Raila Odinga leaves the High Court during his detention years /FILE
The dominant reaction to the news of the death of ODM boss Raila Odinga on Wednesday morning was “it can’t be true!” Despite recent health challenges, Raila’s mortality was the one thing not many Kenyans had learnt to confront. With his larger-than-life, enigmatic profile and his domination of the country’s political sphere, there was always an element of “he will overcome this one too” in national discourse.
Any member of my generation, who grew up in my homeland, must have heard all the myths peddled about Raila’s father, legendary freedom icon, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. Locals referred to him simply as “Oginga”. These myths and theories somehow extended to one of his sons, not widely known before the 1982 coup, but rumoured to be everything from “rebel trained in Russia” to “feared by the state because he has militias in Libya, waiting to overthrow the government”.
