Dear Hon Raila Amolo Odinga,
Receive the utmost salutations from this humble son of Ong’eche, one of many who grew up on a steady diet of your political ideology, and social justice and believed that your struggles were for our inheritance. I watched as you carried the pain of Nyayo House torture chambers in your stories, scars and a visible, teary eye. You carried the weight of generations of Luo marginalisation – by extension the excluded communities – on your shoulders. For me, you were more than a politician, but a movement, a flame of freedom.
I still remember the morning of August 8th, 2017, at Old Kibra Primary School. The air was thick with sweat, dust, and anticipation. Women ululated as you arrived with Mama Ida Odinga to vote, their faces lit with the kind of love that moves crowds to tears. In the crush of bodies, I lost a shoe. The white trousers I wore tore at the knee. But I didn’t care, I was happy. Because I believed I was witnessing the final chapter of a long, hard struggle.
As a journalist, I covered your campaign like scripture. I was there when police raided NASA’s tallying centre, laptops and servers carted away in the dead of night. I inhaled tear gas in the streets, watching as hopeful Kenyans, young and old, chanted your name like a war cry. I reported on Chris Msando’s death and the fear it struck into the heart of a nation, his burial in Lifunda village and your fiery speech that got people shouting, “Raila miwa bunde” (Raila give us guns).
That’s why this letter is hard to write. Baba, you taught us to resist. To question power. To believe that Kenya was worth fighting for. But now we are left with a haunting dilemma: What do we do with the social justice you taught us, in these political choices you’ve made?
Millie Odhiambo, your loyal lieutenant, recently defended you against criticism from young activists like Boniface Mwangi. She said they are “rewriting Raila’s history.” But the truth, Baba, is simpler and sadder: the paint rewriting your history is bought by the choices you are making.
Through handshakes and flippy floppy stands on the last four presidents—Moi, Kibaki, Kenyatta II, and now Ruto—you have gone from castigating them, vying against them, to eventually joining them. Once, you stood defiantly against the system. Now, you seem to have mastered the art of negotiating your place in it.
This is not new in Africa. We have seen heroes of liberation movements outlive their revolutions. Yoweri Museveni once promised Uganda would never be ruled by “men addicted to power,” yet despite 36 years of power, failing health and brutal dictatorship, he recently picked nomination papers for yet another term in power. He’s rewriting his journey from freedom fighter to strongman. Robert Mugabe began as Zimbabwe’s liberator before turning his story into one of repression and political convenience only to be deposed by the military. Even Jomo Kenyatta shifted from fiery anti-colonial rebel to a gatekeeper of the status quo.
Baba, we thought your story would be different.
You’ve become the grandmaster of handshakes—the man who appears every time Kenya is pregnant with possibility and helps midwife it back into the same old order.
We saw it with Moi, when KANU, the party that jailed and tortured you, suddenly became “home.” We saw it with Kibaki when post-election chaos birthed the famous nusu mkate government. We saw it again with Uhuru when you embraced on the steps of Harambee House and called it “a new dawn.” And now, Baba, here you are with William Ruto, the man you once described as incompatible with Kenya’s democracy.
Baba, how do we reconcile this?
In 2007, after your victory was snatched away, you asked a question that still echoes today: “How can a team led by Jesus negotiate with the one led by Judas?” You said then that light and darkness could never meet, not if Kenya was to be reborn. But here you are, seated comfortably with Ruto in the very State House you told us was built on the bones of corruption.
This is the same Ruto you once suspended from the grand coalition government over the maize scandal. The same man you accused of grabbing land meant for IDPs. The same man you blamed for blocking reforms in parliament.
What happened to the Raila who demolished the houses of the powerful while constructing the Eastern Bypass, reminding us that public good must trump private greed? Where is the man who took it upon himself to restore Mau Forest, knowing full well that this decision would cost him a loyal fan base in the Rift Valley? That kind of bravery cost you votes, but it earned you respect.
And now, this talk of a “national conclave.” Baba, this is a tool you have perfected: confine conversations to platforms the political class and their chosen few can dominate, ringfence it, and then capture it as they make money in the process. The BBI was one such conclave—marketed as national dialogue, but it ended as an elite bargaining table.
Young people do not need another “national conversation.” They don’t need a conclave. They need the full implementation of the Katiba. They need jobs. They need dignity. Most of all, they need to live. Tell your friend, President William Ruto, not to kill them through the Police.
When Gen Z rose on Saba Saba, demanding justice, a night before their march, you said they could only meet in Kamukunj, as if their resistance needed your blessing and their history needed to start where yours began.
Baba, I once covered you at Kamukunji. I saw the pandemonium, the dust, the delirium you inspired in ordinary folks who believed you were their Joshua. But these young Kenyans are building their stages now. Their history cannot be bound by yours.
You taught us to resist impunity, but now you sound like the village elder who whispers, “Let’s not disturb the chief; he might give us something small.” You, Baba, have gone from being the hammer that broke chains to the consultant who redesigns them to be more comfortable.
At every critical moment when Kenya seemed ready to be reborn, you were there and you moved the liberation rock further enough. But of late, you have become the gatekeeper at the delivery room of a new Kenya, negotiating with the old guards about who gets to cut the umbilical cord.
In The Flame of Freedom, you wrote, “The struggle is my life.” But lately, it feels like the struggle has become your bargaining chip. Is this really how you want your story to end? As the fearless general who stood up to tyranny, or as the broker who taught us every man has a price?
Baba, the children you taught to “resist” are now adults, and they are resisting tyranny—this time without you, and you won’t stand in their way.
Viva!
Like the genz’s had advised him, his time is up. He should rest, but not by joining the oppressor.
He still has time to change his mind and do what’s right. We have had enough conclaves – BBI, among others. For the prosperity and continuity of this great republic, let us implement the constitution to the later. Nothing less, nothing more.