President William Ruto has hailed the late former Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga as Kenya’s foremost statesman and a reformer committed to the peace and development of the country.
Speaking during the national memorial service of the late former premier, President Ruto recounted Odinga’s role in helping to stabilize the country following the June 25, 2024 protests led by Gen-Z over finance bill.
The President paid tribute to Odinga thanking him for being a voice of reason whenever needed in matters of national importance.
“I have come a very long way with Baba. When I stood by him with the other pentagon members and a defining moment in his and our nation’s history, I never knew that one day we would find ourselves in opposite sides nor would I have imagined that years later he would stand by me, this time to steady the nation and to help anchor my leadership culminating in the birth of the Broad-Based Government,” said President Ruto.
President Ruto and the late Raila Odinga earlier in March this year signed a memorandum of understanding between the United Democratic Alliance and the Orange Democratic Movement formalizing the Broad-based Government.
“To you Baba, I owe you and I am truly and eternally grateful that our paths crossed and that we shared this journey together.
We have been both collaborators and competitors, friends and rivals but always patriotic Kenyans united by a dream greater than ourselves, a dream bigger than any partisan divide, a dream of a united motherland called Kenya,” he stated.
The late former premier died early Wednesday, Kenyan time, in India where he had gone for treatment.
In honouring the ODM leader’s long standing career in Kenya’s politics and his contribution to national development, President Ruto announced a seven-day mourning period with flags flying at half mast.
“Every once in a generation, there comes a leader whose impact transcends their moment, whose courage inspires change, and whose vision shapes destinies. My brother, Raila Amolo Odinga, was one such a leader,” he said.
The remains of the late Odinga is now scheduled to fly to Kisumu where mourners will pay their last respects at Mambo Leo Showground before being taken to Bondo for State Burial on Sunday, October 19, 2025.
