NASA leader Raila Odinga during a past event.[photo/NairobiNews]
NASA leader Raila Odinga quest for democracy has not been easy.
Raila has had confrontations with past regimes leading to his detention.
Odinga was detained for several years by the Moi regime over his alleged role in the 1982 attempted coup.
Revelations about his his time in prijson were made public in his autobiography The Flame of Freedom.
In the book, Raila recalls the day he went on a hunger strike for seven days while detained at the Manyani Prison.
Raila had refused to eat as a way to protest his transfer to Manyani from Shimo la Tewa Prison.
He felt that he was receiving extra punishment contrary to the Detention Act which provides for isolation from the public while enjoying all other rights.
According to Raila, the strike made him become severly sick something that led to wrong diagnosis by a government doctor.
In the book Odinga states that a doctor identified as Mwongera had given him some drugs to lower his blood pressure, which ended up to be misdiagnosis.
While in detention, Odinga devised a way to attract attention from authorities since the guards thought he was faking illness.
His right palm had went dark; the arm hard pimples and boils as well.
A doctor idenfied as Dr Mwita - was then sent from Nairobi where he examined him.
Mwita informed that he was at risk of losing him arm.
Odinga was then transferred from Manyani to Kamiti prison after two-month stay where he wrote a note to Ida explaining his condition.
Another doctor prescribed medicine for Raila which ended up working.
Raila and eight other detainees were released on February 5, 1988 after briefly meeting Moi at State House.