Dr Oburu Oginga launched his autobiography titled In the Shadow of My Father a couple of weeks ago.
It is one of the most enjoyable and easily readable memoirs by a Kenyan public figure.
Perhaps because he is not the Odinga running for President, Oburu shows little inhibitions in telling his story and deploys such humour and storytelling that make even the reader consume even the sad moments of the Odinga family journey with a little chuckle.
It helps that Oburu partnered with histographer Bethuel Oduo in the venture.
Oduo has a photographic memory, unmatched attention to detail and a narration style to die for.
The end product was an amazing openness with facts and family anecdotes, capturing the chronology of events with little attempt to sway the reader’s view.
If it were up to me, public figures that have served the country for a long period should be taken to a remote island, kept there with pen and paper and be compelled to only return when they have a draft of the memoirs.
In a country where history is often twisted and massaged for political expediency, our saving grace must be when those who were there finally decide to speak, and speak the truth.
If you want to know the dangers of relying on history as passed through political prisms, just listen to how many senior figures from the Mt Kenya region generously confess these days that the image they created of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was all based on lies and unfounded claims!
Last year, I managed to encounter and read the memoirs of at least seven prominent Kenyans.
But I will especially stick with David Musila’s Seasons of Hope, Musalia Mudavadi’s Soaring Above the Storms of Passion, Moody Awori’s Riding on a Tiger and Lt Gen Daniel Opande’s In Pursuit of Peace In Africa.
In their own way, all these gentlemen were thrust in the middle of crucial transitions and milestones in the history of the country, from the attempted coup in 1982, to the Narc-Rainbow victory that ended Kanu rule in 2002, as well the chaos, betrayal and backstabbing which characterized the first months of the Kibaki regime.
If you were to rely purely on the media for the truth about these events, these books will teach you that you actually know very little.
It is impossible to move forward as a country if we don’t embrace our history so that we can know how to define the sources of our divisions and challenges, in order to heal them. This is how I see the biographies of these public servants.
A common feature among Kenyans who write their biographies is that they tend to use them to explain their failures and controversies that dogged them in public life.
But not so the ones I have featured above. They have given us a front-row seat in the events that were hidden from public view.
If you thought you knew the heroes and villains of those years, you may want to read the books and see the truth in 3D.
I was privileged to attend the launch of former Karachuonyo MP Mama Phoebe Muga Asiyo’s book launch by President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House Nairobi in August 2018.
The book is titled It Is Possible, An African Woman Speaks.
Being a leading female pioneer in several fields, Asiyo’s book was long overdue, and she did justice to it.
In a more reflective society, it is the stuff you would send to schools as an exam set book and inspiration to the next generation of leaders, especially women leaders.
At the launch, President Kenyatta acknowledged the difficulties facing many senior citizens who want to write, when it comes to access to expert narration and publishing.
He then ordered then Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed, who was in attendance, to establish a committee in her ministry to provide guidance and publishing avenues for interested Kenyans.
The matter seems to have died, despite the initial excitement for readers like us, that we would see an explosion of new memoirs on the shelves. I even looked for the committee to join it, in vain!
As if to echo this point, former VP Moody Awori says in his book that his first attempt to do his biography was sabotaged by the senior media editor he had partnered with, who fled with the first complete draft and stopped taking his calls.
But the pressure to write, coming from family and friends, kept building up, and he had to start doing it on its own.
The end product, I must say, is quite impressive. If only this message could reach all those Kenyans who sit with history in their minds that we should be having on bookshelves!
Former Attorney general Charles Njonjo died before sharing his story with Kenyans, despite requests that he pen his memoir.
I also have in mind Generals Daudi Tonje, Mahmoud Mohamed, Julius Karangi, Jeremiah Kianga, Samson Mwathethe and Joseph Kibwana, retired President Mwai Kibaki, retired CJ David Maranga, former members of the Cabinet and security services, as well as captains of industry.
Back to Oburu, if you thought you knew everything there was to know about the Jaramogi family from the old man’s own Not Yet Uhuru and Raila’s The Flame of Freedom, Oburu will prove you wrong.
He provides intriguing details of the Odinga sons’ difficulties with getting schools to admit them in Kenya, travelling to foreign academic institutions on foreign passports, and returning home to find their father’s businesses being destroyed by incompetent managers, financial institutions bending to political whims and auctioneers on the payroll of political enemies.
The chronology of humiliation, sabotage and marginalisation of the old man and his family seemed to go on and on, without end.
Thankfully, multiparty democracy returned in 1992 to give more space for freedom.
What I find interesting is Oburu’s listing of his development record as Bondo MP.
To the non-discerning eye, Oburu is merely Jaramogi’s son and Raila’s brother, who gets his way in the party without a sweat.
But when he mentions the hours he spent between government offices seeking the establishment of the Jaramogi Odinga University, the two Kenya Medical Training Institutes campuses, expansion of Maranda Boys and Nyamira Girls near Kang’o Ka Jaramogi, improvement of roads and the airstrip he was fighting for, you get the image of a tireless worker who knew what his people wanted and went for it.
In fact, he says in the book that in the early days, when he approached several commercial banks to establish their branches in Bondo town, they flatly declined, saying the town was not viable economically.
This is until he went to see James Mwangi of Equity Bank, who readily opened a branch.
But after the academic institutions, he had been lobbying for opened their doors, and the improved infrastructure made Bondo attractive to investors, the banks that had refused to join the extravaganza came on their own, and the town became today’s economic and academic hub of Siaya county, largely from his work as MP, quietly lobbying government agencies and using NG-CDF to improve his constituency.
In a nutshell, you wouldn’t know all this if our leaders didn’t write their memoirs detailing their experiences and journey through public service. Which is why more and more must come forth.
