Raila Odinga at Mjadala Africa rehearsals at the Africa Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa.
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is like an echo of great spaces traversed, hitting the highs of hope and depths of despair. He has grappled with his destiny, wrestled, won some and lost some.
If he were a colour, it would probably be purple — an emblem of kings — a colour as vital as royal blood, mixed with the dark blue of late evening sky, and with something luxuriously rich and brown, like chocolate.
Royal? Not exactly. But almost. President? Not exactly. But almost. Almost President. That summarises Mr Odinga’s life. He is like a poet of unreciprocated love when it comes to his quest for Kenya’s presidency. And his is a sad poem, and being about love, about heartbreak.
He is a storyteller even if not an eloquent one; and with age, the words come out a little more mangled with that characteristic shake of the head. And his gait has slowed just a step or two.
As he turned 80 on January 7, 2025, there was a lot to reflect on. Some of his most haunting and unforgettable images are whenever he has called a press conference after an electoral loss. I imagine him waking up to the dissonant blur of the day, fresh and raw — the loss like a stubborn stain, a faded smudge of brown on a white piece of cloth.
He usually seems in terrible loneliness in the press conference like one tackling a staggering dilemma in the fluorescent, whirring air before the cameras. He seemingly doesn’t even stand up completely straight then, but is somehow slightly doubled over with loss, railing bitterly about elections he considers stolen and then, there is a forlorn way he stands, as he wipes his eyes with a deft sweep of the left arm — an act as heartrending as invoking the tears of an old man.
However, no matter what he faces, he rises again in the words of Spanish writer Federico García Lorca in his book Three Tragedies when he writes that, “My head is full of fire and grief and my tongue runs wild, pierced with shards of glass.” Mr Odinga, even at 80, still has a head full of fire.
His plight reminds one of the words of the English neurologist and writer Dr Oliver Sacks when he also turned 80. Dr Sacks wrote insightfully that, at that age, “One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’ too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty”.
Mr Odinga has seen it all. Triumphs. Tragedies. Booms. Busts. A veteran of Kenyan politics, he is like a symbol, a metaphor of the near-known, the rather-notknown and the unknown, so “enigma” as he is known in some quarters, fits perfectly. His life shares a tangled history with the Kenyan nation. Having run for the presidency five times, and still not won, he is like a mountaineer unable to conquer a challenging mountain peak.
His life has been a maze characterised by many possible paths and none of them clear, dead ends, and digressions. The narrative of his life is not smooth but jarring, with false starts, extra paragraphs (some winding and maybe unnecessary) and sudden detours, with a suspenseful inconclusive end — everyone left scratching their heads about which card he will pull next.
Now caught, it would seem, in a hallowed forever-sunset at 80 and his face basking in the late wash of the glow of the evening sun with bruised purple shadows, he is enjoying his new challenge as he goes for the African Union Commission (AUC) chairperson position, flying from country to country as he campaigns — that’s no mean feat at 80!
At 80, there are a few lessons for Kenyans from Mr Odinga’s life. One of the lessons is that we should be driven by a bigger purpose, something bigger than ourselves. Something that inspires and wakes us up in the morning. Ernest Hemingway, in his story, “The Faithful Bull” describes a bull that lived to fight, and the bull “would fight with deadly seriousness exactly as some people eat or read or go to church.”
Mr Odinga takes politics seriously as others take their vocations seriously, he is a bull that lives to fight.
Another lesson is that age is just a number. Whereas many at that age would be tired and retired, he is crisscrossing the continent. Also, back home in Kenya, he has kept a tight schedule of political rallies and other events.
Another lesson from Mr Odinga is “never say die”. After losing the presidency several times, hearing elections, just the word, must serrate like a knife, something waved around dangerously.
However, he keeps going. Whatever our views of Mr Odinga, we can draw inspiration from the way he has fought for what he believes in — even if we don’t necessarily agree with his brand of politics.
And we wish him a happy (belated) 80th birthday, success and a long, healthy life ahead.
The writer is a book publisher based in Nairobi. [email protected]
