Kenya African National Union nonetheless decided to remove all provisions of a federal nature from the constitution. Kenya became independent on December 12, 1963, and the next year became a republic within the Commonwealth. Jomo Kenyatta, head of the Kenya African National Union, became Kenya's first president. KADU dissolved itself voluntarily in 1964 and joined KANU after a strong lobbying by Tom Mboya. A small but significant leftist opposition party, the Kenya People's Union (KPU), was formed in 1966, led by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a former vice president and Luo elder. The KPU was banned and its leader detained after political unrest related to
Jomo Kenyatta manners" and a flexible attitude in adapting to urban situations dissimilar to the lands he had grown up in. A. R. Barlow, a member of the Church of Scotland Mission at Kikuyu, met with Kenyatta in Britain, later relating that he was impressed by how Kenyatta could "mix on equal terms with Europeans and to hold his end up in spite of his handicaps, educationally and socially." The South African Peter Abrahams met Kenyatta in London, noting that of all the black men involved in the city's Pan-Africanist movement, he was "the most relaxed, sophisticated and 'westernized' of the lot