Adapted from the Odede family by Dr. Joyce Nyairo whose first version of the article appeared in the Sunday Nation of October 20, 2024.
National politics was shifting by the day. Obadiah Adonijah Oginga Odinga, popularly known as Jaramogi
had moved to Nairobi in 1957. He campaigned against Beneah Apollo Ohanga and won the Central Nyanza
seat in LegCo.
Professor Ogot explains that by October 1960 when Rachilo left detention, he found “that since he was
not one of the Kapenguria group, he was not regarded as a freedom fighter …Odinga was so well established that [Odede’s] attempt to challenge the latter for a parliamentary seat led to his being branded a traitor of the Luo cause.”
Rachilo ran as an independent candidate. His symbol was the giraffe, Jaramogi’s was a hippo. According
to Jaramogi in his book, “[Odede] seemed to have no shortage of lorries and money to carry voters to the polls and it seemed obvious that there were forces secretly supporting him in order to oust me.” Rachilo managed 1,770 votes against Jaramogi’s landslide of 46,638 votes.
Fortunately for Rachilo, he secured a nomination.
In the LegCo, he urged that the Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) be listened to, “deal with them
constructively, not only destructively.” Advocating for Pan-Africanism he said that the Federation of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda and Zanzibar was “both economically and politically desirable and can only be achieved in proper form by the synchronism of the date for independence of all those territories.”
Rachilo pleaded with KANU to stop attacking KADU because Majimbo was not a bad thing, but he warned
that if the government was worried that Communist money was destroying the progress of the people of
Central Nyanza, then the government should ensure it undertook the development the people there needed.
That Communist money was a reference to Jaramogi who openly sympathized with the socialist cause.
While attending the Lancaster Conference in 1961 he met with leaders from Eastern Europe. It was the start of his Eastern Bloc scholarship scheme – launched to match the Tom Mboya-Gikonyo Kiano airlifts to America .
A Subtle Rivalry
The rift between Jaramogi and Rachilo — friends who had once shared a house in Maseno — appeared
to grow even more in the 1960s. On January 20, 1962 our sister, Pamela, a Makerere graduate and a
beneficiary of the Mboya-Kiano airlifts, got married to Jaramogi’s youthful and urbane rival in KANU, Tom Mboya.
Within KAU, Mboya had often dimmed Jaramogi’s light with powerful oratory and dexterous
fundraising. As KAU President, Rachilo had assigned Mboya the post of Director of Information. In 1956,
Mboya became KAU Treasurer.
Whenever he called for the termination of emergency regulations including the release of detainees, he mentioned Rachilo. According to Mboya’s biographer, David Goldsworthy, Mboya had also taken on the
responsibility of looking after our family.
But long before Mboya entered the mix a subtle rivalry had marked the relationship between Jaramogi
and Rachilo. The two were classmates at Maseno School —along with Elly Athembo, Archer Nyalik,
and Peter Oranga —where they completed Grade 8 in 1934.
They proceeded to Alliance. At Makerere College, then an affiliate of the University of London,
they completed Diploma courses —Jaramogi’s in Education (Mathematics) and Rachilo’s in Veterinary
Science.
They moved back to Maseno. When Jaramogi ran into problems with the school’s administration, it
was Rachilo who suggested that Jaramogi should join him at the adjacent Veterinary School.
In 1946, together with their colleague Richard Arina, they birthed the East-Africa wide Luo Union, headquartered in Kisumu, not Nairobi, to raise the consciousness of the people, spread education facilities and undertake investments.
That same year while he was in Nairobi where he had been appointed the African Representative Member
of LegCo to fill in for Bishop Beecher who was away on leave, Rachilo also became one of the founding members of United Kenya Club, a progressive multiracial assembly. He was now deeply entrenched in finding practical solutions to overcome racial segregation.
The following year, 1947, Rachilo and ex-Sergeant Major S.O. Josiah were invited to attend a course
conducted by future Provincial Commissioner Desmond O’Hagan to train a cadre of African administrators. Next, along with Argwings-Kodhek and two others, Rachilo secured a scholarship for further studies in Britain.
Jaramogi’s application for the same scholarship was simply ignored. Not long after, he was suspended from Maseno.
While studying in Lancaster where he was even registered as a voter in 1947 and 1948, Rachilo
was admitted as the only African member of the East African Natural History Society. He was a committed
academic and this was the time he published a pamphlet on Animal Husbandry.
Rachilo returned from Lancashire, Britain, in January 1949 aboard the Llanstephan Castle Ship, sailing on the Royal East Africa Service from London to Mombasa. Soon after he joined the faculty at Makerere where he settled in with a growing family, two wives and several children.
He returned to Kenya early in 1952 as a Director of the Associated Press of East Africa. He worked there for just a few months before he was detained.
…TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT SERIES…
