Memorial library fit for Dr Ouko

The planned library will have books but will have a big computer-based component as well, said Winnie Ouko Ogutu, the former minister’s third born daughter. She has vivid memories of her father’s insistence that the family library be kept neat and everyone had to be reading something all the time.

Most memorably, she recalls telling her mother while in Form Three that she had given up on studying mathematics because “people who pass in math are mad”. The mother suggested that she repeat that story to Dr Ouko. “I went to see him and told him the same,” recalls Winnie. “I don’t remember what he told me, but from then on, I became an A student in math. He believed that you could succeed in whatever you put your mind to.”

Today, Mrs Ogutu is a consultant in finance and strategy after earning a master’s degree in the same from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The idea of a library is appealing to the family because they want to pass this reading culture on to the Koru community and change the image of Got Alila that Kenyans have known these 20 years.

“We would want justice yes, but not just for our father, who was a prominent Kenyan, but for all those ordinary people who died in such circumstances, and no one bothers because they are ordinary,” said Mrs Ogutu. Even though Dr Ouko was not the first prominent Kenyan to die under mysterious circumstances, his murder remains intriguing just as his disappearance from his Koru home on February 12, 1990.

His charred body was found on Got Alila hill four days later. If the disappearance of a senior Cabinet minister was dramatic, so was the manner is which the news of his disappearance was aired on February 15, 1990 at 7 p.m. by the then Voice of Kenya, the only broadcaster at the time.

News item

The brief news item said the minister was missing and had last been seen on the morning of February 13, 1990. The news item went on to appeal to Dr Ouko to contact his family or the nearest police station.

But for many Kenyans who had a keen interest in current affairs, it was the BBC that broke the news of the missing minister. At the time, the struggle for multipartyism was gaining momentum, and most Kenyans distrusted VoK, widely seen as a government propaganda tool.

It is for this reason that many would tune into foreign media to get an idea of what was happening on the local political front. The BBC was equally dramatic in its delivery. The newscaster paused mid-sentence to tell listeners that he could hear reporter Tido Mhando on the line from Nairobi. “Tido, what do you have?” The news was then broken.

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Ouko parliamentary career

Dr Robert John Ouko was born on March 31, 1931.
He as murdered in Kenya on February 13, 1990.
He was elected to Parliament in 1979from Kisumu Rural  and retained his seat at the 1983 elections.
For the 1988 elections he moved to Kisumu Town constituency and was again elected to Parliament.
He served in government through during the presidencies of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi.