Ida appointment to UNEP is not a reward for being Raila's widow

Some women walk the revolutionary path loudly, unapologetically, and at the front line. Others keep the engine running quietly in the background. We applaud the former and celebrate their courage, but too often overlook the immense weight carried by those who sustain the struggle in silence. Ida Odinga belongs to the latter.

Last week, when she appeared before a parliamentary committee for vetting following her appointment as Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the UNEP, there was a noticeably different air in the room. It felt less like a routine interview and more like a masterclass in grace, stoicism, and resilience. Before the panel sat a woman who had existed within the margins of power and survived its consequences.

To be married to a revolutionary means to be tied to an ideology, to support a vision you cannot fully grasp, and to trust a future so unpredictable. It is to live inside the machinery of political struggle. It is to endure long absences during detentions. To hold your breath every time he steps out and exhale only when he returns, if he returns. It is to raise your children in that same uncertainty, shielding them from the hostility their father’s convictions attract, while creating a home that feels as normal as can be.

While the country rode successive waves of reform and revolution, with others riding the wave and disembarking when it suited them, the volatility in her home remained constant. For a revolutionary, home is but a transit point between long drawn battles. History celebrates these political giants, but it is less keen on the women who sustain their momentum behind the scenes.

Before Ida, there was Coretta Scott King. Being married to Martin Luther King Jr meant embracing the movement. Living under constant surveillance and threats that eventually culminated in his assassination became routine. And when Dr King was no more, she stepped out of the shadows and took up the civil rights struggle, cementing his legacy and her contribution to it, in her own terms.

Then there is Graça Machel, who walked beside two revolutionaries, Samora Machel and then later, Nelson Mandela. Twice widowed, she still carved out a global identity in humanitarian leadership that was unmistakably hers. For both women, proximity to greatness did not kill their identities; it refined them.

Ida belongs in that fold.

Before politics became the defining frame of her identity, she was an accomplished educator steadily advancing her career. While the political space she married into demanded flexibility and restructuring, it never erased the brilliant leader she already was. Rarely do we interrogate what it costs women to walk beside revolutionaries. More often than not, it means putting professional advancement on hold, rerouting ambitions, and adopting new paths that align better with their partners’ cause.

Ida’s appointment to UNEP should be understood within this context. The knowledge she has amassed from decades of being at the heart of Kenya’s political revolution cannot be taught in any diplomacy classroom. Years of engagement with leaders, envoys, and political actors have sharpened her understanding and instinct for global diplomacy.

Her appointment is not a reward for being Raila’s widow. It is recognition of capacity and competence. It is an opportunity for this country to draw from the well of insight accumulated over decades of walking silently with him.

For decades, she allowed us to share her husband and carried herself with steady grace through the different seasons of Raila’s life. Now she steps out into a role defined by nothing other than her own credentials.

That she now steps into this season on her own terms, not as an extension of anything but simply as Ida, is perhaps the greatest honour we can give the woman who deferred her own ambitions to support our democracy through one of its most consequential leaders, with so much grace and fortitude.

Ida has earned her place. And she will occupy it with the same grace and brilliance that has defined her life to this day.