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“The Truth is in the whole”. Hegel
I. Introduction
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o reminds us that when confronting the ideological and political legacy of any leadership, we must situate the individual within a historical trajectory. Only through such a lens can we both celebrate and critique their ideas and actions in service of the ongoing struggle. We glorify their achievements not for hero worship, but for the lessons they offer; likewise, we examine their weaknesses not for condemnation, but for instruction. The essential question, therefore, is what lessons the continuing struggle can draw from such reflection—how we might consolidate the gains while rescuing the movement from its limitations.
Walter Rodney teaches us to trace the links and continuities of class struggle across time. Each individual must be located within this continuum: Did they learn from earlier struggles, and from their failures as well as their triumphs? In Kenya, these struggles have unfolded through successive historical stages—against slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism. They have produced heroines and heroes, as well as collaborators and traitors—those whom Malcolm X might have called the “house niggers” of the liberation struggle. Revolutionary scholars have equipped us with ideological and analytical tools to interrogate this history: its twists and turns, its victories and defeats, and the lessons embedded in both.
The purpose of such ideological inquiry is to clarify the struggle we are still engaged in. In Kenya, political parties and movements with a progressive orientation have long insisted that our struggle must, at a minimum, be anti-imperialist and anti–comprador bourgeoisie. It must be grounded in radical Pan-Africanism—both continental and global—and participate in the broader debates about how to transform the world’s unjust order. Increasingly, global citizens recognize that the current planetary status quo is not only unsustainable but intolerable. It must be overthrown. We have rightly moved beyond the neoliberal obsession with the “state of the nation” in isolation; what now demands attention is the strength and weakness of the collective imperialist bourgeoisie, the shared enemy of all oppressed peoples.
II. Raila Odinga in Historical, Ideological, and Political Trajectory
Raila Odinga’s ideological and political trajectory has been, in our view, primarily national rather than Pan-African in character. While he occasionally engaged with Pan-African issues, his approach remained statist, never advancing the radical, people-centered Pan-Africanism envisioned by revolutionary thinkers. His father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, by contrast, took strong ideological positions during the Cold War, aligning himself with the Bandung spirit and the Non-Aligned Movement. Through the Kenya People’s Union (KPU), alongside Pio Gama Pinto and Bildad Kaggia, Jaramogi articulated a clear anti-imperialist, anti-neocolonial position. Indeed, KPU remains the only party in Kenya’s history that represented a genuine people’s opposition to the status quo—a legacy that Raila Odinga did not meaningfully inherit in his own political formations and alliances.
At the national level, Raila Odinga’s courage in confronting the KANU dictatorships of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi cannot be denied. His involvement in the 1982 coup attempt, subsequent treason charges, multiple detentions, torture, and exile attest to his personal sacrifice. For this, he will always be remembered as a patriot. Standing up to the KANU dictatorship was not for the faint-hearted. His contribution to the so-called Second Liberation, despite its contradictions, earned him a place among the Young Turks of that era.
Raila also played a pivotal role in the constitution-making process that emerged from the Second Liberation. Initially, he favored a parliamentary-led process, but civil society—both religious and secular—pushed for a people-driven initiative, chaired by the late Dr. Oki Ombaka under the UFUNGAMANO framework. When Professor Yash Ghai later unified the two efforts, the Constitutional Review Commission of Kenya produced the historic Bomas Draft. Raila stood on the right side of history in 2005 when he opposed the mutilated version of the draft constitution presented at the referendum—a patriotic act that strengthened his national stature.
That stance helped propel him to victory in the 2007 presidential election, which was subsequently subverted through monumental electoral fraud. The post-election violence that followed claimed 1,133 lives, displaced thousands, and caused property losses estimated at 360 billion Kenyan shillings. Despite these tragedies, Raila remained the only Kenyan politician with a truly national—and to some extent, continental—following, as evidenced by tributes from artists such as Diamond Platnumz and Fally Ipupa, and recognition from South Africa and beyond.
Raila was a brilliant mobilizer and organizer, though often through divisive methods—ethnic, religious, generational, and regional. His militia, the “Men in Black,” symbolized this darker side of his politics. His engagement with popular culture, including his public support for Arsenal FC, further expanded his appeal among the youth. As Wamalwa Kijana once observed, Raila’s charisma inspired both “Railamania” and “Railaphobia.” Like other ethnic barons, he mastered the art of mobilization through money, control of coercive instruments, and the politics of division—tools that have sustained the KANU dictatorship, now entering its 62nd year in December 2025.
Raila’s foray into Pan-Africanism remained statist and technocratic. His African infrastructure initiative never materialized; his bid for the African Union Commission lacked a critique of the AU’s subservience to foreign interests, including Zionism. He did not carry forward the revolutionary Pan-Africanism of Nkrumah, Sekou Touré, Cheikh Anta Diop, Gaddafi, or Nyerere.
III. Reinforcing the KANU Dictatorship through “Handshakes”
Raila Odinga’s repeated collaborations with the KANU establishment have drawn consistent critique from the Kenyan Left. Each “handshake” occurred when the regime in power was beleaguered, and each time, it helped to stabilize dictatorship. His first recorded collaboration dates back to the Kenyatta era, when he received a contract to supply gas cylinders to Gatundu Self-Help Hospital—while his father, Jaramogi Odinga, languished in detention in Hola after KPU was banned and its entire leadership detained.
Raila later merged his party with Moi’s KANU, becoming Secretary-General of “New KANU.” This alliance only ended in 2002 when Moi imposed Uhuru Kenyatta as the presidential candidate. Raila then mobilized the disaffected KANU base to support Mwai Kibaki, leading to Kibaki’s victory.
After their fallout in 2005 over the constitutional referendum, Raila again entered a handshake with Kibaki following the 2007 electoral crisis, mediated by Kofi Annan, the late Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Grand Coalition government, also dubbed the Grand Corruption, was formed, and Raila served as Prime Minister until 2013. His subsequent “handshakes” with Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto similarly reinforced their regimes, rescuing both from popular revolts. The 2024 Gen-Z uprising, which nearly toppled Ruto’s government, was diffused in part by Raila’s intervention—widely seen as yet another “hand cheque.” Credible reports suggest that funds for these arrangements came from the opaque National Intelligence Service budget, undermining constitutional values of transparency and accountability.
Defenders of Raila have portrayed these handshakes as “political blunders,” “sacrifices for national unity,” or “acts that saved the Motherland.” Yet few have confronted the real consequences: deaths, destruction, the subversion of the progressive constitution, and the continued plunder of national resources.
IV. Lessons to Be Learned: Toward Alternative Political Leadership
President Moi once warned that the KANU dictatorship would endure for a century. Sixty-two years later, his prophecy continues to haunt Kenya’s political landscape, not merely as a boast of authoritarian endurance but as an indictment of our collective failure to dismantle the structures of domination that KANU embodied. The faces have changed, the slogans have evolved, and the parties have multiplied, yet the essential architecture of the state—its alliance with imperial capital, its repression of dissent, its betrayal of the working people—remains intact. What we confront today is not simply the residue of KANU rule but the persistence of a system that reproduces the same hierarchies under new names.
The revolutionary cry—Motherland or Death!—thus retains its urgency as both an ethical and political summons. It calls us to awaken from complacency and to recommit ourselves to the unfinished project of liberation. The struggle before us is not merely for electoral reform or leadership change; it is a deeper struggle for an alternative vision of power—one that is anti-imperialist, anti–comprador bourgeoisie, and grounded in the sovereignty of the people. Such leadership must arise from the working people themselves, organized across ethnic, generational, and regional lines, and rooted in the broader currents of African and global emancipation. The liberation of Kenya cannot be isolated from the liberation of the continent, nor from the planetary movements against neoliberalism, climate injustice, and imperial war.
Raila Odinga is gone. His departure marks the end of an era but not the end of the struggle. To be trapped in endless debates about his legacy—whether to canonize or condemn him—is to miss the point. The true measure of history lies not in individual legacies but in the advance or retreat of the collective cause. We must therefore resist the politics of personalization and division that have long served the interests of the ruling elite. These politics, often disguised as ethnic pride or partisan loyalty, are the very tools through which the comprador class and its imperial patrons perpetuate their rule.
The patriotic working people of Kenya, together with their allies across Africa and the world, must begin to think and act beyond personalities—toward a new horizon of solidarity, justice, and dignity. This demands ideological clarity, organizational renewal, and moral courage. It requires us to build movements capable of confronting imperial domination not only in its external forms but also in its internalized expressions: corruption, dependency, and the commodification of life itself.
Only through such a reawakening can we finally exorcise the ghosts of KANU and fulfill the revolutionary promise of our forebears—a Kenya, and an Africa, truly free from exploitation, subjugation, and fear.
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This article was first published by Pambazuka.
