By Anderson Ojwang
Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Secretary General Edwin Sifuna took his fight with the party leader Dr Oburu Oginga a notch higher by asking the toughest question that many have been asking in silence: where were you, and why didn’t you go to India to bring Baba home?
Sifuna asked Dr Oburu where he was when he, Sifuna, went to India to bring the body of the fallen hero, the enigma, Raila Amolo Odinga.
“Where were you when I went to bring the body of our party leader from India? This is the question I want Dr Oburu to answer,” Sifuna said.
The Secretary General didn’t stop at that question but added that while he was airborne, they plotted on Raila’s succession and how to throw him out of the party.
Sifuna said Oburu has been traversing the country saying Raila was like his twin brother and that he loved him so much and he can’t believe he is gone.
“You have been claiming that Raila was like your twin brother. Where were you when he needed you most? At his time of death, why didn’t you accompany us to India to bring back the hero?” he asked.
He said his troubles started with Raila’s death and he knew of a plot to kick him out of the party.
“The day Baba died, I woke up in the morning and got a message: ‘Amolo has left us.’ I knew from that day, my troubles had begun,” he said.
Sifuna wondered how Oburu could claim that Raila was disappointed in him, yet they settled on him as the party official to go bring the body home.
“They said, ‘Sifuna, you were the closest friend to Raila, go and bring him back home.’ Now Oburu is claiming that Baba was mad at me. And it’s ironic that I am the one they sent to go bring him back home. Why didn’t Oburu go to bring Baba home? You are his brother. You keep saying that he was like your twin brother. Why didn’t you go for him? Why was Sifuna the person who had to go for him?” he asked.
Dr Oburu in a recent interview claimed the late Raila had grown increasingly frustrated with Sifuna prior to his death, citing an incident in Kakamega where he said the veteran politician was publicly embarrassed.
“What I knew is that Raila was not happy with what Sifuna was doing… he was fed up to the neck,” Oburu said.
Sifuna claimed that while he went to bring Raila’s body from India, Oburu and other party leaders remained behind to plot against him.
“When I went to bring my father back, they remained in Nairobi to plot against me. I told Raila at his burial: I will not break your party, ODM. It is these people who will chase me away. I have been vindicated. Has it not happened? I kept my promise, and it is they who chased me away,” he said.
Speaking amid an ongoing disciplinary process, Oburu accused the Nairobi Senator of defying party structures, skipping key meetings and running parallel political activities, saying ODM could not be held hostage by one individual.
“He is not the Pope. Do you want us to go and beg him? That because you are our Pope, we cannot do without you?” Oburu said.
Raila’s death marked the beginning of the power game. Suba North MP Caroli Omondi has maintained that while the Secretary General was on board a flight to India to collect Raila’s body, back at home, a team was meeting to install Dr Oburu as the acting party leader, bypassing immediate former acting party leader Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o.
Omondi gave an insight into what could be happening in the party and the emergence of a mysterious hand pulling shots in the party.
“There was a very quick transition even before Baba’s body arrived. When Mzee Oburu announced that he had accepted to be the party leader, he said he did not even know that there was a process to make him party leader. What that implies is that that call came from somewhere else. And that worries me a lot. This is because it therefore seems that ODM is getting directions and controls from somewhere else,” he said.
Before Oburu changed his tone on Sifuna, he defended him, saying he espouses the party’s position.
“I met with my friend, Senator Edwin Sifuna, the Secretary General of the ODM Party, this morning. He remains a sober and principled voice, embodying the democratic ideals we believe in as a party,” he wrote on his X handle.
Oburu said the party was united and encouraged everyone to speak their mind, as that was the foundation on which the party was formed.
“We are one. We are united as the ODM Party. As a leader, I believe we must encourage everyone to speak their mind. Differences of opinion do not mean division. Great parties—like ODM—grow through robust debate and unique challenges. That is where the progress and continuity of our party truly lie: in the hands of our young people. Sisi ni chama cha mapinduzi. Tuko imara,” he wrote.
Recently, Sifuna declared that he cannot be Secretary General to Dr Oburu and described him as mediocre.
Will Oburu reply to Sifuna as to why he didn’t go for his younger brother as is often common traditional practice, and why he inherited Raila’s throne while still airborne and before he could even be buried?
