It now emerges that former Vice President Jaramogi Oginga was one of the forces behind the presidency of Daniel Moi, a man who would later detain both him and his son Raila Odinga.
And though it did come, after President Jomo Kenyatta’s death in August 1978, it took time as Oginga deliberately delayed speaking on the matter under the notion that he was the best for the seat.
In his book ‘My Journey With Jaramogi’, Odinge Odera and then a close confidant of the opposition doyen and a newspaper editor says that Oginga was sulking after realizing that Moi would, after all, assume the seat which he had for long been eyeing.
“The truth about Jaramogi’s behaviour and actions during the mourning period was nothing but mere sulking; sulking because, personally he felt that Moi was not the right person to rule Kenya and, therefore, he felt Moi did not deserve the honour to be president,” he says in the book, according to a Daily Nation publication dated May 2010.
Oginga was not alone in the same, as with him were some leaders from the Mt Kenya region who had been plotting to block Moi’s succession.
Odera who even assumed a role as the link between the two teams says than Oginga, then the Kenya People's Union (KPU) leader and his allies took their sweet time despite the pressure from Moi’s camp pushing him to endorse the new President.
Moi’s confidants including Nicholas Biwott and Andrew Limo Nyeng’ were in the front-line in lobbying for the two groups’ endorsement.
And after a series of meetings at the Ngong’ Hills Hotel with his fellow leaders from the Luo community, finally came Oginga’s endorsement.
The endorsement came as a relief to Moi’s team, and a blow the Kiambu Mafia team under the leadership of the late Kenyatta’s allies like Dr. Njoroge Mungai and Mbiyu Koinange who had sworn to scuttle Moi’s ascent to the top seat
“Moi ascended to the Presidency with the full knowledge that a section of Kenyans had not wanted him to succeed Kenyatta, in the event of the late President’s incapacitation or death,” adds Oginde in his book.
Having no other option, both Mungai and Koinange sent their endorsement on Tuesday September 5, 1978.
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