The late Raila Odinga (right) with Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna at Capitol Hill in Nairobi on February 2, 2024.When four key ODM officials relinquished their positions to take up Cabinet slots in the broad-based government in 2024, then ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna believed he had found a way out of an increasingly uncomfortable job.The party was preparing to fill positions left vacant by the departure of two deputy party leaders - Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya - as well as National Chairperson John Mbadi and Opiyo Wandayi, who had joined the Cabinet. The Nairobi senator saw an opportunity to relinquish his position as secretary-general and take up one of the deputy party leader slots.“Not you, Edwin. Sit down,” Mr Sifuna recalls Raila telling him when he rose to leave the room, as the late ODM leader had requested all aspirants to do before the discussion began. The remark drew laughter from the other leaders in the room.Nairobi Senator and The Equitable Party (TEP) leader Edwin Sifuna during a joint media engagement at Four Points By Sheraton Nairobi Hurlingham on October 9, 2026.The intervention, Mr Sifuna says, ended his attempt to use the recruitment process to escape a job that had become increasingly difficult as ODM navigated its relationship with President William Ruto’s administration.In a revealing account of his relationship with his former boss, Mr Sifuna says he had reached a point where he wanted to stop being the person required to defend the party’s decisions in public, particularly when he believed those decisions risked compromising its political identity.The encounter, which he places at a meeting in Upper Hill in August 2024, offers a glimpse into the relationship between the two men before Raila’s death and the subsequent rupture between Mr Sifuna and sections of the ODM leadership.It also provides his response to claims that his relationship with Raila had deteriorated in the final months of the former Prime Minister’s life.Mr Sifuna says that, contrary to accounts suggesting Raila wanted him removed, the former Prime Minister had expressly rejected his request to leave the secretary-general’s office and assured him that he remained free to criticise the government.The senator recounted during a media roundtable on Friday that the meeting had been convened to discuss filling positions left vacant by officials who had joined the government.As the discussion turned to potential candidates, Raila asked those interested in the positions to leave the room.From left: Then-ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna, ODM leader the late Raila Odinga and Siaya Senator James Orengo.Mr Sifuna said he attempted to persuade Raila to let him go, joking that the former Prime Minister had received his papers first. But Raila refused.Instead, according to Mr Sifuna, the veteran politician explained that the secretary-general’s position was more important than the vacancies being discussed.“He gave a story there about how the SG is the heart of the party. You know, these positions here, really, they cannot compare to this,” Mr Sifuna recalled.The exchange was light-hearted, but it exposed a serious dilemma for the senator. As secretary-general, he was responsible for communicating the party’s position, even when he was uncomfortable with the direction it was taking.Mr Sifuna then asked Raila whether he was certain he wanted him to remain in office.He warned that he would continue to cause friction because he intended to speak truth to power and call out the government whenever he believed it was acting wrongly.“I want to continue to speak truth to power. I want to be able to call out this government when they do wrong. And I can see I’m causing unnecessary friction within the party,” he said he told Raila.Nairobi Senator and The Equitable Party (TEP) leader Edwin Sifuna during a joint media engagement at Four Points By Sheraton Nairobi Hurlingham on October 9, 2026.His proposed solution was to leave the secretary-general’s position and take up one of the deputy party leader roles, allowing someone else to manage the increasingly difficult task of explaining ODM’s political choices.“He refused. And he said expressly, ‘Sifuna, nobody has told you not to say anything. You proceed,’” Mr Sifuna recalled.The account is significant because it places the disagreement over ODM’s cooperation with the Kenya Kwanza administration within the context of an earlier decision by Raila to retain a secretary-general whose public statements sometimes generated controversy within the party.The late Raila Odinga (left) with Mr Edwin Sifuna during the ODM National Governing Council meeting in Nairobi on March 1, 2019.It also offers a window into the relationship that Mr Sifuna says allowed him to survive repeated attempts by colleagues to have him removed.The senator has repeatedly rejected suggestions that he and Raila were estranged before the former Prime Minister died in October 2025.
This page contains an attributed headline and the preview text supplied through the publisher’s RSS feed. Copyright in the original reporting belongs to Nation.
