If you look closely, you’ll notice that neither Raila Odinga, the opposition leader, nor his older brother Oburu, a former Bondo MP, have baptismal names. 

This can be attributed to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, their father and the first Vice President, who changed his name from Obadiah Adonijah to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. 

“The two, along with their brother Omuodo Agola, were apparently had to be baptized using their current names because the founding father had suddenly developed such a strong afrocentric identity.”

When the leaders were still young, Reverend Simon Nyende of the Church Mission Society, who was conducting the practice in Maseno Kisumu, rejected the suggestion.

Jaramogi used all of his influence to get the group christened under his suggested names, which included writing to the church’s archdeacon, bringing up the issue at the church council, and securing the endorsement of the Bishop of Nairobi. 

Later, Oburu would be named after Chief N’gon’ga Molo Buru, a prominent national leader at the time. 

“The man who would go on to become one of the nation’s most powerful leaders had earlier gotten into a fight with the mother of the children and his first wife, who subsequently left.”

Oginga claims in his book, “Not Yet Uhuru,” that she departed after he threw her to the ground for disobeying his instructions on how to bathe and care for the infant Oburu, who was the firstborn.