Mr Raila Odinga’s influence in Mt Kenya politics was like a spiritual bug, defining a man the region’s voters feared but loved in a long-running political career.
The stage for the acrimony had been set by an earlier confrontation between the country's founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, and his vice president, Jaramogi Odinga—the father of Raila.
This feud was carried on by their sons: Mr Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Odinga. Mr Kenyatta beat Mr Odinga in the presidential race twice in 2013 and 2017.
Then president Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga at the KICC in Nairobi during the Jubilee Party's National Delegates Conference on February 26, 2022.
Photo credit: PSCU
But when the same voters started complaining about President William Ruto’s perceived excesses, they started calling on Mr Odinga to help them resist the harsh policies.
"For the broad-based government to take shape, Mr Odinga had to close ranks with Mr Kenyatta and President Ruto to impeach Rigathi Gachagua. From a man who had won significant love at the ballot in the mountain, he again lost it. Ahead of 2027, the Mountain was looking forward for a possible reunion with Mr Odinga to oust President Ruto," says Embakasi North MP Mr James Gakuya.
Naivasha MP Ms Jane Kihara says "Mr Odinga was good ingredient for our politics because working around his name helped us angle our cause and his presence in an election gave it its thrill".
Pundits struggle to find one word to describe the kind of relationship that mountaineers have been exercising for Mr Odinga: Mudslinging him for mobilisation purposes but taunting him as ideal people's defender.
"For a very long time our Mountain people have used Mr Odinga as a scare crow to mobilise turnout. He has effectively been branded a bogeyman. Yet when things went wrong, the same people would demand that Mr Odinga intervenes and apply pressure on government to behave," says political commentator and scholar Prof Peter Kagwanja.
Prof Kagwanja says Raila-phobia sounds like a makeshift word to describe Mr Odinga fortunes in the mountain "yet this is the same man we called Njamba (hero) in 2002 when he threw his lot behind the presidential candidacy of Mwai Kibaki.
Prof Kagwanja says Mr Odinga departs from the political stage having never found that convergence point of unanimity regarding love or hate in the Mountain.
"It is out of realising that Mr Odinga was ageing and most likely retiring from politics that Mt Kenya political schemers rushed to create another bogeyman ahead of 2027. It will be very interesting to see how campaigns without Mr Odinga will shape out especially in Mt Kenya region," he said.
Kikuyu Council of elders Chairman Mr Wachira Kiago says "to us, Mr Odinga was a good human being who loved humanity but was misunderstood through the lenses of politics".
"Mr Odinga happened to be disadvantaged in the Mountain because of misunderstandings that raged between his father Mr Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and founding father of the Nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta".
He said "the grudge between Mr Jaramogi and Mr Kenyatta was to shape Mr Odinga's relationship with the mountain in the elections he pitched ambition.
"In all the five times Mr Odinga contested the presidency (1997, 2007, 2013, 2017 and 2022) Mt Kenya was not in his support, not because of any of his flaws but because of the ancient grudge between Mr Jaramogi and Mr Kenyatta," he said.
Mr Kiago added, “Mr Kenyatta junior had in 2022 tried to confront that misunderstanding between their fathers and together with Mr Odinga confront that rift and gap it with love.”
But the damage was bigger than imagined since Mt Kenya voters viciously rejected the reconciliation drive to a point they humiliated Mr Kenyatta with a resounding defeat. While Mr Ruto, who was competing against Mr Odinga, garnered 87 percent of area votes, Mr Kenyatta and his candidate managed 12 percent.
ODM leader Raila Odinga during the burial ceremony of veteran politician Maina Wanjigi in Nyeri town on July 5, 2024.
Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group
Mr Kanene Kabiru, who is a director of the Murang'a billionaires-owned Rwathia Distributors Company, says Mr Odinga was enigmatic in Mountain spheres of life.
"We remained adrift in matters culture. In politics we loved him when using him as an ingredient. But in business, we all submitted to him. For our Mt Kenya-based companies to expand into other regions, we needed Mr Odinga's blessings. That is the reason Mr Odinga was loved by Mt Kenya businessmen," he said.
"While politics could be bridged using post-election pacts, business interests only needed the blessings of Mr Odinga alone hence why in 2022 we had given it our best shot to have him win the presidency hence win economic freedom...we lost".
Mr Macharia says "you only needed to analyse Mr Odinga devoid of biases and approach it with objectivity to define the kind of a big heart he was".
He says he has known the Jaramogi family for long "and I can tell you without fear of contradiction that this is the unit that would have served best the interests of the Mountain people to optimal heights".
“This family has always been after just governance that treats all equally but rewarding hard work...This is the family whose in-house leaders would have made Mt Kenya achieve the dreams of its forefathers".
He says Mr Odinga has been a friend of the Mt Kenya communities and has influenced infrastructure development for the benefit of area people, especially when he served as a cabinet minister in President Kibaki’s government.
"Mr Odinga was a true friend of peace that always saw political temperatures go down, hence enabling the country to move on and remain economically viable even when insisting on pursuing his personal goals outside peace looked more promising," he says.
Mr Odinga’s point man in the region—Mr Kamau Mweha—says he will never regret following the former premier “since deep inside his heart he was a good friend of our region only that propagandists have been painting him otherwise”.
Mr Mweha says "with time, the mountain might learn the hard way that in Odinga's family tree our interests remained safest".
He adds that the Mountain must remain very vigilant on how it behaves in the absence of Mr Odinga "for Mr Odinga was on a mission of reaching out to Mt Kenya for a 2027 pact".
Laikipia East MP Mr Mwangi Kiunjuri on Wednesday said "there was very little that separated us with Mr Odinga, only competitive politics".
"After every political duel, Mt Kenya leaders would troop to Mr Odinga to pursue a truce and that explains why he would end up in government even after losing," he said.
"Those who don't want to be truthful will tell you that even in the past three years, it is not President Ruto's fault that he had to embrace Mr Odinga...it was tradition unanimity that with a sulking Mr Odinga, it was impossible to govern."
Mr Kiunjuri added that, "the good thing about Mr Odinga was that he was always the practical man...he would immediately close ranks with governments to win the country stability and win for his supporters a bite into the government pie".
In his 2022 campaign trail, Mr Odinga would passionately remind Mt Kenya that the enmity between Mr Kenya and Luo Nyanza was mostly as a result of distorted political historical recording that had resulted in building mistrust for expediency.
He would say that his family had since 1952 fought from the same political terraces with Mt Kenya region where, for example, his father was instrumental in helping Mzee Kenyatta become the founding father of the nation.
“Every other time my community comes together to unite with Mt Kenya region there emerges all sorts of propaganda to break the friendship and the walk towards shared goals…That is how mistrust crept in the relationship of Jaramogi and Kenyatta,” he said.
Mr Odinga reminded the region that in 1992 and 1997 he was on the side of Mt Kenya region “where our shared political target was to kick Daniel Moi out of power and where we failed since we approached the issue in a disjointed version.”
Raila Odinga.
Photo credit: File | Nation
He reminded Mt Kenya that in the agitation for multipartyism, he had been arrested alongside Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia—evidence of fighting on the same political terraces with the region.
“You can also bear me witness that in 2002 I publicly shelved my ambitions and declared ‘Kibaki Tosha’, which went ahead to make history when my Luo community voted for him at 98.5 percent and he even defeated James Orengo (who was vying for the presidency then) in his own Ugenya constituency. This tells you that divisions between Mr Odinga and Mt Kenya is only in the thinking of prophets of doom,” Mr Odinga said.
He reminded the region that it touted him as Mutongoria Njamba (heroic leader) after Kibaki assumed office "and I escorted him to make a grand entry past River Chania into Murang'a, Kirinyaga and into Nyeri Counties to break the then standing myth that the presidency was only a reserve of Kiambu County.
Mr Kiunjuri recalled how Mr Odinga explained himself to the Mountain leaders ahead of the formation of broad-based government.
"Mr Odinga told us that despite all the acrimony surrounding 2007, 2013, 2017 and 2022 general elections, he at no given time harboured ill feelings against the Mt Kenya region," he said.
Mr Kiunjuri added that Mr Odinga said he readily closed ranks with Mr Kibaki, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto because he remained conscious that what divides Kenyans is mostly petty.
“He walked us down the memory lane of what divides us and we all agreed that it is mostly pettiness and burying the hatchet for founding a cohesive country was the only way out to come out united since a country in turmoil would hurt more Mt Kenya business acumen,” Mr Kiunjuri said.
As Mr Odinga physically exits the political space, it is feared that his influence will continue tormenting political discourse for some years to come for the country's pulse has a huge breath of life from him, says Agikuyu community's Kiama Kia Ma elders Chairman Mr Kung'u Muigai.
