By Odhiambo Orlale
Agricultural engineer Joseph Onyango Ogutu Amara was among the hundreds of young bright Kenyan students who ventured to the unknown in Eastern Europe for further studies over half a century ago and have a story to tell personally or through their surviving relatives.
Amara’s dream to pursue further education started soon after he was born on March 14, in 1945 Alego, Nyajuok in Siaya County on a rainy morning, hence his name Onyango. The budding engineer started his primary school at Bugwema primary in neighbouring Tangayika (later renamed Tanzanian after it merged with Zanzibar, after independence in 1964. Amara later transferred to Pumwani primary school in Nairobi when his parents relocated to the Kenyan capital where he sat for the Kenya African Primary Examination (KAPU) and passed with good grades to enable him be admitted to Nairobi High school where he sat for the Form Four national exam, better known as Cambridge School Certificate (CSE).
From Alego to Prague
After receiving his results, Amara’s parents helped him connect with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who had started a student airlift for Kenyans to study in the East bloc states which were under the Union of Social Socialist Republic (USSR).
Shortly after that encounter, in 1965, the young ambitious student was prayed for by his loving parents, Leah and Amara, at their Ofafa Maringo Estate house in Nairobi where he was a renowned footballer and played for Luo Union Football Club.
After his high school, his dream for further studies came true when he was awarded a scholarship and escorted to Embakasi airport (which has since been relocated and named as Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, where he boarded an airplane for the first time and flew to Czechoslovakia, a country he had never heard of leave alone dreamt of visiting and studying in.
Amara spent the first year in Prague, the capital city, studying the Czech language and another four studying Agricultural engineering until 1970 when he graduated and returned home with a Skoda, salon car. It was the Volkswagen version of the East bloc manufactured in Poland.
Amara landed a job with the Ministry of Agriculture as an agriculture engineer and served in Migori and Homa Bay counties and other parts of the country from 1971 to 1996 with dedication and hard work.
In 1981 his boss recognized his talents and gave him an opportunity to go for further training in West Germany on farm power agricultural engineer for one year. On his return, his star was rising and he rose in the rank of senior regional officer before he retired in 1996 to his over 50-acre farm in Nyakia, Lambwe Valley farm in Suba North constituency in Homa Bay County.
Amara’s legacy
He was an only son of Leah Amara, his father’s first wife, with six sisters. His step mother had a son, called Henry Mutula Mak’Amara. The engineer was a polygamist; his wives were Jorka Skoblova, Dontila Akinyi, Mercy Awiti, Consolata Akeyo and Hilda Achieng); they were blessed with 15 children and 20 grandchildren and several great grandchildren.
He gave his three Czech names; they are the eldest son, Millan, and the eldest daughter, Olga. His daughter with his Czech wife, Jorka Skoblova, was called Yarka Eliska Amara.
Mzee Amara, who had been managing his high blood pressure for over a decade, breathed his last on Monday, July 27, 2022, at dawn at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital (better known as Russia hospital, named after the sponsors) in Kisumu city. He had celebrated with his wives, children and bigger family his 77th birthday three months earlier.
The model farmer had been admitted at JOOTRH a fortnight earlier after he suffered a stroke and blood clot in the brain. The agricultural engineer has left a good legacy in Nyakia and Suba North Constituency through his philanthropy and volunteer services which was his passion.
Mzee Amara was also a staunch Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Ogongo Parish born again member and donor of a parcel of land in Nyakia for a local church.
His love for politics and passion for agriculture
Amara had strong political views and was a staunch supporter of Kenya People’s Union (KPU) and its founder Jaramogi and later Ford Kenya, National Development Party (NDP) and Orange Democratic Party (ODM) of Raila Odinga from the background as a civil servant; they were barred from being partisan.
The agricultural engineer supported his elder cousin, Architect Enos Seth Orlale to campaign and win the Lambwe West civic seat and the Homa Bay County Council chairmanship in 1993. He also supported lawyer Felix Nyauchi campaign for the Gwassi parliamentary seat and was the secretary of the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) Gwassi secretary.
On the social side, Amara was one of the founders of Nyatoto Secondary and Nyakia Mixed School in Homa Bay County and Oruba Mixed School in Migori County where he spent most of his working life.
Amara was one of the pioneering Kenyans students on the eve of Kenya’s independence and after who went to the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), which later split in the 1990s, where they studied technical courses like engineering and medicine with the support of Jaramogi, who was a Member of Legislative Assembly representing Central Nyanza region.
Jaramogi later became the first Vice-President under founder President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta after independence in 1963.
Some of the students had to go through the Egyptian capital, Cairo, where President Gamal Abdel Nasser helped set up an office manned by Ambassador Were Ambitho and Odhiambo Okello, to facilitate Kenyans and fellow Africans to access the East bloc states as part of plans to liberate African countries that were still under the yoke of colonialism.
Jomo was in Russia
The Eastern bloc member-states were formed under USSR after the Second World War in 1939 to 1945 between Germany’s Adolf Hitler and his allies Italian Benito Mussolini and Japanese Emperor Hirohito on one side and the allied forces led by United Kingdom, United States of America, USSR, and France among others. But soon after the Second World War, USSR took control of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania under the banner of East Bloc that embraced communism.
On the eve of Kenya’s independence in 1963 and the Mau Mau freedom struggle and the arrest and detention of Jomo Kenyatta and other freedom fighters, there was a clamour for Kenyan students to go abroad for further studies to the West and to the East.
Trade Unionist Tom Mboya, who later become Bahati MP, Kanu Secretary General and Cabinet Minister, used his god links with his US friends like President John F. Kennedy, while MP for Nyanza, Jaramogi Oginga, did likewise with his contacts in the East bloc.
The most famous of the two airlifts is former US President Lawyer Barack Obama whose father, Economist Barack Obama Sr. was a beneficiary of the Tom Mboya airlift; the other is former Prime Minister Engineer Raila Odinga, who is an alumni of a University in East Africa, and is taking a fifth stab at the presidential election.
Fast forward to mid-1960s and most of the Kenyan students had graduated and returned to join the KANU government in nation building. The list of those who went to Russia includes the who-is-who in Kenya’s history. They are Kenyatta, who sojourned there in the 1930’s before returning to the United Kingdom where he went to a university, graduated and wrote a famous book, Facing Mount Kenya.
Other alumni of universities in the former USSR are: Dr Oburu Oginga, son of Odinga and former Assistant Minister, Joseph Kamotho, who led a student’s strike and was deported to Kenya just for him to maneuvered his ways to the United States where he completed his studies and graduated.
Kamotho is a former Mathioya Member of Parliament, Kanu Secretary General and Education Minister. Another is Kamwithi Munyi, who is a former MP and Assistant minister.
The bulk of the Oginga airlift to Russia were from Nyanza region and included: Dr Odhiambo Olel, who later became Odinga’s personal physician, Dr On’gon’ga Achien'g (son of freedom fighter and Cabinet Minister Achien'g Oneko), who later became Managing Director of Kenya Tourism Board, and former MPs and Assistant Ministers Hezron Manduku and Phares Oluoch Kanindo among others.
All Kenyans students to USSR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other East Bloc states had to undergo a one to two-year mandatory language course before starting the formal four-year degree programme. Most of them, who are alive, can still understand and speak the foreign language with their colleagues.
Some of alumni of universities in Czechoslovakia are: Agricultural Engineer Joseph Ogutu Onyango Amara and Ondiek Kabonyo N’ginya; Electrical Engineer William Uyoga, and among others.
Within a month of their graduation and return to Kenya, most of the Kenyan students landed senior jobs in the public service. Looking back over half a century later, most of them have fond memories of their experiences in the East bloc states.
Others who went east were: Elizaphan Maribe who graduated with an engineering degree in Czecslovakia and East Germany, Kipn’geno arap N'geno, (former MP and Managing Director of Kenya Post and Telecommunications Corporation), Moses Keino (former MP and Speaker of the National Assembly).
In Hungary, the alumni were Agricultural Economist Dr. Odundo Ambitho and former Ambassador Phillip Mwanzia among others. Indeed, our historians have a lot to write about the Kenyans who dared to go East in the 1960s in pursue of further education and returned to make a big mark and left a good legacy for posterity.
But not all was rosy for the alumni from a Czechoslovakian university, Phares Oluoch Kanindo, a leading music promoter, MP and Assistant Minister, who was sacked by President Moi in the 1990s for being seen in public shaking hands with his mentor, Oginga Odinga!
Looking back, a contended retired Agricultural Economist Dr. Odundo Ambitho says: “We’re glad to have been the pioneers and returned home to Kenya to help in nation-building.”
REST IN PEACE MZEE AMARA
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