In September 1969, the nation was treated to a disturbing incident, which left the nation's leading politicians disjointed and their supporters more hostile to each other.
This was the Kisumu Massacre, which was borne at a hospital launching function which ended up in police shootings outside Kisumu's Russia Hospital.
The facility is now known as the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital, built by finances acquired from Russia by founding Vice President Jaramogi Oginga.
This came amid rising tensions between President Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga, which saw the president booed and stones hurled at him when he went to launch the hospital.
The police responded with gunfire and also battered the booers, who were later branded as hooligans, with some ending up in custody.
What followed was a continuation of the function, but which was again characterized by an exchange between Oginga and Kenyatta, who had fallen out three years earlier, after Oginga resigned as Vice President in 1966.
When he took to the podium, Kenyatta began by accusing area residents and Oginga's supporters of being ungrateful to his government, which saw Oginga take him head-on, resulting in a verbal exchange between the two leaders.
“You shut up! What is the noise about? What is up? I don’t want to hear any noise lest I come there and beat you up myself! When I get angry I don’t care whether you are a father or a mother. I cannot allow anybody to joke around with me!" he said.
Kenyatta also bashed Oginga, the leader of the then opposition - Kenya People's Union (KPU) - for sending his people to the streets to 'throw stones instead of teaching them how to work'.
He vowed to have the hooligans who had been arrested by the police crushed, in a trip that marked his last visit to Kisumu until his death in 1978.
"I am telling you, Odinga, on the face that right now I have ordered that those hooligans of yours be crushed mercilessly so that they don’t joke around with us next time," he added.