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Raila Odinga: My life at Magdeburg University

When Jaramogi Oginga Odinga sent his son Raila Odinga to communist East Germany, it was on the firm understanding that he would eventually study Medicine, despite the fact that the son was inclined to the arts.

This was in 1962 and Raila was only 17. He had just left Maranda School. In Germany, he was enrolled at the Herder-Institut in Leipzig, which had been a faculty of the prestigious Leipzig University.

“Students would arrive from many different parts of the world, having gone through widely varying education systems, so there was a need for them to be harmonised into the German system and to pass a university entrance exam before they could be admitted to any German institution of higher learning,” writes Raila in his book the Flame of Freedom. “The Herder-Institut was thus a combination of high school and language school.”

“I was just coming out of primary school, so I had to go through the Herder-Institut’s high school programme, taking three and a half years, along with fellow students from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and many other non-German speaking places,” he adds.

Among his colleagues at the Institute was Moses Keino who would later become Speaker of the National Assembly. Keino had however finished his ‘O’ Level studies back in Kenya, so he only spent a year at the herder-Institut before joining university.

Keino struck friendship with Etta Kirui, a Kenyan girl who had come to Leipzig to further the Nursing course she had acquired in the UK. The friendship blossomed into romance and soon, they were married, with Raila acting as the Emcee.

Their studies included a mandatory three-month basic German language course. “At the end of the three months, I came second to Ruhti in the German language exam,” writes Raila. “Coming from German-speaking Switzerland, he had an advantage over me.”

Back to the ‘Medicine course’.

The path to medical school involved studying Maths, biology, physics and chemistry. During his second year of study, the students had to do some practicals, at a local hospital, which involved the study of human anatomy. This is where a ‘problem’ arose.

“To my horror, the students were practicing on cadavers, cutting them up and examining various pieces of the dead bodies. I looked at it and just felt sick,” writes Raila. “I knew immediately that I was not cut out for medicine.”

Thoroughly traumatised, Raila threatened that he would go back to Kenya, if the institute’s administration did not allow him to change his course of study to Mechanical Engineering. “Changing courses initially put me at a disadvantage,” he writes. “The engineering students had completed courses in subjects I had not been studying… I had to work extra hours to catch up.”

Raila says that at the end of the three-year course, he passed ‘in all the subjects with high marks’ and was admitted to the Magdeburg College of Advanced Technology, which eventually became the Magdeburg Otto-von-Guericke University. “I chose Magdeburg because it specialised in heavy engineering,” adds Raila.

According to the book, Raila was at Magdeburg between 1965 and 1969.

At Magdeburg, Raila was the only African student; the only other African (a Sudanese) chose to identify himself with Arabs. He remembers a certain Norbert Shonborn who was jolly and full of jokes. He was the class clown. “He unfortunately failed his exams and was expelled,” says Raila.

His roommate and best friend in campus was Roland Obst, a German. “We would meet up again, many years later as middle-aged men, at a 2007 college re-union, we attended with our wives,” he writes.

It is at Magdeburg, Baba had his first taste of romance with a girlfriend named Huldegund Ruge, who was studying Chemical Engineering. The girl was fascinated by Africa and since Baba was the only African in a group of 300 students. It is easy to see why she was attracted to Raila.

That romance lasted only six months and Baba hooked up with another German, a school teacher named Margita. “…she used to come see me in Magdeburg, while I also visited her in Arendsee… I stayed with her several times and would take my books to study while she was working… It was a very happy and pleasant time,” writes Baba.

During his time at Magdeburg, Raila was the secretary general of Federation of Kenyan Students in Europe (KFSE). This involved a lot of travel in European countries attending student gatherings. At some point he was scheduled to travel to Moscow. Baba had written a telegram to his brother Oburu, who studying in Russia, so he could pay for their visa and clear them at the airport.

The telegram did not get to Oburu on time, leading to a lots of frustrations by uncooperative airport officials. Fed-up with the frustrations, Baba and his friend decided to hop into a taxi and get to their destination without visas. Airport officials stopped the taxi and ordered the two out. By the time Oburu arrived to sort them out, Baba had already been deported back to Berlin!

Did you know that when the famous American Jazz artiste Neil Armstrong came for a concert in Magdeburg, Baba was hired as an interpreter!

He explains that the courses at Magdeburg were extremely rigorous and that the dropout rate was high. “Of the original 40 in my group, only 17 of us eventually graduated,” explains Baba.

Baba graduated with Upper Second Honours (Gut) in Production Technology, which qualified him to register for a PhD, which he did, but failed to take up the offer.

The Flame of Freedom is published by Mountain Top Publishers.

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Miguna’s book: Nothing new so let the readers decide

This is what I wrote on June 6, 2012. I trust is makes sense…

When Raila Odinga advisor turned-bitter foe, Miguna Miguna announced that he would write a book, which among other things, would reveal the Prime Minister’s ‘dark secrets’, it generated a lot of debate among Kenyans.

Expectedly, and like anything mildly controversial about the prime minister, the reaction to the announcement was split down the middle. On the one side, there are the PM’s supporters who strongly feel that the book should not be published at all, as it would complicate his chances, seeing as we are headed to a crucial election, where he is contesting the presidency.

Then there is the other group made up mostly of the PM’s detractors – read enemies, as this is Kenyan politics – who are rubbing their hands almost in malicious glee, hoping that contents of the book will be ‘damaging’ enough to derail his quest for presidency.

Miguna Miguna

From the reaction alone, it is quite clear that Peeling Back the Mask – shouldn’t it be Peeling the Mask? – is one highly anticipated book, by Kenyans here and in the diaspora. Even foreigners will be itching to catch a glimpse of the book; such is the nature of international profile the prime minister has cultivated for himself.

I am sure even the people who are opposed to the idea of the book will be among the first people wanting to lay their hands on the book, if only to seek to counter the ‘bad things’ that have been written about their hero.

It is therefore quite clear, from the foregoing, that aside from the politics and personal differences between the PM and Miguna Miguna, what makes the book such an ‘attractive’ prospect is the seemingly larger-than-life status of Raila Odinga.

Though he might be loath to admit it, Miguna knows that even with Kenya’s notoriously poor ‘reading culture’, his book might get a ‘good’ reception just because it is on Raila Odinga. And he might get good returns out of it all.

Whether by design or by default, the prime minister is the most talked about politician in the country today -never mind that most of it might not be positive.

To be sure, the PM, is President Mwai Kibaki’s biggest nightmare; you only need to look back at troubled 2007 presidential election, and the enforced coalition to know this.

Retired president Moi does not exactly have warm thoughts about the PM, seeing as he joined his party Kanu, only to ‘wreck’ it from within. Yes, it is largely Odinga’s efforts that put paid Moi’s desires to have Uhuru Kenyatta succeed him as president in 2002.

And were it not for stakes involved in the forthcoming presidential elections the PM would be enjoying himself seeing all the ‘serious’ presidential candidates ganging up to deny him the much coveted seat. All this points to his potency and influence.

With such a background, now you see why the book is likely to be a ‘hit’.

Politics, controversies and intrigues aside, Miguna’s book begs to be looked at from a purely artistic point of view. Since its selling point is Raila Odinga we can safely say that it falls under the genre of an unauthorised biography. And whenever you talk about unauthorised biographies, Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation easily comes to mind.

Among other things, The Obama Nation was intended at derailing Barack Obama’s first attempt at the US presidency, like he did with his earlier book Unfit for Command, which is said to have contributed to the failure of John Kerry’s attempt to challenge George Bush in his last term as US president.

Yes, The Obama Nation, is the book Corsi attempted to sensationally launch in Nairobi, when the Kenya government unceremoniously sent him packing.

So to answer you, what Miguna is attempting is perfectly in order.

Still, on Obama, today, the American president is the subject of a lot of unauthorised biographies in the US, and they enjoy prominence of space alongside Obama’s autobiographical works, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

Closer Home, and in South Africa, David James Smith, in 2010, released a controversial book titled, Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years, which was basically an unauthorised biography of South Africa’s first post-apartheid president. The book, among other things, detailed alleged sexual immorality and infidelity by Mandela. It also alleges that the South African icon had a child with his one-time secretary, and who is reported to have contributed to the breakdown of Mandela’s first marriage.

Tiger Woods, who underwent a rough patch after allegations of infidelity cost him his marriage, also became a ripe target of unauthorised biographies. His former coach Hank Haney, early this year released a ‘brutally candid’ account of Wood’s indiscretions in a book  titled The Big Miss. In his defense an unapologetic Haney said: “Tiger Woods didn’t have an exclusive on memories, so I wanted to share them. It’s an insight into Tiger that most people wouldn’t be able to enjoy.

“When you’re around greatness, like I was for six years, you’re asked about it and you want to talk about it. That’s what I have done.” No doubt, those are sentiments Miguna shares in private.

We also have Kenyan examples of unauthorised biographies on famous personalities. Journalist Ng’ang’a Mbugua wrote Mwai Kibaki: Economist for Kenya for Longhorn’s Junior Biographies. He followed it later with Catherine Ndereba: The Marathon Queen.

Early last year former Bahari MP, and who was Vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka’s confidant caused a ripple when he published Politics of Betrayal a book that painted the vice president as a selfish, scheming politician, who will not hesitate to undermine a friend when he stands to gain something.

And with the impending launch of Miguna’s book, the former advisor to the PM takes the cake in terms of controversy, not forgetting its sheer nuisance value.

Maybe its time Mbugua thought of upgrading his book on Kibaki…

UPDATE:

Interestingly, When John Githongo’s book, Its Our Time to Eat, written by Michela Wrong, came out, the man instantly became a hero to some and a traitor to others. Now that Miguna Miguna’s book Peeling back the Mask is soon to be launched, the people who considered Githongo a traitor now think Miguna is a hero. On the other hand the people who said Githongo was a hero now feel Miguna is a traitor. Still, each of these groups will point an accusing finger at the other calling them tribalists and anti-reformers…