Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leader Raila Odinga presided over the party’s National Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday, a day after he dismissed those calling for his resignation from politics.
Raila, who has been the face of the opposition since the second president, the late Daniel Moi, has been under pressure from various political factions who want him to hang up his boots. But the former prime minister does not seem to be thinking in those terms.
“Some people have said that they will take me back to Bondo. I want to tell them that I know
the way to Bondo better than they do. This is my home and I know it better than anyone else,” Raila
said on Sunday.
“The day I decide to go back to Bondo, I will not ask anyone’s permission. I will find my way
there. Certainly, that time has not come; I am still here, so let them shut up.” added the Azimio
leader.
The former Prime Minister said the ODM party was more focused than before.
“The party matters. ODM is focused. Kenya and Kenyans first,” he said in a statement released by the party via social media platform X.
Raila’s expected exit from politics gained traction after his elder brother Oburu Oginga
suggested that Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi was likely to succeed him as the Luo Nyanza kingpin.
The Siaya senator later retracted his statement in which he said Wandayi had grown “like a mushroom on an ant hill mushroom on an ant hill” under Raila’s tutelage.
“He has demonstrated that and as you can see, we are soon leaving the stage for people like him,” Oginga said in early September.
The politics of succession in Luo Nyanza has been on and off as various political players have positioned themselves to succeed Raila Odinga.
