20/07/2025
FROM THE ARCHIVES 🎬
The origin of "GOCH KISUMO"
BLOODBATH
A visit to the town by former President Kenyatta in October 1969, came only four months after the assassination of his Cabinet minister Tom Mboya and 10 months after Argwings Kodhek’s death.
The ceremony ended in a bloodbath with the presidential guard and the police fatally shooting more than 50 people after a commotion on the presidential podium.
“It was like a horror movie. Even senior police officials were shooting anybody on sight. The shootings went on along the Kisumu-Nairobi Highway as the presidential motorcade left for Nairobi and there were reports of people killed along Ahero and Awasi — 30 to 50 kilometres away,” the plan was to eliminate Luozz...
which cost life of Luoss
In his book, My Journey with Jaramogi, Memoirs of a Close Confidant, Mr Odera narrates how he tried, in vain, to convince Jaramogi to keep off the ceremony, but he refused, insisting that he had influenced the hospital's construction.
Jaramogi’s adviser and speech writer in the book narrates: “Jaramogi said ‘if the President is going, I must also go because he is coming to our area.'”
The Day Kisumu Saw Its Darkest Day
It was meant to be a day of hope.
President Kenyatta stepped up to the podium outside the new Kisumu hospital. The crowd fell silent as Jomo speech turned fiery. Then—crack!—a stone struck the wooden stand.
Guards flinched. A shot rang out. Then another. Women screamed. Men dove for cover.
By sunset, official records named eleven dead and dozens wounded. Some humanitarian sources say the toll rose to over fifty.
To see how anger reached this point, we go back to independence.
In 1963, Kenya won its freedom. Kenyatta became president. Odinga became vice-president. They smiled together before hopeful crowds.
Soon, they split over land and foreign ties. In 1966, Odinga formed the Kenya People’s Union. The government passed a law to detain critics without trial. KPU leaders were jailed. Fear