Raila-Ruto fallout might spur alliance between Kikuyu and Luo

The relationship soon soured, and it was almost inevitable that Mr Odinga would be drummed out of Kanu in 1966. The Luo naturally saw it as a great betrayal and the fractures wrought have never been healed. In fact, they accentuated with the Kisumu shootings and detention of Mr Odinga.

President Kenyatta died in 1978 without ever again stepping in Luoland. His successor, Mr Daniel arap Moi, inherited the suspicion and distrust of the Luo and their leadership.

Mr Odinga and ex-Kenya People’s Union leaders were locked out of successive elections once Mr Moi came to power because they had not demonstrated sufficient “change of heart”.

President Moi’s natural suspicions were reinforced in the abortive 1982 coup attempt by elements of Kenya Air Force. The farcical attempt was linked to the Odingas. The old man was briefly confined to house arrest. His son, then deputy director of the Kenya Bureau of Standards, was initially charged with treason, which carries the mandatory death sentence, before being detained without trial.

Detention camps

Mr Raila Odinga went on to become a veteran of the Moi era detention camps.

When the agitation for a return of the multiparty system picked up early in 1990, the Odingas, and by extension the Luo, were in the thick of the action. They found ready allies in a large corpus of leading Kikuyu politicians and businessmen who had over the years been shunted aside by the Moi system.

It looked like a match made in heaven, and to the point that President Moi attempted to fight alliance by bringing back the Kikuyu on his side.

Those were the so-called Gema-Kamatusa (Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana, Samburu) talks. At one session at Nakuru State House, President Moi told Gema representatives that they should shun any alliances with the “communist” and “subversive” Luo, and unite with the Kalenjin.

Now, some in both the Luo and Kikuyu leadership are considering uniting against a common foe.

These are the ethnic dynamics and ironies of Kenyan politics.