Towards the end of his Vice Presidency, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was being fought from all sides by President Jomo Kenyatta’s insiders who wanted him out.
Oginga who was openly keen on succeeding Kenyatta whom he had indirectly made President had, already began anticipating the seat and was even always beside Kenyatta on most occasions.
His actions were so intense that communist republics like China and Russia identified him as their point man in the country, at a time when Kenyatta was growing older.
“So convincingly did he play the role of No 2 that the Russians and the Chinese, figuring that Kenyatta was becoming senile, decided to make Odinga their main man in Kenya,” Says William Artwood in his book ‘The Blacks And The Reds’.
Artwood was the first Unites States Ambassador to Kenya.
But keen on protecting the throne, Kenyatta’s inner circle came to the resque and basing on Oginga’s top seat, decided to use indirect techniques to counter his ambition.
As a result, he was no longer acknowledged during public occasions despite being present, with Kenyatta propagating the same by assigning his ministers to read his speech in his absence, a responsibility that should be left to his deputy.
Towards his resignation in 1966, Oginga is reported to have grown so frustrated that he at some point resorted to heavy drinking and bhang abuse.
“You couldn’t help but feel sorry for Odinga. Badly advised, sensitive to pin pricks, pressed by Oriental sponsors, shadowed by the police, he was reported to have started drinking heavily and smoking bhang — a kind of African marijuana,” artwood writes.
Oginga resigned from his positions as Vice President of both the republic and KANU party in 1966 to form the opposition’s Kenya People’s Union and stayed in the opposing side until his death in 1994.
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