It is a quiet end for a man whose life had been a symphony of thunderous oratory, near-misses at power, and unyielding defiance.
Known to admirers as “Baba” (father), “Agwambo” (the mysterious one), or simply “the Enigma,” Mr Odinga was Kenya’s eternal opposition leader: a five-time presidential contender who reshaped his nation’s democracy without ever fully grasping its highest office.
His passing marks not just the close of an era, but the fading of a political archetype, the post-colonial firebrand who blended socialism, pragmatism, and populism into a potent, if elusive, brew.
Born on January 7, 1945, in the Anglican Church Missionary Society Hospital in Maseno, near Lake Victoria in western Kenya’s Nyanza Province, Mr Odinga entered a world already steeped in the ferment of independence.
His father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was a Luo elder and a key architect of Kenya’s liberation from British rule, serving as the country’s first vice-president under Jomo Kenyatta. But Jaramogi’s leftist leanings, dreams of a socialist utopia inspired by Soviet models, clashed with Kenyatta’s capitalist inclinations, leading to his ousting in 1966 and a life in opposition.
Young Raila, the second of eight siblings, grew up in a household buzzing with political exiles, whispered plots, and the clack of typewriters drafting manifestos. His mother, Mary Juma Ajuma, a devout Anglican, provided a counterbalance of quiet faith and moral steadfastness, baptising her son in the church where he would later return as a born-again Christian.
Education beckoned beyond the family’s modest Luo homestead. After attending Kisumu Union Primary School and Maranda Primary in Bondo, Mr Odinga transferred to Maranda High School, a bastion of colonial-era rigour. But in 1962, at 17, his father, ever the ideologue, dispatched him to East Germany, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), amid the chill of the Cold War.
This was no whimsical exile; Jaramogi’s Soviet sympathies opened doors to scholarships in the Eastern Bloc. Raila spent two years at the Herder Institute, part of the University of Leipzig’s philological faculty, immersing himself in German language studies alongside other foreign students groomed for socialist solidarity.
The grey austerity of Leipzig, with its rationed goods and ideological lectures, was a far cry from the sun-baked plains of Nyanza. Yet it sharpened his analytical mind.
In 1965, a scholarship propelled him to the Technical University in Magdeburg (now Otto von Guericke University), where he pursued mechanical engineering. Life in the DDR was a study in contrasts: rigid communist doctrine by day, clandestine adventures by night. Mr Odinga recounted smuggling Western goods, jeans, chocolates, even Beatles records, through Checkpoint Charlie from West Berlin to his East German friends, evading the Stasi’s watchful eyes.
He graduated in 1970 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, specialising in production engineering and welding—a practical toolkit that would later underpin his business ventures. These formative years in the DDR instilled a love for tinkering with systems, be they engines or political coalitions, and a wariness of unchecked authority that echoed his father’s rebellions.
Returning to Kenya in 1970, Mr Odinga initially sidestepped the political fray, channelling his engineering prowess into enterprise. He founded the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd (later renamed East African Spectre) in 1971, manufacturing liquid petroleum gas cylinders, a monopoly that built him a modest fortune in gas, molasses, and engineering supplies.
By 1974, he had joined the civil service as group standards manager at the Kenya Bureau of Standards, rising to deputy director by 1978. It was a steady ascent, enforcing weights and measures with Teutonic precision, but politics lurked like a shadow.
The call came violently in 1982. Implicated in a failed coup against President Daniel Arap Moi, led by air force mutineers, Mr Odinga was charged with treason. Though he denied masterminding it, a 2006 biography suggested deeper involvement, stirring calls for his arrest years later (thwarted by the statute of limitations).
Detained without trial for six years in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, he endured solitary confinement, emerging in 1988 only to be rearrested twice more. These stints, totalling nearly nine years, radicalised him, turning the engineer into a multiparty democracy crusader. Released in 1991, he fled to Norway amid assassination fears, returning in 1992 to join the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD).
Thus began a labyrinthine political odyssey, marked by party-hopping, alliances, and betrayals that mirrored Kenya’s fractious tribal and ideological divides. Elected MP for Lang’ata in 1992 under FORD-Kenya (his father’s party), he inherited leadership ambitions after Jaramogi’s 1994 death, but squabbles led him to form the National Development Party (NDP).
In a stunning pivot, he merged NDP with Moi’s ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 2000, earning ministerial posts in energy (2001-02) and roads (2003-05). Critics cried opportunism; he called it “cooperating with the devil” for reform. As energy minister, he electrified rural areas; in roads, he paved highways that knit the nation together.
The 2002 election was a triumph: Backing Mwai Kibaki’s National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), Mr Odinga’s rallying cry, “Kibaki tosha!” (Kibaki is enough!), helped oust Moi after 24 years. But Kibaki reneged on a power-sharing deal, denying Mr Odinga the premiership.
The rift exploded in the 2005 constitutional referendum, where Mr Odinga led the “No” campaign against Kibaki’s draft, winning decisively and getting sacked from the cabinet. He founded the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), its orange symbol evoking the ballot’s “No” option.
The 2007 presidential bid was his zenith, and nadir. Running on a populist platform against inequality and corruption, he claimed victory amid rigging allegations. Violence erupted, pitting tribes against each other in Kenya’s bloodiest post-independence crisis: over 1,000 dead, 600,000 displaced.
Kofi Annan’s mediation forged a grand coalition; Mr Odinga became prime minister (2008-13), a revived post that gave him sway over infrastructure and devolution. He championed the 2010 constitution, decentralizing power to counties and curbing presidential excesses, a legacy that endures.
Four more presidential runs followed, each a saga of hope dashed by controversy. In 2013, under the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy, he lost narrowly to Uhuru Kenyatta (Jomo’s son), petitioning the Supreme Court in vain. 2017 brought drama: The initial vote was annulled for irregularities, a global first, but Mr Odinga boycotted the rerun, swearing himself in as “people’s president” in a mock ceremony that flirted with sedition.
A 2018 “handshake” with Kenyatta thawed tensions, birthing the Building Bridges Initiative for constitutional tweaks (later struck down). In 2022, at 77, he ran with Martha Karua as deputy, promising social protections and anti-corruption drives, but fell short to William Ruto by 233,000 votes, conceding graciously.
Beyond elections, Mr Odinga’s influence spanned Africa. Appointed African Union high representative for infrastructure (2018-23), he advocated rail and road networks. In 2024, he bid for AU Commission chairmanship, losing in February 2025. He mediated Ivory Coast’s 2010-11 crisis and pushed devolution as a bulwark against ethnic strife.
Yet contradictions abounded. A millionaire businessman railing against cronyism, he faced scandals: embezzlement in youth jobs programs, tainted maize imports. Detractors accused him of tribalism, inciting violence; supporters revered him as a freedom fighter. Married to Ida Betty since 1973, he fathered four children, Fidel (died 2015), Rosemary, Raila Jr., and Winnie, naming them after revolutionaries like Castro and Mandela.
Mr Odinga’s life was a cat’s nine lives: detentions, exiles, near-victories. He never summited Mount Kenya’s political peak, but he carved paths for others. As country mourns, one wonders: without his roar, will the savannah fall silent?
