The ‘Airlift Program’ and the Making of a ‘Glocal’ Citizen:
Exploring the Nomadic Subject in Philip Ochieng’s
Biography, The 5th Columnist: A Legendary Journalist (2015)
by Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi
Christopher Odhiambo Joseph
Department of Literature, Linguistics, Foreign Languages and Film Studies, School of Arts and Social
Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya
ABSTRACT
The story of Kenyans who travelled to study in the United
States of America, in what is known as the airlifts program
and, its resultant implications on the project of the nation
building, is well known. So much has been extensively
written and documented in various forms on this subject
from multiple and multi-layered dimensions and
perspectives. However, my entry into this subject is through
a critical encounter with Philip Ochieng’s life’s story, who
happens to be one of the airlift beneficiaries to the United
States of America, as reconstructed by Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi. I
am especially interested in the way that his (Ochieng’s) life-
story in this reconstruction is proliferated with aspects of
nomadism. I discern nomadism in this discussion in a plural
sense. As both literal and figurative, manifested through his
practices of the everyday rituals of life. I argue that the
nomadic tendencies, exhibited in his total lifestyle, define
him as a glocal citizen: always oscillating between and
betwixt the local and global spaces, languages and
ideologies. In reading the nomadic subject, that is Ochieng, I
consciously and cautiously, rely on Rosi Braidotti’s ideas of
nomadic subjects as accentuated in her book Nomadic
Subjects.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 6 June 2023
Accepted 4 June 2024
KEYWORDS
nomadic consciousness,
nomadic subject, glocal
citizen, biography, figuration
Introduction
The story of Kenyans who travelled to study in the United States of America (USA)
in the 1960s can be traced to a unique initiative that has popularly come to be
known as the Kenyan Airlift Program to the USA. This initiative is associated
with the vision of leaders like Tom Mboya, a charismatic and forward-looking
Kenyan politician, with the immense support of American leaders such as John
F. Kennedy. Mboya realized the need to develop a new generation of educated
and skilled leaders who could contribute to Kenya’s project of nation building
Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies is co-published by NISC Pty (Ltd) and Informa Limited (trading as Taylor & Francis Group)
CONTACT Christopher Odhiambo Joseph cjodhiambo@hotmail.com; cjodhiambo@mu.ac.ke © 2024 Informa UK Limited,
trading as Taylor & Francis Group
EASTERN AFRICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/23277408.2024.2365674
Exploring the Nomadic Subject in Philip Ochieng’s
Biography, The 5th Columnist: A Legendary Journalist (2015)
by Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi
Christopher Odhiambo Joseph
Department of Literature, Linguistics, Foreign Languages and Film Studies, School of Arts and Social
Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya
ABSTRACT
The story of Kenyans who travelled to study in the United
States of America, in what is known as the airlifts program
and, its resultant implications on the project of the nation
building, is well known. So much has been extensively
written and documented in various forms on this subject
from multiple and multi-layered dimensions and
perspectives. However, my entry into this subject is through
a critical encounter with Philip Ochieng’s life’s story, who
happens to be one of the airlift beneficiaries to the United
States of America, as reconstructed by Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi. I
am especially interested in the way that his (Ochieng’s) life-
story in this reconstruction is proliferated with aspects of
nomadism. I discern nomadism in this discussion in a plural
sense. As both literal and figurative, manifested through his
practices of the everyday rituals of life. I argue that the
nomadic tendencies, exhibited in his total lifestyle, define
him as a glocal citizen: always oscillating between and
betwixt the local and global spaces, languages and
ideologies. In reading the nomadic subject, that is Ochieng, I
consciously and cautiously, rely on Rosi Braidotti’s ideas of
nomadic subjects as accentuated in her book Nomadic
Subjects.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 6 June 2023
Accepted 4 June 2024
KEYWORDS
nomadic consciousness,
nomadic subject, glocal
citizen, biography, figuration
Introduction
The story of Kenyans who travelled to study in the United States of America (USA)
in the 1960s can be traced to a unique initiative that has popularly come to be
known as the Kenyan Airlift Program to the USA. This initiative is associated
with the vision of leaders like Tom Mboya, a charismatic and forward-looking
Kenyan politician, with the immense support of American leaders such as John
F. Kennedy. Mboya realized the need to develop a new generation of educated
and skilled leaders who could contribute to Kenya’s project of nation building
Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies is co-published by NISC Pty (Ltd) and Informa Limited (trading as Taylor & Francis Group)
CONTACT Christopher Odhiambo Joseph cjodhiambo@hotmail.com; cjodhiambo@mu.ac.ke © 2024 Informa UK Limited,
trading as Taylor & Francis Group
EASTERN AFRICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/23277408.2024.2365674
in the postcolonial era. This initiative would shape the future of education and
leadership in Kenya. Through it, hundreds of bright and ambitious young
Kenyans were offered scholarships to study at colleges and universities in the
United States. The programme aimed to provide these students with access to
higher education opportunities that were unavailable or limited in Kenya at
the time.
Admittedly, a lot has been reported and documented about this enterprise
from varied and variegated dimensions and perspectives. For instance, much
has been written on how it influenced both political dynamics in the United
States and in the postcolonial Kenyan nation-state (see Shachtmann 2009;
Stephen 2013; Weiss 2010; Okoth 1992; Smith 1966; Odari 2011; Ochieng
2007). However, the focus of this article, though largely stirred by this general
subject of the airlift program of Kenyans and other East Africans to the USA in
the search for further education in the late 1950s and early 1960s, dovetails singu-
larly in the framing and shaping of Philip Ochieng’s character and identity as a
colonial/postcolonial/postmodern nomadic subject and glocal citizen as docu-
mented by his biographer, Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi. As such, in this article my
focus is on the biographical portrayal of Ochieng as reconstructed by the biogra-
pher. That is, Ochieng’s life story as presented within the broader context of his-
torical events, societal norms, and cultural influences and identity performances.
The 5th Columnist: A Legendary Journalist (2015) is a biographical text that
traces the life and experiences of Philip Ochieng, a journalist and author who
worked for several newsprint media houses in Kenya and East African landscape.
He is remembered for specifically and dominantly offering his services to the
Nation newspaper and the Kenya Times. This biographical text by Liz Gitonga
constructs and structures, through the possibilities offered by narrative strat-
egies, the life of Ochieng from his childhood to his years in primary and high
school and his checkered life in the USA under the airlift programme and in
other various parts of Europe in the quest of higher education, and in his
‘nomadic’ career as a journalist, his family life and his life in retirement in
Nairobi city.
Philip Ochieng: The Background to his Consciousness
(Philip) Ochieng, the nomadic subject and putatively a glocal citizen was born on
17 September 1938 in Awendo, now Sare, in the present Migori County in the
Nyanza region of Kenya. Though the family’s original home was in Rusinga, his
father, Nicanor Otani, a peasant farmer had relocated from Rusinga Island to
the mainland Awendo, described as a cosmopolitan area and home of immigrant
sub-clans of the Luo such as Uyoma, Karachuonyo, Kano, Nyakach, Asembo, and
Ugenya (Gitonga-Wanjohi 2015, 2). Awendo’s sense of cosmopolitanism was
enhanced and expanded further with the inauguration of South Nyanza Sugar
Company (SONY) in 1979, which according to Ochieng, made Awendo-Sare
2 C. O. JOSEPH
leadership in Kenya. Through it, hundreds of bright and ambitious young
Kenyans were offered scholarships to study at colleges and universities in the
United States. The programme aimed to provide these students with access to
higher education opportunities that were unavailable or limited in Kenya at
the time.
Admittedly, a lot has been reported and documented about this enterprise
from varied and variegated dimensions and perspectives. For instance, much
has been written on how it influenced both political dynamics in the United
States and in the postcolonial Kenyan nation-state (see Shachtmann 2009;
Stephen 2013; Weiss 2010; Okoth 1992; Smith 1966; Odari 2011; Ochieng
2007). However, the focus of this article, though largely stirred by this general
subject of the airlift program of Kenyans and other East Africans to the USA in
the search for further education in the late 1950s and early 1960s, dovetails singu-
larly in the framing and shaping of Philip Ochieng’s character and identity as a
colonial/postcolonial/postmodern nomadic subject and glocal citizen as docu-
mented by his biographer, Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi. As such, in this article my
focus is on the biographical portrayal of Ochieng as reconstructed by the biogra-
pher. That is, Ochieng’s life story as presented within the broader context of his-
torical events, societal norms, and cultural influences and identity performances.
The 5th Columnist: A Legendary Journalist (2015) is a biographical text that
traces the life and experiences of Philip Ochieng, a journalist and author who
worked for several newsprint media houses in Kenya and East African landscape.
He is remembered for specifically and dominantly offering his services to the
Nation newspaper and the Kenya Times. This biographical text by Liz Gitonga
constructs and structures, through the possibilities offered by narrative strat-
egies, the life of Ochieng from his childhood to his years in primary and high
school and his checkered life in the USA under the airlift programme and in
other various parts of Europe in the quest of higher education, and in his
‘nomadic’ career as a journalist, his family life and his life in retirement in
Nairobi city.
Philip Ochieng: The Background to his Consciousness
(Philip) Ochieng, the nomadic subject and putatively a glocal citizen was born on
17 September 1938 in Awendo, now Sare, in the present Migori County in the
Nyanza region of Kenya. Though the family’s original home was in Rusinga, his
father, Nicanor Otani, a peasant farmer had relocated from Rusinga Island to
the mainland Awendo, described as a cosmopolitan area and home of immigrant
sub-clans of the Luo such as Uyoma, Karachuonyo, Kano, Nyakach, Asembo, and
Ugenya (Gitonga-Wanjohi 2015, 2). Awendo’s sense of cosmopolitanism was
enhanced and expanded further with the inauguration of South Nyanza Sugar
Company (SONY) in 1979, which according to Ochieng, made Awendo-Sare
2 C. O. JOSEPH