• The day will start with a memorial service at ACK St Stephen's in Kisumu.
• A memorial public lecture will then be held at Ofafa Memorial Hall.
Image: COURTESY
A grand jamboree to mark 30 years since the death of former Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga will be held in Kisumu on Saturday.
ODM leader Raila Odinga said the family has organised a fancy show to celebrate his father.
Jaramogi died on January 20, 1994, aged 83.
The day will start with a memorial service at ACK St Stephen's in Kisumu.
A memorial public lecture will then be held at Ofafa Memorial Hall.
Kisumu city manager Abala Wanga said the hall has been renovated for the event.
"Already on the ground at Ofafa Memorial Hall to see that the renovation work is completed ahead of the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga 30th anniversary celebrations," Wanga said.
Renowned scholars, pan-Africanists, opinion leaders and journalists have been lined up to give lectures.
“The event will be addressed physically and virtually by a stellar team from home and abroad, befitting the stature of Jaramogi the freedom fighter, the family man, the founding vice president, the businessman, the teacher, the farmer, the politician and the great statesman,” Raila said in a statement on Wednesday.
Top speakers include men and women who have researched and written about him.
One of them is Prof David Throup from George Washington University, and who is co-author of Multi-Party Politics in Kenya.
Others are retired Catholic archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth, Kisumu Governor Anyang' Nyong’o, Mau Mau freedom fighter Gitu Kahengeri, former councillor, women rights campaigner and politician Jael Mbogo, former Cabinet minister and ex-UNCTAD secretary general Mukhisa Kituyi and Siaya Governor James Orengo.
Veteran journalist John Kamau, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, Canada, and former Ugandan Foreign Affairs minister and ex-UN Under Secretary General Dr Olara Otunnu have been listed.
Governor Nyong’o and Prof Michael Chege will be the keynote speakers.
“The annals of history in the genesis and evolution of modern nations only have a few visionary leaders who shaped the destiny of such nations at critical moments in history. In the case of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga will always stand tall among the nationalists who shaped the destiny of our nation,” Nyong’o said.
Journalist Kamau said, “I’m glad to be in this and discuss the place of Jaramogi in Kenya’s history and his unfading legacy, lest we forget.”
Prof Robert Maxon, a former history don at the West Virginia University in the US and the author of Majimbo in Kenya’s Past: Federalism in the 1940s and 1950s will be present.
“I view speaking truth to power as an important Odinga legacy, and the courage to alter one’s political stance to meet the demands of a changing political landscape,” he said.
Mbogo said, “Without Jaramogi, Kenya’s Independence would not have been realised when it was. May his soul rest in peace."
Besides his short-lived vice presidency, Jaramogi is remembered for his autobiography “Not Yet Uhuru” published in 1967. It details his falling out with founding president Jomo Kenyatta and the muzzling of dissenting voices in the country at the time.
His public clash with President Kenyatta in Kisumu in 1969 during the opening of the New Nyanza General Hospital, now renamed Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital, led to massive shooting of civilians by police. He was later arrested and detained.
He is also credited with creating Ford, but which later split. He run for the presidency in 1992 on Ford Kenya ticket and finished fourth, with a share of 17.5 per cent votes.