Jomo Kenyatta his own bodyguard had orchestrated the murder. Relations between Kenyatta and Odinga were strained, and at the March 1966 party conference, Odinga's post—that of party vice president—was divided among eight different politicians, greatly limiting his power and ending his position as Kenyatta's automatic successor. Between 1964 and 1966, Kenyatta and other KANU conservatives had been deliberately trying to push Odinga to resign from the party. Under growing pressure, in 1966 Odinga stepped down as state vice president, claiming that Kenya had failed to achieve economic independence and needed to adopt socialist policies. Backed by several other senior KANU figures and
Jomo Kenyatta own wishes". Kenyatta expressed this in his statement that "I have stood always for the purposes of human dignity in freedom, and for the values of tolerance and peace." This approach was similar to the Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda's ideology of "African humanism". Murray-Brown noted that "Kenyatta had always kept himself free from ideological commitments", while the historian William R. Ochieng observed that "Kenyatta articulated no particular social philosophy". Similarly, Assensoh noted that Kenyatta was "not interested in social philosophies and slogans". Various commentators and biographers described him as being politically conservative, an ideological viewpoint likely bolstered by his training