Jaramogi Oginga Odinga

Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga (b. c. 1911) played a major role in Kenyan politics. To his Luo people in Kenya and the diaspora, he was the revered Ker (spiritual leader), comparable only to the fabled ancestral Ramogi Ajwang, who reigned 400 years before him.

Oginga Odinga was born of a union between a widow and a man called Odinga, a half-brother to her husband, through inheritance or ter. His mother had become Odinga's third wife. In his book, Not Yet Uhuru, Jaramogi estimates the date of his birth to be October, 1911. "We were three brothers and two sisters in our mother's house," he writes.

Christianity came his way early in life, but he was never keen about it. He later did away with his Christian names, Obadiah Adonijah. He was teaching at Maseno School, where the use of Christian names was the norm for all staff. He refused to be called Adonijah and settled for Oginga Odinga. Thus started a rebellious streak that was the benchmark of his long and illustrious but bumpy political life.

Church zealots of the day thought him insane when he insisted that his three eldest sons, Oburu, Amolo and Agola, be baptised with the names of local community heroes.

For Oburu, he chose Ng'ong'a Molo, for Amolo, he settled for Raila, his great grandfather, and Agola was baptised Ngire Omundo, all respected people in his family line. Ng'ong'a was a renowned chief.

His yen to see his people economically empowered spurred him to start the Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation, registered in 1947. Through it, people involved in business ventures, unified by a common urge to pull away from hopelessness. With time, Odinga and his group undertook to strengthen Luo Union to embrace the entire East African region. His relentless efforts to unite the people and empower them economically earned him admiration and recognition above his peers. He was simply Ker (leader), comparable only to Ramogi Ajwang before him.

As Ker, Odinga who was installed with all the trappings of the spiritual office and he vowed to uphold the ideals of Ramogi, hence the title Jaramogi.

He resigned his post of Ker in 1957, to go into politics and was elected member of the Legislative Council for the Central Nyanza constituency. Traditionally, a Luo Ker could not be a politician and the Joel Omer, the father of veteran politician Phoebe Asiyo succeeded him.

In politics, Odinga fiercely campaigned for the release from detention of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, impressing on the colonial Government that Kenya could not even envisage independence without the nationalist leader.

Odinga reportedly turned down an offer to form a government without Mzee Kenyatta, declaring "No Kenyatta, no Uhuru".

Yet, as vice-President, he was to differ with Mzee Kenyatta on principle to the extent of resigning from his post and quitting KANU to form his Kenya People's Union (KPU) in 1966.

The friction continued until Mzee Kenyatta detained Odinga in 1969, after the two had differed publicly at a chaotic function in Kisumu where several people died. He was released two years later but was consigned to political limbo until after Mzee Kenyatta's death in August 1978.

President Daniel arap Moi briefly warmed up to Jaramogi Odinga in 1980, by appointing him chairman of the Cotton Lint and Seed Marketing Board. He didn't last long in the post as Moi dropped him after outspoken politician accused Mzee Kenyatta of having been land grabber.

In an attempt to manoeuvre his way back into the political mainstream, Jaramogi Odinga attempted to register a political party in 1982, but Attorney-General Charles Njonjo rushed in a constitutional amendment (Section 2A), making Kenya a de jure single-party state.

Following the abortive 1982 coup, Jaramogi Odinga was expelled from KANU and placed under house arrest in Kisumu.

In 1990, he tried in vain with associates such as former Kitutu Masaba MP George Anyona to register an Opposition party, the National Democratic Party.

But that was not the end of Jaramogi Odinga's tether. Together with other veteran politicians, including Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro, George Nthenge, Ahmed Bahmariz, and Philip Gachoka, the never-say-die politician spearheaded the formation of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy(FORD) pressure group in 1991. He became the interim chairman.

The formation of FORD triggered a chain of events that were to change Kenya's political landscape, culminating in the removal of KANU from power eight years after Jaramogi Odinga's death.

So determined was Jaramogi to see his fight for the "second liberation" become a reality that after being arrested by police and dumped at his Bondo rural home on the eve of a major FORD rally at Kamukunji, Nairobi, he remarked: "I wish I was younger and had a helicopter at my disposal. I could have been right there fighting it out with the police."

He later led the biggest rally ever at Kamukunji in Nairobi when FORD literally shook the Moi government in January, 1992 after the restoration of multiparty politics.

Moments before the 1969 Kisumu fiasco, he exchanged bitter words with Mzee Kenyatta, who had come ready for a showdown.

He once told President Moi to guard his tongue when speaking about other people's children after the former Head of State had implied that Raila Odinga was behind tribal clashes that had rocked the Rift Valley, parts of Nyanza and Western provinces. "We know his children, and he is better advised to watch his tongue," Jaramogi Odinga warned at a church rally in Kisumu.

In a reconciliatory move, Jaramogi invited the President to a rally in his Bondo constituency, as his Ford-Kenya reached out to KANU for "co-operation in development".

Odinga was a traditionalist to the core, as borne by his disdain for Christian values. He never married in Church and had four wives who bore him 19 children.