Kanu ejects Odinga in power play
FILE
What you need to know:
- While he was in detention, Odinga was one of Kenyatta’s ardent supporters
March 13, 1966
It was dubbed Black Sunday – the day considered by many as the beginning of the disintegration of Kanu and the fallout between President Jomo Kenyatta and his Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
On this day, Kenyatta, the Kanu President, chaired the third day of a three-day party caucus in Limuru. Top on the agenda was a vote on amendments to the party constitution. In the changes, the position of Kanu Deputy President, which was held by Odinga, was abolished.
While he was in detention, Odinga was one of Kenyatta’s ardent supporters. Indeed, he had at one time declared “No independence without Kenyatta, and Kenyatta is my next God!”
But after independence, the two leaders had clashed on many key issues, including land and and which direction Kenya should take in the East-West divide.
Tired of the clashes, Kenyatta, under the advice of Tom Mboya, who was the Kanu secretary-general and other allies, went to work to neutralise Odinga.
In the new constitution, Odinga’s post was to be split into eight – each representing one of the eight provinces.
Ronald Ngala, previously Kenyatta’s erstwhile pre-independence opponent as Kadu President, had dissolved his party and had joined Kanu. He had even become vice-chairman of the Kanu Parliamentary Group, chairing meetings of MPs on behalf of Kenyatta.
In the build-up to the Limuru Kanu conference on March 9, Ngala chaired an MPs’ meeting and collected 100 signatures to petition Kenyatta to call the party conference.
On the same day, Mr Odinga called a press conference to accuse his detractors of hatching a scheme to isolate him.
Then on Thursday, March 10, 1966, Mboya announced changes in the venue of meetings.
Kenyatta would chair the Parliamentary Group on Friday at Harambee House, not State House, and ministers and party branch representatives on Saturday in Limuru.
The change came after public criticism that State House had become a Kanu politburo, likening it to the former Soviet Kremlin.
Kenyatta chaired the PG, which voted 86 to 30 in favour of amending the party constitution.
Mr Odinga and Paul Ngei who had been suspended from the Cabinet were notable absentees.
At the Limuru meeting, Odinga’s fate was sealed when eight Kanu vice-chairmen were elected with him missing from the line up.
Mr Odinga later resigned from the VP post and Kanu to form his Kenya Peoples Union. He got into a nasty altercation with Kenyatta in October of 1969 in Kisumu, leading to his detention alongside his KPU political allies.
