The ODM political machine is going flat out to marshal the more than 2.3 million votes in former party leader Raila Odinga’s Nyanza political turf in favour of President William Ruto.
The entire party leadership, complete with the region’s political establishment, accompanied Ruto as he combed through four Nyanza counties during a marathon five-day visit.
In a charged and emotional tour, the ODM leadership, led by Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga, used all the tricks in the playbook to rally the region behind Ruto.
The central message was that previous governments had deliberately marginalised Nyanza, and that President William Ruto had moved to rewrite the story.
“To say the truth, Your Excellency, Suba South received independence when you became President,” Treasury CS John Mbadi said in Homa Bay on Thursday, describing the deplorable state of roads in the area.
Also in the President’s entourage were top government officials, mostly former Raila allies who have since been rewarded with senior government positions.
“Since independence, there is no Luo who has sat in Treasury as Cabinet Secretary,” Wanga said at several stops, counting among the community’s leaders who are holding prestigious government jobs for the first time.
They include Mbadi, Attorney General Dorcas Oduor and Interior PS Raymond Omollo.
From Kisumu, Siaya, Migori and Homa Bay, the leaders listed billions of shillings worth of development projects that Ruto had taken to Nyanza, accusing former President Uhuru Kenyatta of politically conning the region.
“Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Hospital has always been a level 5 facility ever since. Today it’s a level 6 and is being bankrolled directly from the national government,” Wanga said in Kisumu on Sunday.
“The SGR stalled in Naivasha but is now being constructed from Narok through Kisumu to Malaba... Let me ask you, our people, what are you telling the President about these goodies?”
Nyanza is important to Ruto because of its numbers.
The President is seeking to capture all former Raila strongholds, including the Coast, Western and Northeastern regions.
Kisumu, Homa Bay, Siaya and Migori have about 2.35 million registered voters, according to IEBC figures following the recent mass voter registration exercise.
Kisumu has 652,034 voters, Homa Bay 604,624, Siaya 577,673 and Migori 515,639.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was used as a bogeyman throughout the trip, with rebel ODM leaders accused of plotting to take the region to Gachagua.
“I have seen some of our leaders, those elected on ODM party tickets, telling us to work with Gachagua. Honestly, is that even possible?” Wanga said.
As a direct message that Raila’s family was also backing Ruto’s re-election, his son Raila Jnr accompanied Ruto during the trip.
Critics have often argued that despite his truce with Ruto, Raila was not going to back the President’s 2027 bid.
Ruto has made a major breakthrough in Nyanza, with nearly all the region’s political leaders now backing his bid for a second term.
Apart from three leaders, Siaya Governor James Orengo, Suba South MP Caroli Omondi and Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, the political establishment in the region is now firmly in Ruto’s camp.
The President’s five-day tour of the region, which ended in Homa Bay on Thursday, showcased the extent of the shift.
ODM governors, MPs, senators and MCAs as well as leaders holding key positions in the Ruto administration turned out in large numbers to welcome him.
The reception was strikingly similar to the huge crowds that Raila used to command when he visited or held political activties in the region.
Even leaders who had been sympathetic to the opposition are shifting camp, with the entire ODM machinery mobilising behind the President.
In the tours, Ruto’s central message, some relayed in Dholuo, was that the political vacuum left by Raila’s death in October 2025 is being filled through the broad-based arrangement.
“The only political formation that has a track record of performance, with a practical and transformative agenda, and with a vision for Kenya is the broad-based formation,” the President said.
He urged the region to shun the opposition team, describing them as operating like personality cults and with no vision.
“Let’s not accept to be used as a pawn for the gamble by our rivals. In the wake of our agreement with Raila to unite ODM and UDA, I bet that is the direction we need to take,” Ruto said.
The tour showed how much the political equation in Nyanza has changed since Raila’s death.
For years, Raila was the political anchor of the region. His word carried huge weight and ODM was the vehicle through which the region largely voted.
Ruto is now working with most of the region’s governors, MPs, senators and MCAs. Many of them are openly campaigning for his re-election.
Wanga, who is also ODM national chairperson, has been among the strongest defenders of the working arrangement between Ruto and ODM.
She has rejected calls for ODM to return to the opposition and instead urged the party to use its position in government to secure development and political interests.
Wanga said ODM could not simply walk away from the arrangement it entered into with Ruto, listing roads, markets, school buses and high level appointments the president has handed the region.
Following the deal with Raila, Ruto appointed region’s leaders notably Opiyo Wandayi, Mbadi as Cabinet secretaries for Energy and Treasury, respectively.
Ruto had already appointed Omollo as Interior PS by then, the region saying it showed how the President holds them in high regard.
“All the leaders of ODM are here except one. If you do the arithmetic, we are here 99.99 per cent,” she said during the tour.
The meeting also revealed the region may have gone slow in their quest for running mate, with Wanga, who was among the frontrunners, indicating she is keen on a second term.
On the 2027 arrangement, Wanga said the party would instead negotiate for its share of power in the next government.
“We will get in and do negotiations. Tutakua tumejipanga. We will negotiate for the rightful share of the ODM party,” Wanga said.
Her position has been echoed by other senior ODM leaders, as well as Raila’s son Junior, signalling the position of the Raila family on the 2027 question.
Energy CS Wandayi said the people of Nyanza had already made up their minds to support Ruto.
“Our people have made up their minds to back President Ruto for his second term. Nothing can change this,” Wandayi said.
He said the decision was based on the political situation in the country.
“It’s based on objective analysis of the prevailing political environment. The President is the sure bet,” Wandayi said.
“And as per our tradition, we shall be voting as a block,” he added.
Wandayi comes from Siaya, the home county of Orengo, one of the few senior Luo leaders still openly opposed to the Ruto-ODM arrangement.
Mbadi said in Ruto, they have managed to achieve what Raila, his father Oginga Odinga, tried for years in vain.
“I hear people say that Baba was not decided whether we should support Ruto in 2027 or not. I know for a fact that if there is one person who wanted Ruto to succeed. He considered Ruto as part of ODM,” the CS said, adding that it was already planned that ODM and UDA would work together beyond 2027.
“We are with him 100 per cent,” Kasipul MP Boyd Were said, even as Omollo highlighted that the number of visits Ruto has made to the region was testament of his love and commitment.
Ruto has therefore made development the centre of his pitch to the region.
During his tour, he highlighted roads, markets, electricity connections, housing, water projects and other infrastructure.
Among the major projects he has promised is the long-delayed Lake Victoria Ring Road.
The President has also pushed for the completion of multibillion-shilling Dhogoye Bridge linking Siaya and Busia counties.
In Kisumu, he inspected and launched road, water and sanitation projects.
In Migori, he launched the Sh2.2 billion Kanyawanga-Kwoyo-Madiaba road, which is part of Sh28 billion allocated to various projects in Migori.
The President repeatedly told residents that they should judge his government by what it has delivered.
ODM leaders argue that the broad-based government was part of Raila’s political strategy before his death.
Kisii Governor and ODM deputy leader Simba Arati defended the arrangement.
During the Migori tour, Arati urged ODM supporters to remember Raila’s position on working with Ruto.
