By James Okoth
It was not just a dinner.
It was an unwritten script, a soft coup wrapped in frosting. ODM at twenty, the orange turned mellow
and in walked Ruto, draped not in diplomacy, but in defiance, his UDA yellow shouting through the orange hall like a sermon of conquest.
He stood there as the centre of gravity, centre of story, flanked by Oburu’s age and Wanga’s will,
hands converging on a cake whose colours betrayed the host.
Not orange. Not flame.
But a polished blend of Ruto’s dawn, yellow kissed with power.
Behind him, Winnie stretched, not to reach the cake, but history, the inheritance of a dream now diluted. Anyang’ leaned in, loyal but weary,
as the cameras froze a thousand metaphors into one question:
Whose party was this to celebrate?
Was this grace? Or gall?
Was he reminding them that he, too, once tilled this soil, that before the yellows and hustlers, he watered his roots in orange sap?
Or was it a soft announcement of a rehearsal of return and of
a man circling back to claim the house he once helped build?
ODM, the Orange Democratic Movement, was born out of the 2005 constitutional referendum, a political earthquake that split President Mwai Kibaki’s government.
Ruto, then a youthful Kalenjin power broker and MP for Eldoret North, was among the most active campaigners against the proposed constitution.
The Orange victory in that referendum gave birth to ODM as a political force, united by rebellion against Kibaki’s administration.
When ODM formally took shape as a political party in 2006–2007, Ruto was part of the inner founding team — the “original Orange.”
He served as one of Raila’s key strategists and mobilizers in Rift Valley, carrying both financial and grassroots weight.
His oratory and organizational skill made him a natural bridge between Raila’s Luo base and the Kalenjin bloc that became ODM’s bedrock in 2007.
In that election, Ruto stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Raila in the “Pentagon,” the famous ODM leadership team that also included Najib Balala, Musalia Mudavadi, Joe Nyagah, and Charity Ngilu.
So yes, Ruto was not just a passenger. He was in the cockpit.
Fast-forward to 2025, when Ruto, as sitting President, walks into ODM’s 20th anniversary dinner and says he joined “the founder members of ODM.”
The statement was technically true but politically explosive.
It served multiple purposes:
Historical Reminder: It reminded ODM that he was not an outsider but part of its original story as way of claiming legitimacy over a movement that once rejected him.
Psychological Play: It unsettled ODM’s current leadership by reframing him not as a rival, but as a returning patriarch rewriting memory through optics.
Strategic Signal: By invoking the phrase at a time of visible ODM disunity, Ruto subtly positioned himself as a bridge-builder, hinting that political realignment is not impossible ahead of 2027.
In Kenya’s political culture, where history is both weapon and shield, Ruto’s statement carried layers of irony. The man who once accused Raila of betrayal now stood in his UDA colours at Raila’s historic moment, celebrated by some of Raila’s loyalists and cheered for “honouring the movement.” It was more than nostalgia and a reclamation.
By invoking his founding role, Ruto reframed ODM’s 20-year journey as one that began with him, not against him.
Ruto’s reference was not random rhetoric; it was a calculated move to:
Sow further division in ODM by reviving old loyalties among veterans who once served with him in the original Orange.
Test the waters for a grand realignment, possibly an ODM–UDA understanding built around “shared reformist roots.”
Symbolically disarm Raila’s movement by co-opting its founding memory.
If politics is theatre, then Ruto didn’t just crash ODM’s anniversary but also walked onto stage, reminding everyone that he helped build it and left the audience arguing whether he ever truly left.
