Source: RELIABLE. Name: WITHHELD.
· Raila’s penchant for violence dates back to his student days in East Germany where he was involved in a savagery violent encounter with an East German soldier. In the company of another Kenyan student called Odero Ojwok, Raila was drinking in a hotel together with some female students, they wanted, when East German soldiers who were interested in the white ladies came and a brawl ensued. While Raila held one soldier by the neck in true Kenyan ngeta fashion, Odero Ojwok opened the soldier’s stomach with a knife, spilling out all his intestines.
· Pandemonium broke out in the hotel and alarm bells were promptly pressed in the appropriate quarters. In a matter of minutes, colleagues of the badly wounded soldier arrived in the hotel and beat the living daylights out of Raila and Odero Ojwok.
· In the process of the brutal beating, Raila was flung against the hotel’s French window where he smashed his face, causing the scar which was/is visible on the face for many years. He also broke his jaw and lost some teeth causing him to stammer, henceforth.
· Raila and his Kenyan colleague were beaten up so badly that by the time the police came, Raila could hardly lift himself off the ground. He was rushed unconscious to hospital where he was admitted in critical condition.
· Raila had gone to Germany in July, 1962 after dropping out of standard seven, at Maranda Intermediate School, in the second term. Raila’s travel to East Germany was facilitated with the help of the then Kenya Office in Cairo, in Egypt, during the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Kenya was still a British colony then and Kenyans who were still all British passport holders and subjects of Her Majesty were not encouraged to travel to East Europe, even to pursue education. Raila was denied a passport.
· Together with other students who were also East Europe bound, he travelled to neighbouring Tanzania where they were met by the Regional Commissioner of Dar Es Salaam, Mr. Dolla Athman, at the then ruling party TANU headquarters on behalf of President Julius Kambarage Nyerere, in Dar Es Salaam.
· As guests of the government of Tanzania, they were booked into Hotel Intercontinental in downtown Dar Es Salaam, where they remained for 14 days while the Tanzanian government processed travelling documents for them, including passports. The entourage then left Tanzania en-route to Eastern Europe via Kenya, where they stopped over, this time, as Tanzanians since they were now Tanzanian passport holders and, by extension, citizens of that neighbouring country.
· The late Julius Gikonyo Kiano who came to bid them farewell accompanied by Achieng Oneko, Bildad Kaggia and Kariuki Karanja Njiri, gave them each 100 shillings and a pen. Raila was taken to River Road by his colleagues where they bought him a jacket with part of his one hundred shillings.
· The following day the entourage left Kenya and landed in Cairo, Egypt, where they were accommodated along Zamaleck Street minus Raila who was detained and quarantined at the airport pending inoculation.
· A few years later, he returned to Kenya and joined the staff of Nairobi University for a brief uneventful stint before joining the Kenya Bureau of Standards as Deputy Managing Director, a post he left in disgrace for his stint in detention, in 1982, following the macabre events of August 1st that year.
· A lot has been written; many things have been said about the abortive coup of August 1982 but many people agree that it was a day of collective grieving in Kenya; the day Nairobi saw the face of Satan. The capital city saw rape, pillage, plunder and murder on a frightening scale, with Asian women bearing the brunt of the atrocities.
· At the centre of this mayhem was the Odinga political machine which was attempting to take over State control by martial fiat. Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka Rabala, who was the ring leader of the rebels, was on the payroll of the Odingas with a brief to step aside for the old man as soon as the State machinery had been captured.
· Behind the scenes, Raila also wanted power and had the coup succeeded, he had a separate plan for a counter-coup!
· In mid-July that year, Snr. Private Hezekiah Ochuka had been loaned a Peugeot 504, registration number KVZ 042 by the Odingas to assist him in making preparations to topple the government, on their behalf.
· On 18th of that month (July), as a personal emissary of the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Raila visited Ochuka’s house at Umoja Estate, in Nairobi, where together with Ochuka and other airmen, (he) discussed plans to overthrow the government. He subsequently made a follow-up meeting to this with Ochuka on 30th July at the Little Aden Bar, in Umoja, in addition to a series of other meetings in the course of that month with Ochuka, Paul Geno Okello, and the late Robert Odhiambo Ndege at the Mausoleum Bar, in Buru Buru Estate and at Ong’ere Bar, in Shauri Moyo.
· On the night of July 31st and August 1st 1982, Raila occupied the house of Vincent Otieno along Ngong Road where he assisted Snr. Private Ochuka, and other airmen, to use the house as a centre for operation in their plans to take over the government that day. Earlier in the day, together with the late Opwapo, who died in exile in Sweden, Raila took a lamp and two accumulator batteries to the same house for the use in the course of establishing a rebel command post.
· In addition, Raila’s Peugeot 504 registration number KVZ 042 was loaned to Ochuka and Sgt. Ogidi Obuon. The vehicle enabled the duo to fetch an “SSE” army Land-rover for use in the course of establishing a rebel command centre at Vincent Otieno’s residence, among other things.
· The Odingas also loaned Ochuka another vehicle, a Peugeot 305, which belonged to their family friend for purposes connected with the abortive coup.
· The coup was crushed by loyal government troops at great cost in both human life and property. The entire Kenya Airforce was disbanded and with it, hundreds of careers were ruined at the stroke of the pen. Dozens of the airmen who took part in the mutiny were court martialed and jailed for long stretches while the ring leaders including Ochuka, Corporal Bramwel Injeni Njereman, Pancreas Okumu Okeyo and Robert Odhiambo Ndege, among others were sentenced to death and all hanged at Kamiti.
· The civilian mastermind and financier of the coup, Oginga Odinga, escaped with a brief stint under house arrest while Raila who was initially arraigned for treason along with Alfred Vincent Otieno and Otieno Mak’Onyango, was released on a technicality and promptly arrested and detained!
· It later transpired that the Odingas had cut a deal with the government that they had tried to overthrow to be spared in order to assist Moi bring down Charles Njonjo! This was the quid pro quo for the substitution of treason charges against Raila with detention. It was not a surprise to those in the know therefore, when during the inquiry into Njonjo’s activities, Raila was briefly brought out of detention without trial to testify against Njonjo.
· Indeed, it was his “evidence” that finally helped the Commission to nail Njonjo on allegations that he had been party to the conspiracy to overthrow President Moi’s government, in August 1982.
· The Inquiry against Njonjo heard testimony from a total of 62 witnesses, including Raila, and took 106 working days before it completed its work. The Commission’s report of the Inquiry was made public on December 12, 1984 and soon afterwards, President Moi announced a pardon for Njonjo who then went into political hibernation.
· Twenty one years later after Raila was brought out of detention without trial to testify against Njonjo, the former Attorney General returned to the national political limelight as one of Raila Odinga’s most ardent supporters in 2005, two years before the disputed 2007 elections.
· What has changed in the last twenty seven years to make Njonjo who hated Luos with a passion and especially the Odingas, turn full circle into one of Raila’s ardent supporters and a “born again” friend of the Luos?” Nothing to add: enough said! Everything is in black and white. Alluta Continua.
