Down the memory lane: Jaramogi gave freely, Tom Mboya was stingy

Jaramogi Oginga, Joseph Murumbi, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya at JKIA.

Considered a statesman poised for a bigger role in the affairs of the country, there was another side of the charismatic Tom Mboya. The man was mean. Although Mboya had more money than his political rival Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the latter was generous to a fault, according to former Vice President Joseph Murumbi.

While Jaramogi would easily give money, Mboya was stingy, according to Murumbi. “In different ways, Odinga generally helped people in need. Mboya used people’s needs to serve his own. As I’ve said before I have heard him say to a man: “Why are you coming to me I paid you for it and that is the end of it,” said Murumbi in the book: A path not Taken and authored by Anne Thurston.