Post by Onyango Oloo on Jul 16, 2014 16:33:03 GMT 3
A Tribute by one of his revolutionary students, Onyango Oloo
Nairobi, 16:33 July 16, 2014
Veteran Kenyan progressive democrat and patriot
Dr. Adhu Awiti has passed on after a lengthy tussle with prostate cancer. His death has been covered by the
Daily Nation, the Standard, Capital FM and other media outlets.
The last time I saw Dr. Adhu Awiti alive was at the United Kenya Club,located around the main campus of the University of Nairobi. I was having a quiet drink while waiting to meet a very good friend of mine-a prominent scientist who is one of the regular contributors to the Jukwaa online discussion platform. Dr. Awiti stopped by to greet me. He told me he had a rendezvous with Dr. Oburu Oginga. This was a few days after the infamous
Men in Black episode which disrupted the ODM elections in early March this year. Dr. Awiti was his usual amiable and affable self. When I got to know, about three weeks ago, that Mzee Adhu has been suffering with a terminal illness I marveled at his remarkable courage under such arduous odds.
In a certain sense, for ME, Dr. Awiti has died TWICE this month. A fortnight ago Prof. Larry Gumbe, David Anyona, Onyango Oloo and a handful of colleagues "mourned" Dr. Awiti for approximately FIVE HOURS following a text message doing the rounds about the death of a Dr. Awiti from Karachuonyo. It turned out that there was indeed a Dr. Awiti who had rejoined the ancestors. And the Dr. Awiti who had died was from Karachuonyo in Homa Bay County.
But this Dr. Awiti was an economist and senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi who happened to be a sibling of Cyprian Awiti, the Governor. The well loved academic was showered with glowing eulogies and had a massive well attended send off last weekend in Karachuonyo at approximately the same time that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was attending the funeral of his mother in law in Uriri.
That is why, when I received news of Dr. Adhu Awiti's passing last night it was a bit like déjà vu; making me scratch my head uneasily wondering whether I had received a premonition. Confusing and conflicting thoughts for someone like me, a practising historical materialist.
But I digress.
I first met Adhu Awiti almost THIRTY YEARS AGO-in 1986 to be precise.
He had just arrived at the Kamiti Maximum Prison as the latest installment of freedom fighters railroaded by the Moi-Chunga Kangaroo Courts on trumped charges as a member of the Mwakenya underground.
To be sure, Dr. Adhu Awiti was not entirely above suspicion of having revolutionary credentials.
The scholar activist TAUGHT Yoweri Museveni at the University of Dar es Salaam in the early 1970s. Adhu was later to provide a safe house in Kenya for Museveni and his NRM comrades during the Ugandan clandestine/guerrilla campaign in the early 1980s.
Those were the days when the current Ugandan dictator and de facto Life President was still a "comrade" spouting a lutta continua and other militant salutations.
Oh, how times change!
From what Adhu himself shared with me in Block B at Kamiti Maximum in 1986, the former Karachuonyo MP was one of the pioneer members of the underground Marxist-Leninist group December 12 Movement when it was founded in the early 1970s working closely with Kenyan revolutionaries like Edward Oyugi, Kamoji Wachira, Maina wa Kinyatti, Willy Mutunga, Alamin Mazrui and others.
This account is corroborated in the 440 Pages long Mwakenya:The Unfinished Revolution-Selected Documents of the Mwakenya-December Twelve Movement (1974-2002)
compiled and edited by Maina wa Kinyatti and published by the Mau Mau Research Center in Februay 2014.
In the late 1980s Kenyans like Adong'o Ogony, the late Kaara Macharia, Onyango Oloo, Mwandawiro Mghanga and Omondi K'abir formed a socialist clandestine group in Dar es Salaam called the Me Katilili Revolutionary Movement. In December 1989, after a secret meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, Me Katilili aka MEKAREMO merged with another, Harare based formation called the Kenya Anti-Imperialist Front whose leading lights were Professor Micere Mugo and Dr. Shadrack Gutto to form UWAKE. Sometime in the early 1990s UWAKE chose Dr.Adhu Awiti to be one of the Co-Chairs of UWAKE. He was exiled in the Netherlands at the time but was a frequent visitor to Uganda where his former student, Yoweri Museveni was now the President. Comrade Adhu later on arranged for some select members of UWAKE to receive military training in Uganda and elsewhere with the express purpose of OVERTHROWING the corrupt one party Moi-KANU dictatorship.
But by this time, the democratic upsurge in Kenya had burst to the surface thanks to the efforts of stalwarts like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku, George Nthenge, Timothy Njoya, Bishop Henry Okullu, Charles Rubia, Kenneth Matiba, George Anyona, Mtumishi Kathangu, Alexander Muge, David Gitari, James Orengo, Wamalwa Kijana, Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, Gitobu Imanyara, Pius Nyamora, Phoebe Asiyo, Njeri Kabeberi, Wangari Maathai, Agnes Ndetei, Kathini Maloba, Zarina Patel, Bedan Mbugua and others. With the repeal of Section 2A reintroducing formal multi-party politics, the original Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) became the focal point of the demand for popular change.
Dr. Adhu Awiti, along with dozens of formerly underground comrades like Professor Ngotho Kariuki, Professor Edward Oyugi, Dr. Odhiambo Olel, Oduor Ong'wen to cite just a few, became part of the ideological nucleus churning out position papers, and contributing to strategy and tactics for the fledgling OVERT, anti-KANU FORD led opposition.
After the unfortunate split in FORD, Dr. Adhu Awiti followed the doyen of Kenyan politics, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga into FORD-Kenya.
During the inaugural multi-party general elections of 1992, Dr. Adhu Awiti was one of the chief campaigners for Mrs. Phoebe Asiyo who eventually trounced the former KANU big wig, Okiki Amayo to clinch the Karachuonyo seat.
When Raila Odinga decamped from FORD-Kenya to launch the NDP in 1996, Adhu Awiti was one of the founder members and leading lights of the new party which soon became dominant in Nyanza and made a commendable showing when Raila Odinga first ran for President in 1997.
Adhu Awiti later on defeated his former MP and confidant, Mrs. Phoebe Asiyo who had first been elected in 1979 on a KANU ticket. This was at the 1997 parliamentary elections when Adhu ran on an NDP ticket. Dr. Awiti was re-elected in 2002, this time as a NARC candidate.
But his fortunes changed in 2007 when a newcomer, the engineer James Rege, returned from a long sojourn in the United States to be elected the new MP for Karachuonyo on an ODM ticket. Adhu's luck was no better in 2013 when the incumbent Engineer Rege won during the ODM primaries in a controversial and hotly contested nomination race marred with violence in Adiedo and throughout the constituency.
Even though he lost, Adhu Awiti remained a loyal member of ODM, and later on CORD until the day of his death.
I did lock horns publicly, ONCE- way back in 2001 when he joined the Moi-KANU cabinet as Minister for Planning. Here is the missive I dispatched to Dr. Adhu Awiti in Nairobi from my lair in Montreal, Quebec:
Here is an interesting factoid that I dug up on the internet.
Almost exactly THIRTY THREE YEARS to the day of his death, Adhu Awiti dropped his Christian name Paul formally be a deed poll.
You can see this by clicking on the following link to a Kenya Gazette notice published on July 17, 1981. Check Gazette Notice 2206 on Page 956:
books.google.co.ke/books?id=YJZh065pYI8C&pg=PT1&dq=Adhu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zbW3U-2LNc-V7AbV8IHYCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Adhu&f=false
We will always remember you, Comrade Adhu Awiti.
As the South Africans say:
Hamba Kahle, Mkhulu Adhu Awiti!
Or, as some of us from the from the western part of Kenya say in our mother tongue, Dholuo:
Oriti, Jaduong' Sibuor Adhu!
Nairobi, 16:33 July 16, 2014
Veteran Kenyan progressive democrat and patriot
Dr. Adhu Awiti has passed on after a lengthy tussle with prostate cancer. His death has been covered by the
Daily Nation, the Standard, Capital FM and other media outlets.
The last time I saw Dr. Adhu Awiti alive was at the United Kenya Club,located around the main campus of the University of Nairobi. I was having a quiet drink while waiting to meet a very good friend of mine-a prominent scientist who is one of the regular contributors to the Jukwaa online discussion platform. Dr. Awiti stopped by to greet me. He told me he had a rendezvous with Dr. Oburu Oginga. This was a few days after the infamous
Men in Black episode which disrupted the ODM elections in early March this year. Dr. Awiti was his usual amiable and affable self. When I got to know, about three weeks ago, that Mzee Adhu has been suffering with a terminal illness I marveled at his remarkable courage under such arduous odds.
In a certain sense, for ME, Dr. Awiti has died TWICE this month. A fortnight ago Prof. Larry Gumbe, David Anyona, Onyango Oloo and a handful of colleagues "mourned" Dr. Awiti for approximately FIVE HOURS following a text message doing the rounds about the death of a Dr. Awiti from Karachuonyo. It turned out that there was indeed a Dr. Awiti who had rejoined the ancestors. And the Dr. Awiti who had died was from Karachuonyo in Homa Bay County.
But this Dr. Awiti was an economist and senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi who happened to be a sibling of Cyprian Awiti, the Governor. The well loved academic was showered with glowing eulogies and had a massive well attended send off last weekend in Karachuonyo at approximately the same time that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was attending the funeral of his mother in law in Uriri.
That is why, when I received news of Dr. Adhu Awiti's passing last night it was a bit like déjà vu; making me scratch my head uneasily wondering whether I had received a premonition. Confusing and conflicting thoughts for someone like me, a practising historical materialist.
But I digress.
I first met Adhu Awiti almost THIRTY YEARS AGO-in 1986 to be precise.
He had just arrived at the Kamiti Maximum Prison as the latest installment of freedom fighters railroaded by the Moi-Chunga Kangaroo Courts on trumped charges as a member of the Mwakenya underground.
To be sure, Dr. Adhu Awiti was not entirely above suspicion of having revolutionary credentials.
The scholar activist TAUGHT Yoweri Museveni at the University of Dar es Salaam in the early 1970s. Adhu was later to provide a safe house in Kenya for Museveni and his NRM comrades during the Ugandan clandestine/guerrilla campaign in the early 1980s.
Those were the days when the current Ugandan dictator and de facto Life President was still a "comrade" spouting a lutta continua and other militant salutations.
Oh, how times change!
From what Adhu himself shared with me in Block B at Kamiti Maximum in 1986, the former Karachuonyo MP was one of the pioneer members of the underground Marxist-Leninist group December 12 Movement when it was founded in the early 1970s working closely with Kenyan revolutionaries like Edward Oyugi, Kamoji Wachira, Maina wa Kinyatti, Willy Mutunga, Alamin Mazrui and others.
This account is corroborated in the 440 Pages long Mwakenya:The Unfinished Revolution-Selected Documents of the Mwakenya-December Twelve Movement (1974-2002)
compiled and edited by Maina wa Kinyatti and published by the Mau Mau Research Center in Februay 2014.
In the late 1980s Kenyans like Adong'o Ogony, the late Kaara Macharia, Onyango Oloo, Mwandawiro Mghanga and Omondi K'abir formed a socialist clandestine group in Dar es Salaam called the Me Katilili Revolutionary Movement. In December 1989, after a secret meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, Me Katilili aka MEKAREMO merged with another, Harare based formation called the Kenya Anti-Imperialist Front whose leading lights were Professor Micere Mugo and Dr. Shadrack Gutto to form UWAKE. Sometime in the early 1990s UWAKE chose Dr.Adhu Awiti to be one of the Co-Chairs of UWAKE. He was exiled in the Netherlands at the time but was a frequent visitor to Uganda where his former student, Yoweri Museveni was now the President. Comrade Adhu later on arranged for some select members of UWAKE to receive military training in Uganda and elsewhere with the express purpose of OVERTHROWING the corrupt one party Moi-KANU dictatorship.
But by this time, the democratic upsurge in Kenya had burst to the surface thanks to the efforts of stalwarts like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku, George Nthenge, Timothy Njoya, Bishop Henry Okullu, Charles Rubia, Kenneth Matiba, George Anyona, Mtumishi Kathangu, Alexander Muge, David Gitari, James Orengo, Wamalwa Kijana, Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, Gitobu Imanyara, Pius Nyamora, Phoebe Asiyo, Njeri Kabeberi, Wangari Maathai, Agnes Ndetei, Kathini Maloba, Zarina Patel, Bedan Mbugua and others. With the repeal of Section 2A reintroducing formal multi-party politics, the original Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) became the focal point of the demand for popular change.
Dr. Adhu Awiti, along with dozens of formerly underground comrades like Professor Ngotho Kariuki, Professor Edward Oyugi, Dr. Odhiambo Olel, Oduor Ong'wen to cite just a few, became part of the ideological nucleus churning out position papers, and contributing to strategy and tactics for the fledgling OVERT, anti-KANU FORD led opposition.
After the unfortunate split in FORD, Dr. Adhu Awiti followed the doyen of Kenyan politics, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga into FORD-Kenya.
During the inaugural multi-party general elections of 1992, Dr. Adhu Awiti was one of the chief campaigners for Mrs. Phoebe Asiyo who eventually trounced the former KANU big wig, Okiki Amayo to clinch the Karachuonyo seat.
When Raila Odinga decamped from FORD-Kenya to launch the NDP in 1996, Adhu Awiti was one of the founder members and leading lights of the new party which soon became dominant in Nyanza and made a commendable showing when Raila Odinga first ran for President in 1997.
Adhu Awiti later on defeated his former MP and confidant, Mrs. Phoebe Asiyo who had first been elected in 1979 on a KANU ticket. This was at the 1997 parliamentary elections when Adhu ran on an NDP ticket. Dr. Awiti was re-elected in 2002, this time as a NARC candidate.
But his fortunes changed in 2007 when a newcomer, the engineer James Rege, returned from a long sojourn in the United States to be elected the new MP for Karachuonyo on an ODM ticket. Adhu's luck was no better in 2013 when the incumbent Engineer Rege won during the ODM primaries in a controversial and hotly contested nomination race marred with violence in Adiedo and throughout the constituency.
Even though he lost, Adhu Awiti remained a loyal member of ODM, and later on CORD until the day of his death.
I did lock horns publicly, ONCE- way back in 2001 when he joined the Moi-KANU cabinet as Minister for Planning. Here is the missive I dispatched to Dr. Adhu Awiti in Nairobi from my lair in Montreal, Quebec:
From: onyango_oloo@canada.com
Date: Fri Jul 13, 2001 3:40 am
Subject: OPEN LETTER TO DR. ADHU AWITI
OPEN LETTER TO DR. ADHU AWITI
Dear Dr. Awiti:
Greetings from Montreal, Quebec!
This is Onyango Oloo.
I do not know if you remember me:
Way back in the late 1980s, we were fellow political prisoners and
socialist comrades discussing revolutionary change in the dungeons of
Kamiti.
We had a lot in common: like hundreds of democracy loving
Kenyan patriots, we had been thrown unceremoniously into the maximum
penitentiaries by robotic magistrates acting at the behest of the
dreaded Special Branch and the KANU ruling clique.
I remember how optimistic we felt then: in spite of our incarceration
we held on to the stubborn hope that peaceful, democratic and
egalitarian waves would one day wash over the Moi's one-party
dictatorship to welcome a new era of clean and just rule in our oft-
tortured motherland. Even as we received news of fellow prisoners
dying because of abuse, neglect and disease, we held on to our vision
of a new Kenya that would one day surely emerge....
Ah! Those were the days of daily political classes and discussion
groups on Kenya's history; those were the days that your brilliant
economist's mind help to decipher, from a Marxist-Leninist
perspective the class cleavages in neo-colonial Kenya and your
veteran's touch in grassroots political organizing help to point the
way for progressive strategies and tactics.
Do you recall how we shuddered with disgust when we analyzed and
condemned former colleagues who had opted to shave their beards and
burn their books to escape the police dragnets? Remember how we
lampooned my namesake Aringo's court poetry?
Long before Rubia and Matiba, we-and I use that collective pronoun to
refer to people like yourself, Maina wa Kinyatti, Mwandawiro Mghanga,
Oginga Ogego, myself and a bunch of radical ex-Air Force service men
and politically conscious social prisoners- we were reflecting,
agitating, demanding and fighting for multi-party democracy even
though we were behind bars, even though the Moi-KANU dictatorship had
consigned us to Shimo-la-Tewa, Naivasha, Kodiaga, etc to waste away
and perish in oblivion.
I still recall how we all used to support each other; how we would
share the exciting novels, magazines and pamphlets that were smuggled
in by our courageous contacts from the outside; I still recall how we
sent letters to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Kim Chi
Ha, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others; and how we
cheered silently every time one of us "toboad", in other words
finished their sentence and went back to "raia" the outside world..
Then all of a sudden I left you guys at Kamiti on May 11, 1987.
Thanks to Amnesty International and courageous lawyers like Kiraitu
Murungi, I was able to successfully sue the Government of Kenya for
false imprisonment. We all know how the Kenya Court of Appeal ordered
my release on May 8, 1987 and how I was not informed until days
later. And as we all know, that was not just an individual victory
for Onyango Oloo: thanks to that land-mark ruling on remission,
hundreds of other political prisoners were also released between 1987
and 1989.
Later on I was glad to hear, while I was already an exile in
Tanzania, that you too had been released. It was not long before you,
Mwandawiro, Maina wa Kinyatti and others that we both know and do not
to mention publicly had to hastily follow in the nyayos of others
like Ngugi wa Thiongo, Shadrack Gutto, Micere Mugo, Wangondu wa
Kariuki, Adongo Ogony and countless patriots who were forced to seek
asylum in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, England,
the United States and Canada.
Even though those historical texts have not been officially
published, you and I and several others are aware of the modest but
sterling role that Kenyans with an anti-imperialist political
consciousness did inside and outside the country in the late 1980s
and early 1990s to help usher in the constitutional reforms that
presaged the resumption of official multi-party politics in Kenya. We
know that you, Dr. Awiti was a key part in those progressive
endeavours.
Since this, is, in a very literal sense a very public document I will
omit the details of all that transpired quietly within the various
groupings of Kenyans abroad who were forced, during those dark days
to operate clandestinely within the context of underground democracy
seeking formations. All I can say is that I am glad that there were
seasoned people like yourself to guide younger activists like myself
and others in finding themselves politically.
In the meantime, life intervened. After a brief sojourn in the
Netherlands you returned home to do some important work in helping to
solidify the grassroots structures in the original FORD. Later on you
rose to be one of key architects and main ideologues in the fast-
growing National Development Party.
Today you are the Minister for Economic Planning in the KANU/NDP
Coalition Government.
How times have changed! A lot can happen in a short decade!
To be quite honest, I do not know whether to congratulate you or
castigate you.
On the one hand I know that Moi's government now has one of the most
intelligent, hard-working, generous and grassroots minded ministers
in your person. A mutual friend who was recently home told me a
couple of weeks ago that you are so close to your constituents in
Karachuonyo that you refuse to have a house in Nairobi. Instead, he
told me, you rent a small servant's quarters that you stay in when
you are in the capital on parliamentary business and take off for
western Kenya every weekend to be with those who sent you to the
National Assembly. To what extent this is true I can not attest, and
in any case, I hardly think that you can continue hosting receptions
for visiting dignitaries in your fabled former abode.
In any case, why am I writing to you today?
For a couple of reasons. In the first place it is a long time since
we were in touch. In the second place I do not know if you got the
salaams I sent to you, Ogego and other friends in the NDP through
Raila when he was last here in North America in August of 2000.
Apart from those personal reasons, I have four political concerns.
1. How do you reconcile our collective past history of progressive
political struggles with your current role in the government of
Daniel arap Moi who once railroaded you and other innocent Kenyans to
prison after hastily arranged kangaroo trials?
2. What did you think of the recent hooligans aided and abetted by the Kenya police who
attacked Orengo, Mathaai, Kibwana and other activists after giving
the official go-ahead to organize the Saba Saba rally a few days ago?
3. Do you personally support the recent undemocratic call by Otieno
Kajwang to prolong the life of the current parliament?
4. In the light of recent calls by Raila Odinga regarding the
importation of Sudanese oil into Kenya what do you think of the
following story from this European organization(I remember you being
exiled in the Netherlands and perhaps familiar with this particular
group on the issue of Sudan, oil and human rights?
www.ms-dan.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm
Dr. Awiti, I eagerly await your response.
Sincerely,
Onyango Oloo
Montreal, Quebec
Date: Fri Jul 13, 2001 3:40 am
Subject: OPEN LETTER TO DR. ADHU AWITI
OPEN LETTER TO DR. ADHU AWITI
Dear Dr. Awiti:
Greetings from Montreal, Quebec!
This is Onyango Oloo.
I do not know if you remember me:
Way back in the late 1980s, we were fellow political prisoners and
socialist comrades discussing revolutionary change in the dungeons of
Kamiti.
We had a lot in common: like hundreds of democracy loving
Kenyan patriots, we had been thrown unceremoniously into the maximum
penitentiaries by robotic magistrates acting at the behest of the
dreaded Special Branch and the KANU ruling clique.
I remember how optimistic we felt then: in spite of our incarceration
we held on to the stubborn hope that peaceful, democratic and
egalitarian waves would one day wash over the Moi's one-party
dictatorship to welcome a new era of clean and just rule in our oft-
tortured motherland. Even as we received news of fellow prisoners
dying because of abuse, neglect and disease, we held on to our vision
of a new Kenya that would one day surely emerge....
Ah! Those were the days of daily political classes and discussion
groups on Kenya's history; those were the days that your brilliant
economist's mind help to decipher, from a Marxist-Leninist
perspective the class cleavages in neo-colonial Kenya and your
veteran's touch in grassroots political organizing help to point the
way for progressive strategies and tactics.
Do you recall how we shuddered with disgust when we analyzed and
condemned former colleagues who had opted to shave their beards and
burn their books to escape the police dragnets? Remember how we
lampooned my namesake Aringo's court poetry?
Long before Rubia and Matiba, we-and I use that collective pronoun to
refer to people like yourself, Maina wa Kinyatti, Mwandawiro Mghanga,
Oginga Ogego, myself and a bunch of radical ex-Air Force service men
and politically conscious social prisoners- we were reflecting,
agitating, demanding and fighting for multi-party democracy even
though we were behind bars, even though the Moi-KANU dictatorship had
consigned us to Shimo-la-Tewa, Naivasha, Kodiaga, etc to waste away
and perish in oblivion.
I still recall how we all used to support each other; how we would
share the exciting novels, magazines and pamphlets that were smuggled
in by our courageous contacts from the outside; I still recall how we
sent letters to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Kim Chi
Ha, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others; and how we
cheered silently every time one of us "toboad", in other words
finished their sentence and went back to "raia" the outside world..
Then all of a sudden I left you guys at Kamiti on May 11, 1987.
Thanks to Amnesty International and courageous lawyers like Kiraitu
Murungi, I was able to successfully sue the Government of Kenya for
false imprisonment. We all know how the Kenya Court of Appeal ordered
my release on May 8, 1987 and how I was not informed until days
later. And as we all know, that was not just an individual victory
for Onyango Oloo: thanks to that land-mark ruling on remission,
hundreds of other political prisoners were also released between 1987
and 1989.
Later on I was glad to hear, while I was already an exile in
Tanzania, that you too had been released. It was not long before you,
Mwandawiro, Maina wa Kinyatti and others that we both know and do not
to mention publicly had to hastily follow in the nyayos of others
like Ngugi wa Thiongo, Shadrack Gutto, Micere Mugo, Wangondu wa
Kariuki, Adongo Ogony and countless patriots who were forced to seek
asylum in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, England,
the United States and Canada.
Even though those historical texts have not been officially
published, you and I and several others are aware of the modest but
sterling role that Kenyans with an anti-imperialist political
consciousness did inside and outside the country in the late 1980s
and early 1990s to help usher in the constitutional reforms that
presaged the resumption of official multi-party politics in Kenya. We
know that you, Dr. Awiti was a key part in those progressive
endeavours.
Since this, is, in a very literal sense a very public document I will
omit the details of all that transpired quietly within the various
groupings of Kenyans abroad who were forced, during those dark days
to operate clandestinely within the context of underground democracy
seeking formations. All I can say is that I am glad that there were
seasoned people like yourself to guide younger activists like myself
and others in finding themselves politically.
In the meantime, life intervened. After a brief sojourn in the
Netherlands you returned home to do some important work in helping to
solidify the grassroots structures in the original FORD. Later on you
rose to be one of key architects and main ideologues in the fast-
growing National Development Party.
Today you are the Minister for Economic Planning in the KANU/NDP
Coalition Government.
How times have changed! A lot can happen in a short decade!
To be quite honest, I do not know whether to congratulate you or
castigate you.
On the one hand I know that Moi's government now has one of the most
intelligent, hard-working, generous and grassroots minded ministers
in your person. A mutual friend who was recently home told me a
couple of weeks ago that you are so close to your constituents in
Karachuonyo that you refuse to have a house in Nairobi. Instead, he
told me, you rent a small servant's quarters that you stay in when
you are in the capital on parliamentary business and take off for
western Kenya every weekend to be with those who sent you to the
National Assembly. To what extent this is true I can not attest, and
in any case, I hardly think that you can continue hosting receptions
for visiting dignitaries in your fabled former abode.
In any case, why am I writing to you today?
For a couple of reasons. In the first place it is a long time since
we were in touch. In the second place I do not know if you got the
salaams I sent to you, Ogego and other friends in the NDP through
Raila when he was last here in North America in August of 2000.
Apart from those personal reasons, I have four political concerns.
1. How do you reconcile our collective past history of progressive
political struggles with your current role in the government of
Daniel arap Moi who once railroaded you and other innocent Kenyans to
prison after hastily arranged kangaroo trials?
2. What did you think of the recent hooligans aided and abetted by the Kenya police who
attacked Orengo, Mathaai, Kibwana and other activists after giving
the official go-ahead to organize the Saba Saba rally a few days ago?
3. Do you personally support the recent undemocratic call by Otieno
Kajwang to prolong the life of the current parliament?
4. In the light of recent calls by Raila Odinga regarding the
importation of Sudanese oil into Kenya what do you think of the
following story from this European organization(I remember you being
exiled in the Netherlands and perhaps familiar with this particular
group on the issue of Sudan, oil and human rights?
www.ms-dan.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm
Dr. Awiti, I eagerly await your response.
Sincerely,
Onyango Oloo
Montreal, Quebec
Here is an interesting factoid that I dug up on the internet.
Almost exactly THIRTY THREE YEARS to the day of his death, Adhu Awiti dropped his Christian name Paul formally be a deed poll.
You can see this by clicking on the following link to a Kenya Gazette notice published on July 17, 1981. Check Gazette Notice 2206 on Page 956:
books.google.co.ke/books?id=YJZh065pYI8C&pg=PT1&dq=Adhu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zbW3U-2LNc-V7AbV8IHYCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Adhu&f=false
We will always remember you, Comrade Adhu Awiti.
As the South Africans say:
Hamba Kahle, Mkhulu Adhu Awiti!
Or, as some of us from the from the western part of Kenya say in our mother tongue, Dholuo:
Oriti, Jaduong' Sibuor Adhu!