Thread by @historykenya101

The handshake that flopped.

Did you know apart from the golden handshake between Raila Odinga & Mwai kibaki in 2008 & the March 9th 2018 handshake between Raila Odinga & Uhuru Kenyatta,there was another attempted handshake of 1978 that failed?

***thread***

After Kenya gained self rule in 1964, nobody imagined of a bitter divorce between the founding fathers of the nation Mzee jomo Kenyatta and his old friend jaramogi Oginga Odinga. The bitter fallout was caused by several factors that were precipitated by external forces.

Publicly it was known that Jomo and Oginga differed sharply on ideological differences in the line of capitalism and communism respectively. But apart from this there were deep propaganda information fed to Jomo.

The British, USA and Israeli spies fed jomo with information that Oginga was sabotaging the independent Kenyan govt. In fact at some point Oginga was accused of bringing in the country firearms from Russian govt in attempt to overthrow the govt.

The arms were "recovered" by Kenya's special branch after they were tipped by their inter' colleagues.Bare in mind that the arms were planted by the capitalist spies in order to fix Oginga against Mzee Jomo. At the end the created differences led to Oginga resignation in 1966.

What followed later was political incarceration of Oginga by the govt system. The relationship would later be worsened by the killings of lawyer Argwings Kodhek and later Tom mboya in 1969 with the icing on the cake being the kisumu massacre of Oct 25th 1969.

Fast forward to 1978, as Jomo's health was deteriorating and there was a behind the scenes scramble for the successor of Kenyatta in the event that he dies, A luo elders delegation led by the chairman of Luo East Africa Paulo Mboya, approached Mzee Jomo nephew Ngegi Muigai.

Ngegi Muigai by then was the chairman of the shipping and logistic company called McKenzie Kenya Limited.

The Luo elders Led by Paulo Mboya approached Ngegi with a rather peculiar request. Mboya told Ngegi that the Luos have tried to meet and see Jomo for long but they couldn't

They now wanted Ngegi 2 organise for a meeting with Jomo a request which Ngegi flatly refused.The elders begged Ngegi for hours but he would hear non of their pleas.Finally an elder named Mark Oduol said "we came to you like a child & U have kicked us out,so let us go back & die"

Later after they elders left,on second thought Ngegi decided to convey the message to Mzee Kenyatta who was at the time in Nakuru. On hearing that,jomo told Ngegi that the Luo elders were not interested in meeting him but bringing Jaramogi to him for a talk and he was not ready.

Mzee was not willing to meet Oginga Odinga because he believed Oginga was getting money from the communist govts to destabilise the Kenyan govt. To prove his point, mzee picked a note from his Secretary bearing an account number in which mzee alleged was used by Oginga.

But Jomo Kenyatta was in for a rude shock. Ngegi after looking keenly at the said bank account which the communist were wiring money to destabilize the govt, he realised it was an account he knew very well.

The account according to Ngegi Muigai was ran by top ranking govt officials whom he didn't mention their names but he acknowledged that he had that account number in his wallet. He told Mzee Jomo that the account did not belong to Oginga.

It was after this revelation that Mzee Jomo Kenyatta accepted to meet Oginga Odinga when he realised that for long time he had held a grudge on his old friend based on unverified information he got from Britain and USA through Bruce McKenzie who was operating from Kenya by then.

But the meeting bounced two times.

The first meeting clashed with the military pass out in Lanet.

The second meeting later failed when the meeting organisers came with a large crowd of people who Mzee could not meet because he knew he wanted a serious discussion with Oginga.

Something dramatic happened when Mzee and Oginga were finally to meet. Basically the Kenyatta's family normally meets every 14th August for the normal family gatherings. This time they were to meet in Mombasa statehouse.

While in Mombasa, Mzee Jomo told Ngegi Muigai to go report to the Luo elders and specifically Jaramogi Oginga Odinga that he was now scheduling their third meeting to be on 23rd August 1978. Ngegi left Mombasa to go report to Oginga and his Luo elders on the good news.

Unfortunately, on 22 August 1978 Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died while in Mombasa. Ngegi was later called by Mama Ngina to cancel the meeting with Oginga because one of the party was already dead. And with that death, the handshake that Kenya was to witness on 23rd Aug 1978 failed.

40 years later, the sons of the two founding fathers would later put their political differences away and surprised Kenyans with a 9th March 2018 handshake.

On whether the handshake has lived to its purpose or not is a discussion for another day.