Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Dr Joseph Aluoch, Ida Odinga and Justice Joyce Aluoch in one of their many social interactions.A year after his passing, I still struggle to speak of Raila Odinga in the past tense.
Our friendship began before we were born. My father, Wilson Walter Aluoch, and Mzee Jaramogi Oginga Odinga were classmates and dormitory mates at Maseno School.
My father was also a friend of the father of Raila’s future wife, Mama Ida. I first met Raila in 1953, when I was 10 and he was eight at Maseno, which had a primary school. We stayed in touch for more than 70 years until his death last year.
I was never a politician, so I never attended any of his rallies or fundraising dinners. He always invited me, but I never went. We met instead in bars, weddings, funerals of mutual friends and parties. We also exercised together at Karen Country Club, and he was also a regular at Nairobi Club, where I once served as president.
In 2011, I celebrated 40 years of my marriage to Lady Justice Joyce Aluoch at our home in Kagilo, Gem, Siaya county. Raila was Prime Minister and our guest of honour. He rode in on a boda boda from the market and was escorted by hundreds of riders. People said the whole government had come. Whenever I held a harambee, he always contributed, and so I remember his generosity.
He could also dine with kings and princes, yet fit easily into a local bar in Kaloleni and laugh with everyone there. He knew a boda boda rider in Kakamega and they had each other’s numbers and spoke often. That is how he knew so many people and so many roads. He travelled them himself and knew which ones had been badly built or needed repair.
Above all, he loved Kenya and put it first. The handshakes and the broad-based government were not for his own good, but for the country. When he signed the 2008 accord brokered by Kofi Annan, many people close to him said he had been shortchanged. He told them he was doing it for his country.
If I could tell him one last thing today, I would say: Prime Minister, you lived a great life, you loved people, and you loved your country. We honour him best by putting Kenya first, as he did.
- Dr Joseph Amolo Aluoch is an eminent chest specialist at The Nairobi Hospital.
