OBITUARY: RAILA ODINGA: THE PERENNIAL NEARLY MAN OF KENYAN POLITICS

When the news broke that Raila Amolo Odinga had died in India on the morning of October 15, 2025, it was as if Kenya exhaled — not in relief, but in recognition. A chapter that had refused to close for nearly half a century had finally done so, not through concession or defeat, but through death. The man who had stood at the threshold of power more times than any other in Kenya’s history — and perhaps in Africa’s post-independence politics — was gone.

For decades, Raila had been the perennial nearly man of Kenyan politics: the revolutionary who came close, the reformer who redefined the system yet was never fully embraced by it, the man who helped make presidents but never quite became one. His career was a chronicle of near-victories and unfinished revolutions — an unending duel with destiny that both ennobled and exhausted him.

The Making of a Contrarian

Born in 1945, the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first Vice President, Raila inherited not wealth but a legacy of dissent. His father had famously turned his back on Jomo Kenyatta’s administration, accusing it of betraying the promises of independence. The young Raila absorbed that oppositional spirit like mother’s milk.

After studying engineering in East Germany — where socialism, worker solidarity and the architecture of the state fascinated him — Raila returned home with both technical training and ideological conviction. His engineering mind would later show in his politics: pragmatic, systematic, sometimes coldly analytical. But in a political culture driven by tribe and charisma, his rationalism was often his undoing.

He entered politics in the late 1970s, at a time when Daniel arap Moi’s one-party state brooked no dissent. Raila’s agitation for multiparty democracy saw him jailed, tortured and isolated. Yet, like the phoenix he admired, he always re-emerged. Each time, leaner, shrewder — and a little more calculating.

The Politics of Almost

Raila’s story is written in the grammar of almosts.
He almost toppled the one-party state. He almost became president. He almost dismantled the culture of impunity.
But each “almost” came with a paradoxical triumph — because in trying, he shifted the ground beneath Kenyan politics.

In 1997, he ran for president for the first time and came third — but cemented himself as a national figure. In 2002, he famously led the “Kibaki Tosha” movement, uniting the opposition behind Mwai Kibaki. That coalition ended 24 years of Moi rule — yet Raila was soon alienated by the same power he helped deliver.

In 2007, he came closer than ever. The polls were disputed, the results contested, and Kenya plunged into bloodshed. The subsequent peace deal made him Prime Minister, a title that acknowledged his legitimacy but denied him the presidency he believed he had earned.

In 2013 and again in 2017, he ran, rallied millions, and lost — narrowly, contentiously. His refusal to concede earned him admirers for courage and critics for obstinacy. When he was sworn in as the “People’s President” in 2018 in a mock ceremony, it was both defiance and symbolism — an act of protest against an establishment that he believed had stolen his destiny.

Even his handshake with Uhuru Kenyatta that same year — a moment meant to heal the nation — became another “almost.” It promised unity but fractured his opposition base. To his supporters, he had matured into a statesman. To his detractors, he had capitulated.

The Weight of History

Raila’s life was a bridge between Kenya’s liberation generation and its democratic awakening. His father fought colonialism; Raila fought its post-independence mutations — authoritarianism, corruption, ethnic patronage. Yet like many reformers who live long enough, he began to resemble the system he had sought to change.

By the time he sought the African Union Commission chairmanship in 2024, the firebrand had become a global elder, respected abroad even as his domestic star dimmed. His rhetoric softened, his edges rounded by time, but the central tragedy remained: Kenya loved Raila but did not trust him enough to make him president.

Some said it was tribal arithmetic — the Luo vote could never outnumber the Kikuyu-Kalenjin blocs that alternated power. Others said it was his temperament: a man too radical for the cautious middle. But perhaps it was simpler — Raila was the conscience of the republic, and conscience rarely wins elections.

The Nearness of Greatness

To call him “the nearly man” is not an insult but a description of the arc of his life — one that shadowed Kenya’s journey from colonialism to capitalism, from dictatorship to democracy. He stood for ideas that were often ahead of his time: devolution, electoral justice, energy reform, transparency. Yet he was forever caught between vision and viability.

His relationship with power was intimate but incomplete — he was always in its corridors, seldom in its throne room. And yet, in a deeper sense, he was Kenya’s political axis. Every presidency of the last four decades was shaped, challenged, or legitimized in response to him. His defeats defined others’ victories. His persistence gave Kenya its democratic pulse.

Like Sisyphus, he kept rolling the boulder of reform up the mountain, only to watch it tumble back down. But each time, the mountain moved a little.

The Man Behind the Myth

Behind the rhetoric and rallies was a man of surprising tenderness. He loved literature and reggae, football and debate. His marriage to Ida Odinga was a partnership forged in the fires of prison, exile and protest. He doted on his children, especially his late son Fidel, whose death in 2015 marked him deeply.

Raila had a mischievous humour and a gift for reinvention. He could command a rally with thunder and, minutes later, trade jokes in Dholuo with market women. He relished confrontation but valued loyalty. In public life, he carried the gravitas of a prophet; in private, he could be disarmingly ordinary — fond of tea, storytelling and long, unhurried conversations about the destiny of nations.

The Final Campaign

In death, Raila finally accomplished what eluded him in life — a unanimous Kenya. For once, all sides grieved him without reservation. His supporters mourned their unfulfilled dream; his rivals honoured an adversary who dignified politics by his presence.

His passing forces a reckoning: that Kenya’s democracy, though maturing, still owes a debt to those who never quite arrived but cleared the path for others.

Raila Odinga’s life invites us to measure success not only by the offices we hold but by the ideas that outlive us. He never became president, but he helped make Kenya more democratic, more self-aware, more restless for justice.

In that sense, the nearly man may, in the end, have come closest of all.

“History is not written by those who win,” he once told a crowd in Kisumu. “It is written by those who endure.”

Raila Odinga endured — and in doing so, etched his name into the very idea of Kenya.

May the man who almost became president rest as a patriot who already became immortal.

DIASPORA DOLLARS AND THE GROWTH STORY THEY TELL

When Patrick left Uganda in 2005, he was twenty-five, restless, and convinced that life had to be better elsewhere. A cousin had lined up a cleaning job for him in Dubai, and though he barely had enough for the ticket, he boarded that plane with a single promise to his mother in Masaka: he would send something home every month. Nearly two decades later, Patrick still keeps his word. Every few weeks, a few hundred dollars trickle through a mobile transfer to Masaka—money that has built a modest brick house, paid school fees, and stocked the small shop his mother now runs.


Patrick’s story is far from unique. Tens of thousands of Ugandans like him—the unsung foot soldiers of the economy—send money home from wherever they can find work: Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, London, Boston, and beyond. Those quiet transactions, repeated millions of times each year, form one of Uganda’s most resilient economic arteries—remittances, the invisible lifeline connecting toil abroad to survival and hope at home.

According to the Bank of Uganda’s September Macroeconomic Indicators Report, remittances reached about US$1.42 billion by mid-2024, a slight dip from US$1.51 billion the year before. Back in 2005, the total was barely US$450 million. That’s a threefold increase in less than two decades. Yet there’s a paradox hiding in those numbers. Even as the dollars have grown, their share in the economy has shrunk—from around 5 percent of GDP in 2005 to less than 3 percent today.

The story is not that Ugandans abroad are sending less, but that Uganda’s economy has grown much faster. In 2005, the country’s GDP stood at about US$8.5 billion. By 2024, it had swollen to just over US$50 billion. The remittance river has deepened, but the la

It’s tempting to think of remittances as a driver of growth, but in reality, they tend to move with growth rather than cause it. Both rise together, but for different reasons. GDP has expanded because of investments in infrastructure, growth in services, and the steady modernization of agriculture. Remittances, on the other hand, have surged because of Uganda’s expanding diaspora and the growing demand for labour in the Middle East.

When global economies hum, remittances surge. When they stumble, they dip. The COVID-19 pandemic offered a textbook illustration: remittances fell to about US$1.06 billion in 2020, from US$1.42 billion the year before. But as Gulf economies reopened, the numbers rebounded. The rhythm of Uganda’s remittance economy beats in time with the global business cycle.

Still, the story is not only about the macro numbers. It’s about what happens when those dollars reach home. The Bank of Uganda estimates that more than 80 percent of remittances are spent on consumption—food, school fees, health care, and housing. On the surface, that sounds unproductive, but in reality, it fuels a powerful consumption multiplier. Every time Patrick’s mother restocks her small shop in Masaka, she keeps suppliers, boda riders, and wholesalers in business. The same money changes hands several times before it fades from the economic bloodstream.

That pattern has helped smooth household incomes and keep rural economies ticking even in hard times. When agriculture falters, remittances keep families afloat. When jobs dry up locally, it’s those overseas transfers that keep consumption steady and the cash tills ringing. They may not show up in the factories or export earnings, but remittances help sustain the quiet heartbeat of the domestic economy.

"Yet for all their importance, remittances have not been fully harnessed. The Bank of Uganda’s reports show that only a small fraction of these inflows find their way into productive investment—the kind that creates jobs or expands manufacturing capacity. Most of the money ends up in land or housing, which store value but rarely generate broad economic activity.

If just ten percent of the annual inflows—about US$140 million were channelled into investment vehicles like diaspora bonds, voluntary NSSF schemes, or SACCO-backed funds, Uganda could unlock a new stream of domestic capital. Those remittance inflows could help finance small businesses, agro-processing, or renewable-energy projects. The potential is there; what’s missing is structure.



Still, remittances perform one quiet but crucial role: they strengthen Uganda’s external position. The September BOU report notes that, year after year, these inflows help plug the current-account deficit and stabilize the exchange rate. Alongside tourism and gold exports, remittances are among Uganda’s top three foreign-exchange earners. When export earnings falter, diaspora dollars keep the central bank’s reserves cushioned.

But new risks are emerging. The shift of Ugandan migrant labour from traditional destinations like the UK to Middle Eastern countries has made inflows more vulnerable to foreign policy shifts. The planned UAE visa restrictions in 2026 could disrupt one of Uganda’s fastest-growing remittance corridors. A small change in migration policy there could ripple through Ugandan households here. It’s a reminder that the remittance economy, though resilient, is not invincible.

The relationship between remittances and GDP is best described as symbiotic. Stronger domestic growth fuels migration and hence remittances; remittances, in turn, sustain consumption and stabilize the economy. The causation runs both ways, but the weight of influence leans toward GDP driving remittances rather than the reverse.

Still, the indirect impact is profound. Remittances help families invest in education, healthcare, and small businesses—building the human capital and social stability that growth ultimately rests on. They keep the economy resilient, lubricating it through hard times. In that sense, they are not the engine of growth, but the oil that keeps the engine from seizing.

For policymakers, the task is to transform sentiment into strategy. The Bank of Uganda has already moved in this direction with efforts to improve data collection, reduce transfer costs, and formalize remittance channels. The next step is to design financial instruments that turn diaspora affection into domestic investment—remittance-linked savings products, diaspora investment funds, and tax incentives for overseas Ugandans who invest back home.

"Uganda’s GDP may have outgrown remittances as a share of output, but it has not outgrown their importance. Each dollar that Patrick and others like him send home is more than a financial transaction—it’s a story of trust, responsibility, and invisible nation-building.

The diaspora may not appear in national budgets or corporate boardrooms, but in countless living rooms across the country, their money keeps lights on, stomachs full, and children in school. Those dollars may not move markets, but they move lives. And in the long ledger of Uganda’s economic history, that might count for even more.