Do we like them?

Do we like Raila Odinga?

Our score: 5 out of 10. Decades of real sacrifice for Kenyan democracy, set against sharp words on gay people in 2010 and a 2023 attack on a ruling for an LGBTQ group.

Raila Odinga was born on 7 January 1945 in Maseno, the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya's first vice president. Politics was the family business. He died in October 2025, aged 80, while being treated at a hospital in India, which is why this one's a legacy check rather than a live goss.

The formative chapter was prison. After a failed attempt to overthrow President Daniel arap Moi in 1982, he was arrested and held without trial, and across several stints he spent nearly nine years in detention. That is a heavy price for opposing a government, and a big part of why many Kenyans treated him as a champion of democracy.

The messiest moment was the 2007 election. Kibaki was declared the winner, Odinga's side disputed it, and more than 1,500 people died in the violence that followed. Kofi Annan's mediation produced a power-sharing deal in February 2008 that made Odinga prime minister, a post created for him. At the signing he said they had “opened a new chapter”, and he served until 2013.

Now the harm check, and it's where he gets tangled. In 2010, as prime minister, Advocate reported he claimed the new constitution called for arrests of gay men and lesbians and questioned why homosexuality was needed, then said he was misquoted and “I understand there are gay rights”. In 2023 he condemned a Supreme Court ruling that let an LGBTQ group form an association, saying “It is not the duty of the judiciary to make laws.” He framed it as a job for Parliament, and said the constitution bars same-sex marriage. That is a real mark against him for our readers, though I found no sustained campaign, and nothing in what I read on conspiracy theories, anti-vax talk or the planet.

On the good side, he took defeat without turning on the system. He lost the African Union Commission chair race in February 2025 and conceded the same day, saying he wanted it to strengthen democracy, and “I am not bitter; I'm very happy indeed”. After losing the 2022 presidential race he took his challenge to court and the Supreme Court upheld the result. His fans love him for staying in the fight when it cost him.

Nothing new has turned up from him lately, for obvious reasons. Since he died in October 2025, the coverage I found has been about his legacy and who inherits his political machine, not about anything he has done.