Kenya's first Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga had a chance to make a major political comeback after the death of his nemesis President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1978 but he made a big blunder which cost him big time.
Kenyatta sent Jaramogi to political Siberia by detaining him following a deadly clash in Kisumu during the official opening of a hospital in the area.
More than 50 people were shot dead by Kenyatta's bodyguards after a confrontation pitting the two Independence leaders ensued, but it was Jaramogi who took all the blame.
The 1969 incident made the President send his former comrade into detention and as a result, he lost his Bondo parliamentary seat which he had occupied since 1963.
However, when Kenyatta passed away and President Daniel Arap Moi took over power, he wanted to rehabilitate Jaramogi by allowing him to recapture his National Assembly seat in 1981.
In a secret meeting at State House, Nakuru, Moi and Jaramogi laid down an elaborate plan of how he would get back to Parliament.
Then Bondo MP Hezekiah Ougo had to be forced to resign to pave way for Jaramogi's entry to the August House.
Within no time, Ougo tendered his resignation letter and a date for a by-election was announced.
It was now obvious that Jaramogi, the political kingpin in Nyanza, was to make a grand return to the National Assembly.
However, this never came to be as his opponents had vowed Jaramogi would forever remain in the political cold.
The leader of this group was Kikuyu MP and Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs Charles Njonjo.
It was Njonjo, as the Attorney General a few years back, who had drafted documents to send Jaramogi to detention.
To ensure the former VP would not make a political comeback, Njonjo used then Kericho MP Moses Kiprono Keino to unknowingly take fake news to his friend Jaramogi.
The powerful Minister lied to Keino that Moi was furious that his predecessor Kenyatta had acquired huge tracts of land in many parts of the country and he would be happy if Jaramogi would publicly condemn the actions of his former boss.
Keino convinced him to do what Moi wanted and days before the by-election, Jaramogi, during a visit at the Coast, launched an attack on Kenyatta calling him a 'land grabber'. He finally fell into Njonjo's well-calculated set-up.
"If Jaramogi could insult President Kenyatta what would stop him from doing the same to President Moi," was the argument taken to President Moi by Njonjo.
A furious Moi ordered Jaramogi be barred from contesting in the by-election on a KANU ticket for 'disrespecting' the former Head of State.
There being no other party to give him a ticket to participate in the election, Jaramogi stayed in the political cold until the 1992 multi-party elections when he made a failed presidential bid.
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