Prof Ogot's quest to 'free' African history from colonial archives

In my paper, I mentioned how freedom fighters such as Ngota who was from Vihiga and worked as a driver in a European school and Abednego Mukalo, who worked as a clerk in the civil service but quietly supported Mau Mau, were arrested and detained.

After my presentation, my discussant, a lecturer at Maseno University tried to throw flak at my presentation, terming it a personal family story that did not have anything to do with Mau Mau, but I was delighted when Ogot stood up and told the lecturer that history was built from such micro-stories which fed into the meta-narratives of the bigger picture.

Ogot encouraged such stories and which gave me the license to continue my love for micro-histories as part of social history. From that point onwards, the great historian affirmed many of my presentations and I owe him great gratitude for making me a good historian. 

On November 17, 2001, I was in Houston, Texas in the US, attending the annual African Studies Association (ASA) conference when Ogot delivered the Bashorun M. K. O. Abiola Distinguished Lecture.

As he spoke, one could tell that he was in his true element as he moved carefully from one issue after another, with great dexterity and academic nimbleness that he was famous for.

He delivered the lecture at the 44th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association in Houston, Texas, which was attended by thousands of delegates.

This was one the highest points in the career of Ogot because the award is given to a senior African scholar, to present a lecture at the ASA Annual Meeting.

Ogot showed up with his wife, Grace Ogot, who was always supportive and beside him despite her busy political career as MP for Gem and Kenya’s first female assistant minister. She was Assistant Minister for Culture, Sports and Social Services. 

In Houston, the other great Kenyan historian who was seated next to me, E. S. Atieno Odhiambo whispered to me and Prof Osaak Olumullah, that without Ogot Kenyan and African history would never have been presented to the world in the manner in which it had been done.

Odhiambo attributed this success to the creative mind of Ogot and his great desire to liberate African history from the colonial archives, structures and forms.

There was evidence that many foreign scholars were not yet reconciled to the fact that oral sources were reliable instruments in reconstructing African history.

During dinner, three prominent white historians were still in doubt about the centrality of oral sources in history.

As the conference ended, and we departed to the University of Illinois where I was studying for my doctorate under a Fulbright Scholarship, my colleagues were fascinated by the intense knowledge that Ogot possessed.

I was quick to share with them the fact that it was from such great intellectual tradition that I had been brought up and nurtured at the University of Nairobi hence my great standing in graduating ahead of my class.

From the great lecture by Ogot, The African Studies Association started the ASA’s Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize which recognises the best book on East African studies published in the previous calendar year. 

Ogot was one of the most prolific writers in Kenya and Africa. He published more than 50 books. His most famous book was History of the Southern Luo: Volume I, Migration and Settlement, 1500–1900 published in 1967 and which was his flagship that launched his academic career towards professorship, and which is top-ranked in H-index on books on migration in Africa, on ResearchGate and academia.edu

His critics like Prof Ali Mazrui always teased him about volume II of his book which was apparently never published but which he made comments about from time to time.

He often said that the book was complete and only awaited release and that it covered Luos in diaspora in their various ‘Kisumu Ndogos’ and elsewhere. Until the book comes out, we shall never know what it contains. We can only speculate.

As early as 1964, Ogot edited a book titled, East Africa, Past and Present, 1964. Another famous book which he wrote with F. B. Welbourn, was titled A Place to Feel at Home, published in 1966. It was a study of two independent churches in western Kenya and which provided much background in the history of independent churches in Kenya.

My Master’s thesis was presented at the University of Nairobi and my article Drums, Flags, Uniforms, Ranks and Religious Independency: Reflections on Independent Churches in Western Kenya drew a lot of inspiration from this book.

In 1968, Ogot together with J. A. Kieran, edited Zamani: A Survey of East African History, which has been widely cited, occupying top five list of most cited books on the H-index.

The 2009 autobiography of Ogot titled My Footprints on the Sands of Time: An Autobiography is perhaps one of the best autobiographies I have read. In some ways, the book reads like volume II of the history of the Luo because in it he continues the narrative and description of how Luo clans settled around the lake region even after independence.

The books provide the reader with an opportunity to come face to face with Ogot’s writing prowess as the true scholar with a pen. The book is a great treatise in the social history of a pioneer scholar and brings to light some of the challenges that young Ogot encountered while growing up in rural Kenya and some of the challenges he had to overcome to become the great scholar that he was.

The other book Ogot wrote is titled Liberty or Death: Southern Sudan’s March to Independence and fronts the dilemma of African states which create oppositional binaries and tensions as soon as they become independent.

Prof Amutabi is the director, the Centre for Science, Technology and Society Studies at the Technical University of Kenya.