Throughout his stay at the Maseno school, Adonija Obadiah was a troublesome student who could hardly keep off trouble.
This made him a regular victim of the school's then Principal Carey Francis who did not hesitate to punish him.
Born in 1911, Obadiah would later drop his English names for the African Jaramogi Oginga Odinga tittle before venturing into politics.
In the political arena, he served as the nation's first Vice President before slipping into the opposition until his death in 1994.
At Maseno, Oginga was both a prefect and assistant captain, a position he miraculously kept, as a result of his indiscipline and rebellious nature.
On one occasion, he made the entire school sleep hungry, after failing to notify the management that the institution was running low on food supply.
He was later shocked when the cooks declared that there was nothing for the boys to eat.
Later in the term, he was busted with stolen paraffin and was given four strokes of the cane and detained in the school for five days by Carey.
It was a closing day and as he made his final rounds for the term, he found some paraffin in one of the stores which he emptied into a can and left for home happy that he could now overcome the darkness to study at home.
“The principal thrashed me four kibokos and detained me in school for being a thief," he says in his book 'Not Yet Uhuru.'
After his graduation in 1934, he joined Makerere University for teaching courses before rejoining the school but this time as a teacher and Carey's fellow arithmetic tutor.
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