Nasa leader Raila Odinga disembarks from the plane at JKIA on November 17, 2017.
He would stroll into the aircraft, donning that trademark smile and eyes fixed on the seats closest to the cockpit.
After isolating where to sit for the flight, Raila Amolo Odinga would then settle down and exchange pleasantries with the pilot, Raphael Wamwati, and any other members of the crew present.
By the time Wamwati would have achieved a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, Raila would most likely be holding a glass tumbler, marvelling at the skies while asking his pilot all sorts of aviation-related questions.
Twinstar Aviation Managing Partner Captain Raphael Sebastian Wamwati.
The contents of the tumbler would depend on his mood. At times, it was the single malt scotch whiskey, Glenfiddich. Other times it was the blended scotch whiskey, Johnnie Walker.
Read: Military gun salute and fly-past for Raila Odinga, a man who ruled without occupying seat of power
But whichever way Raila’s decision swung, the liquid gold sipped in the sky had most likely spent more than 18 years maturing in an oak cask.
And Raila would sip from the tumbler as he also gulped from Wamwati’s well of knowledge.
He loved the skies but was fascinated by the workings of aircraft and would never shy away from asking anything aviation for the duration of the flight.
That was Raila, the passenger in the eyes of Wamwati, who spent several hundred hours in the skies with the former Premier.
Some trips were for political excursions, others for business dealings, and others for private affairs like family trips.
For 13 years, Raila was a repeat client at Twinstar Aviation. Wamwati was on many of those flights as the captain.
“He loved flying. He loved being in an aircraft and was always keen for details while inside airplanes. He would watch closely as we navigated the airspace to the different destinations that we travelled to. You could tell he had an interest in aviation from the many questions that he asked,” Wamwati said in an exclusive interview with the Nation at Wilson Airport, Nairobi.
Having enjoyed the company of Raila and his family in the skies for the last 13 years, Wamwati describes the ex-Prime Minister as one of the most interesting clients that he has handled in his 22-year career in the aviation industry.
Most interesting clients
Wamwati and Twinstar Aviation Executive Chairman Dr Richard Kubo have flown several VIPs, local and foreign, through Kenya’s airspace for over two decades, with some becoming friends.
They maintain that Raila is one of the most interesting clients.
Dr Richard Kubo, Executive Chairman of Twinstar Aviation (left), and Captain Raphael Sebastian Wamwati, Managing Partner, both flew the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga on several political, business and private trips. They were interviewed at the Twinstar Aviation offices in Wilson Airport, Nairobi, on October 22, 2025.
On August 26, 2024, a convoy of state-of-the-art sports utility vehicles chauffeured Raila and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to Wilson Airport.
The two revered African statesmen were to catch a flight to Kisumu, where they were among VIP attendants of the Festac Festival – an event celebrating the diversity in various cultural showcases like music, dance and storytelling.
Their friendship, forged at the graveside of Kenya’s first Vice-President and Raila’s father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, stood the test of time. Much like his aggressive and shrewd politics, Raila inherited a friend from his father in Obasanjo.
Many a time, Obasanjo was in Kenya to stand with Raila and the Odinga family at large.
In 1994, he was there to condole with the Odingas’ loss of Jaramogi. He was there for the anniversary of Jaramogi’s death a year later. He was there for the opening of the East African Spectre plant off Mombasa road in 1995.
When Raila and then President Mwai Kibaki could not see eye-to-eye on the outcome of the 2007 presidential election, Obasanjo was among many continental leaders trying to broker a deal.
At the peak of a bitter rivalry which had Raila and President William Ruto feuding on opposite sides in 2023, Obasanjo reprised his heart softener role and got the two talking.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo meeting with President William Ruto on February 15 2024.
That ceasefire, arguably, conceived the Broad-based union of President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza coalition and Raila’s ODM party barely a year later.
On many of those occasions, Raila and Obasanjo flew around Kenya aboard a Twinstar Aviation aircraft, piloted by Wamwati.
Last Sunday, Obasanjo, Wamwati and Kubo were there to help write the final chapter in the book that is Raila Amolo Odinga’s book – to bury a man who successfully juggled politics, business and family even as successive governments threw everything but the kitchen sink in an attempt to solve the “problem” that was Raila.
At Wilson Airport in August 2024, the Twinstar crew waited patiently to fly the two buddies to the Kisumu International Airport on a chartered aircraft.
An officer from the Foreign Affairs ministry had received Raila and Obasanjo, and was there to execute the usual protocol whenever such dignitaries are moving around, and handle the logistics.
The Foreign Affairs officer announced that there were two aircraft, one for each of the VIPs. Such individuals are never to fly in the same aircraft, as a crash would mean maximum loss.
But Raila was never one to follow protocol. It was protocol to be bent to his whims.
Kubo said that Raila was insistent on travelling with Obasanjo.
“The officer said that Raila and Obasajo could not fly together in the same plane. He explained that owing to their VIP status, the protocol demanded that they fly separate in the event of an incident. Raila told the protocol officer with a firm look on his face; These are my boys. I know them very well and nothing will happen,” Wamwati said in the interview at Twinstar’s Wilson Airport offices.
Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga with former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in Nairobi on February 15, 2024 when he formally declared interest in the African Union Commission chairmanship.
Eventually, the protocol officer gave in and allowed Raila and Obasajo to board the same aircraft to Kisumu, where they both attended the FESTAC festival.
“They (Obasanjo and Raila) were all smiles as we landed in Kisumu,” recalled Kubo, stressing that the former Prime Minister loved to fly.
For Raila, defying protocol may have been something he did every other day.
But for Wamwati, that defiance made August 26, 2024, one of the few that remain etched in his memory.
When the Nation visited their offices at Wilson Business within the Langata aerodrome, Wamwati and Kubo had flown back from Kisumu International Airport.
They were among the chosen few who attended Raila’s burial at Kang’o ka Jaramogi in Siaya County.
Wamwati and Kubo were going through several photographs that they took with Raila over the years.
Fidel Odinga arrives at the Nairobi Hospital on June 29, 2010 to visit his father.
Wamwati revealed that he and Kubo were first introduced to the Odinga family by Raila’s firstborn, Fidel Odinga, in 2007.
They became close friends, with the latter doubling up as a loyal client of Twinstar Aviation.
“Our relationship moved from the friendship with Fidel to a more robust relationship of friends and business people,” said Kubo.
Raila may have rested, but for the Twinstar crew, the former Prime Minister lives through the many memories made in the skies and which forged a new friendship for the pilot.
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