KISUMU

The late mzee Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. The British government dispatched spies to spy on him. [Photo/Nation]

It is now emerging that the colonial government was always a step ahead of the nation's first Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, several years before he assumed the seat.

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According to a 63 page 'Top Secret' document released by the British Archives in 2016, the British spies used to secretly peruse through Jaramogi's travelling bags and take pictures before and after flights, checks that the politician probably went into his grave without knowing.

The information was used to weigh on his personality, with a file, KV2/40, revealing that Jaramogi had been on the British government's radar since 1960, a time when the colonialists were losing their place in the nation.

Such an instance was on Wednesday, October 26, 1960, when his observers cunningly took 356 photos of him and his documents as he jetted back from the United Arab Emirates, without his knowledge.

On that day, according to the press of the time, Jaramogi was kept at the Customs and Immigration desk for 30 minutes, despite having been the first to alight from the plane and as he engaged the officers in an argument, the spies were busy doing their job, a delay that now seems to have been planned.

This is confirmed in a letter by the then Director of Intelligence and Security B.E Wadeley to the Colonial Security Liaison Officer in Kenya and Uganda, where Wadeley confirms that the leader was under secret observation.

''As you are aware, an operation was mounted on this person (Oginga Odinga) when he arrived at Nairobi Airport on October 26, 1960 on completion of a visit to the United Arab Emirates and London,'' read the letter in part, according to a Daily Nation publication dated October 9 2016.

''Without his knowledge, 356 documents on his person at the time were photographed. We are now examining these and will be letting you have a report on their contents in due course,'' it further read.

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