{UAH} THE LATEST KENYAN NEWS: Blunders that cost Jaramogi presidency

http://www.kenyauptodate.blogspot.com/2013/08/blunders-that-cost-jaramogi-presidency.html?m=1

By KAMAU NGOTHO

President Kenyatta had two good reasons not to move fast to politically cut to size his deputy but key adversary, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, says the secret memoirs of the first US ambassador to Kenya William Attwood. First, according to Attwood's "The Reds and the Blacks", a book that had been banned in Kenya, Kenyatta had closely studied his old friend and predictably knew he would, sooner than later, make blunders that could set him on road to political self-destruction. Attwood's memoirs, which was banned by Kenyatta immediately it rolled off the press in 1967 and was never read in the country, Jaramogi played into Kenyatta's hands.

Then ruling party, Kanu, under Kenyatta had come to power with great contribution of Odinga whose Luo Nyanza vote, then second largest in the country, had enabled the president with his then, as now, the country's largest vote-bloc, Mount Kenya, romp home to victory against opposition Kadu. Kenyatta, according to Attwood, figured out that parting ways with Jaramogi that early would only have played into the hands of the opposition, hence decided to bid his time. The former US ambassador identifies Odinga's first mistake to have been his temperament.

He writes: "Odinga may have been shrewd and crafty, but he was also emotional, which in big-league politics can be fatal. His weakness were emotionalism and a vast ignorance of the outside world." Attwood relates of an incident where Odinga declined to see off his boss, Kenyatta, at the airport to revenge what he considered a snub on him.

"Kenyatta (then Prime Minister) announced that Murumbi (then a minister in the office of the prime minister) would be acting prime minister in his (Kenyatta) absence at the July Commonwealth Conference in London. Odinga (then minister for Home Affairs) who had led his backers and sup- porters to believe he was No. 2 man in the Kenyan hierarchy, was so outraged that he refused to come to the airport to see Kenyatta off – a characteristic display of temper that did him no good.

It not only called attention to the snub, but promptly started rumours that Odinga had been plotting to seize power in Kenyatta's absence." Odinga's second blunder, just like his foreign sponsors, was to assume that Kenyatta, in his mid-70s at the time he took power, was senile and that,after many years in jail he could not wish to stay long in power. Atwood writes: "Just past fifty and the leader of an important tribe, he (Odinga) saw himself as Kenyatta's logical successor.

At public ceremonies, he took pains to be seen and photographed at Kenyatta's side, properly conspicuous in his distinctive Chinesestyle pyjama suit and waving his fly whisk like Kenyatta's understudy. So convincingly did he play the role of Number Two that the Russians and the Chinese, looking ahead and figuring that Kenyatta was becoming senile, decided to make Odinga their man in Kenya.

On trips to Moscow and Peking (now Beijing) he was given the full VIP treatment and assurances of ample political funding." Regular guest But Attwood who was a regular guest at Kenyatta's court thought otherwise. "Kenyatta was by no means senile," he writes. "Aside from being a national hero, he had the undivided loyalty of the disciplined and industrious Kikuyu.

Thus, by supporting Odinga's ambitions, the communists were bound to alienate not only Kenyatta himself but also the most powerful tribe in Kenya. So they put their money on the colourful, but erratic, leader with expectation that he could some- day, somehow, come to power in an area where they wanted a foothold." Atwood says, the support by the communists incited and enabled Odinga to challenge Kenyatta's leadership, at first indirectly and finally openly.

But contrary to popular belief, writes Atwood, Kenyatta/Odinga political skirmishes were never ideological, that is Capitalism vs Communism, as was perceived. Attwood reckons: "It's true that Odinga used Communist money to build his own political organisation and that Kenyatta's government was strengthened by Western aid pro- grammes.

But both men were essentially African nationalists who didn't consider themselves beholden to any foreign power. Odinga, though attract- ed by what he'd been shown of Communist achievements, didn't expect to be dictated to by Moscow and Peking if he came to power; as for Kenyatta, he welcomed cooperation with the West only so long as we (The West) support- ed what he wanted for Kenya."

Attwood then outlines individual strengths of the two political adversaries, which in the end, were to determine who emerged the winner. Kenyatta's political assets, he says, were his own personal prestige, a competent team of loyal ministers and a reliable security apparatus. "His problem was to keep Odinga under control without making him martyr to 1.1 million Luos."

On the other hand, Odinga political assets, reckoned the US envoy, were ample sources of funds, the loyalty of the majority Luo, control of immigration and (through then minister Achieng' Oneko) control of the radio, and the services of brilliant tactician named Pio Gama Pinto. Odinga's and his handlers' third and perhaps biggest blunder that enabled Kenyatta to easily punch him hard when the time came, writes Attwood, was that they executed their plot so openly, even recklessly.

http://www.thepeople.co.ke/16277/blunders-that-cost-jaramogi-presidency/