How lovers and haters gathered to mourn to Raila

The late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s death has left many political orphans, as National Assembly Minority Leader Junet Mohamed jested on Sunday during Raila’s send-off service.

On the one hand, as he said, were those who loved him, those who gathered to pay tribute under a scorching Bondo sun, recounting their moments together and the impact the former premier had on their lives.

“Those who built their political careers from insulting Baba and making him their bogeyman are also finished,” Junet said of the other batch of orphans, those who scaled the ladder from constantly bashing the former premier.

In the eyes of many within the Orange Democratic Movement, Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga would fit this description for recent remarks that were deemed by many as celebrating Raila’s death.

“We did not harbour hate for anyone, but God came through for us,” Kahiga said about Raila’s death.

Many of this kind of orphans sat at the main tent during the funeral service in Bondo.

They include President William Ruto, who, at the height of the 2022 campaigns, had few kind words for Raila, a rival in three successive presidential elections, once directly. In 2017, he would brand him “the lord of poverty and the master of violence,” and later continued to call him names like “Mr Kitendawili.”

“The lord of POVERTY & master of VIOLENCE came with his signature chaos, destruction, bloodshed and death. Barbaric, undemocratic & primitive,” Ruto posted on his then Twitter handle in November 2017, a tweet that was on the Head of State’s handle as late as last afternoon.

He fired the tweet as a reaction to the chaos that greeted Raila’s return from the United States, which featured clashes between police officers and Raila’s supporters, resulting in deaths.

Before the two partnered in their ‘broad-based’ arrangement last year, Ruto had blasted Raila for attempting to force a handshake through the back door through protests he described as “anarchy.”

This disdain, it seemed, was mutual, as Raila would occasionally refer to Ruto as “the high priest of corruption,” a perception that many Kenyans, without evidence, hold to be true of the Head of State. Ruto has yet to face corruption charges.

Before Raila’s death, Ruto had patched things up with the former premier. Indeed, he kept Raila’s company in his sunset days, courtesy of a partnership forced on them by demonstrating youth. So much so that Raila’s family kept him informed about his health and eventual death.

At some point, former President Uhuru Kenyatta had some strong feelings about Raila, whom he often called a “witch doctor,” a “mad man” and “Kenya’s problem,” among other expletives. That was mostly during the 2013 and 2017 campaigns, which also saw Raila return the favour, calling Uhuru a “drunkard.”

Uhuru reaped from the historical scaremongering of Raila within his native Mt Kenya region, a tactic he and his allies used on the campaign trail. His father, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, had suffered the fate that Raila inherited, described by Kijana Wamalwa as “Railaphobia.”

“Everything was okay between Raila and Mt Kenya region until we got to the election, when the scare mongering by the political leadership began,” Paul Mwangi, Raila’s lawyer, said. “After elections, nobody had problems with him; many people came to him seeking assistance, and he had a perfect relationship until the elections.”

Uhuru and Raila reconciled in March 2018, when they shook hands at Harambee House. They would also publicly apologise for the nasty things they had said about each other on the campaign trail. Ruto and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka would do the same.

Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has also previously painted Raila as a bogeyman, shunning Uhuru for trying to sell the former prime minister in the Mt Kenya region ahead of the 2022 polls. He did not take Kenya Kwanza Alliance’s victory gracefully.

As he gloated, he would dismiss the opposition’s protests in 2023, saying the government would not engage Raila on anything but his retirement from politics. And he would say that he had set up traps at the State House to prevent Raila from securing a handshake. Raila, equally, had unprintable names for the former DP.

Allies of the three politicians have often taken cues from their masses, seizing whatever chance they got to chide the former premier. They include National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah, who once said that an opposition leader, most probably Raila, was “swimming on the blood of Kenyans to access power” for staging anti-government protests.

“These demonstrations… are about Odinga’s bitterness at losing an election for the fifth consecutive time. In his characteristic style, he has resorted to violent and bloody extra-judicial and extra-constitutional means to blackmail the people of Kenya,” he said in July 2023, at the height of anti-government demos by the opposition.

Ichung’wah had been full of praise for Raila since his truce with Ruto last year.

The exchanges between politicians highlight the untidy nature of Kenya’s politics, said Ian Horsefield, a lawyer and political analyst.

“There is no political hygiene in Kenya. Our politics is tribal, and that is why someone like Raila was unacceptable in Mt Kenya,” he said.

The ‘orphans’ also include those who rode on Raila’s name to power, most of whom hail from his native Nyanza, where an endorsement by the late opposition veteran granted politicians one foot into elective positions.

And so many would struggle to get into Raila’s good books, with claims of flawed nomination processes rocking ODM perennially.

“For long, many have campaigned on the platform that they are going to help Baba, who started the trend in 2007 when he first championed the six-piece voting to ensure his hold on power is solid,” said Horsefield. “That worked, but it will not sell anymore. People will likely vote for whoever they want, and so the future is bleak for those who have hung on Raila’s coattails.”

He argued that the current period was the calm before the storm for ODM, which he said must learn to be democratic or risk irrelevance.