When auctioneers almost drove Jaramogi Oginga Odinga family into bankruptcy

On March 27, 1971, Jaramogi (Oginga Odinga) was released from detention and was on his way home.

I remember when I saw Jaramogi step out of the police car, he looked weak and worn down just like he was when we last saw him. He was accompanied by Nyanza Provincial Police Officer (PPO) and was in high spirits, as usual. We later went to his house in Kisumu to take stock of his personal affairs. His transportation company, Lolwe Bus Company, had been run down in his absence. Earlier when Raila (Odinga) came back from Germany, he tried to take over the business from the managers who were fleecing and looting it.

He was not successful as he didn’t have the power of attorney.  Jaramogi also wanted to revive the Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation, a public company he founded, because it was also overly mismanaged. When Jaramogi finished taking stock of his businesses, he called me and asked me to resign my position at the municipal council.  I quit my job after three years of service to the Kisumu Municipal Council. I became the general manager of Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation and finance director for Lolwe Bus Company.  Although the businesses had been run down, I was confident that we could revive them as most of the assets were still in good condition.

                ***

We had 20 buses (at Lolwe Bus Company) in serviceable condition and we wanted to purchase more and expand our routes. An American company called TWA Tours was winding up its businesses in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia just as we were laying down our plans for expansion. They had 12 buses, all of them almost new.

The fleet was attached to a bank loan and we agreed to take over the loan. There was no problem in the transaction because the owners of the 12 buses had been servicing their loans very well when we took over. With the new acquisition, we now had a fleet of 32 buses. The General Election of 1974 was just around the corner and I stood for councillor in Kisumu municipality, where I won in East Kisumu/Stadium ward. I thought life was now good and the future looked bright. Little did I know that this was just a lull before a big storm.

                ***

In 1975, something strange happened. The manager of National Bank of Kenya in Kisumu, where our loan facility was being serviced, asked me to go to his office. He solemnly informed me that the bank had been informed to recall our loan for the 12 buses. He went on, “If you don’t have all the cash to settle the outstanding loan immediately, we may be forced to engage auctioneers.” I was surprised by the turn of events, because we had been servicing our loan well and had never defaulted. The manager told me our good record did not matter because he was just following instructions.

The National Bank of Kenya was a government owned bank, so it was easy to see where the instructions were coming from. I demanded to know under what powers he was taking such punitive and unfair measures against us. He produced the forms we signed with Jaramogi and asked me to read the addenda somewhere at the bottom written in very small print. It stated that the ‘bank reserves the right to recall the loan balance without giving any reasons whatsoever’.

                                ***

The manager gave me 14 days to settle all the outstanding debt. Then the auctioneers came. Instead of re-possessing only the 12 buses in question, they took all our 32 buses owned by Lolwe Bus Company.

The auction was done rather secretly, and the buses sold at throw-away or ridiculously low prices. They were not done with us. They came back and said the money was not enough and attached the building which we operated from. It was a huge building smack in the middle of Kisumu town whose cost alone was enough to offset the entire loan with money to spare. Then they sold it and came back yet again insisting that was not enough.

Since Jaramogi and I were personal guarantors to the loan, they now came for our personal assets. I was living in Mosque Estate, house number 27, which I still own to date. They took everything from my house, including furniture, carpets and all the beddings. They only left two cooking pans and two plates, not even enough for my children and wife, who had graduated from university in Russia and was now living with us.

 Finally, they took my car, a Mercedes 250S. They then went to my father’s house in Milimani estate in Kisumu, where they wreaked havoc and literally went on a rampage. In a plot hatched to humiliate him, they literally swept everything from the house. They appeared in our Bondo home and collected everything from my mother’s house, including carting away the two tractors in the compound.

They dismantled the posho mill and hauled it away. They were yet to stop because they went to our farm in Miwani and cleared out everything including cows, sheep and goats. Our cats and dogs probably survived because they ran and disappeared into the sugar plantation. The entire saga was calculated to wreak maximum damage to Jaramogi.

There were many auctioneers in Kisumu but they brought one from Nairobi. This ensured that everything attached was trucked to Nairobi, therefore increasing the costs of recovering them. The auctioneer, one Kimaru, could not even get trucks big enough to carry the things he had attached and had to hire railway bogies to ferry our property to his open yard in Lang’ata.

We travelled to Nairobi with the hope of seeing the executive chairman of the National Bank of Kenya, Stanley Githunguri, in effect the bank’s CEO. We tried to see him several times but were told that we couldn’t do so without an appointment.

 When we tried his phone, his secretary was adamant we did not have an appointment to speak to him. The bank’s lawyer Paul Muite, a future politician, also informed us he did not have instructions from the bank to speak to us.

                                ***

We decided to sell Jaramogi’s house in Kileleshwa to offset the debt and just before a bankruptcy suit was filed against him. This latest action was one of the highest forms of malice I have ever encountered. It was calculated to ensure Jaramogi was unsuitable to hold any public office. He was to be knocked out politically.

Our lawyer, Satish Gautama, informed Jaramogi that it would take time to sell the house and by that time his foes in government would have succeeded with their aims. The lawyer decided to buy the house himself and he advanced Jaramogi the cash to get his property back. We were able to rescue the garages and the offices, but not the buses or the main building. When we went to pick our property we found another huge bill to pay. Now we had a case on taxation in our hands. 

We picked another law firm, owned by Onyango Otieno, later to become a judge, to represent us in the new case. Onyango assigned an advocate called Arum to our case. Many people feared any association with the Odingas in those days and I wasn’t very surprised when on the material day I went to court, Arum vanished into thin air.

When the judge called for our case, I stood in the area reserved for advocates and said I was going to represent myself. The judge told me to get out of the area because I was not an advocate and pointed to the spot I was allowed to speak from.

I told him about my family and the persecution we were going through. I also mentioned the lawyer who had just disappeared. I asked the judge to allow me to use their library, where I could study about the law of taxation and thereafter come in the afternoon or the following day to argue my case. He said that was a reasonable proposition and ordered the registrar to allow me to use the library.

                                ***

When my case was called, I laid down the figures about charges and commissions. The judge listened keenly and in the end he agreed with me that auctioneer Kimaru had grossly inflated his charges. We ended up paying less than a quarter of what he was demanding. I didn’t know that a huge shock awaited me when we went to pick our property the following day.

The vehicles had been thoroughly vandalised, with many essential parts missing. I could not even drive my Mercedes home. I just took it to our factory in the Industrial Area and parked it there to be cannibalised by anyone in the family in need of spare parts. As a young man with a family and budding career, the whole episode was a very big loss.

Even today, I feel bad when I remember how I loved that car and what finally happened to it. Nonetheless, it was Jaramogi who suffered the biggest hit. His biggest loss was the building in Kisumu town which was eventually bought by Amir Jamal, a local Indian. I could not understand why this man decided to take advantage and acquire my father’s building at his time of need. 

Amir Jamal was the first Kenyan of Asian origin to get elected to Parliament to represent Kisumu. I remember seeing him in earlier years coming to see my father and pleading for my father’s political support. Jaramogi had supported him and Amir got elected on Jaramogi’s African District Association (ADA) party. His family still owns the building today.

                                ***

As far as our family affairs were concerned, more harrowing challenges awaited us. One of them involved United Africa Corporation, a company Jaramogi established soon after independence. Jaramogi had singlehandedly funded the establishment of the company but he also later incorporated President Jomo Kenyatta in the business. United Africa Corporation was an export company with great promise. There was a huge demand for soya beans in Europe and Asia during that period.

 The company was started initially to export grains to these countries and it turned over a good profit. Kenyatta’s stake in the company was managed by his daughter, Margaret Kenyatta while Jaramogi’s stake was managed by Wilson Okondo, a protégé who hailed from Rarieda. Wilson Okondo took almost complete control of the company when my father was in detention and things started going downhill, even though profits continued to increase. 

Jaramogi had given loans to the company, which he expected to be refunded as agreed. The company’s accounts were at the National and Grindlays Bank, which was renamed Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB). Some of Jaramogi’s personal accounts were in that bank too. It happened that Jaramogi had given Okondo the power of attorney to withdraw a certain amount of money from his account to help in the business. The manager of the bank was a white man called Mr Pusey, from Australia. It appears he conspired with Okondo to withdraw all the money from my father’s accounts.

                ***

When Jaramogi came out of detention there was no money in his accounts. Now it appeared Jaramogi would lose all his money from all his personal accounts and the initial investments he had loaned the company. To make matters worse, the Indians with whom he had founded the company collected their profits and fled the country.

The Kenyattas continued receiving their dividends but there was nothing for Jaramogi. To make matters more complicated, the white bank manager Mr Pusey who had conspired with Okondo to withdraw Jaramogi’s money had since resigned from the bank and was ironically now the managing director of Jaramogi’s company. 

It was a neat and complete conspiracy. When Jaramogi discovered what had happened during his absence, he hired a Nakuru based audit firm to do calculations for him and determine the extent of the theft. All the while, he was confiding in me that he really never wanted to go to court. He wanted the matter settled out of court, no matter the percentage of money that would be recovered.

Okondo and Pusey destroyed all the documents that incriminated them to the theft, or so they thought. One of Jaramogi’s accountants was a man from Muhoroni called Muga Odonde. He had been there when the conspiracy was hatched and he was actually the man who had been directed to destroy the documents. But since Muga adored Jaramogi more, he hid them instead and gave them to us.

Jaramogi instructed me to summon Okondo, who still thought Muga was on their side and that the vital documents had been destroyed. When Okondo heard what happened, he was so shocked that he could not even reply to the questions Jaramogi was asking him.

 I only saw him wipe some tear drops with his hands. It could now be proven that Okondo had even used my father’s money to acquire some shares in the company for himself. 

Jaramogi informed him that he didn’t want the matter to go to court. He then gave Okondo a week to think about it and dismissed him. Although he didn’t want the matter taken to court, Jaramogi meticulously spent the week collating evidence just in case Okondo and Pusey refused to cooperate.

Jaramogi finally made a painful decision to go to court. Margaret Kenyatta, who took care of her father’s stake in the company, was not happy about the turn of events. She informed Pusey and Okondo that she could not join them to testify against Jaramogi. She insisted that Jaramogi’s money must be paid and the dividends remitted just like had been the case with other shareholders.

But when the hearing started in Nairobi, strange things followed. Wilson Okondo was in Nairobi on the eve of the first hearing. He booked a room at the Boulevard Hotel where in a twist of fate, he collapsed before he could attend court the following day to testify. He was rushed to Nairobi Hospital and was declared to have apparently suffered a stroke. He could not talk and remained dumb and somehow crippled for the rest of his life. Pusey had in the meantime travelled to his native Australia. 

While there, he also suffered a stroke and died before he could come back to give his testimony. The Indian judge before whom the case was heard later travelled to Toronto Canada for a visit and we were told that he also later died while away. It was the strangest turn of events I have ever witnessed. Technically, the case collapsed and my father gave up his investments in the United African Corporation.

                  ***

Kibaki’s first betrayal of the Odingas and Ruto’s role in 2002 NDP, Kanu merger that left many political casualties

The period starting 1998 heralded a landmark year in the alliance building history of Kenya’s politics. It was a period filled with unseen political dangers as we embarked on novel experiments that were unusual in the country’s governance scene. I had believed in creating alliances with other leaders across the country since I joined Parliament. It was impossible to grow without sharing ideas, pulling together, and learning from each other. The Sunday Nation issue of July 24, 1994, splashed my image on the front page with the banner headline reading “I’ll Work With Moi”.
The situation was different in 1998 because we were talking to Kanu itself. The President had ordered his men to stop attacking us and they had started saying some very flattering stuff about us in public meetings, even though some of them said the opposite in private. Moi’s approach towards NDP was both systematic and strategic. We lost the recent (1997) presidential elections and we didn’t feel it was a good idea to continue fighting a president who was on his final term in office. There was a general feeling in our party that the political tone of the current term would be dominated by succession politics. Our direct competitor, therefore, would not be President Moi. Most NDP legislators thought partnering with Kanu was a good move because Kanu was a larger organisation whose leader was about to retire from national leadership, meaning that we would have many chances fighting for our position in post-Moi Kenya. I later discovered Moi was serious with having us in his camp through one event that involved two politicians from Nyanza. It happened that a long-standing senior politician had lost his Rongo seat to a younger man Ochilo Ayacko of NDP. The loser’s sin had been to defend his seat on the hated and abhorred Kanu ticket. Ayacko was an inexperienced neophyte who had just joined politics. The veteran politician took advantage of Ayacko’s political ignorance to convince him on a scheme that would have completely ruined the younger man’s political career. The older man had convinced Ayacko to stand down for him, in exchange of some favours and mouth-watering monetary rewards. It seemed Ayacko had fallen to the elder politician’s wiles because he moved fast to consummate the deal by taking Ayacko to State House in Nakuru to meet the president. It seemed that, as was customary in Kanu, Moi himself would be counted upon to give the goodies and get Ayacko out of the way. When Moi was informed about the plans with Ayacko it seems the president didn’t support it. This was unusual for Moi because Kanu had always regaled at buying inexperienced MPs with large sums of money, then manipulating elections to make sure their favoured men won the ensuing by-elections. Unknown to the senior politician, Moi had changed tack and the president wasn’t about to get into another fight with Raila (Odinga) and NDP. Moi told the veteran loser quite candidly that he wanted Raila to be on his side and reminded him that NDP was already offering Moi the support he desperately needed in Parliament.
 ***
No one in NDP or Kanu could pretend that the union between the two parties was indeed a likely one. Our principles and values were as unlike as chalk and cheese, not to mention our political philosophies. We needed to form a small technical team to meet and discuss our common business with a view of outlining the common policies that could be harmonised. Kanu chose Mohammed Affey and Dalmas Otieno while NDP selected Dr Adhu Awiti and Oginga Ogego. The latter is not related to me. Oginga Ogego was a long-time political associate whom Raila and I appointed as the executive director of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation.
I remember the Kanu negotiators included William Ruto, who had been directed to keep a keen eye on me. Someone had told them that I was one of the most difficult NDP members because of the many questions I kept on asking. I had witnessed many sordid tales where distinguished men from the opposition had been approached by Kanu with high-sounding promises, only to be abandoned after they had left the opposition. One good example was John Keen, the DP secretary-general, who had been promised the seat of Kanu secretary-general after ditching DP. Of course, it never happened. Others had been promised ministerial positions upon union with Kanu, only to be abandoned at the altar.
 ***
Therefore, when the president broached the subject of awarding some NDP MPs with ministerial positions, most of us were wary. Raila himself had suggested that I take a ministerial position instead of him. As a party leader, he wanted to wait and see how the cooperation deal would pan out before taking a substantive position in government. But Moi told him it was either Raila or no one else. Our technical team having finished its work of harmonising some targeted areas of the policies of both political parties, we agreed that we could now form a committee for engaging in a comprehensive cooperation deal with Kanu. The members from NDP included secretary-general Dr Charles Maranga, Otieno Kajwang, Oloo Aringo, Odongo Omamo, Adhu Awiti, Owino Achola, Orwa Ojode and I. Non-MP members were Kauma Musili and Wambui Otieno. Kanu appointed its own committee and we started the discussions that would lead to the Kanu-NDP merger in a little over two years. In the meantime, the IPPG spirit of the previous parliamentary term had been upgraded and a parliamentary select committee formed to pave way for the legislative groundwork for the constitutional review process.
Kibaki betrayal
When the parliamentary term started in January 1998, I had my eyes fixed on a seat in the PAC (Public Accounts Committee). Since the position of vice-chairman is not elective, we agreed to elect Henry Obwocha as chairman then he would nominate me as vice-chairman. After the elections, Mwai Kibaki, who was now the Leader of Official Opposition, was furious that we had not elected him to be chairman. He declined to sit as an ordinary member of the committee and actually walked out on us. His DP brigade followed him.
 ***
Just when we were preparing for the 1999 elections in the committee, Mwai Kibaki invited us to his office on the first floor at Parliament buildings. He served us tea and spoke to us in a very conciliatory tone. His office as Leader of Official Opposition was located just a door from Committee Room 9, where we were to hold elections in a few minutes. He pleaded with us not to humiliate him again, explaining that the chairmanship of PAC rightly belonged to him. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kibaki said, was the chairman of PAC when he led the opposition, as was Michael Kijana Wamalwa after him. So what was so special in his case that he should be denied the chairmanship? We all agreed that we would vote for Kibaki as the chairman, but on condition that he would retain me as the vice-chairman.
 ***
The parliamentary clerk was already in the room when we entered. He read us the rules and regulations governing parliamentary elections and immediately called the vote. After we unanimously voted for Kibaki, the clerk asked him to nominate his deputy. Kibaki eyed all the members, each in turn, looking really pleased that he was now the boss, pursing his lips in his characteristic style, then pointed at David Mwiraria. That was it. I was disappointed that Kibaki had reneged on our deal. Was he teaching me a lesson because of the deal I had made with Obwocha a year earlier that had scuttled his bid?
 ***
When President Moi came to Kisumu at the beginning of August, 2001, he had a broad and conciliatory agenda. We had to rush to the city in advance to tell the people, most of whom still viewed Moi and Kanu with suspicion, to give the President a rousing welcome since, as one elder put it, it was Moi who was with the girl we wanted. It was all very dramatic as the President mingled freely with the people of the lakeside town and told crowds how he was happy and enjoyed the trip very much. He praised Raila and NDP everywhere he went, appearing very sincere and convincing.
 ***
Finally, when he came to meet elders and leaders, something happened that prompted me to raise my antenna. The President called Odeny Ngure and I aside and confided to us that he thought that Raila was a very popular guy in the country. The President then added that he was in the process of preparing the presidency for Raila to take over from him. I don’t know whether Odeny believed him but I didn’t believe an iota of the story Moi was telling us. When I later told Raila what Moi had told me, he was a bit sceptical. The Kisumu tour was a resounding success for Moi. When we went back to Nairobi, the ground was now set for deepening our cooperation arrangement with Moi and Kanu. Raila was appointed the Minister for Energy while Dr Adhu Awiti was appointed Minister for Planning. Orwa Ojode and Peter Odoyo were appointed assistant ministers.
 ***
The committee that had been formed in August was upgraded to a taskforce in the New Year of 2002. The taskforce now consisted of Raila, Awiti, Ojode and I from NDP. Kanu was represented by Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Julius Sunkuli and Musalia Mudavadi. We were mandated to work out merger details within the shortest time possible, hold grassroots elections and organise a national delegates’ conference to elect new office bearers for a party that would be called New Kanu. In the meantime, Kanu itself was like a house on fire. The men who grabbed the Kanu positions in the taskforce were young and somehow inexperienced politicians still in their 30s. Old hands like Nicholas Biwott, Joseph Kamotho and vice-president George Saitoti felt slighted and they rushed to Moi to inform him that Ruto, Uhuru, Sunkuli and Mudavadi were up to no good. Two weeks later, Moi expanded the taskforce to include the older Kanu politicians. Now we had a group of 17 MPs. This was the team that prepared the agenda for the famous NDP-Kanu merger meeting of March 18, 2002. Raila was elected New Kanu secretary-general, edging out long-serving SGJoseph Kamotho, while Moi retained the chairmanship of the new outfit. The biggest casualty, however, was VP George Saitoti. Not only was he thrown out of the executive order, but his position was split to four so that we had four party vice-chairmen. These four positions were taken by Uhuru Kenyatta, Musalia Mudavadi, Kalonzo Musyoka and Noah Katana Ngala. Other positions were shared out between former NDP and Kanu politicians.
Ruto link
Now the President knew he had us in his trap and he moved to execute his plans for the presidential succession. William Ruto had been trying to speak to Raila, struggling to allay any fears that the former NDP leader might have had. Raila told Ruto to come and speak to me instead. One day, Ruto invited me for lunch at the Grand Regency Hotel (in Nairobi) and started telling me things that I found hard to swallow raw. He also informed me that his Kanu wing, which included Uhuru Kenyatta and Julius Sunkuli, was ready to die for us on the issue of making New Kanu a success and helping us capture the presidency. I had been a bit apprehensive to meet Ruto and truly I started suspecting something politically untoward was afoot.
One day Paul arap Sang, a Kanu friend who was the MP for Bureti constituency, came to see me with a jaw-dropping revelation. He was curious to know what kind of stories Moi told us when we met. I was frank with Sang and he seemed to be amused by what I told him. He actually laughed a bit then informed me how Moi told them totally different plans when he met their group. It dawned on me that Moi was employing doublespeak with the various groups he met for his (2002) succession plans. Sang asked me to consider which group I reckoned the President was really telling the truth. Of course, I knew the group that Moi was bound to be truthful with.
Sang further confided to me that he had sat down with Ruto, Sunkuli and Kenyatta and he knew their game plan. According to him, their game plan was very different from the stuff Ruto had been trying to tell me at Grand Regency. They had a list of their own men who they thought could become the president after Moi. In fact, Ruto and Sunkuli had already thrown their lot with Kenyatta. When Sang inquired about Raila’s chances, Ruto and Sunkuli waved the idea away by insisting that Raila was never in Kanu’s list of possible Moi successors. Later, I went to Raila and told him about the information Sang had given me. Apparently, Moi’s propaganda mesmerised Raila and my brother told me how he believed what the President told him. Although he never gave any reasons why Moi would think otherwise, Raila thought Moi would never name Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor, which he did.

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TOMORROW IN THE DAILY NATION The MP  who wanted to punch Raila Odinga and knock out Moody Awori over Simeon Nyachae; George Saitoti’s sense of entitlement and Narc wars  that led to confrontation with President Mwai Kibaki.