JAMES ORENGO
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 1951 |
| GENDER | Male |
| OCCUPATION | Politician |
James Aggrey Bob Orengo is a Kenyan lawyer, a well-known political rights activist, and a politician currently serving as the Governor of Siaya County.
He earned the professional grade of Senior Counsel in the legal field during the reign of the Late President Mwai Kibaki, making him one of the few lawyers in that legal class.
Biography
Orengo was born in 1951 to his parents, Apolo Stefano Olunga Orengo and Josefina Atieno Olunga Orengo.
In 1954, he joined Ambira Primary School for his primary education.
Orengo joined Alliance High School in January 1965 for his ‘O’ levels and ‘A’ levels studies.
In 1971, he joined the University of Nairobi (UoN) to study for a Bachelor of Laws LLB and became the institution’s President in 1973.
He graduated from the UoN with a Second-Class Honors in Law in 1947 and later enrolled at the prestigious Kenya School of Law.
Subsequently, he passed his bar examination and was admitted into the Kenya Legal Counsel.
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Political History
Orengo was first elected as an MP for Ugenya Constituency as a KANU candidate in a by-election in 1980.
He was subsequently elected as an MP on a Ford-Kenya ticket in the 1992 and 1997 elections.
In 2002, Orengo contested for the presidency on a Social Democratic Party (SDP) ticket but finished fourth with just 0.4% of the votes.
He supported Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement in the 2007 elections.
Orengo recovered the Ugenya Parliamentary seat on an ODM ticket from the Archbishop Stephen Ondiek.
He was one of the four representatives of ODM during the 2007 post-election violence talks that led to the formation of the Coalition government.
He was appointed as a Minister for Lands in the Coalition Government formed after the National Accord Act of 2008.
In 2013, he was elected as Senator for Siaya County, a position he held for ten years.
ODM party appointed him to replace Moses Wetangula as the Minority Leader in the Senate in 2018.
He won the Siaya gubernatorial seat in the 2022 general election with the ODM party under Azimio la Umoja One Coalition.
Life as an Activist
Orengo started political activism during his time as a student leader at the UoN.
He was also among the most prominent critics and activists against the single-party regime of the Late President Daniel Arap Moi.
In the early 1980s, he was exiled in Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe to escape the repressive KANU regime.
In 1964, an attempted coup against Tanzania’s President Julius Nyerere would later have repercussions for Orengo.
He was sent back to Kenya alongside Kenya Air Force soldiers who attempted to overthrow President Moi in 1982.
This was part of a swap deal for Tanzanian soldiers who had fled to Kenya.
Family
He is married to an advocate and renowned human rights expert, Betty Kaari Murungi.
His children include Lavender, Steven, Lynette, Michael, Zeni, Bob, and Josephine.
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Orengo net worth
He has never publicly declared his net worth.
However, he owns a law firm operating under the brand name ‘JAB Orengo Advocate’.
The firm that operates in Nairobi has won many critical lawsuits, both criminal and civil.
Cases Handled
He was part of the team that represented Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka in the 2013 election petition.
In 2017, he made history being the lead lawyer in a case that saw the presidential elections declared null and void by the Supreme Court.
Similarly, he was the lead counsel in the team that represented the Azimio Coalition in challenging the presidential elections in 2022.
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