Why I chose to join the Jubilee Party

A photograph showing Uhuru Kenyatta, Ongonga and I at the Jubilee Party (JP) launch has been accorded a lot of coverage on social media. As a result, many people are calling to ask ‘why’. I will explain.

My father Ramogi Achieng Oneko was born in 1920 and is one of the few people from outside the Kikuyu community accepted as a member of the Mau Mau without dispute.

He was a freedom fighter and a politician. In fact in the very first parliamentary elections held at independence in 1963 where Jomo Kenyatta became President, my father was elected the Nakuru Town Constituency MP and later became part of Jomo Kenyatta’s first cabinet as Minister for Information, Broadcasting and Tourism.

Therefore to borrow from his JP launch speech, like him ‘I have grown with Kenya – its joys have been my joys; its pains have been my pains’.

When I listen to Uhuru speak about his vision and where he wants Kenya’s politics to go, I hear a man who is asking us to reflect on where we lost a fundamental aspect of how nations are established; nationalism.

What I hear Uhuru saying is that we lost something along the way. As he said in his speech, whenever we have had to make a decision on whether to unite in all our diversity to achieve greatness, or whether to walk the path of disunity; we have oftentimes chosen the more tragic route.

My father and Uhuru’s father became friends in the 1940s and together launched Kenya African Union (KAU).

In 1952, Achieng was Secretary General of KAU while Jomo Kenyatta was President of the party.

In fact by the time Jomo Kenyatta was meeting Jaramogi Oneko and Mbiyu Koinange, who had just come back from London where he had sent them to present a paper on the plight of the disenfranchised natives of Kenya to the League of Nations (today’s United Nations), Jomo Kenyatta and my father had travelled to Kisumu to recruit Jaramogi into KAU.

When my father, Raila’s father and Uhuru’s father started working together, it was without regard for their religious and ethnic differences.

They had a single aim: freedom from the yoke of colonialism. This unity across diversity is what gained us our political freedom and independence.

Unfortunately, immediately thereafter the very unity that had won us our freedom became the basis of our fights.

Unfortunately, in what was to be repeated across our continent in nearly every newly independent nation, instead of becoming stronger in our diversity we became weaker, as our emerging leaders decided to divide and rule their people using ethnicity.

Uhuru is making a call to us as Kenyans to stop and reflect. His idea what he wants the Jubilee Party to look like is very close to the KANU of my father, his father, and Raila’s father; before the divisions began; a party that is for everyone, whatever their backgrounds, ethnicity or religion; and that competes with others like it.

Uhuru wants to lead Kenya to the point where our parties are not defined by ethnicity. When he launched JP he was clear. JP was a party for all Kenyans.

When he sent his challenge to CORD during the launch asking them to follow in JP’s footsteps what he was asking them to do was merge ODM (Luos), Wiper (Kambas) and Ford Kenya (Luhyas) and create a CORD  party for Kikuyus, Luos, Kalenjins, Kisiis, Kambas, Merus, Somalis, Luhyas, etcetera.

Uhuru’s vision is actually very simple. If we have political parties where every community is represented in each then our politics would change fundamentally! No one would be able to mobilise politically on a tribal basis because every tribe is everywhere so, no chance of ethnic conflict! Political competition would then be about policies, by default. It is a brilliant strategy towards making Kenya what our fathers envisioned.

Incidentally at independence Nakuru Town was primarily a Kikuyu constituency. This means that my father was voted for overwhelmingly by Kikuyus!

Even when my father later moved to Kenya People’s Union after falling out with Uhuru’s father, their political differences were ideological; not ethnic. KPU was led by Raila’s father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Bildad Kaggia while KANU was led by Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya.

It was therefore impossible to ask people to support either side on the basis of their ethnicity. It was a battle of ideas.

I will join Uhuru and work with him to make his vision of political competition devoid of tribe a reality.

This is why I have joined Jubilee.