At Kirembe, Raila's voice returned and Nyong'o chose development over politics of protest

The DJ pressed play. The bass rolled across Kirembe Grounds. Then the voice came.

“Kenya mpya… inawezekana.”

Raila Amolo Odinga. His voice. Recorded two years before he died. Filling the space where his body used to stand.

The crowd did not scream. They stopped. They listened. Some closed their eyes. Others looked up at the empty podium as if expecting him to walk out. He did not come. But his voice did. That was enough.

Before that anthem filled the air, another voice had haunted the speakers. The late Lady Maureen singing “Raila Duogi Dala.” A song written in 2010, when Raila was still alive, a cry begging their saviour to return from Nairobi to his people. Now, with both Raila and Lady Maureen gone, the words had undergone a heartbreaking metamorphosis. They had become a literal demand: bring him home to Bondo soil.

The organisers had chosen the transition deliberately. “Lelo ni Lelo” by Emmanuel Musindi from Kakamega. The 2022 Azimio anthem. Where Raila stepped into a recording booth and shouted hope into a microphone. His deep bass declared a new Kenya possible. Today is the day.

There was poetry to this gathering on the dust of Kirembe. For decades this open patch of earth overlooking Lake Victoria had been the crucible of Nyanza’s political soul, the historic arena of opposition mega-rallies, a sacred perimeter where ODM gathered to steady the ship during times of intense transition. But on Sunday, Kirembe was shedding its skin. This was the exact ground where blueprints for the Lake Victoria Marina had been unveiled. The historic resistance of Kirembe was finally merging with the concrete promises of industrialisation.

For a few minutes the DJ looped the track as the crowd waited. Each time Raila’s voice returned, “Kenya mpya… inawezekana,” the response grew louder: “Leo ni leo.” The spirits of the ancestors, what Luos call juogi, were invited into the space. The ground was prepared.

Then Nyong’o walked up. He let the song finish. He asked for a moment of silence. Not for politics, but for remembrance.

“May God rest his soul in eternal peace.”

The silence that followed was the loudest sound at Kirembe all day.

What came next was a declaration. Nyong’o, the founding Secretary General of ODM, spoke with the calm of someone who had already buried his doubts. He addressed the question haunting the region since Raila’s passing: should ODM support President William Ruto’s government?

He dismissed the framing. “That is not the issue,” Nyong’o said. “The issue is: is this government doing something for our people?”

Then he gave the evidence. The Standard Gauge Railway, coming to Kisumu. A man or woman waking up in Kisumu, boarding a train, reaching Mombasa in hours to see a sick parent. That is not politics. That is development. That is what Raila fought for. “We cannot get such projects without dialogue. Not to be sentimental. To be reasonable about our future.”

The crowd roared. But across the lake, a different reaction was brewing.

James Orengo, Nyong’o’s longtime ally and the Governor of Siaya, has emerged as the fiercest critic of the broad-based government. A day after Kirembe, he praised crowds for rejecting “the politics of being ferried like cargo.” He did not mention Nyong’o by name. The message was clear. Two men who sat together when ODM was born, who marched together, who survived together, now standing on opposite banks of the same river. This is the real story of Kirembe.

What Orengo refuses to acknowledge is the blueprint that underpins this alliance. In September 2025, weeks before Raila died, a closed-door strategy meeting was held in Nairobi. Present were Raila Odinga, President Ruto, Prof Hiroyuki Hino, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, and Head of Public Service Felix Koskei. Hino is a Japanese macroeconomist, former IMF official, and senior fellow at Duke and Yale, the intellectual architect of Kenya’s “Singapore Model,” a long-term plan to transform Kenya into a First World economy. At that meeting, Raila and Ruto agreed on a concrete roadmap: the SGR extension to Kisumu and Malaba, dual-carriageway highways, a 10,000-megawatt energy plan, and a nuclear power plant proposed for Siaya. These were structural corrections designed to end Nyanza’s status as a labour reserve for Nairobi.

Nyong’o was tasked with shepherding this vision. Even after Raila died, he continued. In January 2026, he led a team of economists to State House to present a report titled “A New Development Vision for Kenya.” Ruto called it a crucial “thought-leadership briefing.” The broad-based government is not a betrayal. It is the execution of a decades-old economic master plan, championed by Raila and now implemented by Ruto, with Nyong’o as the bridge.

The false prophets of purity politics will call this a sellout. They are wrong. When Dr Oburu Odinga speaks of a “fair share,” he does not mean what Rigathi Gachagua meant. Gachagua said Kenya was a company where some communities held more shares. Raila said anyone with such thinking did not deserve to be a village elder. ODM’s demand is not about Luos alone. It is about the Coast, Western, North Eastern, parts of the Rift Valley and Eastern, all the regions that have watched Nairobi accumulate wealth while they remained labour reserves.

The proof stood on the stage. Simba Arati, Deputy Party Leader and a Kisii from the highlands, spotted a man in the front row who would not sit. “Huyu jamaa wa Rasta huyu, kaa chini.” The man sat. Then Arati asked the VIP section to step down and show respect to Dr Oburu Odinga. This was not a Luo ceremony. It was a demonstration of a national alliance. He turned to the old dynasties and told them their rotation was ending. Next is Ruto. Then 2032 belongs to the West and Nyanza.

Siasa mbaya, maisha mbaya. Moi taught that lesson. The Luo community paid heavily for opposing him. Raila watched his father Jaramogi suffer, then endured detention and exile himself, and learned that permanent opposition delivers only suffering. That lesson is why Raila distributed his five cabinet slots across ODM as a national entity. John Mbadi from Suba took National Treasury. Hassan Joho from Mombasa took Blue Economy. Wycliffe Oparanya from Kakamega took Cooperatives. Opiyo Wandayi from Ugenya took Energy. Beatrice Askul Moe from Turkana became the first woman from her region to sit in cabinet. This was Raila’s vision executed while he still breathed.

The traditional Nairobi elite are terrified. Not because they fear losing an election, but because they fear losing control of the economy. The SGR to Kisumu means Kenya’s economic centre no longer has to orbit Nairobi. Young people will stop leaving home. Landlords will lose tenants. Transport monopolies will crack. That is why they fight this pact with paid dissidents and sponsored narratives. They want Luos back on the streets. Because when Luos are shouting, they are not building.

Standing at Kirembe, Nyong’o repeated the name of his fallen leader like an anchor. Raila Amolo Odinga. Raila Amolo Odinga.

Dr Oburu later used a sharp Luo proverb for those resisting the declaration: “Ng’at modong’ to chi Ong’ong’o.” Whoever is left behind will become Ong’ong’o’s wife.

The message is clear, come back home or be left behind.

The resolutions from Kirembe were three and clear. ODM remains united under Dr Oburu Oginga. The party is not returning to opposition. The broad-based arrangement is the vehicle for development, and the ten-point agenda, including compensation for post-election violence victims, must be fully implemented.

An independent drone count placed the crowd at one hundred and fifteen thousand. They were not there by accident. They were there to say: never again.

The question for every ODM supporter and every Kenyan from the margins is not whether to preserve Raila’s memory. That is our sacred duty. The question is whether we will finish what he started.

Jee, mtajitetea mkiwa upande ganii?

The side that builds the railway? Or the side that wants you bleeding in the streets while they plot their return to power?

At Kirembe, Nyong’o chose. The crowd chose. The voice from the speakers chose.

Today is the day.