By Amos Kareithi

The 42-year-old man who served one of Kenya’s most prominent political families for 15 years is now a vagabond and a nervous wreck.

David Dimba Jakobuya was 20 when he was drafted into Jaramogi’s security detail and counted himself lucky to serve the man he had always admired. Little did he know that he was signing his ticket to perpetual poverty.

After a trip to the city from his tin shack single room in Satellite, Nairobi, Jackobuya clad in a ten-year-old grey striped suit rues the day he dedicated his life to politics.

“It is evident I made the wrong investment by investing honesty and loyalty in politics which is dominated by greed and treachery,” Jakobuya laments.

David Jakobuya during the interview. Photo: Evans Habil/Standard

Jakobuya joined Jaramogi’s team in 1987 at a time when it was considered dangerous to associate with him due to his political leanings. He survived the Mwakenya crackdown but now lives in abject poverty, never sure where the next meal will come from.

“I had just escorted my uncle, Mhewa Ndede, who was an aide, to Tanzania,” recalls Jakobuya. When he returned he was recruited to work as a sentry at the old man’s Milimani residence in Kisumu. He rose through the ranks to become Jaramogi’s trusted aide and confidante and was initiated into the world of politics.

tasted his food

Overnight the son of a peasant who had dropped out of secondary school twice for lack of fees became a vital co

Courtesy of:http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1143990771&cid=4&

MEANWHILE BELOW YOU WILL FIND:

Mr Dimba Jakubuya Sketch Profile

David Odhiambo Dimba was born on 7th June 1967 in Kobuya Location-Rachuonyo District.

The fifth of 13 Children that the late Dimba Oyuko bore with his second wife, Perez Miruka Dimba.

Mr Dimba attended the local Kobuya Primary School where he passed the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination (KCP) in 1979. Joined D.H.T. High School in Kisumu City in 1980.

In 1983, Mr Dimba dropped out of school in Form Three due to school fees problem.

Sought casual work in a Sugar Plantation in Mohoroni where he laboured for a year to raise money for resuming his education the year 1983 that followed.

Upon completion of high school in 1985, he engaged in many different casual jobs in Kisumu where, through apprentice, he gained important skills in typing and in men hairdressing, becoming a barber in Kisumu.

During the agitation for change in 1986, spearheaded by the underground Mwakenya Movement, Dimba got involved in the movement for change in the system of governance in Kenya.

In 1987, after a brief stint in Tanzania where he had fled to escape government crackdown on the Mwakenya operatives.

Mr. Dimba joined the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and later rose to become the former opposition leader’s aide-de camp (ADC).

For a period spanning about a decade, Mr Dimba served the late Jaramogi in various capacities, handling the former Vice President through the turbulent period that Kenyans struggled to restore multiparty democracy until his death.

Mr Dimba was arrested and detained incommunicado when the Forum for Restoration of Democracy (FORD), spearheaded by Jaramogi, planned to hold unlisensed political meeting at the Kamukunji grounds in Nairobi.

Upon the removal of section 2A of the Constitution, that returned Kenya to multiparty.

politics, Dimba continued with his services to Jaramogi in the same capacity even after FORD was registered as a political party and later disintegrated, with Jaramogi leading one faction of Ford-Kenya.

Mr Dimba took part in all the opposition activities, playing a crucial role around Jaramogi during the political campaigns for the 1992 Kenya ’s multiparty General Elections.

In 1993, Mr Dimba served Jaramogi as a staff of the National Assembly after the late Ford

Kenya chairman triumphed in the 4th position in the 1992 General Elections, becoming the leader of Official Opposition in Parliament.

Mr Dimba co-ordinated all the Ford-Kenya MPs’ working relations with Jaramogi and was the Opposition leader’s personal assistant at party offices in Nairobi and Jaramogi’s private businesses in Nairobi, Kisumu, Bondo and elsewhere.

He represented his boss in a number of meetings and functions like harambees and for all the years with Jaramogi, took care of the late old man’s personal health and security, running his errands and accompanying the Mzee everywhere (including on overseas trips and at all times).

Mr Dimba and Rev Okoth Otura (now in exile in Canada) founded the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation (JOOF), having been in charge of the education of Jaramogi’s children as well as the children from needy backgrounds whom Jaramogi sponsored.

Upon the death of Jaramogi in 1994, Dimba joined the Hon. Raila Odinga as the MP’s personal assistant both at the Odinga family business (East Africa Spectre Ltd) where Raila was the managing director and when the Langata MP left Ford Kenya and took over the leadership of the defunct National Development Party (NDP).

While performing the dual functions, Mr Dimba and Rev Okoth Otura founded the Students and Youth Congress of Ford Kenya (SYCO-FK), which helped to catapult Raila’s rise in Ford-Kenya and his subsequent ascendancy to the leadership of the NDP.

Mr Dimba mobilized youth support for Raila throughout the country including students from the higher institutions of learning and across the country for Hon PM Raila’s bid to lead a political party.

Mr Dimba and Rev Okoth Otura played a leading and instrumental role in identifying Parliamentary candidates particularly aspirants from Luo Nyanza who would contest the 1997 General Elections on the NDP ticket.

Hon PM Raila Odinga emerged 3rd in the presidential race with the NDP winning 24 seats in the 8th Parliament (including one seat of a nominated MP).

Before the current Kenyan ambassador to USA, His Excellency Peter Nicholas Rateng’ Ogego, joined Raila to offer very invaluable contribution, Dimba acted as the Executive Director of JOOF and played an instrumental part in establishing the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Memorial Museum (JOOMM) in Bondo.

In 1996 Mr Dimba was among a group of 15 Kenyans who won a scholarship that to the USA to study how the American democratic system worked.

He gained invaluable experience, which he was to later share with the local civil society organizations and individuals in Kenyan with whom he worked to help entrench democracy and good governance in the country.

He has participated in the country’s democratization process as human rights activist, democracy scholar and a political strategist, working closely with the American organizations like the National Democratic Institute (NDI) the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the German Foundations in the country.

As Hon PM Raila’s PA in charge of political desk, Dimba handled many private and official assignments for Hon. PM Raila Odinga, which included being the former minister’s PA at the Kanu headquarters when the NDP merged with the then ruling party in 2002 after a long co-operation – an experience which exposed Dimba to the workings of a ruling party secretariat.

Mr Dimba is a periodic commentator on Social, Environmental and Political issues and has written articles over the years on topical issues.

He has fled the country thrice at different times when faced with threat of tyranny of political leadership in Kenya.

When Hon PM Raila with others left Kanu to form the Rainbow faction in 2002 Dimba together with other former NDP staff who had been absorbed into the Kanu secretariat, also left.

Mr Dimba and Rev Okoth Otura later faced serious threat to their lives which, in the circumstances, prompted them to flee the country.

This is what brought to unceremonious end Mr. Dimbas long stint with the Odingas that spanned about two decades.

Mr Dimba returned only when President Kibaki was being sworn in as new head of state and has since then kept a low profile.

While most of the late Jaramogi’s security details and confidants have died in strange and misterious way, Dimba and few others have survived by either living in exile or are forced to live under extreme poverty and fear of death.

For survival, Dimba has been specializing in small and private consultancies, which include public relations, interest-group formations, political strategy, election campaigns, conflict mediation & management, lobbying, advocacy, and business concept development, among other services.

Mr Dimba is a political communicator, civic educator, political propagandist and agenda setter with extensive experience in (mass) mobilization and political management and analytical skills.

He has since 1998 published three newsletters (dubbed as the gutter press) and occasionally contributes letters to the editors of local newspapers on topical issues. He believes that the ultimate purpose of politics is to transform the human situation by changing the condition of the people.

A Christian by faith and humanist by virtue, Dimba lost his wife, only son and doughter and he is widower, fathering of three daughters, with the eldest one (Maureen) in an IT college, the other (Naurah) in secondary school and the youngest one ( Sharon ) in primary school. All of her children are being supported by distance relatives or good summaritans.

Kindly note that Dimbas life is still very much in danger and any support assistance will be highly appreciated and therefore, the very many people who know late Jaramogi are being urged to pray and support Dimba wherever they are in the world.

“Unfortunately, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga never left any will for all the patriotic men and women who struggled and serve with him, while his son the Kenyan PM Raila Odinga was in detention and thus Odinga’s family are not obligated to assist any of us at all, and therefore we have no right to seek any favor at from the late Jaramogi’s family (WANA THO MANA THOWA) says Rev Okoth Otura

You can contact Mr David Dimba Jakobuya at email: ddimba@yahoo.com or Tel: 254 722 320 142