Uhuru Kenyatta (left) and Raila Odinga (right).In private, like their
fathers, they plot for each other’s political downfall.. PHOTOS | FILE
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition National Super
Alliance (Nasa) leader Raila Odinga walk closely in the footsteps of
their fathers idolizing, imitating and publicly mimicking their
politics.
In public, they refer to one another as 'my
brother' but in private, like their fathers, they plot for each other’s
political downfall — a replay of the 1960s politics between President
Jomo Kenyatta and his former Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
Jomo and Jaramogi were once close allies and friends at the family level.
Their sons are close family friends despite the political temperatures that rise between their supporters.
When
Mr Odinga’s son, Fidel, died, President Uhuru visited the family at
home and allowed them to use a military helicopter during his burial.
At
a recent memorial of Jomo Kenyatta at the Holy Family Minor Basilica,
President Uhuru invited Mr Odinga to address the congregation.
The
families’ relationship goes back to the pre-independence days when
Jaramogi was introduced to Jomo Kenyatta by Ochieng Aneko, who was an
insider in the Kenya African Union (KAU).
By then
Jaramogi was a rank-outsider in national politics and while Aneko was
arrested during the crackdown on Mau Mau, Jaramogi was spared and he
became an important voice in demanding the release of Jomo Kenyatta and
others from jail.
Political future
Ever since, the two families have become a focal point of Kenya’s politics.
Historians are divided on the reason Jaramogi pegged his political future on the release of Jomo Kenyatta.
Some
argue that with the rising global popularity of Tom Mboya and James
Gichuru, there was a high chance that he would not have space among the
British-backed moderates.
He was again marked by the British as a Communist at a time when Mboya was being revered on the cover of Time magazine.
Jomo Kenyatta did not trust Mr Mboya too — though he loved his mastery of trade union politics and eloquence.
So
close was Jomo and Jaramogi that when Jomo was released from prison and
during the Lancaster conference, they opened and shared a bank account
in London where money from various sources was received.
Jaramogi,
in his autobiography, says the British did not trust him and Kenyatta
and kept them in a separate hotel away from Mboya and Gichuru.
Trust
So
close were the two that they later opened another joint account in
Nairobi’s Bank of Baroda in which they were the sole signatories.
That any of them could draw the funds, coming from well-wishers, showed the level of trust between the two politicians.
Some
of the records of this suspense account are available at the Kenya
National Archives indicating the flow of money from various sources for
the construction of the controversial Lumumba Institute, which would be
used by Mr Mboya to bring down Jaramogi after Americans told him that it
was a socialist school which was secretly training Kanu cadres on party
takeover.
What is now known, is that both Jomo and
Jaramogi were capitalists and took advantage of the freedom of movement
to amass wealth and power and records at the Ministry of Agriculture
show various approvals made for Jaramogi to acquire expansive lands in
Nyanza both for himself and for his other business empire, Luo Thrift
and Trading Corporation, which in the 1940s had recruited hundreds of
shareholders to buy buildings, a printing press and a construction
company with Jaramogi as its first chief executive.
Socialism
Kenyatta
was always aware that it was Jaramogi who led a spirited campaign for
his release from prison based on the fear that there was a plot by Tom
Mboya and James Gichuru to have Independence declared without Kenyatta.
Jaramogi,
by then a wealthy politician, had also launched a Kenya Office in
Cairo, an anti-American, anti-British lobby group funded by Egyptian
President Gamal Abdel Nasser — a man who had turned Cairo into the
African base for socialism.
Nasser was pursuing Arab socialism as a means to modernise his country with the support of the Eastern Bloc.
During a public spat in Kisumu in 1969 Kenyatta warned Jaramogi: “Had you not been my friend, I would have finished you …”
While Jaramogi had no problem with Kenyatta — and he says as much in his autobiography, Not Yet Uhuru — he believes that outside forces created a wedge between them.
Succession
At
independence, Jomo became a captive of the Western Bloc, while Jaramogi
banked on the East for political and economic survival.
Notably,
it was Jomo who allowed Jaramogi to sell the multi-million Lumumba
Institute property. For as long as it was not about politics, the two
would listen to each other.
Jaramogi’s son, Raila was a
government employee before he started his gas cylinder enterprise with
funding from the Kenya Industrial Estates, a government agency.
Both
Uhuru and Raila were in Kanu when the Moi succession politics were
being plotted and only parted after President Moi anointed Uhuru as his
preferred candidate.
The two would later join hands
when Mr Odinga was launching the Orange Democratic Movement and when
they opposed the Kilifi Draft on the Constitution.
The two campaigned vigorously against Mwai Kibaki’s draft constitution and won.
Both
publicly acknowledge that they are friends — but when political
mischief and power-play comes into the equation, running battles begin
among their supporters.
Reported by John Kamau – Daily Nation
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