Delegate summits are where political parties and careers are born and killed.
Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), now led by his brother Oburu Oginga, is to hold a coronation next Friday. And the event is expected to be explosive.
One the high-profile casualties of choreographed delegates conference was former vice-president George Saitoti, now deceased.
At the Kanu-National Development Party (NDP) merger meeting in Kasarani, Nairobi, in March 2002, the mathematics professor was keen to retain the position of national vice chairman, which would have put him in pole position to succeed president Daniel arap Moi.
However, Moi made a shocking announcement: He was abolishing the position of Kanu national vice chairman and introducing four vice chairman positions instead.
Odinga founded NDP and had opted to merge with Kanu. The professor’s attempt to fight the “injustice” invited Moi’s wrath.
“Kimya (shut up), Professor! If your name is not on the list, it is not on the list!” Moi told Saitoti.
The professor shelved his presidential ambitions that day. It was at that moment that he delivered his now famous brief speech.
“There comes a time the nation is more important than an individual. It is with this in mind, and after consultations, that I say I shall not put myself forward for any position,” he told the Kanu delegates.
Later that year, Moi installed Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, a political novice whom he had brought out of obscurity four years earlier, as his successor.
The late former President Daniel arap Moi (left) and the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga (right) at a past function.
Photo credit: File
Several top Kanu figures, including Odinga, staged an exodus from the ruling party alongside Saitoti. Kanu has yet to recover from those events.
A subsequent meeting of delegates, christened Kasarani II, took place the same year and picked Mr Kenyatta as the Kanu presidential candidate.
Observers said president Moi was driven by two motives: the desire to return power to Jomo Kenyatta’s house, having served as Jomo’s vice president, and metamorphose into grey éminence.
Recent NDCs include a February 2025 one where Mr Musalia Mudavadi’s Amani National Congress (ANC) resolved to dissolve and join President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA), winding up the 10-year-old outfit.
In 2016, Dr Ruto’s United Republican Party held an NDC in Kasarani and took the decision to merge with president Uhuru Kenyatta’s The National Alliance and other outfits to form Jubilee Party. The merging parties dreamt of creating a political behemoth that would last decades.
Later, Dr Ruto – who was the deputy president – left and formed UDA, which he used to succeed Mr Kenyatta in 2022.
The Dr Oginga-led faction of the ODM has been plunged into a crisis after the Political Dispute Tribunal said it would rule on whether the party could proceed with the NDC on the eve of the jamboree.
A rival faction led by ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna, known as the Linda Mwananchi, has announced plans for a parallel NDC.
Acknowledging that the rebels would be holding a similar function, ODM chairperson and Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga urged party members and delegates not to be “misled”.
“There will be only one NDC of the ODM. How to call an NDC is stipulated in the ODM constitution. People are free to hold rallies and barazas but the NDC will be at Jamhuri Grounds,” she said.
Past party elections have turned divisive and chaotic, resulting in fallouts. That has made many outfits resort to consensus when picking officials.
Then-ODM Party Leader, the late Raila Odinga on stage at Kasarani indoor arena after being declared the party's presidential candidate during ODM's NDC on February 26, 2022.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
The NDC is the supreme organ of a political party, with powers to elect national officials. However, delegates’ voting strength has ended up making them pawns in the grand scheme of things by top party officials.
Party members running for national positions have in some instances “procured” delegates, while others resort to facilitating delegates to travel to Nairobi with the agenda of influencing voting.
Ms Wanga and National Assembly Minority Leader Junet Mohamed said on Thursday the NDC would proceed as planned.
“When three or four members dissent, it does not mean the party is in chaos. Some of these people have destroyed other parties, including Ford Kenya of Jaramogi Oginga. Let them come and face us at the NDC,” Mr Mohamed said.
Siaya Governor James Orengo, one of the luminaries of the Linda Mwananchi, on Wednesday said his faction would not attend the NDC convened by the Dr Oginga camp.
“Ours will be the people’s NDC. There is a clear violation in the execution of the party functions. Those who have been locked out now have the opportunity to be at the real people’s NDC, convened by Linda Mwananchi,” Vihiga Senator and ODM Deputy Party leader Godfrey Osotsi said.
An attempt by Odinga to have ODM hold its NDC in 2014 plunged the party into chaos. The meeting aborted following the invasion by a group now infamously known as the “men in black”.
Then-Mombasa governor Hassan Ali Joho (now Mining Cabinet Secretary), Mr Ababu Namwamba and then-Turkana governor Josphat Nanok (now Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of the President), led a faction that referred itself as Team fresh, in the quest for ODM’S top leadership in the aborted February 28 NDC.
Mr Joho sought the party deputy leader position while Mr Namwamba was contesting the secretary-general seat.
ODM party leaders at Sameta grounds in Kisii County during the 'Linda Ground' event on January 25, 2026.
Photo credit: Ruth Mbula | Nation Media Group
Mr Nanok wanted to be the ODM chairperson. Others in the camp were Eldas MP Adan Keynan (vice-chairperson), Mr Simon Ogari (treasurer) and Mr Reuben Ndolo (organising secretary).
The rival camp had then-nominated senator Agnes Zani for the secretary-general position, Mr Paul Otuoma – now Busia governor (chairperson), then-Homa Bay Senator Otieno Kajwang (vice-chairperson), then-Kitutu Masaba MP Timothy Bosire (treasurer) and then-Balambala MP Abdikadir Aden (organising secretary).
It later emerged that the men who disrupted the meeting were hired by some top ODM officials to avert “an attempt by external forces to take over the party by planting proxies in key positions”.
Jubilee found itself in a fight for the control of the party in 2023. In the run up to the 2022 elections, president Kenyatta declined the call by his deputy Ruto for the party to convene an NDC.
The outfit formed in 2017 installed interim officials with plans to hold elections within three years.
Mr Kenyatta declined to convene the NDC after it emerged that Dr Ruto was plotting a takeover of Jubilee preparation for his 2022 presidential bid.
What followed was a purge that saw Dr Ruto’s allies kicked from key decision-making organs like the National Executive Council and the Central Management Committee. Mr Kenyatta would later opt for consensus in installing officials at an NDC held ahead of the 2022 elections.
The party would be rocked with divisions after 2022, with nominated MP Sabina Chege staging a coup against Mr Kenyatta.
Ms Chege and East African Legislative Assembly MP Kanini Kega claimed to have ousted Mr Kenyatta and called a parallel NDC.
Mr Kenyatta had his way and proceeded to hold an NDC on May 22, 2023 where he had the Jubilee rebels kicked out and installed loyalists.
Prof David Monda, a US-based lecturer and analyst, says the splits in ODM could turn ugly.
ODM Leader Oburu Oginga at Linda Ground in Siaya County.
Photo credit: Pool
“The NDC could go into a protracted and potentially destructive legal battle. It has the potential to lead to massive defections from ODM as the General Election approaches,” Prof Monda says.
“This fight mirrors past NDCs shaped by violence. When the law fails to resolve internal party disputes, force takes over.”
He projects a violent NDC by hardliners in Dr Oginga’s Linda Ground faction determined to make a deal with President Ruto.
“Will Linda Ground keep the loyalty of the masses in yesteryear ODM strongholds or will that be lost to Linda Mwananchi?” he asked rhetorically.
A petition before the tribunal by a Mr Vincent Chepkwony wants resolutions made by ODM following the death of its founding leader Odinga quashed. This seeks to kick out Dr Oginga as interim party leader and stop the NDC.
The petitioner has raised questions on the membership of ODM’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and Central Management Committee (CMC).
The Central Committee appointed Dr Oginga as the ODM interim leader on October 16, 2025, while the NEC approved the NDC.
The NEC is also responsible for the dismissal of Mr Sifuna as secretary-general. The decision has been stopped, pending determination by the tribunal.
Mr Chepkwony says in the petition that some party members have held meetings purporting to be the Central Committee and NEC and proceeded to make major decisions.
He says Dr Oginga is not in office legally and that a majority of the ODM national officials were not elected.
The Central Committee and NEC as constituted, he says, cannot make a decision that is legally binding to party members.
In a replying affidavit through Ms Halima Daro, Secretary for Special Interest Groups in the NEC, the party says some of the claims by Mr Chepkwony are inaccurate and misleading.
ODM says the officials whose positions are yet to be ratified by the NDC are those adopted by the National Governing Council (NGC) at its meeting on November 13, 2025.
The officials include Dr Oginga and his deputies Abdulswamad Nassir, Simba Arati and Godfrey Osotsi.
Others are ODM Chairperson Gladys Wanga, Mr Otiende Amollo (Vice-Chairperson), Mr John Ariko (Vice-Chairperson), Mr Ahmed Mohammed (National Organising Secretary, Ms Ruth Odinga (Deputy Organising Secretary) and Ms Rozaah Buyu (Secretary for Political Affairs).
