The Jaramogi KPU manifesto that scared Jomo Kenyatta’s Kanu party
Kenya's first Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga (left) with founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
What you need to know:
- There has been no manifesto that matched that of KPU; no political party in Kenya has dared be as bold as KPU was. Here, a peek into what Jaramogi envisioned for the country, and why Kanu leaders were not comfortable with KPU, which ultimately led to it being banned three years later.
No one must have so much capital that he and his descendants can live off its profits without working. Higher incomes must be possible only through skills and hard work – KPU manifesto, 1969.
In dismissing Raila Odinga’s Azimio manifesto as akin to that of Kenya People’s Union (KPU) — which was led by Raila’s father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga — Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria said “the only difference” between the Azimio manifesto “from the KPU manifesto of 1969 is that it’s in full colour, while the KPU one was in black and white.”
That is not true.
There is no political party in Kenya that has the boldness of KPU, and one has to look at both the 1966 manifesto and its updated 1969 version titled Wananchi Declaration to understand the nation-state that Jaramogi envisaged – and why he was loathed by Kanu mandarins. Interestingly, these two documents are not easily available and many people who bad-mouth Jaramogi have never read his vision.
When Jaramogi launched his first manifesto in 1966, he wanted to confront Kanu and the capitalist state that it was building. He was bold in the KPU manifesto: “Uhuru has no meaning until the land problem is solved,” he stated.
According to Jaramogi, the intention of KPU was to put land in the hands of the people and as an honour to freedom fighters, who lost their land while they were in the forest.
“Failure to return the land stolen in colonial times is, for millions of people, the most serious in the string of broken promises since the end of colonial rule. It is the bitterest fruit of Kanu “socialism” for the tens of thousands of landless and jobless people.”
Under his leadership, Odinga vowed that “KPU will not allow non-citizens to own any agricultural land, whether the land was acquired before prohibition or not.”
Indeed, Jaramogi accused Kanu of betrayal by failing to limit the size of individual land holdings in the former White Highlands. He accused Kanu leaders of taking the lead in such acquisitions and losing the moral authority to address the land question. This is what we now call land grabbing.
“Most ministers and assistant ministers and other Kanu leaders own big estates, some of them more than one. One minister holds six farms. Kanu leaders have ceased to be the representatives of the people,” noted the KPU manifesto.
Jaramogi was sad that the much talked about settlement schemes had “turned much of Kenya’s most productive and developed land back to peasant farming of a relatively poor kind”. This, he said, was due to excessive loan repayments, and lack of extension officers, which made it hard for the new settlers to succeed. “Settlement was merely a limited colonial divide to skim off the strongest political pressure. It was neither an answer to problems of landlessness nor to problems of agricultural development.”
Jaramogi was one of the few politicians opposed to the purchase of land from European farmers and insisted on the United Kingdom paying them at its own cost. But at independence “Kenya government was burdened with an enormous bill for the settler buyout as a condition of independence.”
To resolve that problem, Jaramogi proposed to put a ceiling on the size of land-holdings and all the “free land will be distributed to the landless, including squatters and those who lost their land in the struggle for independence”.
On the controversial ancestral lands, KPU promised to “honour the rights of tribes and clans to their lands, but the state will have the right to direct land use in such a way as to make such usage most advantageous to the country.”
Unlike Raila, who wants a developmental state, his father was for a socialist state, and he had dismissed the so-called African Socialism being promoted by Kanu.
“Why does Kanu government call its policy socialism, and not dare admit that it follows capitalist road?” asked KPU in its manifesto – and then gives an answer: “Because it knows that capitalism is utterly wrong and unsuited to the needs and aspirations of the people of Kenya.”
Jaramogi’s socialism envisaged putting “economic power in the hands of the people” and fair distribution of resources throughout the country. “This is not done merely by installing a few Africans as directors of big companies, and parcelling out large tracts of land to ministers and their relations,” said KPU.
His argument was that the country’s resources must be administered for the interests of the “small farmer and the worker” and “must protect consumers from the high prices caused by excessive profits.”
Jaramogi was not against foreign investments, but they had to work within the socialist framework. He said those “minorities” — a reference to Europeans and Indians — “who are prepared to use their entrepreneurial ability in the service of people, and within a socialist framework, will be welcomed and rewarded.”
“Likewise we will welcome all foreign capital and skills … but we will accept them only on our own terms.”
For Jaramogi, a new Kenya would have state-run industries that ploughed back returns into development. “By taking control of key companies that are profitable, a socialist government can channel all returns into the development of the country, instead of allowing a big share to increase the incomes and luxury-spending of the privileged few.”
His worry was that so much of the Kenyan capital was in the hands of foreigners “who owe no loyalty to the long term development of the country.” As such, he lamented, “national needs gets neglected (since) the capitalist wants quick, high returns.”
(By) knowing that capitalism in a developing country is a basically unstable system — that it is “too good to last” it is quite logical for them to squeeze as much profit as they can out of the country, while “the going is good”.
On agriculture, Jaramogi was for strong cooperatives which, he argued, would be the solution to the advancement of the sector. In a Jaramogi administration, cooperatives were the central pillar in the organisation of the rural economy. Peasant farmer cooperatives were to be strengthened to sell produce and procure supplies on behalf of members. His idea was to have small farmers join hands and run communal cooperatives, which would do away with the capitalist and marketing structures that had been put in place by the colonial government and inherited at independence.
“The top-heavy and very often corrupt administration of marketing boards must be cut back and streamlined to release more funds for the farmers … marketing organisations will be taken out of the hands of the capitalist-run organisations, which do so much to corrupt the purpose of farmers’ cooperatives. Import and export marketing of agricultural produce will come under total government control.”
Also Read: My Azimio manifesto takeaway
“This will release us to explore directly the world markets open for our products, and will wrest the stranglehold of our supply-and-demand patterns out of the hands of the Western-oriented international marketing organisations,” proposed KPU.
The only place that Raila’s manifesto picks from his father’s is on industrialisation. It was Jaramogi’s vision that “some industry must go where it is cheapest to operate” and he had proposed to work with local authorities, now renamed county governments “to administer grants and loans to create industries in new areas” to create an even social and geographical development.
But Jaramogi was different and his argument was that since there was shortage of private capital, the government should lead in setting up industries and he held that “private capital will not set the pace of industrial growth”.
He was also not for free trade and KPU was to set up a price control board and the formation of a regional bureau of standards in East Africa to test the quality of goods.
Another aspect was the “wasting” of foreign exchange on luxury goods. “There are too many people making too high a living importing luxuries like expensive cars, wine and spirits, cosmetics and so on. This may make Kenya a paradise for the expatriate and for the rich – both as a trader and as a consumer. But meanwhile, it is taking us further and further away from an even distribution of wealth, and it is creating a severe drain of the national economy by wasting our foreign exchange on unproductive spending.” On this Odinga was categorical: “KPU will not allow this trade between the rich to continue as the pace setter of our private economic activity.”
In his wisdom, foreign earnings were to be used on purchase of capital equipment to expand industry. “Importers and traders whose livelihoods depend on selling large gleaming limousines and delicacies to tickle the palate of those with too much money will have to find more productive goods to import – tractors, not Mercedes.”
Jaramogi also advocated the nationalisation of public utility companies, banks and insurance companies, and which, he hoped, would serve as “the basis for further industrialisation”.
His biggest emphasis was on creation of an investment climate in which investors would enter into joint enterprises with the state, local authorities and parastatals with a condition that they re-invest their profits in the country.
“Local capital will be made less expensive, by cutting down its sources of high interest …KPU will mobilise the nation into an attitude of self-reliance and revive the spirit of thrift and saving.”
On unemployment, his vision was on rapid industrial development and proper land use. “There is a close link between unemployment and the land question. The immediate solution to the problem is more land for the unemployed who are often the landless.”
On democracy, Jaramogi stood for a free state where wananchi had a say on how they were governed: “KPU believes that good government is only possible through constant criticism and will do all it can to encourage criticism and discussion of all aspects of policy ... KPU will guarantee all basic human rights ... but no guarantee of the freedom of one individual to exploit others under the guise of unrestricted free enterprise.”
His other policies were free primary education, independent Judiciary, free health care, and land to the landless.
In his closing statement, Jaramogi said: “our economic and social problems are often said to centre around a ‘shortage of work’. This is a classic misstatement of the problem. There is plenty of work waiting to be done. The problem is how to organise our society to do it.”
The boldness of Jaramogi as he prepared for the 1969 election was epic. “No one must have so much capital that he and his descendants can live off its profits without working. Higher incomes must be possible only through skills and hard work.”
Had he been allowed to campaign nationally on that platform – perhaps Kenyan politics would have taken a different route. But, as it happened, he was detained together with all the leadership of KPU.
Ever since, there has been no manifesto that matched that of KPU. Most of the modern-day manifestos are usually a cut-and-paste of the Kanu manifesto.
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