The magic of Raila’s Opoda shrine losing its charm

PHOTO | FILE Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga presents a book to Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero at the KICC in Nairobi during the launch of Raila Odinga's book, Flames of freedom on 6th October 2013.  

In Summary

• Just about everyone who has been MP or senator in Luo Nyanza in the past 17 years — or aspired to be one — has craved an opportunity to make the prized pilgrimage to Opoda.
• The ODM leader no doubt finds the very public discussion of his succession in a political constituency he inherited from his father — and has worked ever so hard to consolidate control over — discomforting.

By Otieno Otieno
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The famous Opoda Farm in Bondo is the rural home of Mr Raila Odinga, the former prime minister and ODM party leader.

Like is common practice among prominent or rich Kenyans who own at least two sets of residences — one in a plush city estate and another in their ancestral home — Opoda is more of a holiday camp for Mr Odinga where he occasionally retreats to recharge his batteries, enjoy private moments with his beloved family, host VIP guests or just look normal.

Popular television footage or newspaper photographs of Mr Odinga on the farm either have him in short trousers and gumboots ploughing with a tractor or sweating it out with a jembe, or in an executive suit playing host to a high society guest.

Among the visitors to the farm in the recent past are Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president.

But much less known to the public is that Opoda is also something of a political shrine for local politicians in a region where perceived level of loyalty to Mr Odinga or his ODM party can make or break one’s career.

Just about everyone who has been MP or senator in Luo Nyanza in the past 17 years — or aspired to be one — has craved an opportunity to make the prized pilgrimage to Opoda.

The fear and despair that reportedly gripped pilgrims during the latest trip to Opoda suggests that the belief in the shrine’s magic has been shaken to the core.

Media reports of the event attended by politicians, clergymen and village elders have tended to play up concerns about the high ambitions of Dr Evans Kidero, the Nairobi Governor, and his big-money fundraisers in the region

.

But I think Mr Odinga and his sidekicks are nursing much bigger fears for their political lives.

The ODM leader no doubt finds the very public discussion of his succession in a political constituency he inherited from his father — and has worked ever so hard to consolidate control over — discomforting.

Last week, his wife Ida had to come out to announce that Mr Odinga will contest the presidency for the fourth time in 2017. For local politicians who have relied on nothing more than his patronage to win parliamentary seats, life without his name on the ballot paper is unimaginable.

It has not helped that the average MP or senator is relatively sad and broke, having seen CDF budgetary allocations slashed.

At the grassroots, the honourable MP also has to grudgingly live with the rising power of the county governor who, under the new devolved governance structure, now controls the bulk of resources.

There might yet be an easy way back for the cult’s high priests. But it will take much more than the routine pilgrimage to the Opoda shrine.

Otieno Otieno is chief sub-editor, Business Daily. Twitter: @otienootieno jkotieno@ke.nationmedia.com