the promise of the Harambee House deal. “Baba is always right,” say many, either as a way of expressing unquestioning loyalty to Raila Odinga or granting him the benefit of the doubt that he did not throw the opposition under the bus.

What will the two midwives of the Harambee House deal, Martin Kimani and Paul Mwangi, a counter-insurgent securocat and Raila’s everyday lawyer, respectively, deliver? Will they initiate a process to re-write the tragic history of the neocolonial Kenyan state? Or will they recast recent events as merely a glitch that temporarily halted the country’s relentless pursuit of “development”?

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga: The Man Kenya Can Never Forget

By Dauti Kahura and Bethuel Oduo It was an extraordinary set of photographs.

Gideon Moi leading Raila Odinga in and out. Odinga leaning over to shake Daniel arap Moi’s hand. Odinga sitting next to two generations of the Moi family. In the background, over the mantle, a photograph that wasn’t what used to be the mandatory photograph of every public establishment (a portrait of the current President). But was instead a portrait of Moi Senior looking considerably younger than the Moi senior that was the focus of the rapprochement on display in the foreground.

All theatre?

No doubt.

But, like all theatre, replete with symbolism. Like all theatre, leaving much open for crystal balls to be consulted, tea leaves to be read, conclusions to be drawn. Like all theatre, meaning-making. Before our very eyes.

But truth seeps out from beyond the literal. Balloons are floated to test our responses. To be alluded to and deduced from. To be (vociferously) pondered and pontificated on. Until reality proves our allusions and deductions to be true (or untrue as the case may be). Sometimes balloons floated deflate and ignominiously drift away with the winds. Sometimes, however, they prove flightworthy.

Odinga – with his opposition coalition half-hearted about continued agitation around the elections, with a region and other external actors hell-bent on securing their version of ‘stability’ over accountability – having drastically-narrowed means to assert his own legitimacy. His support-base was intact but Kenya’s middle-class and private sector were just exhausted by the drawn-out uncertainty

These photographs. Like the now infamous ‘handshake’ between Uhuru Kenyatta and Odinga, we are left to decipher their meaning. Anybody who remembers how Odinga put paid – decisively – to Moi Senior’s ambitions for his succession can barely believe these photographs record something that happened this very week. Then again, anybody who remembers just how Odinga put paid to those ambitions, wouldn’t be surprised.

Politics as the art of the possible. Politics as the sole terrain of human ambition and experience in which there truly are no permanent enemies. Politics as whatever it is that our elites decide it should be. Politics as elastic, ever-shifting elite consensus, elite pacting. Politics as permanent interests. Politics as manoeuvring.

Politics as nothing more than the search to capture and maintain power.

Politics as nothing to do with how best to use power.

Politics as nothing to do with us.

Much has been said already about why Kenyatta and Odinga would have found it necessary to have such a thin display – equally symbolic, equally theatre – of elite consensus and pacting as they’ve recently had. Kenyatta – in power on the basis of voter turnout of only about a third of the electorate – needing legitimacy. Odinga – with his opposition coalition half-hearted about continued agitation around the elections, with a region and other external actors hell-bent on securing their version of ‘stability’ over accountability – having drastically-narrowed means to assert his own legitimacy. His support-base was intact but Kenya’s middle-class and private sector were just exhausted by the drawn-out uncertainty.

And so on. The reasoning – on both sides – has already been well-ventilated.

Also well-ventilated is the anger, confusion – almost bereft-ness – of his support base now.

What’s not been well-ventilated are two things.

The reasons for that deep sense of anger and confusion – and its possible costs.

There is not a person alive who saw what elite consensus and pacting cost us – in 1997, 2002, 2007 – who wouldn’t admit that political settlements in Kenya are containment strategies, not resolution strategies.

Just as there is not a person alive who saw the size of the crowds at Odinga’s mock swearing-in who could possibly not be unsure now that the ability of elite consensus and pacting for containment is still assured.

Also well-ventilated is the anger, confusion – almost bereft-ness – of (Odinga’s) support base now

Yes, Odinga’s erstwhile opposition colleagues have kept the deaths at the hands of the security services during this electoral process on the table. The absolute failure of security sector reform was on full display. The partisanship of the security services deployed (in the interest of the incumbent). Their casual brutality. Their impunity. Uta-do? Ditto the Executive’s absolute contempt for rule of law. The court orders ignored. The veiled (and not-so-veiled) attacks on the judicial members responsible for issuing those orders in the first place. The Executive’s impunity and – ultimately – the judiciary’s inability, despite its best efforts, to address that impunity. Uta-do?

But what hasn’t been kept on the table – perplexingly – is every single concrete issue on which the Executive’s, the incumbent’s, behaviour was based. It is this that is the tragedy of the latest handshake and photographs. The tragedy of this latest round of elite consensus and pacting.

To reiterate those specifics – our unfinished business from 2017.

The contracting by the electoral management body. Including the contracting of the parallel, short message servicing results transmission system to Attain Enterprise Solutions – an entity allegedly associated with family members of top Jubilee party officials. The ownership questions around the same. The IEBC’s contracting of the battery of advocates and lawyers on which it has relied in all electoral disputes arising. What all that contracting has cost us. What the elections themselves have cost us.

The pending court orders (ha!) from the first presidential poll petition as concerns the IEBC’s information technology platforms and storage systems. The infamous servers. The absolutely shocking content of the two judicially-ordered scrutiny reports – content which didn’t, finally, find full reflection in the judgement arising.

The revelations coming out now as concerns the incumbent’s contracting of external public relations firms and their utter lack of concern as to how they messaged internally – fanning the fires on social media with untrue assertions, defamatory and libellous claims and (frankly) incendiary use of ethnic prejudice and stereotyping.

The pathetic capitulation of western external actors to hollow rule-by-law claims of the incumbent – their flipping of the script and contributions to narrowed understandings of the rights to assembly, association and expression.

In the end, the emptying-out of our right to vote, our right to have our vote count.

This is what elite consensus and pacting has cost us before. This is what it’s costing us today. This is the handshake. These are the photographs. Look for the portrait in the background. Understand that we’ve been here before.

Published by the good folks at The Elephant.

The Elephant is a platform for engaging citizens to reflect, re-member and re-envision their society by interrogating the past, the present, to fashion a future.