My earliest memories of the enigmatic Raila Odinga were in the late 1990s, when I was in my formative schooling years. This was shortly after the 1997 election, which Daniel Moi and the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party allegedly won.
Moi rigged votes in his favour, and 1997 was an opportunity for him to demonstrate his mastery of the cutbacks on electoral systems. These nascent memories are courtesy of my father, who religiously purchased copies of the three major newspapers then – the Daily Nation, the Standard, and the People’s Daily.
Around that time, my curiosity was also elevated by access to copies of contemporary political publications, such as the Society Magazine and the Weekly Review. My dad had copies of these publications, some dating to the early 1990s when multiparty politics was reintroduced. I cannot clearly recall some key political events that followed shortly after the elections. This includes the 1998 cooperation between KANU and the National Development Party (NDP), then led by Raila Odinga.
By 2001, I had a keen interest in political events. I recollect the June 2001 appointment of Raila Odinga and other NDP MPs to the Cabinet by Moi. The newspapers and radio stations extensively broadcast Raila’s appointment as energy minister. Others who joined the Cabinet were Adhu Awiti (planning minister), Orwa Ojode (education assistant minister), and Peter Odoyo (foreign affairs assistant minister).
Months later, in March 2002, one of the most consequential political events occurred: the KANU-NDP merger. I was in boarding school at that time, but managed to get access to newspapers. A month or so later, when schools closed for the April holiday, I went through newspapers page by page at home to keep up with the merger. Luckily, the media was still covering the significance of the event. It was unclear at that time if Moi would leave the presidency or extend his term despite his insistence on retiring by sticking to the two-term presidential term limit. A formidable, broad-based opposition movement was uncertain then.
Moi’s endorsement of Uhuru Kenyatta seven months later, on October 14, 2002, shifted the momentum and paved the way for the eventual formation of a united opposition coalition against Moi and KANU. Since then, Raila remained a highly influential political player, a colossus of sorts, until his death.
Following the death of the legendary Franco Luambo Makiadi on October 12, 1989, Sam Mangwana described him as “a man who comes once in 100 years.” Mangwana inherently referred to Franco’s combination of musical brilliance, leadership, innovation, and lyrical power that was so rare in a career that spanned four decades. Franco also commanded a religious following, and his music is immortal.
Parallels can be drawn between Raila Odinga and Luambo Makiadi. First, their souls departed in October. Three days before Odinga’s death, I had passionately celebrated Luambo’s 36th death anniversary. Probably great men, revolutionaries, die in October. Thomas Sankara and Samora Machel died on October 15, 1987, and October 19, 1986, respectively. Second, the two lives of these legends offer lessons in longevity. They mastered the art of reinventing themselves amid fierce competition and changing times.
Third, they commanded a cult-like following in life and in death. There are charismatic people all over, but very few are uniquely charming. Fourth, Luambo and Odinga were pragmatists and built their admirable careers by building alliances. They worked with their rivals, a typically Machiavellian power strategy.
Raila Odinga had power arrangements with Daniel Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, and William Ruto. To many, these were personal and opportunistic. But they embodied the pragmatic sense of acquiring power. This is not an endorsement of the formation of the broad-based government. The Grand Master of Congolese rhumba and African music, Luambo Makiadi, forged alliances with one of his biggest rivals, Tabu Ley Rochereau. This union of legends produced one of the best music compositions.
My respect for Mwai Kibaki waned following the events of the controversial 2007 elections. While I was a high school student, I was politically conscious. I wondered why Kibaki would mastermind vote rigging when Odinga had won. It was confusing. A day or two before Chief Justice Evan Gicheru swore in Kibaki, I went to bed ecstatic, fantasizing about a Raila Odinga presidency.
The headline of the Saturday Standard the following day affirmed my conviction of Raila Odinga winning the presidential election. My father had sent me to purchase a copy of the dailies to keep track of the election developments. Odinga had polled 3.34 million votes against Kibaki’s 2.45 million. Later that evening, a tide swept, and votes apparently streamed in from the so-called Kibaki strongholds, including the infamous Tharaka Nithi.
Tensions were visibly high at the national tallying centre at the KICC. Odinga looked deeply frustrated with his lieutenants, James Orengo, William Ruto, et al., demanding fairness from the then chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Samuel Kivuitu. Anyway, an Odinga presidency never materialised. I could not fathom why Odinga would let it go, having run one of the most remarkable and consequential political campaigns in Kenya’s political history.
In his autobiography, The Flame of Freedom, and multiple interviews, Odinga maintains that he chose to form the grand coalition government in 2008 for the sake of national unity. This was despite objections by hardliners in the ODM negotiating team at the Serena Hotel who wanted nothing less than Kibaki conceding or the formation of a transitional government leading to elections in a few months.
Odinga reiterated the need for national unity following his political reconciliation with Uhuru Kenyatta in March 2018 and William Ruto in 2024. I am convinced the 2008 Odinga was fundamentally different from the one in 2018 and 2024, and perhaps the 1998 one.
The 2008 Odinga was much more concerned about national unity, given the widespread post-election violence. But the Odinga of 1998, 2018, and 2024 was an opportunistic one who aimed at securing his political and economic interests. The 1998 KANU-NDP cooperation was a strategic maneuver by Odinga to position himself as a potential successor to Daniel Moi in 2002. Odinga played this card, having in mind a possible divided opposition and the fact that no high-ranking KANU leaders had experience in running in presidential elections.
It would be out of order to claim he pushed for his economic interests to secure the purchase of the Kisumu molasses factory in light of the political cooperation with KANU. A significant number of people claim that the land where the factory was located was illegally acquired by Spectre International, the Odinga family business. These allegations are traced to the 2003 Ndung’u Land Commission Report. According to the report, “direct allocation of alienated government land to the company (Spectre International) by the commissioner of lands was illegal.”
A few interesting facts! The Ndung’u Commission was established following a report by a task force Odinga formed in 2003, when he was the minister for roads, public works, and housing. The aim was to assess the status of government property and housing amid deeply entrenched corruption. Second, the government acquired the molasses factory land in 1982, but payments for the land were not made in full. Bidding for the factory gained momentum in the mid-1990s.
Foul play cannot be ruled out in the findings of the Ndung’u Report on Spectre’s illegal acquisition of the land. Lots of political witch-hunting was at play by mid-2003, a few months after the formation of the NARC administration. Two camps had emerged over the failure to implement the infamous power-sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the Kibaki-led National Alliance of Kenya (NAK) and the Raila-led Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). These were the principal units that formed NARC.
Were it not for a court order sought by Spectre International in January 2006, perhaps the company, Odinga, and others would have been prosecuted. Kibaki’s acolytes were not leaving anything to chance, especially after the embarrassing defeat in the August 2005 constitutional referendum. It was evident by then that Odinga would be a force to reckon with in the 2007 elections.
Political and economic interests motivated the extra-constitutional power arrangements of 2018 and 2024. The 2018 one could have targeted cutting off William Ruto from Kenyatta and weakening him in the run-up to the 2017 election. It never worked with Ruto playing victim. The 2024 arrangement occurred when Ruto was extremely desperate following a wave of youth-led protests. The fact that this power deal was followed by the impeachment of then Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua raises suspicions.
It is difficult to figure out the specific political goal Odinga was pursuing. Was he strategically positioning ODM to be a principal coalition partner with UDA in 2027? Or was he just playing the good guy card to cement his status as a statesman? On both occasions, the commercial interests of the Odinga family were on the table.
I embraced Odinga’s ideologies in the lead-up to the 2007 election, given the manner in which he packaged his campaign messaging. He built his manifesto on infrastructure as the key to transforming Kenya’s socioeconomic fortunes. Little credit is given to Raila Odinga for being the brainchild of some notable physical infrastructure projects. The Thika Superhighway, the LAPSETT corridor project, and multiple by-passes in Nairobi were conceptualised by Odinga. To me, he stands out as the most progressive roads minister in Kenya’s history.
At the onset of the NARC administration, Odinga, with gusto, oversaw the demolition of structures built on road reserves. He attempted to inject some sanity as Kenya was transitioning from an irredeemably corrupt Moi administration. The construction of the Raila Odinga Way, previously known as Mbagathi Way, highlights his legacy and embodies his high value for posterity. He was on record many times, noting that most of his decisions are based on posterity.
The Raila Odinga Way was initiated during his time as roads minister, and it was constructed from 2005 to 2007. It was a pilot project to assess the viability of concrete road technology in the country. The road is still in shape almost two decades later.
One has to admire Odinga for his resilience, willpower, and intellect. Few can survive eight years of detention, considering the physical and psychological torture victims are subjected to. It is even more agonizing to imagine Odinga’s mum and brother died and got buried while he was in detention. Odinga endured the loss of his four siblings and eldest son but chose to fight for a cause larger than his life. He lost the presidential election multiple times but stayed on course.
Odinga’s resilience resonates with Viktor Frankl’s thoughts in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. This excerpt from the book’s preface highlights Frankl’s view on finding purpose in life even during moments of suffering:
“…The great task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage in difficult times…Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it…”
His autobiography, The Flame of Freedom, remains one of my favourite memoirs, especially in the Kenyan context. It is relatively rich in history. Most Kenyan autobiographies are quite shallow and read more like eulogies than texts meant to inspire thinking, belief, and action.
Raila also authored Quest for Nationhood – Roadmap to Our Future. As revealed by one of his sisters on the burial day, he was working on another book on Pan-Africanism. He had also instructed Anyang’ Nyong’o to work on a paper on nationhood and tribalism just before his demise.
I highly value people who have been in the limelight to pen down the intrigues of their lives, motivations, purpose, and achievements. In one of my blog posts, I stated the need for such figures to give us more books, but meaningful ones. I have read memoirs that left me cursing the authors for presenting underwhelming information despite having been in the corridors of power.
His father’s, Not Yet Uhuru, is also a remarkable autobiography. Raila Odinga stands out among the few Kenyan politicians who found meaning in writing books, again for posterity purposes. Apart from Anyang’ Nyong’o, it is difficult to easily identify politicians who are intellectually grounded. And I do not imply academic qualifications…We glorify the practice of acquiring academic certificates instead of valuing intellectualism. There is a high deficit of thinkers in Kenya.
It is a generational tragedy that politicians annoyingly talk of Kenya as the next Singapore, yet their woeful intellects tell of a limited understanding of the formidable thinker Lee Kuan Yew was. I am hopeless for a better Kenya.
Odinga was overall well-informed, not just about history, but about many issues. His parliamentary contributions and Cabinet briefings demonstrated a man who highly valued knowledge.
The most consequential deaths generally lead to destructive institutional episodes, largely due to internal contradictions. The ODM party will wane, and the political careers of Odinga’s hangers-on will die with his demise. Despite his intellect and strong belief in institutions, Odinga did not build ODM for posterity. He failed to overcome the Kenyan political party culture, where parties are built around personalities and not effective institutional elements.
I cannot blame him for this. This is a culture primarily associated with the political parties that emerged with the reintroduction of multiparty politics. However, this goes further back to the colonial era. Perhaps KANU, after the death of Jomo Kenyatta, escaped this. His successor, Moi, was deeply entrenched in the system, and an inherent succession plan was already in place before his death.
FORD-Kenya weakened significantly with Oginga Odinga’s death in 1994. Tragedy struck the party the second time within a decade in August 2003 with the death of Vice President Kijana Wamalwa. The party sank deeper. Currently, its leaders are proud to have it as the most popular party among the Bukusu people in Bungoma and Trans-Nzoia counties.
KANU lost its allure with Daniel Moi’s exit from the presidency. Moi personalized KANU after Jomo’s death. One of the primary causes was the 1982 coup attempt that prompted him to consolidate power and resulted in the legal ban of other parties.
Multiple factions within ODM will eventually split and weaken it. Part of the leadership led by the Secretary General, Edwin Sifuna, opposes the broad-based government and vouches for the party to field a presidential candidate in 2027. Others strongly support the broad-based government and vow to support Ruto’s reelection.
Appointing Raila’s brother, Oburu Oginga, as the acting party leader may have been motivated by paranoia and interests. Large political parties in Kenya are extensively family enterprises. This, plus other factors, will hasten the party’s weakening.
ODM has been on a gradual downward trajectory in the past decade. This is supported by its performance in the 2013, 2017, and 2022 elections, apart from presidential polls. Its agreement with UDA/KKA to form the broad-based government impacted it significantly. Weeks ago, its SG Sifuna raised concerns about the fading desire by aspirants to run for elections on ODM.
Oburu lacks the national appeal that Raila enjoyed. I am careful not to refer to Oburu as weak – and I do not mean physically – but he does not inspire confidence. There are leaders whose supporters can go to war for. At least not Oburu.
Raila’s eldest brother is safeguarding the interests of ODM ‘conservatives.’ Linked to this are Ruto’s interests and machinations to win ODM’s support for his unassured reelection. Ruto might have influenced the selection of Oburu as the acting party leader. Ruto’s political career could be a victim of Raila’s death. A fractured ODM and a united opposition spell doom for him.
I have keenly listened to Oburu’s speeches after assuming the party leader’s role of ODM. Fundamentally, it’s double-speak. His speeches carry a reconciliatory tone. But the power arrangement between ODM and UDA/KKA is intact. Oburu was a staunch supporter of this extra-constitutional arrangement when Raila was alive. (I will dedicate the next few weeks to digging deeper and understanding Oburu’s worldview and leadership. But the November 2nd, 2025, Sunday Nation’s Weekly Review was a good starting point. His autobiography is on my bucket list).
In September 2024, Raila Odinga, with the NEC’s endorsement, settled on Anyang’ Nyong’o as the party’s acting leader. This was at the onset of Odinga’s campaigns for the chairperson’s position of the African Union Commission (AUC).
Nyong’o is a near ideological twin to Raila and would make a better party leader than Oburu ideologically. But the two gentlemen are aging. They may resonate with the generational shift in Kenyan politics. Even so, Oburu should facilitate a transition to relatively youthful leadership for posterity.
For ODM to remain relevant and possibly become vibrant, it must embrace youthful leadership. It should brand itself as the political party of the present and the future. The present and the future of Kenya oscillate on political and economic solutions that address the plight of the youth.
The three ODM deputy party leaders are not visionaries. The immediate former two deputy party leaders who were appointed as Cabinet Secretaries in the broad-based government are not good enough to lead ODM. Ideally, an ODM of the future should be built around Sifuna’s talents. He stands out as a visionary and the most qualified to lead the party.
I will forever miss Raila Odinga. His legacy for pro-democratic reforms is solid. His intellect is admirable. His decision-making for posterity is cherished. It is unbelievable that he died. Looks like a dream!
May his soul rest in eternal peace!
The writer, Sitati Wasilwa, is a political risk analyst and strategist. His writings are independent of his institutional affiliations.
THE KAVIRONDO 