Stronger than Faith: My Journey In the Quest for Justice in Repressive Kenya - 1958-2015

By Oduor Ong'wen

Few events in Kenya's recent history have captured the imagination of the nation as those of the period from the late 1970s. Between the pages of this memoirs is a history of that period which is hardly taught in our schools and is fast receding into the holes of the insignificant as a younger generation takes over. The history of that era, like that of all the eras that have made this country, needs to be preserved by those who witnessed and participated in it. In Stronger Than Faith, Oduor Ong'wen adds clarity to the politics of an important but dark era of our history. It adds clarity to why that era is not entirely gone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vita Books
• Release date: Oct 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9789914962185

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There were times, now and then, when my mother would hear something about me in the media, or she would detect fatigue in my voice when we spoke on phone (after cell phones made their invasion of the otherwise tranquil life she had led). "George, do you really need this? She would ask. My mother always insisted on calling me by the English name I was given and which I had long consigned to disuse. To paraphrase Chinua Achebe, the only thing I have in common with Her Britannic Majesty the Queen Mother of England is that we both lost our George. But my mother believed one is closer to God if one carried an English name. I would laugh and respond: Yes mother, I really do need this this, I love it." Of course my mother never expected a different answer but drew satisfaction in always asking. Since my first incarceration, she had resigned to the fact that struggle was part of my life – that there was a force stronger than faith that always pulled me to fight for change, attendant dangers notwithstanding. She was the strongest pillar in my political life. I can’t acknowledge her enough.

Along this journey spanning six decades, I have been inspired and supported by many great people. In my inner life, my wife Emily and our children Akinyi, Otieno and Ochieng’ have surrounded me with love and inspired me to share their time with other members of society. I thank them heartily for ungrudgingly donating part of me to the cause of humanity. I believe this is not in vain.

My father taught me never to appropriate anything that is not mine – and if I have to I must ask and receive it from the owner. This has guided my private and public life and remained my compass. I owe him this simple lesson in leading a life of integrity. Then there were my siblings who loved me unreservedly in spite of my cheekiness and occasional inconveniences.

As I participated in the struggle for a freer, more democratic and equal society, many good Kenyans and non-Kenyans shaped my life, knowingly and otherwise. My History teacher John Olago Aluoch and Steve Amoke aka Brigadier John Odongo honed my early interest in social change. Later, various fellow student leaders gave me the comfort to know that I was not pursuing a lost cause. Relentless struggles against dictatorship by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and other icons of our nationalist movement like Bildad Kaggia, Pio Gama Pinto, Achieng’ Oneko and JM Kariuki blazed for us the path we walked later.

When repression was carried a notch higher, we went further underground. I wish to acknowledge the solidarity and mutual inspiration that existed in the underground movement from the December Twelve Movement (DTM), Muungano wa Wazalendo wa Kenya (Mwakenya) and Umoja wa Kupigania Demokrasia Kenya (UWAKE). They are too many for me to name all here. While some are still around and are still on the journey, others paid the ultimate price and I have saluted their memories under In Memoriam section of this book. From the late 1980s, the struggle moved from the subterranean to overt. Many patriots, among them Bishops Alexander Kipsang’ Muge, John Henry Okullu, David Gitari, Ndingi mwana a’Nzeki and Timothy Njoya inspired what became known as the Second Liberation. Shadrack Gutto, Edward Oyugi, Oki Ooko Ombaka, Anyang’ Nyong’o, George Anyona, Mukhisa Kituyi, Joe Ager, James Orengo, Martin Shikuku, Paddy Ouma Onyango, James Nyikal, Odhiambo Nyaduwa, Kiraitu Murungi, Jembe Mwakalu, Abdulrahman Wandati, Njeri Kabeberi, Zahid Rajan, Zarina Patel, Ntai wa Nkuraru, Mukaru Ng’ang’a, Paddy Onyango Sumba, Kaari Murungi, Wahu Kaara, Ngotho Kariuki, Kaberere Njenga, Wangari Maathai, Dennis Akumu, Christopher Mulei, Maina Kiai, Kivutha Kibwana, Onyango Omari, Davinder Lamba, Apollo Njonjo, John Munuve, Willy Mutunga, Muthoni Kamau, Ndungi Githuku, Kathini Maloba, Saulo Busolo, George Kapten, and Agnes Abuom among many others were part of the great army of Second Liberation and their efforts shaped what is documented in this publication. My comrades during the military training at Lake Mburo National Park deserve a special guard of honour.

At Kamiti Prison, we established a ‘Liberation University’, where we had discourses on the history and future of our nation. Maina wa Kinyatti, Adhu Awiti, Onyango Oloo, Mwandawiro Mghanga, Odindo Opiata, Oginga Ogego, Odhiambo Olel, Odenda Lumumba, Omondi K’Abir, Njuguna Mutonya, Buke Wafula, Mugo Theuri, Ong’ele Pala, Wahinya Boore, Njuguna Nding’o, Peter Young Kihara, Kamonye Manje, Maina Kiong’o, Owuor Atieno, Gitobu Imanyara, Muga K’Olale, Ollack Diego, Cornels Akelo (CA) Onyango, and Opondo Kakendo among others are both professors and graduates therefrom. I benefitted tremendously from the discussions and derived extraordinary inspirations from their insights and their wealth of knowledge.

Raila Odinga is my mentor, teacher, comrade and leader. He is easily the icon and embodiment of suffering and courage in our long struggle to liberate Kenya. Apart from his guidance over the decades, he was kind enough to pen the foreword of this book. To say that I am indebted to him is a gross understatement, except that I couldn’t find a befitting word. Another comrade and mentor, Professor Yash Tandon, also favoured me with the afterword to the book. I don’t take it for granted.

In writing this memoir, I was encouraged and inspired by many people, all whom it is impossible to name here. I, however, wish to single out my friend and former colleague Mercy Wambui who, apart from urging me to put my experiences in writing, proofread a few first pages amid her demanding work as head of communication at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Lastly, publishers have the thankless task of making sense out of the nonsense we give them. Shiraz Durrani of Vita Books is both a comrade and publisher-editor. He and Kimani Waweru were tolerant enough to accommodate my insistence on overshooting the runway as far as the length of this book was concerned. Thanks to their professionalism, this book did not end up being War and Peace – And War Again!

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

FOREWORD

Few events in our recent history have captured the imagination of the nation as those of the period running from the late 1970s to the 1990s. Equally, this period and its events have been the target of a campaign of disinformation over this era and the ferocious struggle to set Kenya on the progressive path of democracy and economic prosperity.

Between the pages of this memoir is a history of a period of this country, a period that is hardly taught in our schools and is fast receding into the holes of the insignificant as a younger generation, born in a mostly free and progressive nation takes over.

The history of that era, like that of all the eras that have made this country, needs to be preserved by those who witnessed and participated in it. This is not necessary for the sake of preserving the past for its own sake. Winston Churchill told us, Study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.

From the accounts rendered here, it is clear that the battles fought in that era are not completely over. It is also clear that the ideological and political beliefs of that period continue to shape our nation to date. The past, therefore, lives with us, and how well we understand it will determine how ably we deal with current challenges that are essentially echoes from the past.

This memoir is, therefore, a useful effort at preserving the turbulence of the 1970 to the 1990s and what it took to craft a relatively progressive nation that now talks openly about human rights, including the right to associate, free speech, free press, constitutionalism and even takes multipartyism for granted.

Going through the pages, one notices that the turbulence, marked by repression and abuse of fundamental freedoms, followed a pattern, emerging as a mild effort to steady the ship of the nation in the 1970s, then progressively worsening through the 1980s to the 1990s. The pattern makes it clear that freedom slips away quietly and softly as those who want to enslave us clothe their true intentions in the best of garments to appear well meaning.

The accounts here confirm that old truism that eternal vigilance is the best guarantor of freedom, and each generation must be prepared to fight to preserve and expand the frontiers of freedom. As we encounter the repression of that era as detailed in the book, we also come face to face with the time-tested truth that the human spirit yearns for freedom. Where people are denied the same, there will always be some willing to make the difficult decision of resorting to struggle as the only means of achieving liberty.

This memoir, therefore, resurrects an era that affected so many lives in so many different ways and the various ways in which those affected responded. There are those who chose to throw their arms up in surrender as well as those who chose to join the oppressors to survive. There are those who chose to fight back, including the author. The price they had to pay is that the regime stole a lot of would-be years of innocence and the bliss of their youthful years.

The era forced a number of innocent men and women, who had probably hoped to go quietly through life as ordinary citizens doing their part to develop their country, to change course. It thrust many, like the author, to fight for their lives, which got intertwined with the life of the nation. This is, therefore, a personal account of how government policies shaped individuals and how individuals sought to shape those policies. The accounts here prove that for some of our citizens, life has hardly progressed in a predictable path. Circumstances forced many to change course and take paths they never imagined. Once they changed course and joined the struggle against repression, it would appear, they were gone for good, no turning back. In the end, the changing life courses changed the course of our nation’s history for the better.

This is also an account of how interconnected our lives are as citizens, especially those whose consciences have been pricked. An incident that may look distant and too complex for innocent minds can mark a turning point in the life of individuals so far removed from the incident. Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (widely known as JM), is killed and dumped in Ngong forest, and that assassination creates a rebel out of a Form Two student out in Siaya who then develops resentment for government and begins to imagine a different future. JM’s assassination was, however, just the start or a warning shot, dreadful as it was. It is significant that both Martin Shikuku, a member of the parliamentary select committee appointed to investigate JM’s death, and Jean Marie Seroney, deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, ended up in detention over matters related to the death. A simple remark by Shikuku that an MP wanted to kill the motion on JM’s murder inquiry the way Kanu was killed, followed by a challenge by a fellow member for him to substantiate, and a response by Mr Seroney that there was no need to substantiate the obvious, led to the detention of the two. Both were picked from the precincts of Parliament. Around the same time, George Anyona was arrested within the precincts of Parliament on suspicion that he was carrying evidence to prove corruption at the procurement Department of the Kenya Railways.

The State was officially at war with its citizens. The target of this crackdown was shifting from politicians to academicians. While the likes of Shikuku, Seroney and Anyona piled on top of politicians like Wasonga Sijeyo, who had been arrested in 1969 during the crackdown on the Kenya People’s Union, a whole new type of detainees from the academia were soon to join. Soon enough, Ngugi wa Thiong’o joined, his crime being the staging of a play at his village in Kamiirithu in Limuru. Then an entire crackdown targeting intellectuals followed as the nation raced towards the 1982 coup attempt. One after another, Mukaru Ng’ang’a, Kamoji Wachiira, Al Amin Mazrui, Katama Mkangi, Willy Mutunga, Akongo Oyugi and Koigi Wamwere, among others were taken into detention without trial.

By the time the Second Liberation movement began to take proper shape and have real impact, including the coming together of Kenneth Matiba, Charles Rubia and myself alongside a host of Young Turks to openly challenge Kanu to a political duel, the nation had gone through a great deal of trauma.

This memoir, therefore, sheds light on why ordinary young men and women, with no previous exposure to politics and little or no direct interaction with government, turned bitterly against the Kanu regime of the 1980s and 1990s and risked their lives in jail and underground operations fighting for change.

One cannot fail to recognise the role university students played in giving energy and voice to the rebellion against repression. The arrest and subsequent death of Tito Adungosi, the chairman of the Students Organization of Nairobi University, remains a dark reminder of the brutality of the State and the determination of the youth to press for change. It is clear that the regime created the rebels it was fighting to crush and not the other way round. Stronger than Faith adds clarity to the politics of an important but dark era of our history. It adds clarity to why that era is not entirely gone.

I came to know Mr Ong’wen as one of the victims of the repressive era who became a key player in the movement for the Second Liberation of our country. In recent years, I have known him as the Executive Director of the Orange Democratic Movement. His years of mobilising for change was a key consideration in his appointment to the position where he has done a terrific job at organising the party’s secretariat and in the process, making ODM the most organised party in the country.

His sole drive is to leave behind a better, more caring and democratic country than the one he grew up in. This book, which I would describe as essential reading, is just but a chapter in story that is still unfolding.

RAILA ODINGA, EGH

MAY 2021.

INTRODUCTION

I came to know of Oduor Ong’wen as a key player in the movement for Kenya’s Second Liberation. Then he was the Secretary General of Student Union at the University of Nairobi. We later worked together in the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) where he served for 10 years as the Country Director for Kenya. He left SEATINI in 2015 to become the Executive Director of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The ODM is a centre-left political party -- a grassroots people’s movement which was formed during the 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum campaign and led by Raila Odinga, whose foreword to this book aptly captures the twists and turns of Kenya’s democratic struggles, at the centre of which Oduor was.

I had heard a lot about Oduor in the 1980s and early 1990s, but I had not met him. However, I was keeping track of what was happening in Kenya, because it could affect us in Uganda. As avenues of democratic opposition were closed, the struggle for democracy moved to the sub-terrain. In the mid-1970s, underground movements started cropping up with publications, such as Cheche Kenya’s Independent Kenya -- the main instrument. This led to the eventual uprising of the December 12th Movement. Through the student union, Oduor was recruited into the December 12 Movement (DTM) that later became Mwakenya. He was very active in the Movement. It is from this that Mwakenya gained a massive following.

I had still not met him, but I knew that he was a Marxist and understood the significance of Dialectical and Historical materialism - the methodological basis of understanding the social class stratification and social dynamics of society. This provided the basis for Kenya’s National Democratic Revolution (NDR). This was what we were also doing in Uganda under the leadership of the late Dani Nabudere. His book -- Imperialism and Revolution in Uganda, 1980 -- formed the basis of our class analysis, and the NDR as our next move. Like Mwakenya, we in Uganda were not aiming for a Communist regime. We were following the Maoist line that the intermediate stage was the NDR. The NDR is directed by a working class vanguard with a mass peasant base (unlike in Russia).

My first meeting with Oduor was in Copenhagen, Denmark, during the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD) in 1995. He, alongside Edward Oyugi and Adhu Awiti, were part of the Kenyan contingent at the Summit. We immediately formed a comradely understanding and worked together henceforth on an array of initiatives aimed at safeguarding independent policy spaces of African and other Southern countries in the face of the onslaught of neoliberal globalisation.

In 1996, I spearheaded the founding of SEATINI. Oduor was then the Executive Director of EcoNews Africa – a Kenyan NGO that worked on trade and debt issues. SEATINI and EcoNews collaborated in a number of campaigns, including lobbying negotiators during World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meetings. Oduor later joined SEATINI and helped establish the Kenya office.

In September 2003, the WTO held a Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico. I was part of Kenya’s delegation led by the new Trade Minister Mukhisa Kituyi. The Ministerial Conference collapsed. Kituyi came out of the conference, jumped up in joy to embrace me. I add this here simply to give a sense of the international scene of which Oduor and I were a part. Oduor was also part of the ‘Another World Is Possible’ Movement. It was based on the strategy of promoting local production and local productive forces -- the workers, peasants and intelligentsia. I remember Oduor as a permanent fixture at many of these meetings.

YASH TANDON

July 4, 2021

SECTION I: EARLY YEARS (1958-1979)

CHAPTER 1

Praying, Playing and Grazing

Time and tide wait for no man, sages say. But I am an exception to this adage. Time has been kind to me -- too kind sometimes. It has patiently waited for me. Time has indeed smiled at me and no tide has been to my shore. On this day, 30 years ago, I celebrated my thirtieth birthday. The venue was the Segregation Block at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. The celebrants were fellow inmates. There was no birthday cake or tiny candles. None of my ‘guests’ even sung ‘Happy Birthday to you.’ But we held a dedicated session of political discourse. Participants included Odindo Opiata, Kamonye Manje, Njuguna Nding’o, Kiongo Maina and probably Mugo Theuri and Buke Wafula. Other political prisoners in the block, among them Joseph Miano, John Kamangara, Bwire Namadoa and Mbewa Ndede didn’t take part in the discussions. They were not members of our study circle. At the time, I did not believe I would live for another 30 months, let alone 30 more years, due to harsh prison conditions over and above the oppression, political assassinations, arbitrary arrests and disappearances prevalent on the other side of Kamiti’s high walls. So, for me, every single day I have lived since those days at the basement of Nairobi’s Nyayo House in April 1986 has been considered a bonus.

Now here I am today, marking six decades on earth. How about you raising your glasses in toast? I must confess that in the past I used to forget my birthday. Not any more. My daughter Akinyi and her brothers Otieno and Ochieng’ have dutifully greeted me with early morning salutations of ‘Happy Birthday, Dad’ in an annual ritual so I no longer dare take leave of my memory even for a few fleeting moments. As I age, I have become kinder to, and less critical of, other people and myself. The black or white that defined my world has now permitted some grey to occasionally intrude -- something I considered an aberration 30 years ago. I hasten to declare that I have become my own friend. I have seen too many dear friends exit this nice but ever-challenging world too soon, even before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. With aging comes the choice to read, dream or play on the computer until the wee hours of the morning, or retire to bed early and snore the world away. I have the freedom to dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, from Ochieng’ Kabaselleh and Sukuma bin Ongaro to Okach Biggy; from Boney M and Bee Gees to Tracy Chapman; from Bavon Marie-Marie, Franco, Tabu Ley and Mangelepa to Samba Mapangala; and from Miriam Makeba and Fella Kuti to Yvonne Chaka Chaka. If I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love, I will. So I weep for having lost my father and role model when I was only 17 years old; I weep over the premature departure of many comrades like Opiata, Adhu Awiti, Ng’ang’a Thiong’o, Mwakudua wa Mwachofi, Wahome Mutahi, Onyango Oloo and Njuguna Mutonya, among others. And weep I will, including feasting and dancing at funerals. I will walk the beach, in a swimsuit that is stretched in direct conflict with my body shape or adjudged inappropriate for my age and will dive into the waves with abandon, if I choose to, pitying glances from the young and romantic notwithstanding. They, too, will become old but I will not be there to cast pitying glances at them.

I must confess that I sometimes forget. But then again, some aspects of life are better forgotten and, eventually, we remember only the important things life has given us. Sure, over the years, my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a father defiles his own child, or when captains of industry along Mombasa Road force construction of a road in the sky yet the hapless residents of Kibra are -- with alacrity and brute force -- flushed out of the only homes they have ever known? I have lived to appreciate that broken hearts are what give us strength. And understanding. And compassion. A heart never broken is pristine, virgin and sterile. That heart will never know the joy of being imperfect. I gloat in the fact that I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair spot strands of grey, and to have my youthful laughs forever etched into grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and too many have died before their hair could turn silver. Long life has enabled me to see and recognise justice and injustice. As one gets older, it is easier to become positive. I now care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself any more. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. So, in response to and appreciation of the many birthday wishes, I cherish being older. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).

The foregoing is a revised tribute to self, which I posted on my Facebook page on September 14, 2018 – my birthday. Now, let me begin where this journey all started. There is a once-treacherous road running from Siaya Town into the hills. But before respectfully paying homage to those hills, it makes a gentle bow to a valley that babysits a seasonal stream called Futro. Futro can be gentle when the gods dispense the rains in the right doses. It becomes furious and flows in murderous raging storms when the gods forget to shut the gates of heaven in time. The first of the hills, named Mbaga, sits on the right hand side. Mbaga Hill is a Roman Catholic colony that has given many local folk such saintly names as Andrekus and Firnika. Mbaga was the Roman Catholics’ response to Anglicans’ conquest of Ng’iya Hills – or maybe Ng’iya was the Anglicans’ answer to Catholics’ civilising mission at Mbaga. I don’t know who set up camp first in the holy competition between Rome and Canterbury to salvage the African soul. And it matters little any way. The road then avoids a chest-to-chest confrontation with the imposing feature and takes a course of least resistance at the foot of Mbaga Hill through grass-covered country, leaving Mbaga staring at it triumphantly on the right. The scenery is lovely and lively. All along the course, the grass is rich and thick. It is so lush that you can hardly see the fertile soil. All that is visible are the grass and crops planted on smallholder farms that hold the rain and the dew as it sinks slowly into the ground – nourishing many lives from humans, shenzi cattle, to shrubs and lizards. It also gives life to many little streams and ponds that dot the area. For years, Mbaga Hill and its surroundings had been well looked after. Not too many herds of livestock grazed upon it. The weaverbird sang a lovely tune as one wound round the road. There were hardly any fires burning and damaging the soil. The establishment of the Catholic Mission Centre at Mbaga cemented the care that the local people had given this land over generations. The grounds were holy, being just as they had come from the Creator.

Barely two kilometres away from Mbaga is another hill. It is called Aduwa Hill. This one stands in complete contrast with Mbaga. The great hill stands bare, desolate and angry. Aduwa is angry with no one in particular, but with the villagers collectively. The grounds grow red and empty. Too many livestock herds – funeral cows – kept for no economic value other than to be slaughtered to feed mourners at funerals, have devoured the little vegetation and too many fires have burnt the soil. The hill and the field surrounding it are not kept or guarded or cared for. There is no mission centre and the local folk have ignored it over the ages. The weaverbird doesn’t sing there any more. The brown hill stands empty and the earth has torn away like flesh. Lightning frequently visits the place and thunders warn the people of the wrath of the Creator. When the clouds piss down upon them, the dead streams come to life but bitterly – full of the red blood of the earth. The road approaches Aduwa Hill, pauses in fear and disdain, and then makes a sharp left turn to continue its journey to Udenda – and onwards to Nyambare Hills. Lush green vegetation also once covered these hills. But the grass and shrubs are now tired and yellow. Along this road, some 16 kilometres from Siaya, is Udenda Village where I was born around midnight of September 14. That’s why I was named Oduor, meaning he who arrived at midnight. The year? That’s the next piece of the story.

I have two birth dates. One is actual and the other official. I was born at home in Udenda on September 14, 1958. I was not born in hospital. Later, my official date of birth was recorded in school as September 14, 1960 – and it has since become my official date of birth. It is captured in all my official documents from educational and professional certificates to national identity card and passport. This two-year downgrade of my age occurred when I was 17 years old and in high school. The new date of birth was forced into school records in 1975, my objections notwithstanding. My father, a church minister trained by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), was very diligent at record keeping. He meticulously recorded all his children’s birth dates. He also kept the baptismal cards safer than he did money. So, the discrepancy in my birth dates is a manifestation of the reality of the power relations in society and helplessness of learners in front of their schoolmasters. It is not the absence of certainty. One afternoon in 1975, my Form Two Class Teacher, a Mr Ndolo, walked into our classroom to compile what he called a Muster Roll. I was arguably the youngest boy in my class. Each student was asked to state his date of birth. A few knew their birth dates and told him. Others had no clue. ‘Fourteenth September 1958,’ I told Mr Ndolo when my turn came. He paused, gave me a long disapproving look and asked again. I repeated the date. He decided I was either lying or was ignorant of my birthdate. Many students, who looked much older than I, had given birth dates ranging from 1959 to 1962. Unlike now, birth certificates were not a requirement for admission to high school in those days. I tried my best to convince the teacher that I was neither lying nor clueless about my date of birth. He ignored me.

My date of birth was in black and white. Even though I had no birth certificate, the date of my birth – like for all my siblings – was recorded in a black hard covered book my father kept, which we had christened ‘the book of life’ because in that book my father recorded everything that in his judgment was important. His first wedding to Nora Odunga, who was aunt to my mother, was held on June 21, 1923. Nora died on April 2, 1941. It is all recorded in the book of life in my father’s cursive handwriting. All births, deaths, bride wealth paid for his sons and daughters, debts owed to him and by him and anything else he judged worth keeping note of was recorded in that book. In the book of life is recorded the birth date of his first born, Peter Okoth, on April 15, 1924 – and all his offspring – to that of the youngest, Paul Owino, born on March 5, 1973. I could not be the oldest chap in my class yet among my classmates I looked like a toddler who had strayed into a court of elders. That was Mr Ndolo’s reasoning. But I was sure it was my classmates who were lying about their ages, not I. I even offered to bring him my baptismal certificate at the beginning of the following school term to prove my birth date. These my protestations, however, fell on Mr Ndolo’s deaf ears. He recorded my date of birth in that school register as September 14, 1960. To say that I was enraged is to grossly understate my disposition at the time. I can no longer quite recall what I then told the teacher, but it earned me a stiff punishment the following day for ‘being rude’ to Mr Ndolo. Whatever it was that I told him, it was out of extreme anger. I was 17, considered myself – and wanted to be treated as -- an adult. Like all my age mates, I was in a hurry to be recognised as being of age by a world waiting for me to conquer. A schoolmaster slashing two years off that ambition could only be an enemy of progress and a purveyor of hate speech. Nonetheless, from then on, September 14, 1960 became my date of birth in all the official documents, including my birth certificate that I obtained eight years later in 1983. However, my baptismal certificate still reads September 14, 1958.

As I have already stated, my father, Japuonj Laban Ong’wen, was really good at keeping records. We, his children, would later always joke that the only two important events he forgot to record were the date of his own birth and his sudden death on January 20, 1976. He had no idea of the exact date of his birth – and he never invented one. He never tried to pick a birthday although he knew with some degree of certainty that he was born in 1901. This he inferred from being informed that he was born the year the Kenya-Uganda Railway line – The Lunatic Express – construction terminated at Kisumu, then called Port Florence. By my own logic, this was correct maybe within one year’s margin of error. The fact that he could not be drafted to fight into the First World War in 1914 because he was too young and later considered too old to fight in the Second World War in 1939; and that he wed in 1923, would mean he must have then been between 21 and 25 years of age at the time. In the second decade of the twentieth century, he attended Butere Normal School [referred to by all his peers – and himself, too – as Nomo]. I do not know for how long my father was in school but it was long enough for the colonial government to employ him as a teacher and later a clerical officer at East African Railways and Harbours. He spoke good English and good Kiswahili. I always thought he was some kind of a linguist because apart from these two languages and Dholuo, his mother tongue (sorry, his father tongue), he also spoke what I could imagine [since I did not understand a word] was perfect Luyia, Ateso and Gikuyu.

After schooling and training at Butere, my father was ‘ordained’ as what was then called a sub-deacon. He was also awarded a teaching certificate (hence his Japuonj title). By that time, the Anglican Church had established two important centres at Maseno and Ng’iya in what was then Central Kavirondo. Two people in charge of these two Anglican centres made a lasting impression on my father – Archdeacon Edwin Owen and Arthur William Mayor. Besides his official pastoral duties, Mayor authored a popular book, Thuond Luo (Luo Heroes). My father spoke of these two missionaries so positively and as if they were twins such that my young mind could not separate them. I, therefore, have no idea whether these people were at Maseno and Ng’iya at the same time, or each in either place at different times. According to my father, these were the only two Wazungu (white people) that did not look down upon Africans. ‘They were not like the kaburus (settlers),’ he used to say. I later learnt that perhaps what set Archdeacon Owen apart from other white people was his patronising mien over the ‘natives.’ Owen played as much a role as the colonial administrators and settlers did in suppressing African political development and organisation. Owen used a hypocritical smile and the Bible while the latter used the whip, the gun and the jail. It was this self-same Archdeacon Owen who propped up the Kavirondo Welfare Association (initially Kavirondo Taxpayers Association) to undermine the people-centred nationalist Piny Owacho Movement, established to rally the Luo people in resisting British colonial occupation and fight for independence.

Laban Ong’wen was son to Owiro of Udenda Village of the Kaugagi clan of Alego. Jo Kaugagi (people of Kaugagi clan) are part of the second wave of Jokajok group that migrated from the Alur through Uganda. Kaugagi occupy 10 villages, namely Hawinga, Sirinde, Nina, Udenda, Ulanda, Magombe, Mahero, Urimba, Sanda-Ulawe and Ndiwo. Ragak (from where the term Kaugagi is derived) had many sons, among them Rwi, my great, great grandfather. Rwi sired Olum. Olum was father to Haga who in turn sired Ochieng’ Rabuor. Ochieng’ was father to Owiny, the father of Mirieke; who was in turn father to Owiny. Owiny was the father to Owiro, my grandfather. That makes me number 11 in the line of descent from Ragak.

My paternal grandmother was a Luyia from Bunyala, or Manyala as we, Luos, call it. The Abanyala people occupy the present-day Budalang’i constituency in Busia County, just over 10 kilometres to the west of Udenda. My grandmother came from the Dori clan of the Abanyala and was simply known as Nyadori. Both Nyadori and my grandfather, Owiro, died when my father was very young. So my father was raised partly by his elder brother, Opiyo, and partly by the CMS missionaries.

My mother, Phoebe Julia Agola, was born and raised at Asayi Village in Gem Sirembe. Her family traces both its paternal and maternal roots to Kakan clan of Alego. From the paternal side, my mother was the daughter of James Odongo, son of Anyinyo. Anyinyo was son of Odongo. My mother’s sub-clan is called Kakwany, which is part of the larger Kojuodhi clan. According to the narration from my grandmother, Akwany was the youngest wife to Ojuodhi Adhaya or Ojuodhi Tipo (Shed). Akwany is said to have been the younger stepsister to Agola, who was Adhaya’s eldest wife and whose descendants are Gem Kagola. In between, Adhaya married other women, among them Lanyo, from whom Jo Kalanyo are descended, and Okwiri, giving rise to Jo Kokwiri. However, according to Raila Odinga in his autobiography, The Flame of Freedom, it was Akwany who was Adhaya’s eldest wife and Agola the younger. According to Odinga, Kan, whose real name was Ragak (different from the patriarch of Kaugagi), first married Ato, who gave birth to Akwany before marrying Ato’s sister called Anyango, who gave birth to Agola, also subsequently married by Adhaya. To date, the Kojuodhi sub-clans don’t intermarry.

My maternal grandmother, Dora Osala, was daughter to Othieno Jang’olo, from Kabuong’ in Alego Ng’iya. Othieno’s wife was Aor (or Awuor) Omita, daughter of Odima Polo from his wife Miduka. Omita was sister to Ng’ong’a Odima, who succeeded his father Polo as the chief of Alego. Polo was the son of Oluoko and grandson to Obiero Odima. Obiero son of Opiyo Gweru was the son of Awili son of Odero. Odero son of Ragak (Kan) was the brother to Agola and step-brother to Akwany. So, it is clear that both my mother’s paternal Gem roots and maternal roots at Kabuong’ are traceable to the Kakan clan in Alego. The Gem side descended from Kakan k’Ato while the Kabuong’ side traced their lineage to Kakan K’Anyango.

My mother was born in 1930 as the only daughter among four children. She had no formal education and could not read much beyond her name, the Bible and a few basics. I guess she learnt how to read her name and a few words from an informal initiative. Her father, James Odongo Anyinyo, did not believe there was any value in educating girls and thus chose to take only his sons to school. My mother spent her early life in both Gem and Alego Randago, where she stayed with the family of her mother’s uncle and powerful chief, Ngong’a Odima, ostensibly to learn good manners.

As I’ve already narrated, my father, born at the turn of the 20th century, went to Butere Normal School (or ‘Nomo’), where he graduated as a teacher and a deacon in the Anglican Church. Having completed his schooling at Butere, my father was attached to Maseno Church for a while before being dispatched to open a school in his community. With William Madianglo Oloo and Stephen Todo, they established Hawinga School and the Church (now St Andrew’s ACK). Hawinga School now has a primary school and a girls’ secondary school. They later established Unyolo and Udenda primary schools. Unyolo, too, has a secondary school.

My mother was almost 30 years younger than my father. My father’s first wife, Nora, died in 1941. She was sister to my mother’s father. She left behind seven children – six sons and one daughter. My mother was about 11 years old when her aunt died. This means that some of her aunt’s children were older than her. It was, and still is, a common practice among the Luo that when one’s wife dies, the family of the deceased can offer another girl in marriage to substitute for the departed, provided that one’s relationship with the in-laws was cordial. This arrangement is meant to ensure that the orphaned children do not grow under the care of a stranger. That is the arrangement that brought my mother to Alego, as wife to her aunt’s husband in December 1949. My mother’s marriage brought some complications for my father. In 1947, six years after the death of Nora, my father had, in church, married another woman named Mary. Taking a second wife would thus lead to his excommunication from the Anglican Church, which did not entertain polygamy. Caught on the horns of a social dilemma, he had to choose between, on the one hand, accepting a second wife and being expelled from the church or, on the other, declining the offer from his in-laws so as to keep his church position. He found a solution. Abednego Ajuoga, who was his friend and influential cleric in the Anglican Church, had rebelled from the church due to its stand on polygamy among other aspects of its doctrine. He went ahead to found his own church called the Church of Christ in Africa (CCA) or Hera, meaning love. Besides their stance on polygamy, there was little doctrinal difference between Ajuoga’s church of Love and the Anglican Church. My father defected to CCA with almost the entire congregation of Udenda Anglican Church. This move threw the Anglican Church in the area into a crisis. My father had been in charge of six churches – Udenda, Uranga, Ulawe, Malomba, Kalkada and Dibuoro. The archdeacon based at Ng’iya had to make emergency intervention. To minister to the handful of the faithful that had remained in Anglican Church at Udenda, Yonah Oile from Hawinga was appointed in charge. But to take care of the pastoral duties of the six church congregations who had been under my father, his friend and former Butere ‘Nomo’ classmate William Oloo was given charge. For close to a decade, my father was a CCA church minister. So my siblings James, Jennifer, Walter and I were first baptised in the CCA by Bishop Ajuoga. I was christened George Fannuel – the names I still bear today even though they fell into disuse in the mid-1970s when I was in high school.

I have no idea the kind of quiet diplomacy that took place but by 1964, there was no more Hera church in our village. My father had returned to the Anglican fold and closed the CCA church he had built on our land – and where he was the vicar in charge. The villagers who had left the Anglican Church to follow my father to this culturally liberal Hera church trooped back with him to the conservative Anglican congregation. To this date, CCA has been unable to penetrate our area. I was too young to know what was happening but what I can recall is that even though my father was not given back his ecclesiastical duties; he occupied a very influential position in the church on his return. The entire church leadership would always come to our home for lunch and ‘fellowship’ after the Sunday service. This arrangement continued until the death of my stepmother, Mary, in January 1967. A few months after Mary’s burial, Canon Hesborne Nyong’o, who was in charge of the region, visited our church and home and spent two days. During this visit, my father was re-installed to lead St Luke’s Udenda Anglican Church once again. William Oloo also handed over the five other churches. This ceremony was preceded by a simple wedding ceremony at St Luke’s between my father and mother in March 1967. This wedding action became the stuff of local entertainment, as some nyatiti musician would coin a song that ‘Laban weds in church every woman he marries.’ Of course, wedding was still a special thing in our village as many of the unions had been contracted through customary marriage where people simply ‘kidnapped’ fiancées. My father had set a record of sorts for having had three weddings in the Anglican Church – first with Nora in 1923, then with Mary in 1947, and now with Phoebe in 1967.

Apart from teaching young souls literacy and numeracy; and the ways of the Lord to local adults, my father had a stint, first as a clerk in Nairobi with the East African Railways and Harbours, then as a politician. Between 1953 and 1962, he was a member of the African District Council (ADC) for Nyanza representing Alego. ADC was a successor to the Local Native Council (LNC) called Alensi by the local folk. The other ADC member was Senior Chief Amoth Owira, who qualified by virtue of his position as the administrator in charge of Alego.

My childhood is something of a blur to me now. However, some events and episodes stand out. By the time I was born, my father had retired as a schoolteacher and from the Railways job in Nairobi. It was towards the end of his term as ADC member. It was also the height of agitation for independence (uhuru) and my father was at the forefront. Our home was thus a nerve centre of uhuru politics. My very early recollections of these political activities include being given some round lapel badges in colours of the Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party to pin on our shirts. For me, these badges were the uhuru. The other feature of independence preparations that I recall are the women called Mama Uhuru. Very conspicuous in their blood red dresses and headgear, I was fascinated by these women, who I heard were to bring uhuru to the whole country. I didn’t have an idea of what independence was and to say I thought of a country outside my village would torture my capacity to imagine. But the way my father and every adult talked about it, I had no doubt that uhuru was a great thing. However, for me, uhuru meant those metallic badges that I proudly pinned on the chest of my shirt and later the pennants of the independent Kenyan nation that was soon to be born. I don’t remember anything else about the independence fete.

Uhuru na Kazi. This was the clarion call by the leadership of the new nation. It implied that even though we had fought for and earned our political freedom as a nation, we had to work hard as a people to sustain that independence and give it meaning for us. My father particularly loved this motto and cited it often to us as a call to duty. The chores I was called upon to undertake evolved as I advanced in age. I grew up always having some work portions assigned to me. I remember early chores included chasing chicken away from maize and sorghum that had been spread in the sun to dry in readiness for milling. I later graduated to ensuring the calves left behind were grazed and watered when my older siblings went to herd. But village life had a lot of distraction, and occasionally I would forget about keeping the poultry away from grains or grazing the calves and indulge in playing abisidi – improvised football – with my age mates. There was no standard ball. In good times, it was a lawn tennis ball, which retailed at about 50 cents in local shops, but this was too much money for our parents to ‘waste.’ So in most cases, we would scavenge for a contraption of rags, paper and any waste material we could lay our hands on; shape them into a ball; cover it with polythene and tightly tie it using strips of rubber; and hey presto! We had a ball. We divided ourselves into teams and played against each other. On occasion, we would invite or be invited to play against children from across the road or beyond the stream. We played different positions randomly. However, it slowly emerged that I was good at goalkeeping. But I didn’t like being a goalkeeper because even though I would always make fantastic saves and deny opponents scoring opportunities, I was hardly given accolades after my team had won. Praise would only go to goal scorers. In pursuit of that glory, I would insist on playing striker or midfielder. It would take some persuasion for me to stand between the posts.

There were other forms of play that I enjoyed. Once in a while, we would play what we called gololi. Urban raised children called it banta or bano. These are tiny marble balls that we would hit against each other the way balls are made to knock each other in a snooker game but using one finger resting on a thumb as a fulcrum and the other hand pulling the finger to take aim. It was an entertaining form of target practice. Peke was another childhood game. We would collect soda or beer bottle tops whenever we visited the market centre or when home guests were served soda as refreshment. Peke was similarly a game of target practice. The game was simple. We made a small hole on the ground, then counted a few strides from the hole and drew a line in the sand from where we aimed at placing the bottle tops in the hole. We played in turns. Each player would get a specific number of bottle tops (peke), stand behind the line to take aim and place the peke in the hole. One’s score was the number of peke they managed to place in the hole. We also engaged in creative endeavours like fashioning bulls out of clay. Girls played kora, a game of juggling small discs in the air. They also created baby dolls out of clay and played katolo.

Boys and girls played hide and seek together, where all would close their eyes as one went into hiding. The challenge was to find the one in hiding. One earned points when others were unable to find him or her. Similarly, we played kalongolongo, a game where we impersonated our parents. We would divide ourselves into two groups. Slightly older boys and girls would play adults while the younger ones would be their children. The ‘adults’ would make ‘ugali’ from clay and ‘vegetables’ using all manner of herbs. Discarded cans would serve as pans and tin lids would suffice as plates. But the preparation of these ‘meals’ would be an elaborate affair; with ‘children’ tasked to do certain chores to enable their ‘parents’ prepare meals. The chores included fetching the ‘firewood,’ which consisted of tiny dry twigs, washing ‘dishes’ and removing ‘utensils’ from table once mealtime over. After dinner, the ‘adults’ would put the children to bed before they too ‘retired for the night.’ While the whole episode was an innocent children’s affair, a few naughty ones engaged in actual adult games. I was not one of them. My father had always told us that sex was sin and sinners were destined for hell where they would forever roast in everlasting fire. Since I had no intention of being in hell, I kept a safe distance. It was not until after my fifteenth birthday – and after sitting my Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) examination – that I had my first tryst with a girl. It was during a funeral dance called disco matanga. My maternal grandmother, Dora Osala, had died a day after New Year’s Day in 1974. I had written my CPE exam in December and was still waiting for the results. So I went to Gem, my mother’s place of birth, around January 4 or 5. Dora was buried on January 7, 1974. After burial, there was a disco dance at night. It was during the dance that my cousin Rispa, who was my age mate, pulled me aside and told me that she had an assignment for me. She said there was a girl she had told that I had sent her [Rispa] to profess my attraction to. All Rispa wanted was for me confirm to the girl that I had indeed sent her. ‘But I did not send you!’ I protested. She told me that it mattered least whether I had sent her or not but she had already told the girl so. As we were still talking, the girl joined us, undoubtedly at Rispa’s prompting. She was about my age and beautiful. Her name was Lucia. Rispa quickly introduced Lucia and ‘confirmed having delivered my message’ then disappeared. I remained awkwardly standing before the girl and unsure what to say or do. I cannot accurately recall the chain of events that followed but we ended up in the thickets deeply entangled in sin. I enjoyed the sin. I presume she did, too. For the next three or four days before I went back to my village in Alego, we looked for each other at every available opportunity to further indulge in adolescent sin.

As I grew a bit older, I started accompanying my brother James to the fields to look after livestock. I remember a particular afternoon when I had gone with James to herd the cattle, goats and sheep. After the livestock had been taken to drink water, we settled for a place with lush grass. As usual, in this kind of ground, cattle also settle and the herders were wont to relax or play. It is always the latter. We had joined other boys from neighbouring homesteads. Soon James and the other boys were engrossed in playing abisidi. Under the tree where I had been told to sit, sleep soon got the better of me. I don’t know for how long I slept but I was woken by a shrill cry. James had come to check on me only to find me dead asleep with a snake coiled next to me. The reptile must have been enjoying the warmth of my body. The cry not only woke me up but scared the snake away as well. As I turned, my body touched the cold skin of the reptile, which was also in a hurry to escape. It uncoiled and took off. Once the snake had slid away, James inspected my whole body to confirm that I had not been bitten. Satisfied that I was fine, he administered a few slaps on me with a warning never again to sleep in the fields. It was Uhuru na Kazi.

By 1966, I was old enough to be in charge of grazing and watering the animals, on most occasions accompanied by my younger brother Walter Oluoch, who