Complicated legacy: Veteran Kenyan politician Raila Odinga, who died on 15 October at the age of 80. Photo: World Economic Forum
I grew up hearing the name Raila Odinga long before I understood what politics meant. In my childhood, his name carried the weight of courage and defiance; whispered conversations often ended with “if it weren’t for Raila …”
He was the symbol of resistance, who dared to stand up to power and speak when others trembled.
My father used to say that Raila was not just a politician, he was a movement. My mother would nod, eyes distant, as if recalling the tension and hope that defined Kenya’s fight for multi-party democracy.
My generation, born into a freer Kenya, didn’t live through his detentions, his exiles or the brutality of president Daniel arap Moi’s regime. But we grew up in the country he helped shape — one where dissent could at least breathe, where the constitution promised rights and where hope, however fragile, existed.
Yet as we got older we started to learn Raila not just through our parents’ stories, but through our own eyes. We found videos, archives, interviews — even criticism — the full man, not the myth. The Raila we saw in our teenage years wasn’t just the opposition warrior. He was also a statesman, a negotiator, and sometimes, to our frustration, a reconciler.
To older Kenyans, that was maturity — the evolution of a man who had seen too much bloodshed to wish for more. But to many in my generation, it looked like compromise. When you grow up seeing corruption normalised, when you watch the cost of living rise, when you watch your peers shot dead for demanding better, reconciliation starts to sound like surrender.
Last year, when Raila chose to join the so-called “broad-based government” amid the chaos of youth-led protests, many young Kenyans felt a deep sting of betrayal.
In our eyes, we were fighting for the very ideals that once defined him — courage, justice, accountability — yet he seemed to have crossed over to the same side we were resisting.
The timing made it worse. As bodies of young protesters filled the morgues, the nation was told of political unity and dialogue. The streets were echoing with pain, while press conferences were filled with smiles.
But maybe that’s where the generational gap lies. Our parents understood survival. They lived through times when defiance could cost you everything — your life, your family, your freedom. To them, Raila’s decision was about preserving the country, avoiding anarchy, finding a way.
But for us, who have inherited a broken system that thrives on negotiation at the expense of justice, that same move felt like a repetition of history and the kind that always ends with the youth paying the price.
Still, I find myself torn. Because, despite the disappointment, I cannot erase what Raila meant and still means to this nation.
Watching videos of schoolchildren crying after being told that Raila had died on 15 October reminded me his impact ran far deeper than politics
For Gen Z, Raila’s death has forced a reckoning. How do we balance respect for his struggle with the pain of his perceived silence when we needed him most? A complicated kind of mourning, filled with gratitude and grief in equal measure.
For years, our generation has been accused of being disconnected from history, of not knowing the struggle that birthed our freedoms. But we do know, differently. We know it not through books or lectures, but through fragments we piece together online: clips of Raila at rallies in the Nineties, documentaries about detention, the trembling voice of a man who spent years in isolation and came out still believing in Kenya. We also know the disillusionment, the handshakes, the alliances, the unfinished revolutions.
To us, Raila Odinga was not one thing. He was everything at once — fighter, reformer, dealmaker, dreamer, disappointer, forgiver. He embodied both the best and the contradictions of Kenya. And maybe that’s why his death feels personal — because whether you loved or doubted him, you cannot tell the story of this country without his name.
It’s easy to stand on social media and declare betrayal. But I think about what it means to carry a country’s hopes for decades, to be the vessel of millions of dreams that never came true. Maybe joining the government wasn’t weakness; maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe he was trying, in his own way, to find peace — the kind he had fought for his whole life.
Still, for Gen Z, his story leaves an unfinished question: “What now?” Who will carry forward the courage to challenge power? Who will dare speak for the people without seeking a seat at the table in return? If his generation fought for political liberation, ours must fight for moral liberation — freedom from fear, corruption, and hypocrisy. And perhaps, in that sense, Raila’s legacy lives on not in how he ended, but in how he began — as a man who dared to believe citizens could reclaim their country. Maybe that’s the Raila we should remember.
And that, perhaps, is what this moment means in our history, a changing of guards. The baton has fallen and it is up to us, the generation that both loved and questioned him, to pick it up and continue the race. — This article first appeared in Daily Nation. @Honeyfarsafi
Hanifa Adan Safia is a Kenyan journalist and activist.