Raila Odinga

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Career

Odinga returned to Kenya in 1970 and created Standard Processing Equipment Construction & Erection Ltd (later renamed East African Spectre), Kenya's sole manufacturer of liquid petroleum gas cylinders.

Odinga was appointed as the Kenya Bureau of Standards' group standards manager in 1974. After being in this position for four years, he was promoted to deputy director in 1978, a post he held until 1982 detention.

Political career

A group of soldiers from the Kenya Air Force led by Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka attempted to overthrowrown then President Daniel Arap Moi's government at 3 a.m. on Sunday, August 1st. President Moi re-organized Kenya's security architecture, employing his loyalists and then guaranteeing that a bill was passed in parliament that gave him emergency powers even though placing the provincial administration under the president's control.

Odinga was arrested and charged with treason after being suspected of being one of the 1982 coup's masterminds. He was released six years earlier in February 1988 but was detained again in August of the same year, waiting for his release in June 1989.

Odinga was placed under house arrest for seven months after evidence showed him and his late father Oginga Odinga conspirating with the plotters of a failed coup attempt against President Daniel Arap Moi in 1982. Hundreds of Kenyan civilians and thousands of rebel troops were killed during the coup. Many immigrants died as a result. Odinga was later charged with treason and detained without a hearing for six years.

Odinga was much more involved in the failed coup than he had expected, according to a biography published 14 years later in July 2006, apparently with Odinga's blessing. Following its publication, several Members of Parliament in Kenya requested that Odinga be arrested and charged, but the statute of limitations had already expired, and the facts contained in the biography did not lead to an open confession on his part. When his mother died in 1984, one of his most painful experiences was when she was told of her death by two months.

He was released on February 6, 1988 but only to be retaliated in September 1988 for his pro-democracy and human rights activism at a time when the country was deep into the thrones of poor government and single-party rule. Kenya, a multi-party democracy, was then, by law, a one-party dictatorship. His interactions with the authoritarian government engendered a lot of curiosity about him, and it was likely that his political followers christened him "The Witness" or "Unpredictable" or "Jakom" in honor of chairmanship.

Odinga was released on June 29, 1989, but he and Kenneth Matiba and former Nairobi mayor Charles Rubia were arrested again on July 5, 1990, together with Kenneth Matiba and former Nairobi mayor Charles Rubia, both multiparty politicians and human rights crusaders. Odinga was finally released on June 21, 1991, and in October he fled the country to Norway, amid warnings that the increasingly corrupt Kenyan government was trying to depose him without success.

The Forum for the Regeneration of Democracy (FORD), a movement that was established to campaign for the return of multi-party democracy to Kenya, was at the time of Odinga's departure to Norway. Odinga returned to FORD in February 1992, and his father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga led him. He was elected Vice Chairman of the party's General Purposes Committee. FORD-Kenya, led by Odinga's father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and FORD-Asili led by Kenneth Matiba in the months leading up to the 1992 General Election. Odinga became Ford-Kenya's Deputy Director of Elections. Odinga regained the Langata Constituency parliamentary seat, previously held by KANU's Philip Leakey. After Kenneth Matiba, Odinga became Kenya's second father of multi-party democracy.

Odinga questioned Jaramogi Odinga as the party's leader after Jaramogi Odinga died in January 1994 and Michael Wamalwa Kijana succeeded him as FORD-Kenya chairman. Odinga resigned from FORD-Kenya to join the National Democratic Party, delaying the results. (NDP).

Odinga's first run for president in the 1997 General Election, Odinga came in third, behind incumbent President Moi and Democratic Party candidate Mwai Kibaki. He did however keep his position as the Langata MP.

Odinga made a surprising decision to assist Moi, his arch-enemy, and Moi's greatly feared KANU party, which many Kenyans applauded as the yoke of oppression. New KANU was the product of the merger. Odinga's former supporters now see him as a sell-out to a cause he had once championed by quitting ranks with a despot. During Moi's last term, he accepted a position in Moi's cabinet as Energy Minister, serving from June 2001 to 2002.

He was elected as the party's Secretary General in subsequent KANU elections later this year (replacing Joseph Kamotho). Odinga hoped to rise to the presidency through KANU and with Moi's help.

Moi endorsed Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta but also a relative newcomer in politics, much to the chagrin of Odinga and many other candidates in the party. Moi had pleaded for support for Uhuru also from Odinga and others. Many of the party's faithfulists feared that they were being asked to swap out a newcomer who had done nothing to develop the party, which was seen as an insult by some of the party's staunchest supporters. Odinga and other KANU leaders, including Kalonzo Musyoka, George Saitoti and Joseph Kamotho, opposed this measure, who claimed that the then 38-year-old Uhuru was politically inexperienced and lacked the leadership qualities required to rule. Moi held his ground, insisting that the country's leadership must pass on to the younger generation.

Despite Moi's image as an autocrat, opposition ran through the party, with some members openly opposing him. The Rainbow Movement was established in that period, consisting of disgruntled KANU members who had left KANU. The exodus, led by Odinga, saw the most prominent names leave the party. Moi was left dead with his handpicked replacement almost alone in a world of bleak electoral prospects. The Rainbow Movement continued to join the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which later joined forces with opposition Mwai Kibaki's National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), a group of various other groups, to form the National Rainbow Alliance (NARC).

Odinga said "Kibaki is sufficient" despite fears that this opposition "super alliance" will fail to unite and rally behind a common cause as in previous years and thus comfortably hand over the government. This settled the issue of candidacy, and Narc continued to defy Moi's protege, Uhuru Kenyatta. The opposition gained 67% of the vote, putting Moi in jeopardy. Odinga led the campaign for Kibaki around the region, but Kibaki was bedridden and incapacitated after an accident while returning to Nairobi from a campaign meeting 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Nairobi, where he sustained injuries.

President Kibaki did not appoint Odinga as Prime Minister in the new government after taking office, contrary to a pre-election Memorandum Of Understanding. (Kenya's constitution had no provision for Prime Minister David Cameron; as an LDP (Odinga's faction), neither did he give LDP (Odinga's faction) half of the cabinet posts as per the MOU). Rather, he sought to entrench and strengthen his own NAK's cabinet, as well as naming MPs from opposition parties (KANU and FORD people) to the cabinet.

The ostensible "betrayal" sparked a simmering suspicion that culminated in an open revolt and a cabinet split. A key point of disagreement was a revised new constitution for the country, which unites Kibaki's NAK and Odinga's LDP in the campaign. Both the Moi and first president Jomo Kenyatta's regimes, which had resulted in a lot of power abuse and an unaccountable leadership, were among the new constitution's provisions.

Kibaki's government, on the contrary to the pre-election plan, created a Constitutional Committee, which turned around and submitted a paper that was supposed to establish presidential positions and weaken regional governments.

Odinga retaliated against this and launched his campaign with his LDP cabinet allies on the 'No' campaign, condemning the president and his lieutenants in a bruising countrywide election. The government lost by 57% to 43% margin when the paper was submitted for a referendum on November 21, 2005. Kibaki, out of eight provinces, with just one (Kikuyu's majority) voting "yes" for the document, alienating his own tribe from the rest of Kenya and exposing his ethnicity.

On November 23, 2005, a shell-shocked and dissatisfied President Kibaki dismissed the entire cabinet. Odinga and the entire LDP group were left out when it was reconstituted two weeks later.

Odinga was behind the formation of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) – the orange symbol for the "No" vote in the constitutional referendum. Odinga was found to have told police that his life was in risk after being exposed to assassination threats in January 2006.

In March 2018, Raila and Uhuru had a political dialogue aimed at lowering the political temperatures following the 2017 general elections. The handshake gave rise to the Building Bridges Initiative, also known as BBI.

Following the truce between Odinga and President Kenyatta in March 2018, the two organisations established a joint task force that would gather evidence from Kenyans and report their findings. The team compiled and submitted the report on behalf of the country's largest conference and convening consultative sessions on Friday, which was followed by a public launch at the Bomas of Kenya the following day. Many leaders locally and internationally applauded President Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga's efforts to bring peace and cohesion in the region, with the duo being welcomed to a National Prayer Breakfast International Lunch in Washington, D.C., in February 2020. The Supreme Court of Kenya would uphold a decision that the BBI was unconstitutional in 2022.

In 2018, Odinga was named High Representative for Infrastructure Improvement at the African Union Commission.

Odinga revealed on December 10th, 2021, putting an end to months of anticipation following his surprise chat with President Kenyatta. His announcement was made while launching the Azimio La Umoja Convention, which would be his vehicle to State House, which will be held at the Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi.

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