John Robert Ouko (31 March 1931 – ) was a Kenyan politician who served as Foreign Minister of Kenya from 1979 to 1983 and from 1988 to 1990. Ouko served in the government of Kenya from the colonial period through the presidencies of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi. He was a member of the National Assembly for Kisumu and a cabinet minister, rising to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation by 1990. On 13 February 1990, Ouko was found murdered in Muhoroni; the assassination, perhaps the most intriguing in Kenyan history, remains unsolved.
A report presented in parliament in 2010 states that the murder was carried out in one of then President Daniel arap Moi's official residences. It also called for further investigations into top officials, including one of Moi's closest allies, Nicholas Biwott, who denied responsibility. In late December 2010 the report was rejected by Parliament on the grounds of a lack of unity, and disagreements within the committee.
Early life and education
Ouko was born in Nyahera, in the present-day Kisumu County, in Nyanza. He attended to Ogada Primary School and Nyang’ori School. He later joined the Siriba Teachers Training College. He worked as a primary school teacher. In 1955, he landed a job as the revenue officer of Kisii District. In 1958, he joined the Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, graduating in 1962 with a degree in Public Administration, Economics and Political Science. He then went to Makerere University in Uganda for a diploma in International Relations and Diplomacy.
At the time of his death, he was almost done with his doctoral thesis, for which he was studying at the University of Nairobi. Despite being known as 'Dr. Ouko', he held only an honorary degree received in 1971 from the Pacific Lutheran University in Seattle.
Political life
Shortly before Kenya's independence in 1963, he worked as an Assistant Secretary in the office of the Governor. He was later posted as the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Works. After the East African Community collapsed in 1977, Ouko became a nominated member in the Kenyan parliament and appointed as the Minister for Economic Planning and Community Affairs.
He was elected to the parliament at the 1979 general elections for Kisumu Rural Constituency and retained his seat at the 1983 elections. For the 1988 elections he moved to Kisumu Town Constituency (later split to Kisumu Town West and Kisumu Town East constituencies), and was re-elected to the parliament. Ouko was a member of KANU, the only legally operating party at the time.
Murder investigations
On 27 January 1990, Ouko, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, left Nairobi as part of a delegation of 83 ministers and officials, among them president Daniel arap Moi, to attend a 'Prayer Breakfast' meeting in Washington DC. The delegation returned to Nairobi on 4 February. On 5 February, Ouko met with President Moi, the Japanese Ambassador, the Canadian High Commissioner, Bethuel Kiplagat (Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and Hezekiah Oyugi (Permanent Secretary, Internal Security). Later that day, Ouko travelled to his country residence, a farm in Koru (some 300 km from Nairobi) near Kisumu, accompanied by his driver and a bodyguard.
On the night of 12/13 February 1990, Ouko disappeared from his Koru farm near Muhoroni. His housemaid Selina Were Ndalo testified that she "was awakened at about 3 am by a noise similar to a slammed door but sufficiently loud enough to startle her awake" and that she saw a white car turning at the bottom of the minister's driveway before driving off.
Francis Cheruyot, a telephonist at Songoh Office, near to the Koru farm, alleged to Detective Superintendent John Troon of Scotland Yard (see below) that on Tuesday 13 February 1990, at about 6 am, he was on duty on the post office telephone switchboard when he saw Hezekiah Oyugi "who was a passenger in a white car containing three other persons" drive past the post office on two occasions but Cheruyot would not make a written statement to this effect. Oyugi was subsequently unable to produce the daily log of his official car.
Ouko's body was found later in the day on 13 February at approximately 1 pm by a local herdsboy Joseph Shikuku (also named as 'Shikulu' and Shikuru' in both Troon's and other reports), at the foot of nearby Got Alila Hill, 2.8 km from Ouko's country home, but although he notified the local villagers of this (a fact supported by 'statements in support' given to Scotland Yard detectives by six other villagers) is was not reported to the police. Ouko's body was eventually 'officially' discovered on 16 February, following a police search.