How I pleaded with Jomo to free my father Oneko

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Dr Achieng Ongong’a. Photo/FILE 

By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com AND JULIUS SIGEI jsigei@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Friday, August 9  2013 at  22:01

There is no doubt that Dr Ongong’a Achieng’ is a chip off the old block.

His father, Ramogi Achieng Oneko was a neat man with a great appetite for designer suits.

Tall, slender, light-skinned and handsome, his peers say that Mr Oneko was spectacularly disciplined and clean. For this, he was nicknamed Nyakech Oluoro Chuodho (The-Gazelle-Who-Loathes-The-Mud).

“He taught me how to dress, talk to important people and how to eat a five-course meal so as not to embarrass him whenever we travelled abroad,” says Dr Ongong’a, an impeccable dresser.

He remembers how he helped broker the release of his father 37 years ago. Mr Oneko was serving his second stint in detention between 1969 and 1975.

Mr Oneko was first detained by the British colonial government in Kapenguria in 1952 over their association with the Mau Mau. Other members of the group, known as “Kapenguria Six” were Jomo Kenyatta, Paul Ngei, Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba and Fred Kubai. They were released in 1961, two years before Kenya gained independence.

When Kenyatta formed government in 1963, he named Oneko, who had been elected as the MP for Nakuru, the minister for Information, Broadcasting and Tourism, perhaps owing to his background as a pioneer journalist in the 1940s.

However, Oneko would later quit the Cabinet, resign from Kanu, and join Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s Kenya People’s Union party.

In 1969, Oneko’s old comrade, Kenyatta, threw him into detention after the deadly riots in Kisumu where Jomo had gone to open the Nyanza Provincial General Hospital — nicknamed ‘Russia’ because it was built with the help of the Russians with whom Jaramogi had, by then, very strong associations.

But, Dr Achieng’ says, despite political differences between Jomo and Oneko, the bond that was forged by the two patriarchs in the 1940s, culminating in their detention at Kapenguria in 1952, was never really broken.

“In 2002, my father told Mwai Kibaki that, in spite of their friendship, he would support Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential bid because of his (Oneko’s) past relationship with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.”

So, on his return from Europe in 1975, Dr Achieng’ decided to approach Margaret Kenyatta, who was by then the mayor of Nairobi, in her office.

“I told her to ask her father to release my father. I told her that my family was suffering due to mzee’s detention,” he recalls.

Margaret then called her father. “Ongong’a is here and wants to talk to you.”

She put Dr Achieng’ on phone to speak with the President who asked the young man to write to him about his grievances as well as those of his mother, Jedidah.

The two wrote to President Kenyatta asking him to release his former comrade on humanitarian grounds. Two weeks later, they received a call from State House inviting them for breakfast with the President.

While at State House, President Kenyatta told them Oneko could not be released because he had “misbehaved” by refusing to respond to a letter by the Head of State to him in detention.

“Moi is here to witness to that. He is yet to repent,” said President Kenyatta in the company of then Vice-President Daniel Moi, Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, powerful minister and Kenyatta’s personal physician Mbiyu Koinange and George Muhoho, Jomo’s brother-in-law.

All through the conversation in State House Jedidah remained apprehensive.

The two were asked to leave the room and continue their breakfast in an adjoining one.

Anxiety and confusion

There was a mixture of anxiety and confusion as mother and son took tea.

“We feared we would also be detained. What we had gone through had made us be wary of everyone, not sure of who was a friend or a foe,” says Dr Achieng’.

Then a State House orderly ushered them to a room where President Kenyatta was seated chatting with a visitor.

They were shocked to find Jomo with Oneko. Apparently after Dr Achieng’s letter, the president organised for Oneko’s release and that the State House show was meant to heighten the drama.

“Moi was instructed to ensure Mzee reached Uyoma the following day by air or land. After my father opted to use the road, we were given two vehicles and we drove home.”

Kenyatta also told Oneko to ask for anything if uncomfortable.

Dr Achieng’ had also used the opportunity of the meeting to complain to Kenyatta that he had no job despite holding a PhD in economics because everywhere he went he was seen as the son of a detainee —a pariah.

“Moi hakikisha huyu kijana amepata kazi kesho,” Kenyatta instructed his vice president and two days later Ongong’a started working as a tourist officer graduate II. This was the beginning of his journey to the helm of tourism marketing.

Even though Jaramogi was Kenyatta’s principal target of repression due to their sharp differences, he was released after only 18 months of confinement because of failing health.