Saturday, July 13, 2013

Intrigues of Jomo's and Jaramogi's Secret Joint Account in London

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Before they fell out, Kanu leaders Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga ran a joint bank account in London where money from various sources was received.

Today, the only remaining evidence is a statement of a suspense account where some of the money was deposited by the likes of Bildad Kaggia, Pio Gama Pinto, Joseph Murumbi and Othigo Othieno — some of the avowed socialists within Kanu. 

It is not indicated where the money came from but some of it was used to establish the Lumumba Institute, on a 20-acre piece of land in Kasarani, Nairobi. (The road to this former institute is still known as Lumumba Drive). On the face of it, the college was a training ground for Kanu cadres but clandestinely a plot to infiltrate the party with socialists.

The amount of money transferred via this account might never be known but between February and December 1962, the account had received £62,400 (about Sh8.1 million at the current exchange rates).

The first entry into the account in the Bank of India Ltd, 17 Moorgate, London EC2, was £15,000 dated February 1962 at the time when Kenyatta and Jaramogi were in London for the second Lancaster Conference.

The fact that this money was in a suspense account means that the two operated another account in the London bank, perhaps with much more money than indicated in the statement.

There is little in the public domain about this account and we could not verify what happened to it after they fell out over land, socialism, and as the Kenyatta succession struggles started within Kanu.

The only thing we know is that part of that cash found its way to the building of Lumumba Institute, a thorny project that saw the final fallout between Jaramogi, Tom Mboya and to a greater extent – Kenyatta. Interestingly, Jaramogi had registered the title to the property in his name although it had been built with donations from Kanu activists and “friendly” countries.

In his book, Not Yet Uhuru, published in 1967, and written before controversy over the ownership of the institute started, Jaramogi states that the “institute was made possible by aid from socialist countries”.

On December 12, 1964, as a new republic was born, Kenyatta and Jaramogi, who had just been appointed Vice-President, officially opened the institute.

To Kenyatta, Lumumba Institute, named after Congo’s Prime Minister who was assassinated by the CIA, was a dream come true for the ruling party Kanu. The party,  he thought, would now have a base to train its members, activists and youth wingers. He said as much at the opening ceremony.

But Jaramogi and his socialist allies had other ideas. It was a plan to take over Kanu.

Initially the institute was to admit 108 students — mainly Kanu leaders at the district level, but all that was left to Jaramogi. As Kenyatta and his advisers were to later realise, that was a major blunder. The building of the institute was also kept secret lest the inquisitive Governor-General Malcolm McDonald got wind of it.

McDonald, previously the colonial Governor, had been retained by the British government in Kenya to oversee Kenyatta’s take-over of power. (He went on to become the first British High Commissioner to Kenya.)

It was this transition that would spoil the relationship between Kenyatta and Jaramogi and which gave the Lumumba Institute the initial spark.

The main question that separated politics in Kenya was what to do with the land previously held by white farmers. While Jaramogi believed that land was a free entitlement, Kenyatta was for a market economy: willing-buyer, willing-seller policy that was agreed during the Lancaster Conference as part of the independence deal.

During the first Lancaster negotiations (Kenyatta was still in restriction), Kanu leader James Gichuru and Secretary-General Tom Mboya emerged as the key pillars of the party, eclipsing Jaramogi who was busy cultivating relations with the Eastern bloc.

To outfox both Mboya and Gichuru, Jaramogi became one of the strongest pro-Kenyatta campaigners fervently demanding his release from restriction, a position that endeared him to Kenyatta. Clandestinely, the British made sure that he did not make it to the June 1963 Cabinet though Kenyatta had been expected to name him as  a deputy prime minister.

“My exclusion from the Cabinet was interpreted by the people as a surrender to the British government ... a betrayal of the struggle,” says Jaramogi in his autobiography.

Jaramogi was assigned the task of building Kanu and it was during this period that the idea of Lumumba Institute was hatched. How Jaramogi managed to convince Kenyatta to approve the Lumumba Institute even today remains unanswered. But Kenyatta had lots of trust in him in the earlier years before they disagreed over the president’s push for capitalism.

At the institute, Jaramogi had brought two Russian “instructors”— Mr Alexei Zdravomyslova and Mr Andrei Bogdanov — to teach “principles of socialism”, the Leninist art of political action.

Donations to the institute had started to flow in from Eastern Europe. On March 4, 1965, Jaramogi was photographed receiving books, blankets and two cinema vans, among other items, from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany and China at the institute.

It was Mboya who started the war on the institute in Parliament after he was briefed about its activities by US Ambassador William Atwood. After killing Lumumba and installing Mobutu Sese Seko in Kinshasa, an institution in Africa in Lumumba’s honour was anathema to Washington.

Mboya told a stunned House that he was worried because the institute was producing two categories of politicians. “There are those who wish to give the impression that the institute is the only place where true nationalists reside. There are those who wish the institute to be regarded as a den where revolution is cooked, where subversion is discussed, where communism is promoted and dished out. Both these images are wrong.”

In order to water down the workings of Lumumba Institute, Narok East MP Justus ole Tipis moved a motion for the Ministry of Education to take over the institute and vet the curriculum.

Tipis told the House that his intention was to “repair any damage which has been done as far as the management and the running of this institute since it was established before the damage has gone beyond repair.”

But even before the motion had been disposed of, the students at Lumumba Institute called a press conference and rubbished Tipis and his efforts. They apparently played into the hands of capitalists.

Home Affairs minister Daniel arap Moi described the students’ statement as “the worst ever to come from a Kenyan institution”.   He claimed that the institute was infiltrated by a clique of “professional instigators”.

When former Kadu president Ronald Ngala, then Kilifi South MP, demanded its closure, Jaramogi’s loyal lieutenant, Mr Luke Obok, reacted: “If Mr Ngala is upset by the presence of some Russian teachers on the staff of the institute, as a good nationalist, he should also demand and agitate for the nationalisation of several other institutions in Kenya which are run and controlled by Americans, the British, Germans and Israelis”.

Although Mboya never mentioned Jaramogi by name, he told Parliament it was “bad” that “someone should begin to transform the institute into a place where party officials and organisers began to think they were a class above others the moment they took studies there, thus departing from the policies of Kanu, its manifesto and its leaders.”

The motion by Tipis was passed and Lumumba Institute was to be registered under the Ministry of Education and its syllabus vetted.  The institute was shut down and the foreign teachers deported. But not before the students staged the last fight.

To forestall the changes, the students and teachers, led by deputy principal Wanguhu Ng’ang’a and student leader David Munyendo, on July 16, 1965, staged a “coup” at the Kanu headquarters, then on Nairobi’s Mfangano Street, and ostensibly “removed” the entire Kanu leadership apart from Kenyatta and Jaramogi claiming that the party had failed to conduct a national election. They were all arrested and Attorney-General Charles Njonjo personally prosecuted the case.

Njonjo told the court that the 26 men and one woman before the court were “calling themselves Kanu chairmen and secretaries” and that they had “broken” into Kanu headquarters” with instructions from a mastermind”. Although Njonjo did not name Jaramogi, it was obvious who he was referring to.

“It is time people learned there is a Constitution in Kenya to be followed and not behave like thugs and irresponsible people,” said Njonjo.

They were found guilty and Ng’ang’a and Munyendo were jailed for 18 months at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, while others got one year’s jail term. By the time the first group was released, Jaramogi had already left Kanu and formed the Kenya People’s Union.

Lumumba Institute was now overgrown with grass and rotting. Jaramogi would stage yet another fight to sell it claiming it was his property. Kenyatta at first refused, but Odinga still had the title deed. Finally, after a battle that lasted several years and a detention of his close allies, Jaramogi was allowed to transfer the property.

Today, it houses the Pan African University.

Besides Kaggia, who was chairman of the board, others members  included Pinto, Aneko, Othieno, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, F. Oluande, Paul Ngei and Joseph Murumbi.

Apart from Ngei and Karumba,  all the others were socialist sympathisers.

- Daily Nation

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