Day Kibaki blew his top in secret Ocampo talks

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto are facing crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court. PHOTO/FILE

One of Kenya's most recognizable and arguably shrewd politicians is stepping off the forum provided by public rallies to give a more personal account of his life, with a book titled "The Flame Of Freedom." The memoir has everything you never knew about the opposition leader Raila Odinga who comes clean about Kenya's secret corridors of power and how it shaped his personal and political lives. With the launch set for Sunday, Kenyans will be able to get a sneak peek of the book starting Thursday, with published excerpts in the Daily Nation.

In Summary

• Mr Odinga also narrates how Mr Kibaki lost his cool and shouted during a meeting to negotiate the end of the post-election violence
• In the book, Mr Odinga talks about his family’s business empire, his life in detention and the intrigues that led to the split of Ford

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By SAMUEL SIRINGI
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President Mwai Kibaki protested furiously during a secret meeting with Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo when he was informed that his chief aide, Mr Francis Muthaura, was on the list of suspects, according to a new book.

In his autobiography, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, recounts how a “very agitated” Mr Kibaki shouted: “No, no, no! You cannot go on this way!” as the names of the Ocampo Six, the alleged masterminds of the 2007 post-election violence, were read to them.

In the book to be launched at KICC on Sunday, Mr Odinga narrates how Mr Kibaki almost stopped Mr Moreno-Ocampo, then the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, from revealing the names of the poll violence suspects to the two Grand Coalition principals.

The book, Raila Odinga – The Flame of Freedom, whose serialisation begins in the Daily Nation on Wednesday, reveals that Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga were briefed about the six suspects almost a month before Mr Moreno-Ocampo publicly released the names on December 15, 2010.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo started by reading the names of “the Ocampo Six” and had read out the names of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta (then Finance minister), Mr William Ruto (Education) and Mr Henry Kosgey (Industrialisation).

“When Ocampo reached Muthaura, Kibaki exploded and began to protest loudly,” Mr Odinga says in his 1,000-page book.

He says the former President was “extremely agitated” but despite his protests “had no option but to accept what Ocampo was telling us”.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo then added to the list the names of journalist Joshua arap Sang and former police commissioner Hussein Ali.  

At the end of the meeting, whose exact date is not specified, Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga agreed not to reveal the names to anyone.

The ICC prosecutor finally named the six publicly on December 15, paving the way for the pre-trial process.

Mr Odinga also narrates how Mr Kibaki lost his cool and shouted during a meeting to negotiate the end of the post-election violence, prompting dignitaries led by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, his predecessor Benjamin Mkapa and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to step in and calm him down.

POLITICAL INTRIGUES

In the book, Mr Odinga talks about his family’s business empire, his life in detention and the intrigues that led to the split of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford) at the height of the clamour for multipartyism in the early 1990s.

He also revisits the 1982 attempted coup but is reluctant to discuss his role, if any, in it, only saying: “The full explanation of our efforts to bring about popular change will have to wait for another, freer, time in our country’s history. The publication of a biography of me in 2002, where the writer intimated a peripheral role for me in the coup attempt, caused a vindictive outcry – indicating that freedom of speech is, at the time I tell this, my story, as shackled as ever in our country.”

Mr Odinga becomes philosophical when recounting his life in prison — he was detained three times in nine years — noting that the crackdown on dissidents was designed to break even the strongest of spirits.

“One of the most difficult things about detention is its timelessness,” he says. “You do not know whether your release will ever come, or whether it might be tomorrow or in 10 years’ time. This can make you feel hopeless and depressed.”

Mr Odinga also gives an account of how ODM negotiated the Grand Coalition government with PNU following the 2007/08 election violence and what role former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan played in the talks.

The former Prime Minister, who lost in the March 4 presidential election, says he travelled to
Germany for higher education on Tanzanian papers after he was denied a Kenyan passport because his father was considered a dissident.

He tells how, as a student in Germany, he boosted his modest stipend with casual work, including working in a bakery:

“I did this job for four weeks one summer and two in the winter break. At the end of each day, I went home with a nice, fresh, brown loaf.”

Mr Odinga was studying mechanical engineering. He describes how his father had wanted him to study medicine, and had actually embarked on this course... until the day he went to a hospital for practicals.

“To my horror, the students were practising on cadavers, cutting them up and examining various pieces of the dead bodies,” he says.

“I looked at it all and just felt sick. I knew immediately that I was not cut out for medicine.”

The former PM talks about the burden of family tragedies and betrayals and the resilience that have come to define the Odingas.

Family life was replete with drama – from the time pastors refused to baptise Jaramogi’s three eldest sons to the time when Mr Odinga’s older brother, Oburu Oginga, was denied admission to Alliance High School despite excelling in exams.

“Oburu had passed with flying colours, gaining the highest possible points but he had not been accepted at Alliance High School, the best secondary school at the time,” says Mr Odinga.

Jaramogi went to see Carey Francis, the headmaster at Alliance, but Francis refused to admit Oburu because of old grudges against Jaramogi. From then on, says Mr Odinga, “Jaramogi knew that, if he wanted a good education for us boys, he would have to send us abroad.”

He also narrates how, as a student, he was twice deported – from Hungary and Moscow – for lack of visas.

FAMILY BUSINESS

Mr Odinga describes how he was forced to take over the Odinga family affairs when his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was detained in 1969. To generate income, Mr Odinga used his engineering training to establish what became the main family business, EA Spectre Ltd.

Mr Odinga was at the time a lecturer in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Nairobi. While there, it soon became apparent to him that Kenya needed a standards bureau – not least to test the gas cylinders that Spectre was producing.

Mr Odinga was tasked with the job of setting up the bureau and he quit his university post to establish the organisation, which tests products to this day.

The 37 chapters of the book narrate Mr Odinga’s personal, professional and public story spanning four decades and it easily intertwines with Kenya’s political history.