Of Okondo and a loose tongue

Muite, though, may take consolation that he will always be seen as one of our political heroes. Not so with the late Peter Habenga Okondo, whose legacy will forever be locked down in the dungeon with the terrible end of the freedom-fighting bishop, Alexander Muge.

Doomed legacy

Never mind that Peter Okondo, as a young parliamentarian in 1964, foresaw press freedom arguing that "the KBC ... must be independent ... otherwise it will become a horrible tool of government propaganda." The next quarter century of Kenyatta-and-Moi sycophancy that saw the two leaders every way of whisk featured prominently on TV would prove Okondo right.

Unfortunately, as with all soothsayer’s, his zingaro’s ball doomed his legacy when he foresaw Muge’s death on August 14, 1990h by saying "if he (Muge) visits Busia, he might not leave (here) alive." Muge did, and didn’t: As Buddha said: ‘The tongue, like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood."