Former Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was quite rebellious during his youthful days, and at some point landed in problems with his seniors.
Oginga joined the Maseno School for his secondary education from Maranda Primary in 1929 before he became a teacher at the same institution after the completion of his course in 1934.
When he was promoted to an arithmetic teacher, he again kept locking horns with the white Principal Carey Francis whom he had always been at loggerheads since his learning days.
Being a time when colonialism was still the order of the day, and the whites and the hosting blacks were considered completely different, the likes of Oginga (blacks) were to live in a secluded zone, away from the British.
And now a teacher and his rebellion taken to the next level, Oginga embarked on constructing a hut at the campus school in a manner that deliberately violated the white’s construction laws.
Though it was largely observed as just another of his rebellious tactics, the house, according to him, was a symbol of African nationalism and resistance to colonial oppression.
The Jaramogi Oginga Odinga hut at Maseno School. (Source/Macleki)
The hut still stands to date, and is under the keen watch of the school administration.
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