03/12/2025
Otieno Kajwang.
For those who might have joined us on earth kidogo recently, there once lived a man called Gerald Otieno Kajwang’ — and he left big footprints. He passed away in 2014.
He is best remembered for his signature chant:
“BADO MAPAMBANO, MAPAMBANO, MAPAMBANO!”
He sang it everywhere. Rallies, funerals, weddings, party meetings — until the nickname Bwana Mapambano stuck permanently.
Kajwang was a fighter early on. As a student leader at the University of Nairobi in 1979, he led the first maandamano against the then President Moi’s government. The price he had to pay? Expulsion. He simply dusted himself and headed to Makerere University for his law degree, then later the Kenya School of Law.
In 1991, while representing Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, he went to court and famously stopped the state-owned KBC from force-feeding Kenyans a KANU song before every news bulletin.
Then came 1999, when the Law Society of Kenya deregistered him over an insurance-claims scandal.
Politics, as always, remained his natural habitat.
Standing over six feet tall, Kajwang didn’t just enter a room — he arrived. Charismatic, humorous, always smiling, always performing.
And sometimes over performing
In 2001, as Mbita MP, he got into a physical fight on the floor of Parliament with Embakasi MP David Mwenje. Long story short: alimuuma ndani ya Bunge. Truly, mapambano was served Hadi kwa bunge.
While most politicians avoid eating in public — fears of embarrassment, poisoning, or both — Kajwang ate anything, anywhere. A man of the people in the most literal sense.
He was also a devoted, long-suffering Arsenal fan. He once tweeted, “One day Arsenal will kill me. Pressure.”
Arsenal fans everywhere understood and to recent dates 2025 of 2 December they still understand, I personally Gordon Reubens II I do.
Then came the chaotic 2007 elections — Kibaki, Raila, and Kivuitu wrestling over who exactly was President. The result was the famous Serikali ya nusu mkate, a cabinet so bloated it looked like a village wedding lineup.
Kajwang later said he was “in my bedroom with my wife” when he unexpectedly saw on TV that he had been appointed Minister for Immigration and Registration of Persons.
During his tenure, he was tasked with deporting a “controversial Muslim cleric” from Kenya back to Jamaica. With no direct flight existing, he chartered a private plane — and then publicly complained that his ministry was broke and appealed to Kenyans of goodwill to M-Pesa the government. Only Kajwang.
In 2013, he became the first Senator of Homa Bay County under the ODM ticket. A year later, on 19th November 2014, he passed away at Mater Hospital, reportedly from a heart attack. That's what they told us.
Kajwang left behind two known wives, Rose Otieno and Faith Otieno, and several children — with one daughter famously noted for her beauty.
