Dialogues: February 2025

Mourning a Great Thinker, Historian and Philosopher Prof. Bethuel Allan Ogot and His Humongous Achievements for Africa

Prof. Maurice N. Amutabi, PhD

The passing of Prof. Bethuel Allan Ogot on January 30 2025 caught many by surprise, although at 96 he was in a ripe age. He had defied age and had remained the longest serving emeritus professor in Kenya. He outlived his wife Grace Ogot, who died on 18 March 2015, about ten years ago which is rare in Africa. Prof. Ogot still supervised many graduate students in Maseno University where he was professor emeritus and spoke at a couple of events per year, and continued writing. He had an impressive academic career that spanned over seven decades. Prof. Ogot was the chairman of the Historical Association of Kenya and after he left, no other chair person has steadied the association the way he did. There are many who would argue that as a man of means, sometimes he single handedly paid the association's expenses from his private pocket, the way he did in 1992 at Gulfstream Hotel in Kisumu and other places, but it was perhaps more to do with his great dedication to scholarship and interest in mentoring young scholars and serving humanity. In 1992, we were made aware that Prof. Ogot paid for our meals and beverages and the entire conference expenses from his personal pocket with some support from Maseno University. That is how big his heart was.

I first met Prof. Ogot in 1986 at the University of Nairobi when I had joined as a first year. We were little academic greenhorns, almost empty but equipped with open minds, eyes and ears, curious and keen to absorb any fascinating ideas thrown our way. We were curious when the heavyweight professors on campus entered any room because we had read their works in secondary school and high school, and wanted to hear from the horses' mouths so to speak. Linking their faces to their books was exciting. Older students would point us n their direction, saying that is the famous Prof. B. A. Ogot, and we would all turn to look in their direction despite being whispered to, not to look there immediately. They never seemed to mind the attention. My classmate Edward Onyango Odiyo would ask politely to shake their hands telling them that his village of Alego Kaugage had no professor, and he could not pass on such privilege of shaking the hand of a professor, and we would follow suit because as the Africa saying goes, when one cow moos for water, you give it to all and not just the one that mooed. Then there were others like Prof. Gideon Saulo Were, Prof. E. S Atieno Odhiambo, Prof. Ahmed Idha Salim, Prof. Joseph Nyasani, Prof. Odera Oruka, Prof. Chris Wanjala, Prof. William Ochieng, Prof. Daniel Sifuna, Prof. Florida Karani, Prof. Vincent Simiyu, Prof. Simiyu Wandibba, Prof. Henry Mutoro, Prof. Godfrey Muriuki, among others. They all frequented the Senior Common Room in Gandhi Wing of the University of Nairobi and bumping into one of them was frequent.

Prof. Ogot was an academic giant and quite progressive in scholarship compared to his politics, which some regarded as conservative. He was an academic goliath with a Solomonic mind and a towering figure in African intellectual discourses, known for his stimulating and wide-ranging contributions to African studies, especially social, cultural, political, economic theories, and global affairs. He was astute and very aesthetic in the manner of speech and dress, and nuanced in changing scholarly genres and landscapes, embracing pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial and postmodern theories just as easily as he handled modernization, dependency, underdevelopment, gender, feminist and globalization theories. He got on board on almost any intellectual debate and was able to insert himself in many anachronistic, pedantic and newer discourses with great ease for a scholar of his generation, where many of his contemporaries were circumscribed to their narrow disciplinary specializations. His interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to research allowed him to intervene and connect to many disciplines.

Style and simplicity was part of Prof. Ogot's modus operandi. He got traction and received gravitas in fashion as he did in his writing and speaking. Prof. B. A. Ogot stood for his immaculate dressing and his face was not different from the face that appeared at the back of most of his books. There was something about him that radiated brightness, intelligence and academic prowess that were unique. He was always reflective and insightful in his comments during seminars in Education Theater I and II at the University of Nairobi. His comments were friendly, stimulating and deeply intellectual. In many of the seminars, he spoke last and most of us took out our note books and pens to write whenever he was on the floor because he tended to be encyclopedic, emitting a lot of academic ambers coming out as wisdom and historical facts which you did not want to miss, because the information was not found in any textbooks.

Prof. Ogot's reminiscences were so gratifying that you wanted him to digress all the time for each diversion that came out with rare originality and great insights. I recall the time he talked about his time at Ambira High School, Maseno School as a student and at Alliance High School as a teacher of Mathematics. He would remember most of his classmates and where they were and what they did or did not do, many of which we would read about them later in his autobiography My Footprints in the Sands of Time, which was a master class and which I have had a chance to read more than three times. The autobiography reads like a novel and many of the things he mentions he had shared in informal meetings around the fire such as at Gulfstream Hotel in Kisumu in 1992 and at Kericho Tea Hotel in 1993, at Baraton University in 1994 and Egerton University in 1995. He could engage us with stories from the past, until past 1 am, and we would still be glued, wanting to hear more.

The interlocutor or discussant in many meetings with Prof. Ogot was always his former student Prof. William Robert Ochieng who always prompted or reminded him what to tell us about, meaning that Ochieng had enjoyed such stories in the past and wanted us to benefit. He would prompt his mentor to tell us about Ambira, Maseno School, Makerere University, Alliance High School, Royal Technical College, University College Nairobi, St. Andrews University, University of Nairobi, and more. He promptly responded and would share deep information and facts, including how he met his wife Grace Ogot and how ethnicity made him to miss out on becoming the first Vice Chancellor of the University of Nairobi together with David Wasawo and Simion Ominde, who were the only three Kenyan professors at the time, and how an academic nymph Dr. Josephat Karanja was plucked from his diplomatic posting in London and appointed Vice Chancellor.

The stories by Prof. B. A Ogot were fascinating because they were well articulated and always informed by facts. Prof. Ogot was a master story teller who looked at your eyes to see the effects of your absorption. He always left you laughing and able to remember the stories many years later because of the manner in which he told them. One day in Kisumu during one of the Historical Association of Kenya conferences, he told us the story of the President of Liberia, William Tubman. Under William Tubman, Liberia became militarily involved in World War II in January 1944, when it declared war on Germany and Japan. At the time, only Liberia and Ethiopia were two independent African countries. President William Tubman read news that many countries across the world were declaring war against Germany, Italy and Japan, and he followed suit without the necessary military capability of responding in the event that the powers took on Liberia against her declaration.

Of course President William Tubman did not believe that any major power could take on his declaration of war seriously but Germany did and Adolf Hitler quickly arranged for a military flotilla to invade Liberia and teach the African country a lesson. Prof. Ogot told us that as the news of the arrival of the German flotilla arrived in Monrovia, President William Tubman asked the church bells to be sounded and people thronged churches for prayer against the invaders. William Tubman took the pulpit of the main church in Monrovia and asked the clergy to step aside and allow him to pray in church for the first time, while his diplomats cabled Britain, France and the United States for assistance. President Tubman prayed as follows: "God, the last time there was calamity in the world, you sent your only son Jesus Christ to come and save the world, but this time Lord, come down yourself" which sent us into great and prolonged laughter, for that was very hilarious. He had similar stories from his past which he shared and which remained deeply embedded in our minds.

Prof. Ogot is regarded as the father of the study of the history of Kenya, just like Prof. Simion Ominde is regarded as the father of the study of geography in Kenya and Prof. Filemona F. Indire as the father of the study of education in Kenya and Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong'o as the father of the study of literature in Kenya. Prof. Ogot was therefore part of the first generation or pioneer African scholars in African universities. Prof. Ogot is perhaps the most successful historian that Kenya has ever produced and many of his works have become classics in Kenyan and African studies at home and abroad. His seminal work on the history of the Southern Luo remains the most comprehensive, making him the leading authority in the history of the Luo of Kenya. The Joka-Jok, Jok-Owiny and Jok'Omolo were introduced to African academic audiences by Prof. Ogot. The work relied mainly on oral sources and mapped over 1,000 years of the history of the Lwo and Luo which inspired many studies using similar approach such as History of the Luhya by Gideon Saulo Were, History of the Agikuyu by Godfrey Muriuki, history of the Kipsigis by Henry Mwanzi, history of the Mbere by Henry Stanley Kabeca Mwaniki, among others. His towering example produced a unique genre in African history used by scholars elsewhere such as history of the Pare people by Isaria N. Kimambo. Prof. Ogot's works inspired a new stream of African scholars such as Ugandan Grace Stuart Ibingira and Tanzanian Anselim Baluda Itandala. And Ghanian historian Albert Kwadwo Adu Boahen and Nigerian historian Emmanuel Ayankannui Ayandele who were his contemporaries. He had great admiration for Prof. Kenneth Onwuka Dike who was a Nigerian historian and the first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor of Nigeria's premier college, the University of Ibadan. He literally dragged us into lectures by visiting speakers on campus such as E. A. Ayandele, Adu Boahen, A. B. Itandala, Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, Cyprian Ekwensi, among others whenever they were in Kenya. He never missed such lectures and he would be there on the front row, taking notes like a student in class, meaning that he never stopped learning, while some undergraduates in our midst were feeling very important and too knowledgeable to take notes.

As young scholars, we looked up to Prof. B. A Ogot for intellectual affirmation. I recall in 1992 when I presented a paper titled "Mau Mau in Western Kenya" at the conference on "Mau Mau, 40 years later", in Kisumu. My paper raised eyebrows. I had come across archival material on correspondence between government officials discussing elements in western Kenya who were regarded as sympathetic to Mau Mau and in support of the movement. Two of them were people known to me. I proceeded to have conversations with them and their relatives. In fact in turned out that the information about Harrison Ngota being a Mau Mau detainee at Mageta Island was conveyed to our village in Ebunagwe by my own father Jackan Nyamanga who worked as a prison officer on Mageta island Prison at a time when everyone believed that Harrison Ngota had died. I mentioned how freedom fighters such as Harrison Ngota who was from Vihiga and worked as a driver in a European school and Abednego Mukalo who worked as a clerk in the civil service but quietly supported Mau Mau, and were arrested and detained. After my presentation, my discussant, a lecturer at Maseno University tried to throw flak at my presentation, terming it a personal family story that did not have anything to do with Mau Mau, but I was delighted when Prof. Ogot stood up and told the upsrart lecturer that history was built from such micro stories which fed into the meta narratives of the bigger picture. He encouraged such stories and which gave me license to continue my love for micro-histories as part of social history. From that point onwards, the great historian affirmed many of my presentations and I owe him great gratitude for making me a good historian.

On November 17, 2001, I was in Houston, Texans attending the annual African Studies Association conference when Prof. B. A. Ogot delivered the Bashorun M. K. O. Abiola Distinguished Lecture. As he spoke, one could tell that he was in his true elements as he moved carefully from one issue after another, with great dexterity and academic nimbleness that he was famous for. He delivered the lecture at the 44th Annual Meeting of the. African Studies Association in Houston, Texas, on November, 17, 2001 attended by thousands of delegates. This was one the highest points in the career of Prof. Ogot because the award is given to a senior African scholar, to present a lecture at the ASA Annual Meeting. And the trip is usually fully funded. Prof. Ogot showed up with his wife Hon. Grace Ogot who was always supportive and beside him despite her busy political career as MP for Gem from 1985 and Kenya's first female assistant minister. She was Assistant Minister for Culture, Sports and Social Services.

In Houston, in 2001 the other great Kenyan historian who was seated next to me, E. S. Atieno Odhiambo whispered to me and Prof. Osaak Olumullah, saying without Prof. B. A. Ogot, Kenyan and African history would never have been presented to the world in the manner in which it had been done. Odhiambo attributed this success to the creative mind of Prof. B. A. Ogot and his great desire to liberate African history from the colonial archives, structures and forms. There was evidence that many white scholars were not yet reconciled to the fact that oral sources were reliable instruments in reconstructing African history. During dinner, there were three prominent white historians who were still in doubt about the centrality of oral sources in history. As the conference ended, and we departed to the University of Illinois where I was studying for my doctorate under a Fulbright Scholarship, my colleagues were fascinated by the intense and deep knowledge that Prof. B. A. Ogot possessed. I was quick to share with them the fact that it was from such great intellectual tradition that I had been brought up and nurtured at the University of Nairobi hence my great standing in graduating ahead of my class. From the great lecture by Prof. B. A. Ogot, The African Studies Association started the ASA's Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize which recognizes the best book on East African studies published in the previous calendar year.

Prof. Ogot was one of the most prolific writers in Kenya and Africa. He published over 50 books. His most famous book was History of the Southern Luo: Volume I, Migration and Settlement, 1500–1900 published in 1967 and which was his flagship book which launched his academic career towards professorship, and which is top ranked in H-index on books on migration in Africa, on ResearchGate and Academia.edu. His critics like Prof. Ali Mazrui always teased him about volume II of his book which was apparently never published but which he made comments about from time to time. He often said that the book was complete and only awaited release and that it covered Luos in diaspora in their various 'Kisumu Ndogos' and elsewhere. Until the book comes out, we shall never know what it contains. We can only speculate. It is possible that the book has a chapter of Barrack Obama in the State House in the United States of America, among other narratives.

As early as 1964, Prof. Ogot edited a book titled, East Africa, Past and Present, 1964. Another famous book which he wrote with F. B. Welbourn, was titled A Place to Feel at Home, published in 1966. It was a study of two independent churches in western Kenya and which provided much background in the history of independent churches in Kenya. My Masters thesis presented at the University of Nairobi and my article on "Drums, Flags, Uniforms, Ranks and Religious Independency: Reflections on Independent Churches in Western Kenya" drew a lot of inspiration from this book. In 1968, Prof. Ogot together with J. A. Kieran, edited Zamani: A Survey of East African History. and which has been widely cited, occupying top 5 list of most cited books on the H-index. Other books included: Building on the Indigenous: Selected Essays 1981–1998; The Challenges of History and Leadership in Africa: The Essays of Bethwell Allan Ogot, edited with Toyin Falola and E. S. Atieno Odhiambo; History as Destiny and History as Knowledge: Being Reflections on the Problems of Historicity and Historiography, published in 2005. He also produced a textbook, A History of the Luo-Speaking Peoples of East Africa.

The 2009 autobiography of Prof Ogot titled My Footprints on the Sands of Time: An Autobiography is perhaps one of the best autobiographies I have read of Kenyan scholars besides that of Ben Kipkorir titled Descent From Cherangany Hills: Memoirs of a Reluctant Academic. In some ways, the book reads like volume II of the history of the Luo because in it he continues the narrative and description of how Luo clans settled around the Lake Region even after independence. The books provides the reader with opportunity to come face to face with Prof. Ogot's writing prowess as the true scholar with a pen. The book is a great treatise in social history of a pioneer scholar and which brings to light some of the challenges that young Ogot encountered while growing up in rural Kenya and some of the challenges he had to overcome to become the great scholar that he was. It exposes the reader to many genres that traverse Prof. Ogot's academic journey and versatility. My own autobiography titled My walk through valleys and hills of life was largely inspired by the account of Prof. Ogot about his life.

The other book Prof. Ogot wrote is titled Liberty or Death: Southern Sudan's March to Independence and fronts the dilemma of African states which create oppositional binaries and tensions as soon as they become independent. The Salva Kirr vs Riak Machar binary which becomes Dinka and Nuer issue, is mapped in a trajectory similar to that of Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odina at Kenya's independence, making it a fascinating read. Prof. Ogot also wrote Who, if Anyone Owns the Past? Reflections on the Meaning of "Public History". I admired the relationship between Prof. Ogot and his most famous student Prof. William Robert Ochieng. The two enjoyed close friendship and working relationship and co-edited many famous books such as Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940–93, which has become of the best books in understanding the origins of some of the tensions in the history of Kenya, such as the land question. To be sure, the UNESCO General History of Africa which he edited is one of his greatest contributions to scholarship and new knowledge. The series is one of his greatest legacy, which placed African history on world stage and cemented the place of oral sources in the creation of history.

Prof. B. A. Ogot was a great family man. While I served as Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Students' Affairs at Kisii University, his son Prof Madara Michael Ogot, served in similar capacity at Maseno University. Grace Ogot the wife of Prof. Ogot, was the first female author published in Eastern Africa. We will miss Prof. Ogot's mentorship and pioneer spirit. May God rest his soul in eternal peace.

Prof. Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi teaches at the Technical University of Kenya where he serves as Professor and Director of the Centre for Science, Technology and Society Studies. Email amutabi@yahoo.com

Prof. Maurice N. Amutabi, PhD

Director, Centre for Science and Technology Studies

The Technical University of Kenya

P.O Box 53422 - 00200

Nairobi, Kenya

https://csts.tukenya.ac.ke/?page_id=14048

https://staff.tukenya.ac.ke/?r=portal/profile/public&id=2171

E-mail: Amutabi@yahoo.com or amutabi@gmail.com
Tel: +254-(0)700-744545

1. The NGO Factor in Africa
http://www.amazon.com/NGO-Factor-Africa-Arrested-Development/dp/0415979951
2. Regime Change and Succession Politics in Africa
http://www.amazon.com/Regime-Change-Succession-Politics-Africa/dp/0415534089
3. Lifelong Learning in Africa
http://www.amazon.com/Studies-Lifelong-Learning-Africa-Technological/dp/0773447571
6. Prof. Maurice Amutabi's Blog

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USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mourning a Great Thinker, Historian and Philosopher Prof. Bethuel Allan Ogot and His Humongous Achievements for Africa

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