The Mount Kenya region is now on their second consecutive week of celebrations following Raila Odinga’s loss, by a small margin, to Djibouti’s Mahmoud Ali Youssouf at the African Union Commission (AUC) Chairperson’s election held in Addis Abbaba on February 15, 2025.
By publicly villifying and mocking Raila for his defeat, the region, fondly referred to as Morima, is communicating to all and sundry that there is no love lost between them and the ODM Party leader. The Morima did not hide their desire to see Raila lose at the AUC polls.
For about three months since Raila declared his interest for the seat, the Mount Kenya region mounted an all-systems go to decampaign and mudsling him across the continent.
While Raila’s loss had almost everything to do with Kenya’s declining diplomatic influence and allure in Africa, the negative sentiments emanating from Mount Kenya region through their self-styled Gen-Zs, against the country’s candidate, must have painted Kenya as one of the most diplomatically naive societies in modern times.
While other countries took advantage of the visibility created by the continental platform to attract investment capital and visitors, Kenya squandered the opportunity by showcasing the most primitive side of its society, all in a bid to stop Raila. At the end of the day, it is not Raila but Kenya that suffered bad publicity and lost the vote.
I think Raila phobia in the Mount Kenya region is now almost beyond redemption. It was the former Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, who, in the run-up to the 2022 presidential poll, mockingly warned Raila’s campaign team that trying to popularize the Azimio leader in Mount Kenya region was akin to selling pork in a Muslim-dominated country.
When the chips were down, Rigathi Gachagua was vindicated. For historical reasons that are well documented, the Mount Kenya region has always had serious misgivings about being led by members of Raila’s community, the Luo.
This article is concerned more with the immediate causes of the Raila phobia among the Mount Kenya communities, and its likely ramifications for the country’s political outcomes and trajectory in 2027 and beyond.
During the Gen-Zs uprisings in June 2024, which the Mount Kenya region fully supported, Raila Odinga emerged as the most prominent politician who was opposed to the manner and objectives of the demonstrations.
Raila argued that the uprisings had all the traits of a revolution aimed at regime change through extra-constitutional means. True to Raila’s word, the organizers of the Gen-Zs uprisings demanded the resignation of President William Ruto and his entire government to pave the way for a new regime.
According to Raila, the uprisings were a recipe for statelessness and anarchy as the organizers had not provided a clear road-map for managing the chaos and uncertainty that were likely to engulf the country after Ruto’s resignation.
For standing firm against forces that were bent on pushing the country to the precipice, Raila became a subject of vilification and hate campaigns. For keen observers, however, the sustained hate campaigns against Raila were part of a much bigger scheme that had started long before the 2022 presidential poll.
Over the years, Raila has created a larger-than-life image of an invincible politician with strong and elaborate tentacles throughout the country. For four consecutive presidential polls, he has given his competitors a run for their money.
Many politicians and their sympathizers are very uncomfortable with Raila’s charisma and connection with ordinary citizens throughout the country. More than any other politician, Raila is seen by most ordinary Kenyans as the panacea to their political problems.
After all, he has been the driving force behind most of the democratic, political and legal reforms in the country in the last three decades. It will be recalled that Raila and his compatriots in the Civil Society, legal sector, religious organizations, political opposition and the academia mounted and sustained a campaign for for a new constitution despite a strong pushback by the conservative forces in the government.
At the end of it in 2010, Kenyans gave themselves one of the most progressive constitutions in tge world. Back to the Gen-Z uprisings and Raila’s unrelenting opposition to their unorthodox means of regime change.
The opposition leader’s supporters had just been through several months of street demonstrations, dubbed “maandamano”, against high cost of living, high unemployment levels, and other failures of the government, during which period many lives were lost.
The business community of the Mount Kenya region came out to strongly protest against the Raila-led demonstrations, and decried the destruction of business and property occasioned by street battles between the police and demonstrators.
Raila was forced to stop the demonstrations, and instead opted for constructive engagement with the government on viable strategies for bringing down the cost of living, corruption and other vices in the public service.
That is why when the Gen-Zs came out to riot in the streets, with full support of the same business community that had only months earlier resisted the “maandamano” demonstrations, Raila smelt a rat, and flatly refused to support them.
It was inconceivable how the Mount Kenya group that had only two years earlier rejected street demonstrations would fully embrace a fresh wave of uprisings which had the same objectives! It is telling that the support for the Gen-Zs uprisings was one of the reasons on the charge sheet during Rigathi Gachagua’s impeachment trials in the National Assembly as well as High Court.
Things did not get any better when Raila’s ODM party released five of its top executives to join the Cabinet. The Mount Kenya region loudly expressed their disdain at the inclusion of ODM members into the Cabinet, and more so that they were handed lucrative ministerial postings, including Finance, Energy and Mining.
To the Mount Kenya region, the prime Cabinet postings were the clearest indication yet that President Ruto had developed a soft spot for his political nemesis, Raila Odinga. Knowing Raila’s formidable political war-chest, the opposition shuddered at the possibility of him joining President Ruto’s side.
The Mount Kenya badly wants Raila to abandon his rapprochement with President Ruto so that the former Prime Minister may either join them or contest the presidency on his own in 2027. Pundits argue that if either scenario can obtain towards the next presidential poll, then President Ruto could be terribly weakened, and his goose is likely to be cooked.
It should be appreciated that in politics, there is no permanent enmity, and the friend of an enemy is an enemy. Raila and his community, the Luo, may have been Mount Kenya’s greatest enemies for several decades due to historical reasons, but for now, President Ruto has replaced the ODM leader as enemy number one of the “Morima.”
Anybody who associates with Ruto is an enemy of the Morima. Raila Odinga is therefore, Morima’s enemy twice, first on his own merit, and second, by associating with their enemy in the name of President Ruto. The Morima is prepared to do whatever it will take to try to deny Ruto a second presidential term, and, in fact, those in the know opine that the main reason for their celebrating Raila’s loss was that it was perceived as a direct loss to President William Ruto.
The Mount Kenya region cannot countenance another five years with Ruto at the helm. Since independence, the region has gotten used to having direct access to the state coffers either through their own sons at the helm or an “outsider” who was amenable to their whims. In President Ruto, however, the Mount Kenya region has found a steely and calculating politician who has created an unimpenetrable wall around state resources.
With Raila Odinga on the same political coalition as William Ruto, other factors remaining constant, many political careers and dreams will come tumbling down before the 2027 presidential polls. Unfortunately for the region, they have spent too much time villifying Raila Odinga to the extent that they no longer know how to approach him for a political deal.
The only viable option appears to be an attempt to blackmail Raila as a democrat who has become a turncoat in his twilight years instead of consolidating his legacy of being on the side of the oppressed. Sadly, this argument cannot cut because only a few months before his impeachment, the former Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, who is now the most vocal Morima leader, was at the forefront of urging security forces to deal firmly with Raila’s supporters who were demonstrating against the government.
At that time, the Deputy President was full of praises for President Ruto as an astute leader who was running a very clean and effective government. In fact, Kenyans are shocked that the same Rigathi Gachagua now has the temerity to criticize the same government’s human rights record and mismanagement of state resources.
The greatest headache for the Mount Kenya region now seems to be how to draw Raila to their side so that President Ruto may remain exposed and vulnerable. Raila Odinga is, without a doubt, the most seasoned politician in Kenya today.
Aside from having been born into a political family – his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was independent Kenya’s first Vice President – Raila has cut a political niche for himself through hardwork, persistence and sacrifices.
The son of Jaramogi is a battle-hardened general in Kenya’s political landscape, who has competed, and cooperated with all but one of the country’s five presidents since independence. The doyen of opposition politics has a frenzied following across the country, and, in fact, holds the record as the only politician in Kenya who has managed to penetrate all the regions of the country except Mount Kenya.
It is surprising that such a person has not become Kenya’s president despite trying five times. One of the most poorly kept secrets in Kenya is that Raila Odinga defeated President Mwai Kibaki by a large margin at the presidential poll of December 2007.
It took the intervention of the international community and Raila’s magnanimity to calm down Kenyans who were violently demonstrating against what they saw as blatant overturning of their collective will by a government that they were determined to get out of power.
Raila is not a political pushover. It was therefore, a huge mistake on the part of Mount Kenya region to publicly villify him without regard to his huge sway on Kenya’s voters. When push comes to shove in 2027, Kenyans will still go back to their ethnic enclaves to create voting blocs.
The Gen-Zs movement looked plausible until it came to light that it was more prominent in the Mount Kenya and Nairobi regions than elsewhere in the country. Attempts to make the Gen-Zs an indomitable third force in the 2027 elections are still work-in-progress, and may remain so until Kenya becomes a cohesive nation devoid of ethnic enclaves and suspicions.
Meanwhile, Raila Odinga remains a real political force to contend with, and his dalliance with President is definitely causing his political opponents sleepless nights. The Mount Kenya region pushed Raila out of their political orbit by favoring William Ruto over him in the 2022 presidential poll.
The issues that the region currently has against President Ruto are purely of their own making. Blaming Raila for problems that they created for themselves only help to confirm Morima’s hatred towards Raila. If this hatred continues, they will only have themselves to blame.
Raila Odinga has run his political race, and kept the faith for a better Kenya. As the ODM leader walks into his octogenarian years, the Mount Kenya region needs him much more than he needs them. How the region plays its cards between now and 2027 will determine their political fortunes in the near future.
However, it must never be lost on Morima that William Ruto is monitoring every single step that they are making with a view to outsmarting them in their game. However, as they say: in politics, one day is a long time. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?
Professor Ongore is a Public Finance and Corporate Governance Scholar based at the Technical University of Kenya
