What Raila did not tell you in his new book
By JOYCE NYAIRO
Was The Flame of Freedom intended to (re)brand Raila Odinga as the
intellectual custodian of our nation’s pro-democracy struggles? A key
theme in the book is, “the government’s long vendetta against the
Odingas”.
Was The Flame of Freedom intended to (re)brand
Raila Odinga as the intellectual custodian of our nation’s pro-democracy
struggles?
The photographs he selects, the stories he
tells, the way he tells them and the stories that he does not tell, seem
to establish Raila as the authority on the making of Kenya.
Raila’s story gives clear justification for the constitutional changes that this country finally made.
It
is a must read for those who never experienced — and those who would so
carelessly forget — the terror of a dictatorship where sycophancy, fear
and silence reigned supreme.
A key theme in the book is, “the government’s long vendetta against the Odingas”.
But
for all the evidence that Raila mounts to prove this point, he
simultaneously supplies enough information to refute the truth of his
tumeonewa refrain. A few examples suffice.
GREAT OPPORTUNITIES
With
his father out in the political cold, Raila was employed at the
University of Nairobi, a government institution headed by Dr Josephat
Karanja.
Raila’s consulting firm, Franz Schinies and
Partners, got a contract to “install a liquid petroleum gas tank at
[Jomo] Kenyatta’s farm in Gatundu”.
Raila and Franz
registered Standard Processing Equipment Construction and Erection
(Spectre), got a loan and premises from the Kenya Industrial Estates, a
wholly owned government body.
After his first detention Raila negotiated funding from Industrial Development Bank, another government institution.
Through
Kenya Railways and the Ministry of Works, the government facilitated
the testing of Spectre’s gas cylinders, leveraging their acceptance by
international oil companies.
Raila says the idea of
setting up a local standards body was his, driven by the challenge of
getting Spectre’s LPG cylinders certified in the UK.
The
Jomo government embraced the idea, appointed Raila to the position of
Group Standards Manager in the newly formed Kenya Bureau of Standards.
He rose to be Deputy Director in 1978, a job he held until 1982 when the Moi government detained him over his role in the coup.
Raila
served as secretary and later vice-chairman of the Nairobi Branch of
Kenya Amateur Athletics Association (p.334) and he travelled abroad many
times with national teams, representing Kenya.
In the
Jomo years, when Jaramogi had problems servicing a foreign currency loan
from TAW Leasing International for the purchase of 12 buses for his
Lolwe Road Services, he obtained a shilling-based loan to pay off TAW
from National Bank of Kenya then headed by Stanley Githunguri.
Dr
Oburu Odinga was employed in the Ministry of Planning in the Jomo era.
By 1994, he had risen to be the Provincial Planning Officer in Western.
The
acquisition of the Kisumu Molasses Plant gave Raila 283 acres in Kisumu
town for a well-below market rate of Sh13,100 per acre.
Maybe
the Kenyatta and the Moi governments facilitated the commercial
ventures of the Odingas to keep them from aspiring for high political
office.
Still, the reality of all these opportunities negates the argument of government waging an all-out vendetta.
LAND QUESTION
The position of the Odingas on the land question is logically inconsistent.
In the 1950s, Jaramogi donated land for the building of Nyamira Primary and Nyamira Girls schools in Bondo.
Though
Raila is vague about the exact purchase dates and the distinctions
between the properties, he nonetheless mentions several tracts of land
owned by Jaramogi aside from his Bondo home—150 acres at Opoda Farm, 550
acres in Tinderet purchased through an Agricultural Finance Corporation
(AFC) loan after independence, 700 acres at Soba River Farm and an
undisclosed acreage at Great Oroba River Farm in Muhoroni.
And then there is the sketchy matter of the Lumumba Institute in Ruaraka. Jaramogi and Jomo were joint trustees.
Bildad
Kaggia, Achieng’ Oneko, Pio Gama Pinto and others were board members.
Funded by Russia, the institute functioned for just one year before
closing in 1965, a victim of Jomo’s pro-west politics.
How
did the property end up in the Odinga portfolio? Raila just says, “we
still had the premises…which we rented out, though the returns were
paltry”.
Raila emphasises that Jaramogi left Kanu to
form KPU because he was “increasingly critical of the widespread
land-grabbing that characterised the first independent Kenya
government’s activities”.
But Raila’s knowledge on the land question is dogged by fundamental factual errors.
He
says, “[w]ell connected families acquired land in the early 1960s
through the Settlement Transfer Fund Scheme, a brainchild of Kenyatta
and his cronies soon after Independence”.
No such fund
existed. The Land Development and Settlement Board was established in
January 1961, a precursor of the Settlement Fund Trustees (SFT) launched
on June 1, 1963.
Alfred Nyairo has repeatedly
demonstrated that discussions over the sale of the White Highlands
commenced while Kenyatta was still restricted in Maralal.
Nyairo
adds, “the first African allottees were settled at the ex-Luckhurst
farm at Dundori on 27th March 1961. By Madaraka Day in 1963, 356,255
acres had been purchased on which 6,668 African farmers and their
families had been settled”.
Jaramogi was in Mombasa in
1981 when he called Jomo a “land-grabber”. Though he apologised later,
that comment angered Moi so much that Jaramogi was shut out of that
year’s Bondo by-election, the 1983 and 1988 General Elections.
So
what makes one a land-grabber? Is it the extent of the acreage, the
manner of purchase, location outside your “ancestral” home, the source
of the funding, the time of purchase (pre-versus post-independence) or a
varied mixture of all these factors?
The Flame of Freedom gives many insights into Raila’s character.
CHILD OF PRIVILEDGE
At
his birth in 1945, Jaramogi was Principal of Maseno Veterinary School, a
thrifty businessman running a trading company and distributing East
African Industries products all over Nyanza.
Later,
Jaramogi ran a printing press, a construction company and a bus company.
Raila had a choice of homes between Kisumu Town and the rural Bondo.
At
17, he was sent to high school in Germany taking a flight to Cairo from
Dar es Salaam at a time when few Africans had seen a car, let alone in
an aeroplane!
So Raila was never a child of material
want, nor one lacking in privilege. His capacity for protest, though
selfless, is nonetheless curious.
He narrates a stunning example of this reflexive defiance.
On
a visit to Romania in 1968, Raila landed in Bucharest without a visa.
Immigration officers allowed him to leave the airport terminal building
so that he could go to a bank, cash his traveller’s cheques and return
to buy a visa using US dollars.
POINTLESS LAWLESSNESS
“I
walked out of the airport, now an illegal immigrant, saw people getting
on a bus and joined them for an uneventful journey to town”.
Why violate the trust of an immigration officer?
Raila shows no care for the Kenyan student leaders who had gone to meet him at the airport and could not locate him.
This example of pointless lawlessness ties into another disturbing aspect of character.
In detention, Raila encountered many cruel warders and was subjected to vile brutality.
But
there were also kind-hearted warders, who facilitated his communication
with fellow detainees like George Anyona and with his wife, Ida.
When
a smuggled letter from Ida was found, Deputy Police Commissioner Philip
Kilonzo was furious to the extent of having Ida arrested and locked up.
The
search for the facilitating warder landed on an innocent man, one who
had never been kind to Raila. He was promptly “removed”.
Raila
does not see the injustice of a man being punished for a “crime” he
never committed. Instead he gloats, “I felt that ‘divine justice’ had
intervened to help rid me of one of the unsympathetic askaris”.
This warped sense of justice carries over to Raila’s later defence of Mungiki.
Though
Raila boldly stood up for them in 2008 offering to mediate between
their leader Maina Njenga and the coalition government, he had
previously displayed absolutely no compassion for the conditions of
Mungiki’s making.
In February 2008 when Kofi Annan
expressed his horror at the goings-on in the Rift Valley, which he
visited, Raila coldly responded, “Clashes are not new. It is not the
first time. We have seen them since 1991, and in 1997 and 2002”.
Anyone
who would fight for the right of Mungiki to be and to assemble should
first fight to eradicate the conditions of cyclical violence and forced
eviction that radicalise disillusioned youth!
Raila is emphatic in stating, “I am not a tribalist”.
But
the structure and style of his narrative makes it hard to believe that
he does not single out Kikuyus and blame them for all of his suffering.
BLATANT MISINFORMATION
His
chronology of post-election violence is deliberately blurred and
elliptical, avoiding dates so that he never has to use the term
“retaliatory violence”.
He gives blatant misinformation
about the events in Kisumu where he claims there was no
“inter-community fight”, yet Kisii and Kikuyu properties were openly
torched.
Raila distorts events in Eldoret, especially
the Kiambaa church inferno, for which he refuses to state the ethnic
identity of the victims — yet he keeps talking of “our boys” and “our
people” in reference to killings in Nairobi and Kisumu.
He
understates the death toll and makes no mention of his disastrous BBC
interview aired on January 17, 2008 and carried verbatim in The Nairobi
Star. That interview had a catalogue of factual errors and appeared to
defend the church fire.
Victims of the worst of
post-poll violence, regardless of how they had voted, will be comforted
to learn from Raila’s story that when lives and property were being
traded as collateral to gain high political office for some, there were
some wise voices who cautioned the warring factions against the anger
that was welling up against politicians.
Former
Mozambique president Joachim Chissano said: “Those who have lost loved
ones have a spirit of hatred towards those they think are guilty of
causing their suffering”.
Indeed. He doesn’t mention
placards and slogans, but nothing was more damaging to Raila’s cause
than the chants, “No Raila, No peace” and “No peace without justice”.
Whose justice? The one whose votes were stolen or the one with an arrow in his head presumably because votes were stolen?
Raila’s
earlier account of the events preceding the 1992 election dwell on the
ethnic clashes in Muhoroni and Tinderet, but never mention the purge of
Kikuyus in Molo, Burnt Forest and Turbo.
Similarly, he makes no reference to the 2005 Referendum victory speech that triggered the “41 against 1” doctrine.
STRUCTURE AND STYLE
Aside
from his systematic and sustained disavowal of Kikuyu suffering, Raila
(sub)consciously employs a style that profiles any Kikuyu in a position
of authority, for instance, “Finance’s Kikuyu editor Njehu Gatabaki”.
The
same ethnic profiling is not used in references to Pius Nyamora or
Philip Ochieng’ no matter how nefarious their editorial activities were.
Qualifying
Asman Kamama and Samuel Pogisho as “ethnic Pokot” raises their profiles
as worthy minorities but references to the Kikuyu stress their
dangerous over-representation.
Interestingly, Raila
never sees his own proclivity for congregating with Luos in ethnic
terms—during his stint at UoN and in the organisation of the 1982 coup.
This
book is structured in a way that spares Raila censure over his
contentious choices. The acquisition of the Kisumu molasses factory and
co-operation with Moi’s Kanu provide two apt examples.
The
chapter on the acquisition of molasses is strategically sandwiched
between the Ouko Inquiry and the 1992 General Election so that our shock
and fears over the heinous murder of Ouko influence us to see the
resuscitation of the molasses factory as a just cause.
Raila does not tell us that he acquired this factory as he took NDP to Kanu and Moi appointed him Minister for Energy.
BLURRED CHRONOLOGY
Raila employs a similar technique of blurred chronology to introduce co-operation.
He begins by tracing “Jaramogi’s ideas [which] were sound and well-intentioned”.
Before
we can interrogate this statement, we are plunged into Jaramogi’s death
and what is possibly the most endearing chapter in the book.
By
the time Raila resumes the story of co-operation — which happened eight
years after Jaramogi’s death –— we are still reeling from the profound
sorrow and sympathy over the senior patriarch’s passing.
Raila’s sequence lends logic and coherence to political events that were probably never planned that way or that far back.
The
(co-)author of this book, Sarah Elderkin, is incapable of writing a bad
sentence. This makes for a compelling 959-page read. Typos are at a
minimum — mostly of ethnic words like Shamakhokho and Kaguthi—and the
editing has been thorough.
It is tempting to call this
monumental work a gracious account, but Elderkin’s studied penchant for
colourful invective makes such praise difficult.
Raila’s
detractors come in for unflattering description—“the bellicose
Michuki”; “Patrick Shaw, a grotesque giant of a man”, “gargantuan
reserve officer”; “unpredictable [George] Githii”; “the combative
Nassir”; “Idi Amin…the unpredictable and murderous buffoon”—among many
others. The tone is often so condescending!
One looks for the engineering and football metaphors that will distinguish the telling as Raila’s. There are hardly any.
The
story is dominated by Elderkin’s distinctly English—rather than
Kenyan—idioms. For instance, the phrase “champing at the bit”.
But
there is a more fundamental reason why Elderkin is an obtrusive
biographer. Raila states at the opening that this “is a collection of
memories, and memory is, of course, imperfect”.
But
because he tries to capture the whole story of Kenya’s pro-democracy
struggles, Raila is forced to narrate events that he could not have
witnessed when he was detained on and off for close to a decade between
1982 and 1991.
MEMOIR OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY?
When does a work cease to be a memoir and become an autobiography?
A
memoir allows you to operate at the level of feeling, narrating things
as you remember them, perhaps about a single event or period and with no
need to qualify a sentiment.
Raila does this many
times, like when he relates the fall-out in Ford-Kenya by glibly saying
“it remains my conviction that Wamalwa’s bodyguard and personal
assistant were drafted in and also that 12 delegates …were switched”.
He borders on rumour and hearsay with the frequent “we were told”, “I had received information”.
Autobiography
compels you to do the homework and give us the facts. To tell the story
of Luo genealogy; of KPU’s emergence when he was studying in Germany
and of events during his detention and exile years, Raila’s biographer
does the research. She relies heavily on press accounts for the period
1982-1992.
Aside from these tensions between
remembering and researching, this work raises an even bigger question on
the politics of memory.
Memory is as much collective
as it is individual. People in positions of authority—politicians,
academics, and cultural workers including the media—shape and reinforce
the ways in which society remembers.
Raila’s memory
often fits into a well-honed collective position. His account of Jomo’s
October 1969 visit to open New Nyanza Hospital in Kisumu strikes one as
the familiar provincial version, different from the State’s (sub)version
of that day.
Raila arrived in Kisumu from Europe via
Uganda the day before Jomo’s scheduled visit. Before going to the
hospital, he went to Kondele “getting a feeling of the atmosphere as the
crowds awaited Kenyatta’s arrival”.
He remembers the
crowds shouting the KPU slogan “dume” as Jomo waved his flywhisk and
then he started hearing gunshots and screams.
By other
accounts in the press, Jomo was met by “organised gangs of youth
shouting ndume…stones were lobbed at the presidential dais…the
presidential bodyguards opened fire …a stampede ensued and many were
trampled”.
This was a defining moment of rupture from
government for the people of Kisumu who lived under a dawn-to-dusk
curfew and bore the pain of an official death toll of 11 that
contradicted their own account of 100 dead, including children.
The event clearly shaped the discourse of exclusion and victimisation among the Luo.
Surprisingly,
Raila does not recount the events of October 29, 2005 when Raphael Tuju
tried to hold a rally in Kisumu in support of the Wako Draft
Constitution, yet the incident mirrors closely the events of New Nyanza
1969.
Officially, four people died from gunshots, 30 were wounded.
Raila outlines the power of the Odingas in determining elections in Luo Nyanza.
Even
when they have had serious doubts about the integrity of a person, as
in the case of their in-law Otieno Ambala, they have never shied away
from using their clout to get someone elected.
STARTLING REVELATIONS
But
the more startling revelation is of the safe haven, later guerilla
camp, that Raila and his father run on their Opoda Farm in 1979 when
they trained the soldiers who invaded Uganda to aid Milton Obote’s
return.
The clout of the Odingas in the region is seen
again in Raila’s 1991 flight into exile when he escaped Moi’s dragnet by
crossing over into Uganda on a boat.
Before that
exile, Jaramogi too was said to have Ugandan support when he was
reportedly spotted at Entebbe airport after the failed 1982 coup.
Raila
refuses to discuss his role in that coup saying “[t]he full explanation
of our efforts to bring about popular change will have to wait for
another, freer, time in our country”.
This silence is
unfortunate because there are numerous accounts from coup perpetrators
who implicate Raila and Jaramogi in the funding and planning of the
putsch.
A recent account taken from the statements of
Joseph Ogidi Obuon was published in the Daily Nation on August 3. Ogidi
said that in the planning stages, Raila had informed them that there
would be “some help from neighbouring countries”.
Though
Raila refuses to discuss the details, his account of his travel from
Nairobi on the night of August 1 and his arrival at a vantage point on
August 2 from where he confirmed that a military aircraft was parked at
the Kisumu Airport, speaks volumes!
LAST WORD
The last two chapters of Raila’s story are important for two reasons.
First, they allow Raila to finish his story on a note of victory.
Second,
they give us substantial details on his achievements in the Office of
the Prime Minister, a worthy thing because there are many who were
convinced that his was the laggardly side of mseto, a cantankerous and
disagreeable union that tired the populace with its trickster narratives
and cries of “I was not consulted”.
Still, it is rare to come across a biography like this one that relates no regrets, no pensive second thoughts on old choices.
Where there have been mis-steps or dodgy decisions, they are swiftly blamed on others.
A
particularly amusing example is the failed cheaper maize flour scheme
for those with low income. Raila says “government officials spoiled it”
instead of admitting to its illogical socio-economics or, with the
benefit of hindsight, debating how the scheme might have been run
differently.
TAKING TOO MUCH CREDIT
It
is easy to conclude that Raila takes credit for far too many things,
not least the famous “Kibaki Tosha” which, truly, came at a time when
Raila and his group of New Kanu rebels had nowhere else to go and no
choice but to endorse a decision that Wamalwa, Kibaki and Ngilu had
already arrived at.
By their very definition, autobiographies are about making the subject the centre of gravity.
Raila,
therefore, dims the contributions of party leaders like Mboya, Fred
Gumo, Mwai Kibaki and Ronald Ngala all of whom represented
constituencies outside their ancestral homes long before Raila did so in
Langata.
He diminishes the ideas of his colleagues at
the Kenya Bureau of Standards; of Ufungamano and other actors in the
constitution-making process, and by-passes the genius of the technocrats
who turned his Lapsset, Prime-Minister’s Round Table Forum and Special
Economic Zones into memorable successes.
He is a rare
lecturer who has no memory of a single one of his former students and a
hard-hearted friend who seems to deal too casually with the
disappearance of his business partner, Franz, with whom he had a
disagreement.
This is a story of courage and determination but in the end, it fills one with an overwhelming sense of pity.
The
humiliation that Raila has suffered is partly in the brutality of
detention, so he gives very few details of his second and third stints
therein.
Understandably, there is an even more
harrowing pain. You hear it in the number of times Raila reports,
“[they] attacked Jaramogi”.
PRESIDENT FOR JUST ONE DAY
The
weight of his father’s unfulfilled dreams is evidently on Raila’s
shoulders as he leaves out the revelations of Jaramogi’s confidant,
Odinge Odera, about Jaramogi’s “sulking” reaction to Moi’s ascension to
the throne upon Jomo’s death in 1978.
Similarly, Raila
does not recount the sad public plea Jaramogi made to Moi in Bondo
shortly before his death when he asked Moi to leave him the president’s
seat for just one day.
Though Raila’s book ends with a
bold vision for high Pan-African ideals, it is still the story of a man
(and his father) who has lit so many fires, but one who has yet to warm
himself at the ultimate hearth in State House.
So I echo Obasanjo’s Foreword in saying, “I am looking forward to reading the rest of the Raila story”
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