ODM leader Raila Odinga might be synonymous with his elder brother and Eala MP Oburu Odinga, but unbeknown to many, Raila had a younger brother that tragically passed on in his 30s.
In the year 1984 while Raila was in detention and his father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was under house arrest, his brother Omuodo Agola found himself in a situation that would put him in the same woes bedeviling his brother and father.
Raila, in his 2013 biography The Flame of Freedom, narrated that his brother had gone to visit his wife who was working at the Bukura Agricultural Training Institute in the then Western province when he was involved in an accident.
"It was a rainy night with poor light and limited visibility. A man staggered into the road in front of Agola's vehicle and was then hit. Agola picked the badly injured man and put him in the pick-up and drove him to the Kakamega Hospital," he writes.
Agola then went on to report the incident to a local police station, not knowing that the man had already passed on, leading to his arrest and subsequent sentencing to seven years in jail, a matter that Raila attributed to the Moi government's hatred of the Odinga family name.
At the start of his stint in prison, Agola had a terrible attack of diabetes, but his pleas to the authorities to receive treatment were dismissed, with the prison wardens allegedly telling him to wait until the prison doctor's next visit to receive a prescription.
"Agola suffered from diabetes that afflicts many of the males in our family, including Jaramogi, myself and Oburu, but Agola's condition was worse. While we others have had this challenge as we have grown older, Agola developed diabetes when he was young. He used to inject himself daily," Raila narrates.
He further narrated that as anticipated, Agola's condition worsened and the prison officers were forced to take him to the Kakamega Hospital where he was chained to the bed despite his grave condition.
Lawyer Ambrose Rachier stepped in when the time came for Agola's case to be appealed, and the court ruled in his favor, stating that the man hit by the vehicle was drunk and thus Agola had no case to answer.
"He was released, but by now the damage to his health had been done. He was very weak when friends and relatives took him to our Lakeside home to visit Jaramogi. Agola was then taken to Kisumu Hospital. He died soon afterward still in his 30s."
