By Edwin Austin
I write this piece from behind the walls of Opoda Farm, the late Raila Odinga’s rural home. A month has passed since his demise but mourners continue to stream in. Here, the air itself seems to mourn. This is no ordinary homestead. It has almost transformed into a pilgrimage site, a living monument to a man whose political shadow stretches far beyond the borders of Siaya County and the Republic of Kenya.
In journalism, we are sworn to detachment, you know, to observe without intrusion and record without sentiment. However, the hallowed grounds on which I stand, soaked in memory and quiet reverence, have conspired against that oath. The widow, Dr. Ida Odinga, graceful in her grief, continues to receive mourners with a strength too extensive for description.
And so, I too stepped forward, not just as a scholar and journalist, but as a witness to history and a bearer of shared sorrow. I offered my condolences to the widow, not with words rehearsed for print, but with bowed respect and quiet recollections of our shared alma mater. Though we were not contemporaries, the hallowed academic corridors we once walked had etched a common thread. In that moment, it was not the timelines that mattered, but the legacy of learning and the bond of grief. Detachment dissolved, I too became part of the story.
Power in Death
During and after Raila’s death, Opoda farm, and by extension Kango ka Jaramogi, which is where the grave rests, has witnessed the presence of not just current and former presidents, party leaders, notable others, old allies and foes who now stand shoulder to shoulder in solemn tribute, but also the quiet hoi polloi.
These are the men and women without portfolios or pedigree, who queued under the sun with nothing but memory and devotion in their hearts. They are the ones who chanted his name in dusty fields, who believed in his dream even when it flickered. Kenyans who saw him through five unsuccessful presidential runs. Kenyans who asked how high whenever Raila said jump. Kenyans who shouted ‘Yes Baba’ whenever Raila roared in rallies. Kenyans who in death, come not as spectators but as stewards of his legacy.
Indeed, it is these farmers, fisherman, foot soldiers, bike riders, market women, professionals and youth draped in faded campaign shirts, who form the living sea around his memory. Their presence is not orchestrated. It is organic, overwhelming, and deeply symbolic. Let it be sufficient to say that in Opoda farm, the great and the humble gather alike, bound by grief, reverence, and something more enduring. Gratitude.
Even in death, Raila Odinga’s legacy casts a long shadow over Kenya’s political landscape. His ideas, alliances, and influence remain deeply embedded in Kenya’s institutions and public consciousness. From his fight for multi-party democracy to his push for the passage of the 2010 Constitution and the birth of Devolution, the movement he built, rooted in reform, resistance, and populist appeal, continues to shape political discourse.
Raila’s symbolic power transcends the grave. Streets still echo with chants of his slogans, and murals bearing his image serve as reminders of his enduring presence. Orange Democratic Movement, the party he led for decades, now operates with his ethos at their core, often framing decisions as extensions of his will. In many ways, Raila rules not through office or decree, but through memory.
Remembering Baba
A Danish international I later met in Nairobi recounted a moment that felt almost cinematic in its rawness. On the morning Raila Odinga died, he had just learned the news before leaving home. Still processing the gravity of it, he shared it with his Uber driver. Their reaction was immediate and visceral. The driver pulled over to a layby, gripped the steering wheel, and repeated, “No, no, no,” as if denial could undo fact.
After a moment of silence, he confirmed the news on his phone. Then, with the quiet dignity of someone mourning a father, he began to speak, not of politics, but of the man he called Baba for many years. He told the expatriate about Baba’s fight for multipartism, for the right to choose, for the voice of the voiceless. Mind you, it wasn’t a lecture. It was an outpouring of gratitude roped in tribute to a man who had shaped his country’s soul.
Suffice it to say, in that cab, from the solemn roadside stop to the subsequent ride in its entirety, grief became testimony and the expatriate, a stranger to Kenya’s soil, became a witness to the kind of devotion that no obituary could ever capture.
At Kang’o Ka Jaramogi, Raila’s gravesite, George Otieno Ogolla stood with the quiet pride of a man who had walked beside history. A former member of Raila’s security detail, Ogolla took pains to recount his years of service with the reverence of one who had witnessed the weight of struggle firsthand. His voice was steady but tinged with emotion.
“Kenya was in the dark days just the other day,” he said. “Today we are celebrating Raila as a Kenyan hero. Some people love democracy but do not know who fought for it. Raila is the hero of Kenya. He fought for all tribes.” In that moment, Ogolla’s words became more than testimony, they were a reminder that the soil beneath our feet had been tilled by sacrifice, and that the man they buried had once stood tall so others could stand free.
To sum up the painful echoes of grief and disbelief that reverberated through Opoda and beyond, one need only listen to the haunting tribute of Elisha Toto, a Luo musician whose words captured the rawness of a nation in mourning. Most mourners, still suspended in shock, spoke of Jakom, as Raila was affectionately known, with a mixture of reverence and disbelief, as if the finality of death had not yet settled into their bones.
Elisha Toto’s lament, woven into the famous vernacular Raila Odinga tribute, became the anthem of collective grief. “God please answer me. Was it really Raila that you wanted or the angels forgot where they were sent and took our Tinga. Enigma, father of all Democracy, Raila, the son of Odinga is now no more…Kenyan people are mourning while chanting Jowi Jowi Jowi Jowi.” In those lines, the anguish of a people who lost a powerful leader, was laid bare.
The Last Dance
Raila Amollo Odinga was the second Prime Minister of Kenya, born in 1945 in Maseno. He died on the 15th day of October, 2025 in India, aged 80. The cause of death was reported to be a cardiac arrest. At the time of his death, Raila Odinga was the party leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, one of Kenya’s strongest and oldest political parties.
Following his death, Raila’s body was flown back to Kenya and received by thousands of mourners at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. On the taxiway, the grief was palpable. Political and social differences were shelved if not forgotten. Mourners walked side by side with Baba’s casket upto Kasarani Stadium. As if the scores of mourners escorting the casket were not enough for a decent escort, the Kenyan government roped in a chopper that hovered above the entourage for the entirety of the over 3 hours escort.
The President of Kenya, Dr. William Ruto, announced seven days of national mourning, called for the national flags to be flown at half mast, suspended all his public engagements for the entirety of the mourning period, formulated a national burial committee and most symbolically, announced that the former Prime Minister would receive a state funeral with full military honours, marking a significant tribute to Raila Odinga’s five decades of contribution to Kenya’s political transformation and struggle for democracy.
Four public viewing events were held in three days. Messages of condolences flooded the airwaves from both local and international notables. Raila was on the 19th day of October, 2025 laid to rest in Kang’o Ka Jaramogi in Bondo, next to his late father who served as Kenya’s first Vice-President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
A day after his burial, the late Raila Odinga was posthumously awarded Kenya’s highest civilian honor, the Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart (C.G.H.), by President William Ruto during the Mashujaa Day celebrations. In his tribute, President Ruto described Raila as a statesman of rare moral courage, a visionary patriot, a unifier of the people and a champion of justice.
