The late trade unionist Tom Mboya was more than once mocked for his low education credentials, compared to his fellow high flying Luos of the time.
This would later result in bad blood between Mboya and Kenya’s first Vice President Jaramogi Oginga and lawyer Argwings Kodhek.
Reports indicate that as the three were enjoying drinks at a bar in Nairobi’s Kaloleni area, a fight broke out after the heavily educated and American graduate Kodhek told Mboya to seek foreign education.
According to George Anyim, the grandson of the original Onyim and founder of the bar sandwiched between Maasai and Kilimambogo Roads, Kodhek maintained that Mboya needed to be ‘more polished’, as he was told by his grandfather.
The offended minister sought Oginga’s intervention in what he felt was an insult from the Gem lawmaker, but Oginga, in support of Kodhek, approved the remark as obvious.
‘’Mboya, so the story goes, took it personally and sought Jaramogi's intervention because Argwings was talking ill of him,’’ he is quoted by the SDE.
‘’Jaramogi instead told Mboya that Argwings was stating the obvious, a comment that sent Mboya into a fit of anger,’’ he said.
Consequently, Oginga and Mboya went for each other, in what almost turned into a fistfight. Angry and defeated, Mboya left the club in a huff, thereafter shifting his base to Ziwani.