James Orengo: The making of a firebrand opposition politician

Siaya Senator James Orengo. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • At the moment, Mr Orengo doesn’t want to politically overrun Mr Odinga.
  • Mr Orengo is emerging as its face – and it seems we have not seen the last of Jimmy.

The evergreen James Orengo is a Jacobin – the new face of resistance, master of rhetoric and ad hominem attacks.

Of all the firebrands of the 1970s and 1980s, only Mr Orengo is still in the political podium.

He still projects great confidence and consistency, and if Raila Odinga ever exits the political stage – the man to watch will be Jimmy, as he is fondly known in the inner circles.

RESISTANCE

Perhaps because of his near-fall from national politics in 2002, when he vied for presidency and received a paltry 24,000 votes, Mr Orengo now skillfully utilises ad populum arguments which appeal to his listeners and loves to wave the index finger as he speaks to the public.

Of late he has adopted the clenched fist as a new gesture – taking hue from other resistance movements that have used the symbol throughout history to denote militance and rebellion.

It is also the symbol of Mr Odinga’s new outfit, the National Resistance Movement.

That Mr Orengo is a brilliant lawyer and debater is not in doubt. That he is eclipsing other principals, apart from Mr Odinga, is not in question. But where he will take his newly found clout and how he will survive the skullduggery of party politics remains his next battle. 

So far, he is the king of demos, the legal adviser to Nasa and perhaps the most important driver of the opposition agenda.

At the moment, Mr Orengo doesn’t want to politically overrun Mr Odinga after the botched 2002 attempt, and has become his fervent supporter. 

CABINET

The two have come from far ever since Mr Odinga in 1980 convinced his father, the former Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, to throw his weight behind Mr Orengo, a former University of Nairobi student leader, who was vying for the Ugenya seat against Mathews Ogutu former minister in Jomo Kenyatta cabinet.

At only 29, Mr Orengo fought stiff opposition with support of Jaramogi.

Mr Orengo’s entry into Parliament coincided with the days of the Moi terror and he had to get into trouble soon.

At one point, as Mr Orengo was about to move a motion to have workers get a five per cent bonus of the profits made by a company, the powerful Charles Njonjo entered into the chambers, Mr Orengo remarked: “The honourable Member for Kikuyu has just come in and I almost thought I was seeing the Queen’s butler walking into the House.”

Then an infuriated Njonjo pointed at Mr Orengo: “What did he say?”
Mr Orengo ignored him and continued with his motion and after a few minutes, he again – out of the blues – remarked that Mr Njonjo “dresses like the Queen’s Butler.”

Mr Njonjo stood up: “Mr Speaker this is the second time we are hearing that stupid word and this honourable member is using. If (Mr Orengo) has nothing to say, he should leave me out of the discussion.”

WITHDRAW

But it seemed that Mr Orengo had a bone to pick with Mr Njonjo after he was forced to withdraw the reference: “Last week, some members here were called “bearded sisters” which is clearly offensive, very provocative and we did not rise up to say that that was very offensive.

I am trying to show the honourable member that I like the way he has dressed. Today, I have copied him.

I am looking like the Queen’s Butler so that if I went to look for a job in Buckingham Palace, I would get it.”

That was classic Mr Orengo in April 1982 – and the payback was to come soon.

A few weeks later Mr Orengo was arrested and charged with forgery, uttering false cheques and stealing client’s money. Also his passport was seized by immigration officials together with that of Wundanyi MP Mwashengu wa Mwachofi, the MP for Kitutu East Abuya Abuya and the MP for Kilifi South Chibule wa Tsuma.

Mr Orengo was taken to then Nairobi Magistrate Abdul Rauf and was released on bond after two Nairobi lawyers Kasanga Mulwa (later Makueni MP) and a Mr Kibet Saina Tengekyon stood surety for him for Sh50,000 each promising that Mr Orengo would attend court.

NELSON MANDELA

He didn’t. Instead, Mr Orengo fled to exile and abandoned his parliamentary seat.
Mr Orengo had followed into Tanzania Mrs Chelagat Mutai, another firebrand who had abandoned her seat in October 1981 after she was accused of making false mileage claims totaling Sh69,000 – which was common then (and even today!)

By then Tanzania had closed its border with Kenya and was the bastion of revolutionary movements in the region.

Among the groups based there was Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, Guyana’s Walter Rodney who was teaching history at the University of Dar es Salaam and was also the military training base for Sam Nujoma’s South West Africa People’s Organisation, the guerilla movement that fought for Namibia’s independence from South Africa. Besides, these groups, the University of Dar es Salaam was also the base of revolutionaries, thinkers and Marxists and was the safe haven for tens of left-wing student leaders who found solace in Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania.

The disappearance of Mr Orengo into exile coincided with the time that Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni was staging armed struggle inside Luwero Triangle – thanks to the support he had received from Libya.

Whether this shocked the Moi regime is not clear but that his passport had already been seized during that period is today an indicator that the system wanted to contain him in Kenya.

Nothing was heard of Orengo until it emerged later that he was in Tanzania going by pseudo name Aggrey Oduori Kenga.

COUP

There were reports then that he had also gone to Zimbabwe or had travelled to Libya.
In a 2011 interview transcript held at the Library of Congress, Mr Orengo reveals his movement: “I went to Uganda and was out there for a month. Then I went to Tanzania and stayed some time. I went to Zimbabwe. When I came back to Tanzania, I wanted to do a post-graduate in the University of Dar es Salaam. And there had been a coup attempt in Tanzania. ... but because the coup plotters in Tanzania ran to Kenya, Kenya now found a basis for trying to talk with the Tanzanian government to exchange the exiles. And that’s what happened to me: we were exchanged and I was brought [to Nairobi] where I was detained for six months in 1983.

Shortly after the abortive 1982 coup in Kenya, the ring leaders, Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka and Pancreas Okumu had fled to Tanzania and Nyerere refused to hand them over to Kenya.

It was not until some renegade soldiers attempted to overthrow Nyerere in January 1983 and later fled to Kenya that he agreed to exchange the coup leaders and those exiled in Tanzania.

Mr Orengo was one of them.

It was Mr Orengo who took the government to court in 1990 when then Registrar of Societies Joseph King’arui turned down an application by king of 0pposition politics Jaramogi Oginga to register the National Democratic Party.

Unknown to many, it was also Mr Orengo who conceptualised the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford).

BANNED

Even when President Moi banned a Ford rally scheduled for November 19, 1991 at the Kamukunji grounds, it was Mr Orengo with Masinde Muliro, Phillip Gachoka and Martin Shikuku who managed to drive to the edge of the stadium where they were arrested.

But Ford did not survive as the ambitions of Jaramogi and those of Mr Kenneth Matiba damaged a formidable group that could have easily swept away Kanu from power. 

The split of Ford into Muthithi and Agip House factions and their subsequent loss to President Moi also saw internal feud rock the opposition as bribes were dangled and received.

When Jaramogi’s Ford Kenya fell to this trap and took Sh2 million (some say Sh20 million) bribe from the architect of Goldenberg scandal Kamlesh Pattni, the Young Turks protested and left. 

But Mr Orengo decided to fight from within as Paul Muite, Gitobu Imanyara and Kiraitu Murungi left.

Mr Moi had also tried to trick Jaramogi into a co-operation. But this was brought to a halt by Jaramogi’s death and subsequent speech by Mr Orengo.

JARAMOGI

It was at the burial of Jaramogi that Mr Orengo eulogised the late Jaramogi and directed his attack to President Moi who was present: “Woe unto you hypocrites! Yes, I say again, woe unto you hypocrites, who tortured and detained this great man, and now come here in false praise of his greatness.

For many vilified him, abused him, scorned him, called him senile, called him blind, and now, for the past fortnight since Jaramogi died, have sung his praises, expressing false grief.”

President Moi, who used to deride Jaramogi as blind was not amused as Mr Orengo twisted the knife deeper: “Hypocrites are forever the swine of human civilisation. The Pharisees and high priests of Kenya’s politics are men without principle and without vision.”

Irked Kanu mandarins threatened Mr Orengo with death as his speech became the talk of town. In Kericho, a few days later, Mr Moi said: “I will not accept to be abused and I will not co-operate with them.”

And that is how Mr Orengo ended the dalliance between Ford-Kenya and Kanu.

While his focus was to take over the Ford-Kenya leadership and eclipse Mr Odinga, who was then a director of elections, he miscalculated.

AMBITION

Mr Orengo sided with Kijana Wamalwa to contain Mr Odinga’s ambition to lead his father’s party and actually beat him, 61 votes to 59,  in the race for Vice Chairman. 

Mr Odinga now decided to target Mr Wamalwa for removal as chairman accusing him of impropriety in tabling of a parliamentary report that had absolved the architects of Goldenberg scandal. 

The target was both Mr Wamalwa and Mr Orengo and as divisions increased within the party, Mr Odinga left and joined National Development Party of Stephen Oludhe who – as Mr Odinga says in his book – had asked for Sh500,000, a free nomination and Raila’s old Mercedes Benz.

While Mr Odinga managed to build a formidable NDP taking over most seats in Nyanza, Mr Orengo survived and won his 1997 seat on a Ford-Kenya ticket.

He then staged a larger battle that brought together the likes of Prof Anyang Nyong’o who had formed the Social Democratic Party (SDP) – which was more of a leftist party.

SDP had in 1997 fielded Charity Ngilu as its presidential candidate and Prof Nyong’o’s attempt to break Odinga family’s domination of Nyanza politics saw him lose the Kisumu Rural seat. 

In 2002, it was Mr Orengo’s turn and his hopes for presidency as an SDP candidate against Mwai Kibaki threw him into the cold for five years.

His return to become Mr Odinga’s most virulent supporter is mostly borne of his survival as a politician – and realisation that in politics you have to employ Machiavellian tactics.

For that, he became the Minister for Lands in the coalition government that followed the 2007 post-election violence.

He has been blamed for illegal allocations of land in Lamu and was questioned by CID.

Of late, as the National Resistance Movement takes shape, Mr Orengo is emerging as its face – and it seems we have not seen the last of Jimmy.

[email protected] @johnkamau1