Why probing basis of coup attempt in 1982 is still elusive

Former KDF officers who lost their jobs after the coup in a packed courtroom in Kisumu where they sued the government for compensation. [File, Standard]

Thirty years after the collapse of the August 1 coup d’état, the ideological inclination and political basis of its most prominent proponent, the late Snr Private Hezekiah Raballa Ochuka, remain undocumented.

Not unraveling the ideological basis of this event and the Peoples Redemption Council (PRC) masterminds remains a lingering failure of Kenya’s journalism and scholarship despite the coup attempt’s significance to Kenya’s post-independence history.