What Raila Told Moi Before His Release From Detention

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is known to have been detained with a group of other vocal leaders by President Daniel Arap Moi after the 1982 coup attempt to oust the Head of State from power.

During his period of detention, Raila had on many occasions tried to hire a lawyer to challenge his confinement in court.He contacted his wife Ida Odinga to find him a lawyer to defend his case but this was a tough call as most of the lawyers scurried from his case.

Only one lawyer, Gibson Kamau Kuria was brave enough to take the case. His application to see Odinga in prison was rejected but he put an effort to personally visit his client in Shimo la Tewa. Upon their meeting, the lawyer received Raila's instructions and successfully filed a constitutional reference case.

The detained prisoner however never got to reach to his hearing after he was sent to another prison on the very day he was expected in court.

On February 5, 1988, Raila together with eight other detainees who joined him were asked to change into their civilian clothes and taken to the State House to meet the president.

While awaiting Moi's arrival, they were asked to choose a spokesperson and Odinga was chosen unopposed.

During the meeting, Raila told president Moi that the conditions in prison were too tough. That they were illegally being held incommunicado in solitary confinement.

He also told the president that the accommodation was very poor. The medical care was also minimal and the idea of being detained without trial was reprehensible and inhuman. He added that due legal process should be followed before someone was jailed instead of being incarcerated without the opportunity of fair trial.

It was after this talk with the Head of State responded that he had taken note of all he had been told and that he only detained people as a last resort.

Moi went on to state that he had now believed that it was time for Odinga and his fellow inmates to rejoin the community and the rest of the country in nation-building.

The next day, Raila Odinga and five of his detained colleagues were released from prison.

 

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