Kisumu
25/10/07
 
RAILA ODINGA IS A GOD FEARING LEADER WHO KENYANS CAN BANK ON TO BRING ABOUT THE NECESSARY REFORMS AND CHANGES

By Leo Odera Omolo
 
Contrary to the grossly falsified and exaggerated stories from a certain quarters that the ODM Presidential candidate Raila Amolo (Aluo) Oginga Odinga is not a God fearing leader, the Odingas is a staunch Christian family.
 
The head of the family, the late Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga was baptized in the CMS (later the Anglican Church of Kenya (AC). His baptism name was Adonija Obadiah Oginga Odinga.
 
His first wife Mary Juma who hails from a prominent chieftainship family lineage was also a staunch Christian and member of the Anglican Church.
 
Jaramogi was a polygamous. His first wife Mary Juma is the mother of Dr. Oburu Oginga, Raila Amolo Aluo Odinga, Agola, Dr. Wenwa Akinyi who is a senior lecturer in Organic Chemistry at the University of Nairobi, Beryl Achieng, the late Oduma Oginga, Omondi Oginga, Osewe and Ruth Adhiambo.
 
The late Jaramogi got married to a second wife Gaudencia Adeya who is the mother of Caroline Walkowa Akinyi Odinga who is an executive director at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation offices located in Upper Hills, Nairobi.
 
Jaramogi was also married to the third wife Susan Agik Oginga who is the mother of Isaac Omondi and Emily Anyango.
 
The late Jaramogi got married to a fourth wife Betty Adongo who in accordance to Luo tradition came from the family of his first wife the late Mama Mary Juma from Alego Kakan sub-clans. This marriage was traditionally meant that Betty would take charge of the late Mary Juma’s family. She is the mother of Pauline Adhiambo, Kevin Opiyo, Lenny Odongo, Corazon Acquino (who was named after Raila’s mother Mary Juma, Albert Adur and Wilson Ating’a.
 
Judging from the names of the above mentioned names of the members of Jaramogi’s family tree line which speak for itself and justifies that Raila is not an adheis or pagan as has been claimed by some of his unworthy opponents, nor is he a devil worshipper but a true Christian.
 
Agwambo was born on January 7, 1945 in Maseno town to be the second child and second son of Adornija Obadia Oginga Odinga one of the leading nationalists and hero for the independence struggle.
 
The late Jaramogi became the first Vice- President of the Republic of Kenya and his wife Mary Juma.
 
Raila took his early elementary education at Komulo Primary School, which later changed its name to be called Kibuye Primary School before moving to Maranda, a rural based primary school, which was not a far distance from his father’s countryside rural home (Kang’o Kajaramogi)
 
Raila studied in East Germany and graduated from Otto Von Guericke Technical University, Magdeburg in 1970, with a Msc degree in Mechanical Engineering.
 
Agwambo returned home to jointly take care of the Odinga family with his elder brother Dr. Oburu Odinga who had earlier graduated with a PhD degree in political Science and Economics at the Lumumba University in Moscow in the former USSR.
 
1970 was a hard time for the Odinga family because the doyen of the oppositionist politics in Kenya the late Jaramogi and close to 13 other MPs colleagues were languishing in either prison or detention camps without trial following the disturbances in Kisumu Town in October 1969.
 
Raila got a job with the University of Nairobi as an assistant lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering before joining the Kenya Bureau of Standards as a director.
 
Armed with an MSc degree in Engineering, Agwambo helped the family in establishing the family business flagship, the Spectre International Ltd, which is the manufactures of liquid petroleum gas cylinders by then the only one of its kind in East Africa.
 
As I have mentioned it above this indeed, was a very rough time for the Jaramogi family. The increasing oppression and suppression of the so-called dissidents by the state forced the youthful Raila to wider political participation against the despotic and autocratic system of rule in his homeland, Kenya.
 
Ha later fought hard for the second liberation battle which was spearheaded by his father the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga that saw the advent of multiparty system of governance in Kenya in 1990 and 1992 as opposed to hitherto one party monolithic system.
 
He stood and won a popular vote in Lang’ata Constituency in one of the suburbs of the capital, Nairobi . This is a cosmopolitan urban constituency which is the home to multi-racial and multi-ethnic voters. He won comfortably during the first multi-party elections of 1992.
 
Today ‘’Agwambo’’ is still fighting for the third and perhaps the final liberation from corruption, nepotism and ethnic favouritism that has bedeviled the nation social and economic progress for over 40 years.
 
He is married to the outspoken Ida and they have four children. To prove Raila accusers wrong Agwambo and Ida were married at St. Stephen Anglican Church in Kisumu town in the early 1970s and I was the one hired by his father the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga as the chief photographer both in the church and at a reception which later held at the Ofafa Memorial Hall, Kisumu.
 
All these happenings and the family background now trashes and rubbishes all the claims that Raila Odinga is not a God fearing leader. Like his late father Jaramogi, Raila is a generous donor to numerous churches located in his rural Nyanza, Kisumu and Nairobi. Truly he is very comfortable with religious sects of both Christians and Muslims alike.
 
Raila has retained his seat in the mainly cosmopolitan constituency for three consecutive elections, namely in 1992-1997 and 2002 and has spent most of these years in the opposition back-benches where he had become a thorn in the flesh of every successive regimes. He was first elected as a member of Ford-Kenya, which was then led by his late father and then as the party leader (NDP) and later a member of the defunct Liberal Democratic Party of Kenya (LDP)
 
In the year 2001 was the turning point for ‘’Agwambo’’ when he was appointed Kenya ’s Minister for Energy when his party, the LDP merged with KANU under the retired President Daniel Arap Moi. Later he and his other colleagues bolted out of the NDP / KANU coalition government and he was part of the LDP MPs was formed the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) that won the 2002 and broke KANU hold on power since 1963.
 
The NARC consigned former President Moi who had ruled Kenya with an iron fist for 24 years to a political doldrum and limbo by defeating his Uhuru Kenyatta Project.
 
The group propelled President Mwai Kibaki to power. He was appointed to the NARC government cabinet as the Minister for Roads, Public Works and Housing, but was later removed from the cabinet at the end of 2005 after he led a group of politicians and vigorously campaigned against the rejected Amos Wako draft Constitution. He led the campaign under the popular umbrella of a group called the Orange Movement a group which was pitted against the government supported Banana Yes group at the referendum voting victory against the government. In his brief stint in the government Raila is credited for having effected far reaching and extensive reform changes in the Ministries he worked for.
 
Raila vehement opposition to successive corruptive governments that have milked the nation resources and looted Kenya down to its knee has also led him into three different period of detention without trial.
 
As an elected member of Parliament representing a constituency that houses a large number of Nairobi Urban poor in Kibera slums, Agwambo has worked hard and initiated several poverty alleviation projects, water supplies, education and sanitation projects.
 
Raila is arguably the most popular politician in Kenya today and rated as the only leader whose administration if elected to the highest office on the land would stick to the policy of zero tolerance to corruption.
 
And even his supporters and foes alike have agreed that Raila is the only a man who can effect the required politics reform and changes in this country.
 
See the attached Odinga family tree line.
Raila Odinga has since transformed himself from his old status of a radical youthful politician to that of a true statesmanship using carefully selected words in all public address.
 
He is displaying a lot of political magnanimity and skills. All these are signs of political maturity and his change in character has endeared him close to the electorate countrywide hence the panicking of her detractors.
 
The anti-Raila propaganda gimmicks that he is a devil worshipper have also exposed the political naivety and mediocrity of his opponents. Such dirty tricks could boomerang and work to the disadvantage of Raila Odinga political enemies because the Kenyan electorate appeared to have come to terms with political reality that Agwambo is a Mr. clean and God fearing leader whose name has remained untainted by numerous scandals of the past.
The truth will prevail, but the dirty propaganda will vanish in the thin air.
Read the family tree line explained below: