Jomo Kenyatta, the father of the current president, was a Kenyan freedom fighter, the living embodiment of African nationalism, and, therefore, the British colonial government’s most hated man. He spent the last decade of Kenya’s colonial rule in prison.
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the father of Raila Odinga, negotiated independence with the British. The colonial rulers wanted Mr. Odinga to lead the new Kenya, but Mr. Odinga had other ideas: He demanded Mr. Kenyatta’s freedom — and his appointment as Kenya’s first head of state.
“Kenyatta would not have been released, and he wouldn’t have been made prime minister, if it hadn’t been for Odinga’s backing,” said Daniel Branch, a professor of history at the University of Warwick and an expert on post-colonial Kenyan politics. “The two men always admired each other.”
Willy Mutunga, who was chief justice of the Supreme Court from 2011 to 2016, believes Mr. Odinga was motivated by more than mere admiration. “I think he genuinely believed that the country was going to be better off with somebody who had become a legend,” he said.
And so, in 1964, when Kenya became a republic, Jomo Kenyatta became its president, and Jaramogi Odinga vice-president.
Not long after, though, things fell apart.
The elder Mr. Kenyatta became a pro-Western capitalist, entrenching the wealth of his family and his ethnic community from his presidential perch. The elder Mr. Odinga advocated sharing state resources — especially the land the British settlers would leave behind — among Kenya’s many ethnic communities.
“There was a dramatic departure between Odinga’s father and Kenyatta’s father,” said John Githongo, a longtime civil rights activist and a former federal civil servant. “In a sense, that old fight is ongoing now.”
That fight was, and remains, partly about land, and partly about power.
Mr. Kenyatta wanted to sell the British settler lands to Kenyans of means, and to concentrate political power in the presidency.
Mr. Odinga wanted to redistribute land among those marginalized by the colonial government, and to have a decentralized power system that would allow neglected regions more autonomy and a share of the state coffers.
Many here say Mr. Kenyatta’s interests look similar to his father’s.
“Uhuru Kenyatta represents, in some respects, the continuation of an old order,” said Mr. Githongo, the civil rights activist. “And Odinga has always represented a change from that.”
Mr. Kenyatta’s family’s land holdings have ballooned, to an estimated half-million hectares, or about 10 percent of the country, and corruption in his administration is rife. His first administration decentralized some of power shored up in Nairobi, but complaints about the financial support for Kenya’s new counties are widespread.
Many say budgets are slow to come, or never appear. Concerns about the central government’s fiscal responsibility became so bad last year that the United States suspended $21 million in aid to the Ministry of Health, citing corruption and poor accounting.
Mr. Odinga’s central political argument today is that over generations, many Kenyans have been left by circumstances — their geographic location, their ethnic groups, their landlessness — on the outside of power. He speaks often of marginalization and disenfranchisement, of economic grievances and historical injustices, code words that tap into decades’ worth of disappointments and frustrations first articulated by his father.
“What has always happened is the instrumentalization of grievance,” said Patrick Gathara, a political analyst in Nairobi. “People know they’re being treated unfairly, but politicians put a veneer. They substitute their problems for the people’s problems.”
Kenya’s Political Turmoil Is a Tale of Fathers and Sons
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the father of Raila Odinga, negotiated independence with the British. The colonial rulers wanted Mr. Odinga to lead the new Kenya, but Mr. Odinga had other ideas: He demanded Mr. Kenyatta’s freedom — and his appointment as Kenya’s first head of state.
“Kenyatta would not have been released, and he wouldn’t have been made prime minister, if it hadn’t been for Odinga’s backing,” said Daniel Branch, a professor of history at the University of Warwick and an expert on post-colonial Kenyan politics. “The two men always admired each other.”
Willy Mutunga, who was chief justice of the Supreme Court from 2011 to 2016, believes Mr. Odinga was motivated by more than mere admiration. “I think he genuinely believed that the country was going to be better off with somebody who had become a legend,” he said.
And so, in 1964, when Kenya became a republic, Jomo Kenyatta became its president, and Jaramogi Odinga vice-president.
Not long after, though, things fell apart.
The elder Mr. Kenyatta became a pro-Western capitalist, entrenching the wealth of his family and his ethnic community from his presidential perch. The elder Mr. Odinga advocated sharing state resources — especially the land the British settlers would leave behind — among Kenya’s many ethnic communities.
“There was a dramatic departure between Odinga’s father and Kenyatta’s father,” said John Githongo, a longtime civil rights activist and a former federal civil servant. “In a sense, that old fight is ongoing now.”
That fight was, and remains, partly about land, and partly about power.
Mr. Kenyatta wanted to sell the British settler lands to Kenyans of means, and to concentrate political power in the presidency.
Mr. Odinga wanted to redistribute land among those marginalized by the colonial government, and to have a decentralized power system that would allow neglected regions more autonomy and a share of the state coffers.
Many here say Mr. Kenyatta’s interests look similar to his father’s.
“Uhuru Kenyatta represents, in some respects, the continuation of an old order,” said Mr. Githongo, the civil rights activist. “And Odinga has always represented a change from that.”
Mr. Kenyatta’s family’s land holdings have ballooned, to an estimated half-million hectares, or about 10 percent of the country, and corruption in his administration is rife. His first administration decentralized some of power shored up in Nairobi, but complaints about the financial support for Kenya’s new counties are widespread.
Many say budgets are slow to come, or never appear. Concerns about the central government’s fiscal responsibility became so bad last year that the United States suspended $21 million in aid to the Ministry of Health, citing corruption and poor accounting.
Mr. Odinga’s central political argument today is that over generations, many Kenyans have been left by circumstances — their geographic location, their ethnic groups, their landlessness — on the outside of power. He speaks often of marginalization and disenfranchisement, of economic grievances and historical injustices, code words that tap into decades’ worth of disappointments and frustrations first articulated by his father.
“What has always happened is the instrumentalization of grievance,” said Patrick Gathara, a political analyst in Nairobi. “People know they’re being treated unfairly, but politicians put a veneer. They substitute their problems for the people’s problems.”
Kenya’s Political Turmoil Is a Tale of Fathers and Sons