Adapted from the Odede family by Dr. Joyce Nyairo whose first version of the article appeared in the Sunday Nation of October 20, 2024.
In the run-up to independence, Rachilo voiced his support for the formation of Nairobi Peoples
Convention Party (NPCP), “I can understand why the Luo in Nairobi should want their own political
organization.”
NPCP was soon after renamed Luo United Movement (LUM).
In the May 8, 1963 elections the seemingly Prof.Mboya LUM was pitted against the Pro-Jaramogi
Kenya African National Union (KANU).
Two people lost their lives in the heated Central Nyanza contest. Several of Rachilo’s youth-wingers were arraigned in court.
He hired lawyer Byron Georgiadis to represent them. They were acquitted.
According to Jaramogi, Rachilo had told him while they were in London for the second Lancaster House
conference that he had never forgiven Jaramogi for defeating him in the 1961 election.
Now, Rachilo left the Central Nyanza contest to Jaramogi and went to vie for the Kisumu seat against Hasham Amir Jamal. He lost.
Jaramogi became Vice-President of independent Kenya, but a scheme to isolate him from President
Jomo Kenyatta and within KANU was quickly hatched.
As Secretary-General, Mboya played a key part in that scheme.
Following the assassination of Jaramogi’s ideologue, Pio Gama Pinto, in February 1965, Jaramogi quickly lost support in Parliament.
The opposition party KADU had crossed the floor in November 1964.
Mboya and Jomo moved swiftly to ensure that the majority of former KADU representatives would vote with them on whatever issue came to the House.
Their first win was in replacing Pinto with Wycliffe Adonijah Onyango Ayoki. The loser, Jaramogi’s man, was Wilson Ndolo Ayah, a Makererian who had once courted our sister, Pamela.
On April 14, 1966, Jaramogi resigned from the government. Mboya had out-manoeuvred him through a new KANU constitution that diminished his power by creating eight provincial vice presidents.
Jaramogi was now widely labelled “an agent of rapacious international Communism.” Working with a few allies including two former detainees – Oneko and Kaggia – they birthed the Kenya People’s Union, KPU.
The constitRachilo managed only 1,942 votes against Jaramogi’s 16,695 votes. As Cheryl Gertzel and J.J.
Okumu wrote of that mini-general election, “the Opposition’s successful exploitation of Luo tradition portrayed Mboya as an enemy of the tribe.” Seemingly, Rachilo caught the fleas.
