A statesman does not become private property upon his death. But in Kenya, the graveyard has always been a battleground.
When Raila Odinga passed away in Kerala, India, on October 15 last year the logistical challenge of returning his body within 72 hours was immense. President William Ruto stepped in with the full machinery of the state. The government took care of the airline, declared national mourning and hosted a state funeral with military honours. For a brief moment, the historical boulder of Luo marginalisation was balanced at the summit.
It was a poignant reversal of a very old wound. In 1994, when Jaramogi Oginga Odinga died, President Daniel arap Moi attempted a similar gesture, offering military helicopters for the body. It was a gesture to continue the cooperation he had started with Jaramogi in 1993.
Moi’s offer was rejected. This rejection is historical.
From 1969, an oath was administered by a small clique of elites led by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, committing his community to never allow a Luo, particularly Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, to ever become president. Moi attempted to undo this oath through cooperation with Jaramogi, which he now wanted to extend to Raila, post Jaramogi. However, James Orengo (who is now Siaya governor) teamed up with Mwai Kibaki to argue that the body must travel by road so supporters could view it.
The real motive was darker. He wanted to deny Moi the opportunity to endear himself to the Luo community, deny Jaramogi a state send-off and prevent Raila from continuing with Moi. Orengo insulted Moi publicly at the funeral. The promise of a reconciled future was shattered by one man’s 30-year ambition.
Thirty one years later, the exact same script was pulled from the drawer.
To understand Migwena on October 15, one must interrogate what the old order fears. They are not afraid of Raila the man. He is gone. They are afraid of the three pillars the former Prime Minister, his father and their networks, built through sweat and blood, against all odds. That network has guaranteed the political unity of the Luo community. The organised presence of the Luos has historically been the tipping point for national protest movements that threatened established power. And ODM has been the only national vehicle under which the marginalised communities can collectively demand their constitutional rights. Break the Odinga network, divide the Luos, destroy ODM and rule the country without formidable resistance. That is the documented playbook of every political crisis this country has manufactured for 60 years.
When Baba died, the state had the power to ensure a dignified burial and used it. One year later, the state had the power to ensure a dignified anniversary to seal this legacy, but someone ensured it would not. Orengo misguided the family into taking sole charge of the programme, stripping it of state protocol. The ODM secretariat, reading the signals, withdrew. Intelligence later showed the committee was composed of one-term sympathisers. The idea of a split memorial had been opposed internally but those who opposed were overruled.
Former Makadara MP Reuben Ndolo disclosed at a church service in Embakasi East that he had been instructed by Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna and Embakasi East MP Babu Owino to mobilise and ferry youths from Western and Bondo to Migwena. Notice the language afterward. When Sifuna and Babu Owino ferry youths from outside, they are called supporters. When the local ODM base shows up, they are recast as goons. The weaponisation of language is part of the operation. The grave was turned into a campaign platform.
The two anniversaries and the engineered split
Why two anniversaries? Ruto on October 7 and the family on October 15? It was about intelligence. Having wrestled the anniversary from the state, the committee invited the opposition including the DCP leader Rigathi Gachagua. Former President Uhuru Kenyatta was to be chief guest. Ruto knew he would be humiliated with no control of programme. He opted for the seventh, a small but dignified state unveiling at Kang’o ka Jaramogi, of the mausoleum he funded.
The split was engineered.
Orengo’s role becomes clear when we return to September 22. Uhuru stood before Jubilee and declared that the 2022 election had been stolen from Raila. ODM leader Oburu Oginga responded immediately. Why raise it now, four years later? Uhuru controlled the state machinery during that election, understood the process was compromised and did nothing. Then three weeks before the anniversary, he reopened the rawest wound in the Luo psyche while handing over Jubilee to the man who ran his security and intelligence ministry that year. Three weeks later he cited hostile reception and pulled out of the memorial at the 11th hour. Uhuru misled the family about the presidency in 2022 and misled them again about the memorial this year.
Ruto’s absence compounded the vacuum. Whether miscalculation or deliberate withdrawal will be debated. What is beyond debate is the consequence. The space that should have been consecrated by state dignity and party unity was handed to people who came not to mourn but to campaign.
The betrayal of Baba’s last instruction
This hijacking was a direct assault on the discipline Raila demanded in his final months and a betrayal of his last political decision. When critics prematurely announced that ODM would not field a candidate in 2027, Raila reprimanded them publicly to stop committing the party to things which had not been discussed. Sifuna has distorted these words to suggest Raila did not support the broad-based government.
Using Baba’s first anniversary to launch an anti-Ruto political crusade, Orengo, Uhuru, Sifuna and their proxies were defying Baba’s explicit final instruction. The truest test of loyalty to a fallen leader is not the volume of the mourning. It is whether you honour his last wishes. To defy them in his graveyard is the deepest form of betrayal.
The French philosopher Rene Girard described what drives this behaviour as mimetic desire. The old order despised Raila throughout his life, but they are envious of his political aura. They cannot build a genuine movement for the marginalised because their interests are structurally opposed to the marginalised. So they attempt to wear his clothing after his death. Orengo, driven by a 30-year ambition to become the supreme voice of Luo politics, is the perfect instrument for this operation. He is the fox placed inside the pride to divide it from within.
The family triangle and the consumed legacy
A Daily Nation front-page story of October 19 captured the result of the operation. Raila Odinga Jr endorsing ODM’s Nairobi Senate candidate Phelix Odiwuor alias Jalang’o, while Winnie Odinga attacked ODM leaders and aligned with the insurgent wing. To the untrained eye, it reads as family disagreement. To the political anthropologist it is a psychological operation.
Winnie had used that same memorial to launch her senatorial bid under Sifuna’s wing, calculating that youth might not want to associate with Ruto. A network of central Kenya political figures prominent in Nairobi business and political circles had already been raising funds to bankroll her campaign under the insurgent flag. The first pillar is being pushed.
Mama Ida Odinga issued a statement of grace after Migwena, thanking Ruto for the mausoleum and apologising to harassed guests. She is a matriarch of dignity caught in a structural trap. On one hand she is employed and works with Ruto in government. One child, Raila Jr, embraces broad-based government and plans to contest Kibra. Her daughter Winnie is sympathetic to Uhuru’s alleged political project, Sifuna, and wants Nairobi Senate under Sifuna’s party. Yet Raila left ODM anchored inside government. Convincing the family to sideline the state, Orengo made Mama Ida appear ungrateful to the government that funded Baba’s state funeral. By positioning Winnie in the insurgent wing, the Siaya governor prepares a future in which she runs against the very voters who loved her father. Orengo is not protecting the Odinga legacy. He is consuming it, piece by piece.
A statesman does not become private property upon his death. Raila belonged to the millions who bled for the Second Liberation, to the generation that endured detention and displacement and rigged elections because they believed in a Kenya that belongs to all who live in it. The family’s grief is sacred and their grace is admirable. But the community’s memory belongs to the community, and it will not be administered by those who engineered the theft of the past elections and then arrived at the graveyard pretending to mourn.
The contrast that writes itself
In the midst of this theatre, Oburu broke his silence on October 15 from his hospital bed at The Nairobi Hospital. On his 83rd birthday, he debunked death rumours, said he was recovering and urged youth to reject manipulation and focus on the engine room where economic zones are being built. Healthy people engineering factional takeovers at a graveyard. An elderly statesman hospitalised and frail, urging the nation to hold its course so that the marginalised can compete fairly for the first time in 60years. Oburu embodies the quiet institutional dignity that Raila’s legacy demands.
The broad-based government is producing receipts that 60 years of opposition never delivered. But this cannot be taken for granted and cannot be treated as captured territory.
The comprador elite are deploying their old money and propaganda to confuse the youth. ODM leaders must match every act of disruption with civic education. The people who built the Odinga legacy built it through persuasion and the long game. The inheritance demands the same discipline.
An anniversary this year has passed. President Ruto has a perfect opportunity next year. After August, he can take charge of Raila’s second memorial and restore dignity. He must honour the 10-point agenda they agreed. He must allow Oburu, the Luo Council of Elders, Raila’s global friends and millions of supporters who avoided expected chaos to finally participate.
For 60 years, the name of the Odinga family and their networks has been the shield of the marginalised. With that name intact, the Luo remain united, ODM remains a national fortress and the excluded still have a home. If that name falls through manufactured division, the boulder falls. And it must not fall.
The writer is based in Johannesburg, South Africa
