Siaya senator and renowned lawyer James Orengo has revealed why he and the late Martin Shikuku made a habit of carrying warm clothes in their clamour for multi-party democracy.
In a tweet on Thursday accompanied by a photo of him and Shikuku, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) legislator said that the habit was informed by the expectation that they would be arrested and thrown behind bars in cold cells.
"Shikuku and I wore or carried warm clothes as was the practice because we always ended being locked up in cold and damp cells or prisons," he wrote on Twitter.
James Orengo and the late Martin Shikuku are part of a generation of veteran politicians who were involved in the so-called second liberation.
They fought against retired President Daniel Moi's government, accusing it of dictatorial tendencies and contracting the democratic space.
It is thanks to that steadfast and indefatigable political activism that paved the way for the repealing of article 2A, ushering Kenya to an era of multi-party democracy.
It was not smooth-sailing for the then radical politicians as the police would be unleashed on the activists.
The passage of time seems not to have eroded the radical streak of the Siaya senator as he was deeply involved in the National Super Alliance (NASA) protests after the disputed 2017 general elections.