The big names Kenya lost in 2025 leaving a dent in recording of the country's political history

The passing of Prof Bethwel Ogot, Raila Amollo Odinga, Dalmas Otieno, Phoebe Asiyo and Cyrus Jirongo in 2025 caused a dent in the recording of Kenya’s political history that is littered with strings of betrayal and patches of fear writes CALEB ATEMI. They all would have told about a cabal that brewed all, the one  Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano’s deported American wife Ernestine was terrified of.

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With trembling hands she pointed her finger at the TV screen. I watched as her face broke into sweat. Intense fear had suddenly gripped her.  

“Madam, is everything OK?” I asked in panic

“There they are. Some of the men who betrayed my husband and deported me from Kenya back to the US in 1966,” she said her whole body shaking. I froze when my eyes landed on the men, some I had covered during my tour of duty as a journalist.

The politicians Mrs Ernestine Kiano saw on national television left her petrified and distraught. We had to call off the interview.

The following day, we met in the same room at the Parklands Sports Club. I was documenting the story of her husband, Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano who had engaged me as his official Biographer before his demise in August 2003.

She said the men were wealthy, powerful and ruthless. “They belong to a clique that is behind almost every political assassination in Kenya. They planted greed and political betrayal in this country. I can’t say much now because I need to stay alive to keep visiting my grandchildren.”

In fear and trepidation, I recalled Ernestine’s fright when I began analysing the lives of some great men and women who died this year. Our great history Professor Bethwell Allan Ogot would have beautifully woven and knitted an essay into the narrative of fear, intimidation, betrayal, economic and political manipulation.

When Ernestine was deported, she spent 7 months at the airport in the US as the government worked on regularising her citizenship. Soon after she entered her motherland, Tom Mboya visited the US.

“I sought audience with Mboya. A young police officer warned me about my pending deportation. He also showed me a list of names of men to be assassinated because they were potential presidential material. Powerful men from Kiambu had vowed that only one of them could rule Kenya. Mboya’s name was on the hit list” she said.

When she told Mboya that his life was in danger, he smiled and said: “Mrs Kiano, you know I am just a sitting duck. These people are too powerful. If they want me they will get me.” She was devastated when Mboya was killed in July 1969. Mboya had been betrayed and eventually eliminated.

These happenings early in Kenya’s history shaped and heavily influenced the lives of men and women whose tributes I wrote this year.

Raila Amollo Odinga, Dalmas Otieno, Phoebe Asiyo and Cyrus Jirongo, all shared strings of betrayal, threads of intimidation and patches of fear. The cabal Ernestine was terrified of injected poisonous and insidious flames that continue to eat into the fabric of Kenyan anatomy.

It all began with the betrayal of real heroes who fought for independence. Some were sidelined, others eliminated and their families condemned to perpetual penury.

In 1966, when Ernestine was deported, Raila Odinga’s father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was betrayed by power barons who later eliminated Mboya. Jaramogi was forced to resign as Kenya’s first Vice President. For decades, he suffered imprisonment, detention, house arrest and economic ruin.

A time came when Jaramogi decided he had suffered enough and wanted to make peace. He struck a political cooperation deal with President Moi. His son, Raila Odinga, who suffered detention in the 80s and early 90s, also struck political deals that ensured he constantly remained at the centre of power. It is these acts that irked Dalmas Otieno.

Dalmas once said that: “Luoland is backward because leaders are busy undermining one another instead of discussing development. Nobody should lie to you or dissuade you from working closely with the Uhuru Kenyatta government." Dalmas was accused of eating with the enemy, Uhuru Kenyatta, and antagonizing the Luo community. 

He told me: “They accuse me of working with Kanu and the government and of fighting the Odinga family. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga worked with Jomo Kenyatta, save for the moment he suffered incarceration. Jomo Kenyatta even helped him set up the Odinga family gas factory. Raila Odinga was Prime Minister in the Grand Coalition government.”  

“When I chose to work with Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee government, I was fiercely opposed, fought and condemned. Then, the handshake between Raila and Uhuru happened. Was I wrong all along working with Uhuru or is it only right when it is Odinga working with the government in power? My opponents would always accuse me of being a government mole and going against the Odinga’s but the Odinga’s end up in all governments. Was Raila not a Kanu Secretary General and a Cabinet minister in the Moi government? I saw through the lie and refused to play the fool” said Dalmas.

In October 2023, I published an article in the Sunday Standard touching on Hezekiah Oyugi, former Permanent Secretary Provincial Administration and Internal Security. I argued that: “Luo leaders had to choose; to be in opposition behind former Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and remain in perpetual penury or bend over to the King and giver of power and have access to money; the President and State largesse”

I postulated that: “To keep Odinga’s power in check, Moi built an alternative power base in South Nyanza revolving around Oyugi. Through Oyugi’s patronage, prominent politicians among them James Okwanyo; Dalmas Otieno; Peter Nyakiamo; David Okiki Amayo, and Prof. Ouma Muga emerged”

Dalmas remained the Kanu point man in Luoland. He was nominated to the Cabinet twice in 1993 and 1998. He again crossed paths with the Minister for Industry and MP for Langata Raila Odinga, when Raila mobilised Luos to purchase the Kisumu Molasses Plant, which Dalmas dismissed as a White Elephant and a heap of rotten metals. 

In the 2017 general elections, Raila lost the presidential race to Uhuru Kenyatta. He however won at the Supreme Court when the court nullified the presidential vote. Raila however, boycotted the rerun and Uhuru was reelected with an unbelievable 98% of the vote. At this point, millions of his supporters rallied around him. Anyone who befriended Uhuru was branded a traitor. 

Then in March 2018, Raila and Uhuru shook hands and initiated the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI). The ‘traitors’ were vindicated. Dalmas was already at the table eating with Uhuru. In 2022, Uhuru endorsed Raila over his own deputy William Ruto, to run for the presidency.

When Ruto took oath of office in 2022, his supporters were considered Raila's enemies. In 2023, Raila led massive street protests resulting in violent and bloody battles over the high cost of living.

In June 2024, scores of youth were killed in street battles. Angry protestors were annoyed by the passing of the 2024/2025 Finance Bill. On June 25 2024, the protesters defiled Parliament by setting the Senate Chambers ablaze. The police unleashed raw brutality against them. Many were killed.

Just when Ruto's opponents thought he was fatally wounded, Raila entered the scene  with a rescue handshake, which birthed a broad-based government.   

While his supporters were digging in for a long grueling war, Raila, had held a secret meeting with Ruto in Uganda brokered by President Yoweri Museveni. Another handshake was in the offing.  

After the quiet deal Ruto led a massive continental support for Raila’s bid for the Chairmanship of the African Union Commission (AUC). Some of Raila’s ardent supporters who had hurled unprintable epithets at Ruto were thrown into confusion.

Raila’s frequent handshakes are what Dalmas dismissed as selfish, and individualistic. “He is interested purely in promoting elite power and growing family business empire. This makes his indulgence in democracy purely cosmetic” argued Dalmas.

However, the Raila-Moi cooperation in the late 1990’s to 2000, saw the tarmacking of the Kisii-Kisumu highway. Kisumu was made a city.

The port of Kisumu, which literally shut down during the Moi era, yawned its way back to life after the handshakes between Raila and Kibaki and Raila and Uhuru. A breath of life was pumped into the fresh waters of Kisumu. Uhuru, through the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF), revamped the ships and ferry that had been left to rot in the port. The fragrance of trade and tourism are now a sweet aroma in the lake region. The Kisumu International airport was expanded and modernized. The city has become one of the most attractive centre for education, research and conference tourism in Kenya.

Cyrus Jirongo too was a man seasoned in deal-making. He however, suffered betrayal of the worst kind from Kanu. Jirongo found himself; alone, cornered, cold and isolated. Moi and Kanu abandoned him despite his vicious fight for their election success in 1992.  The erstwhile Chairman of Youth for Kanu (YK92), the lobby group that helped Moi, was left staring at vicious receivers, angry liquidators, furious trustees and uncompromising judges.

Journalist Alex Chege wrote thus: “The lobby group (YK92), was inextricably tied to its flamboyant millionaire Chairman Cyrus Jirongo, now a haunted man, the victim of the very system he shouted his voice hoarse supporting in the run up to the General Election last year, the sacrificial lamb in an orgy so characteristic of the Kenyan political landscape”

Alex added: “Once the proud owner of two real estate development firms, Cypper Projects International and Sololo Outlets (now in receivership), Jirongo has watched, rather helplessly, as his empire crumbles under unceasing assault of his former friends.”

Jirongo had undertaken huge real estate and land projects, which eventually landed him into serious and major legal battles with parastatals and other state agencies. What followed were years of debt recoveries and state repossessions.

When Kanu dumped him, Jirongo started being arrested and property seized and auctioned. At one time, auctioneers cornered him at the Nairobi CBD and took away his Mercedes Benz. On Christmas Eve of 1993, Jirongo’s house in Lavington Nairobi was raided by auctioneers. They took everything leaving him only with “a wooden stool to sit on”  

Despite his great wealth, Jirongo plunged into bottomless pit of debt. His enemies were influential, powerful, dreadful and ruthless. He lived dangerously and on the edge. He had countless powerful demonic forces chasing after him.  

Betrayal

Despite supporting Raila many times, former Vice president Kalonzo Musyoka  suffered humiliation and betrayal.

Raila intimated to me that he was behind the watermelon smear campaign against Kalonzo: “In politics, we sometimes throw mud at our opponents to gain mileage. My team coined that tag and we used all means to dress Kalonzo in that garb” he told me.

He however confessed, “I have learned regrettably that we were fighting a very good man. Kalonzo is actually a great leader and has become not just my running mate but also my best friend. In him, I have found a man who believes in building loyalty and friendships.”   

Raila and Kalonzo had worked in the cabinet of President Daniel arap Moi, in different portfolios. As Kanu and Raila’s National Development Party (NDP), merged, Raila was positioning himself for the presidency.  

Raila confessed that in his bid for the presidency, he had to ensure those who would have posed great challenge were weakened and Kalonzo was one of them: “With the benefit of hindsight, if I had I not treated Kalonzo with contempt in 2007 and driven him out of my team, I would have become President of the Republic of Kenya. With the Kamba vote that went to him, even Kibaki with all his genius would not have been able to steal the vote” Raila would tell me.

In his autobiography, Against all Odds, Kalonzo says that Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi had in 2007 warned him against setting foot in Mombasa’s Tononoka grounds. The original Orange Democratic Party of Kenya, of which Kalonzo and Raila were members, had organised a campaign rally at Tonokoka. Musalia told Kalonzo there were plans to heckle and drive him out of the rally.

When it was Kalonzo’s turn to speak, a section of the crowed turned hostile. Youths started heckling him while waving wooden harmers in his face. He walked out with some of his supporters and eventually the party split into two; Orange Democratic Party (ODM), and Orange Democratic Party, Kenya (ODM-K). In the 2007 presidential race, Raila ran under the ODM umbrella while Kalonzo ran with ODM-K.

“People have accused Kalonzo of betraying me in 2007. If truth be told, I am the one who betrayed him, “said Raila.

In 2007, Raila’s popularity had grown in leaps and bounds across Kenya. No politician in Kenya’s history had ever mobilized such massive support from all corners of the republic. Every indication, from opinion polls to grassroots reports showed that he was destined to become Kenya’s third president. 

The elections happened. Remnants of the fearful men Ernestine saw were in Mwai Kibaki’s team. They stole Raila’s victory and Kibaki was hurriedly sworn in under the cover of darkness. Violence broke out across Kenya, plunging the country into its darkest chapter. More than 1,000 people were killed and over 500,000 internally displaced. The international community quickly moved in to force a truce and Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga had to share power. The Grand Coalition government was formed with Raila becoming Prime Minister.  

During the Bomas of Kenya, Constitution Review process, John Michuki, one of Kibaki’s most influential cabinet ministers, told the media that the push for constitutional reforms was purely meant to remove Moi from power. “Now that Moi is gone, we don’t need it” he said

Jaramogi, Raila, Dalmas and Jirongo had to learn and even master the art of survival. Many families had perished for playing the wrong card on the mafia table. The fear Ernestine expressed remains real. It will take time and the hand of God to extricate Kenya from the evil grip of; betrayal and political manipulation.