From 2002 to his death in 2006 he was the deputy leader of the opposition Kenya African National Union (KANU) party.
He died on April 10, 2006, in a Kenya Air Force plane crash near Marsabit.
Among the other casualties were several other government officials including two assistant cabinet ministers who were political rivals of Godana.
The politicians and religious leaders were on a mission to secure peace along the Ethiopian border.
A decade earlier, on July 28, 1996, he survived a helicopter crash at the same Marsabit airstrip.