Ida Odinga: I was sacked because of visiting the women

By Lilian Aluanga

A wind of change was blowing across the country when a group of women caught in the crosshairs of the push for reforms in the 1990s began meeting in Nairobi.

The meetings were secret and had one agenda: to find ways of pressing for the release of their husbands and sons from detention.

Among them was Ida Odinga, whose husband, Raila Odinga, had been detained three times in ten years before his release in 1990.

"Long before Freedom Corner, a group of women had started meeting regularly to share their experiences. I remember meeting with Elizabeth Matenjwa, Milka Wanjiku, Monica Wamwere and Gladys Kariuki, whose sons were among those detained," says Ida. Others included Njeri Kabeberi, Elizabeth Mac Onyango, and Wanjiru Kihoro.

By 1991, political temperatures were rising and the push for multiparty democracy was growing stronger, resulting in formation of The Forum for Restoration of Democracy (Ford) as an opposition party.

Although Raila was not in detention when the women camped at Freedom Corner, Ida says she still identified with the group.

"I had watched my mother- in -law sink into a depression and die because of the pressure that came with having her husband under house arrest and a son in detention," she says.

During her visits to ‘Freedom Corner’ Ida, like dozens others who visited the protesting women, carried food for them.

It was during such a mission that Ida was turned away when chaos broke out at the park.

"I was driving towards Uhuru Park when I saw people running, with riot police in pursuit. Traffic was re-routed and I was forced to go back home with my food," says Ida.

But later that evening Ida got wind of the womens’ relocation to the All Saints Cathedral Church and delivered the food. At the time, Ida was an employee of the Ministry of Education’s Schools’ Inspection department, after having lost her teaching job at Kenya High School.

"I understood the risks I was taking as a civil servant by associating with these women but I was not going to distance myself from them," she adds. It was this continued association with the group that got Ida fired for the second time.

While visiting the women, a photo was taken of her as she talked to Wanjiku, Wamwere and Kariuki, mothers to Rumba, Koigi and Mirugi. The next day the photo was splashed on page one of a local daily with the caption: ‘The plot thickens. Ida Odinga in consultation with mothers of political prisoners’.

By 1.00pm of the same day Ida had been sacked, in what was described as being in ‘public interest’.

" I now felt free and was no longer afraid of the Government since a person who is already knocked down no longer fears falling," she says.

And with that Ida walked out of the Ministry of Education and headed to Ford’s offices at Agip House, where she offered to handle administrative duties.

Ida recalls her meeting with Prof Wangari Maathai, with whom she remained friends until her death two weeks ago.

"My father-in-law Jaramogi Oginga once sent me to Wangari to ask her to join Ford," says Ida, of the friendship that was cemented over a cup of tea and arrowroots in Wangari’s home.

"She would later link up with the Nobel Laureate at Freedom Corner, and support her opposition to the construction of a high-rise building at Uhuru Park.

"I identified with Wangari’s cause because I took my children to Uhuru Park on weekends," she says.

Ida says, although not largely celebrated, the women, who held families together in the absence of their husbands and sons, were key players in the push for the second liberation.

"To the regime these men were bad people, but to us they were our husbands, sons and heroes," she adds.

It was the women, Ida says, who kept the flame burning by ensuring issues around political detainees remained in the limelight so the public would not forget those who had given their all for the sake of change.