Intrigues that led to collapse of power plot

Soldiers patrol city streets after the coup attempt was crashed in 1982. Photo/FILE 

In Summary

• The attempted coup of August 1, 1982, was a personal catastrophe for the junior plotters. But if the executed seven soldiers are to be believed, senior plotters got off lightly
• How young military men ganged up against Kanu in a tragic push for power and political freedom

Kenyan coup plotter Joseph Ogidi Obuon deeply implicated former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga in the 1982 failed coup, according to police statements seen by the Saturday Nation 26 years after he was hanged for treason.

Sergeant Ogidi, an armaments technician, was executed at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in 1987 along with six other soldiers of the Kenya Air Force for their role in the coup that attempted to topple the repressive regime of President Daniel arap Moi.

The principal conspirators of the putsch, as Kenyans have always known, were Air Force soldiers Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancras Oteyo.

But from his statement recorded with the police — copies of which have been obtained by the Saturday Nation — it would appear that the known plotters were pawns in a wider conspiracy borne of ethnic and political disaffection with the Moi regime.

Ogidi was based at Laikipia Air Force Base, then known as Kenya Air Force Nanyuki Station, where he told police he had worked since March 1, 1971. The base, the second major installation of the Air Force after its headquarters in the sprawling Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh, was constructed as a home to its developing squadrons of fighter jets.

In his 28-page hand written statement, Ogidi begun with a detailed account of how he was recruited by his fellow Nanyuki serviceman Oteyo. “I do remember,” he wrote, “that sometimes in 1981, in August or September, Senior Sergeant Oteyo called in my house and told me that he wanted to talk to me.

“Oteyo asked me what I felt about the government and the Armed Forces. I asked S/Sgt Oteyo (what he was concerned about). S/Sgt Oteyo told me that he wanted to know my feelings as far as the government was treating the community, how the Luo were being treated in the Armed Forces.

“I asked S/Sgt Oteyo what he really meant. He told me we (the Luo), being the second largest tribe in the country had not made the rank of a Colonel or Brigadier in the Armed Forces (the senior most Luo soldier at the time was a major).

Oteyo also talked about the distribution of the Cabinet; that the Luo had only three Cabinet ministers as compared with other tribes like the Luhya.

“Oteyo also discussed about the dismissal of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga from Cotton Lint and asked what my feeling was about the above points. I told Oteyo that the points were not pleasing but I could do nothing about them.”

The picture that Ogidi paints of himself is that of a naive, impressionable young man who questions from a sympathetic position and is unable to object to any of Oteyo’s entreaties. He is easily taken in by the long litany of grouses that Oteyo has against the government and the Armed Forces and the overt slights to the Luo based on its cultural practices. He is a ready-made recruit.

“Oteyo started telling me that change was necessary and that the change could be effected,” he wrote.

“He told me that there was no other way of effecting the change constitutionally other than taking up arms against the government. I asked Oteyo how I could take up arms against the government single-handedly and he told me that I was not alone.”

In January, 1982, Ogidi undertook a course that ran into February. Thereafter, he was granted three days off which he planned to spend in his rural home. “Before I left, S/Sgt Oteyo told me to go and see Oginga Odinga and explain to him what he (Oteyo) had told me about the change in the government. This was towards the end of February.

“I asked Oteyo how I was going to see Mr Odinga since I had not been known to him. S/Sgt Oteyo told me just to go and introduce myself to him and he might listen. I enquired from Oteyo how I was going to get to Mr Odinga and Oteyo told me that if it was a working day I could ring his office and if it was a weekend I could ring his house.

“When the time came, I left Nanyuki for home – Migori, where I stayed for two days. After this, I left for Kisumu and when I reached there, I rang Mr Odinga in his office and got him personally on his direct line. I told him that I was from Kenya Air Force Nanyuki and that I wanted to see him. Odinga did not object and asked me to go and see him in his office.”

“Once in his office, I tried to explain to him about what Oteyo had told me – overthrowing the government. Odinga told me to wait for him in his secretary’s office. While there a man from Odinga’s office came and told me to accompany him to a car parked outside. After a while, Odinga joined us and a driver came and drove us to his home.

“In Odinga’s house, which is a storey house, I and Odongo — as the man was called — sat in the sitting room while Odinga went upstairs. (But) before going upstairs, Odinga told me to explain everything to Odongo. After my explanation, Odongo went upstairs to see Odinga. A short while later, Odinga and Odongo joined me in the sitting room.