By Urban Shihemi, 15 October 2025.
Former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has died at the age of 80.
Indian newspaper Mathrubhumi earlier reported that Odinga, who was undergoing treatment in the southern Indian city of Kochi, suffered a cardiac arrest on Wednesday and was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A spokesman for the Sreedhareeyam Ayurvedic Eye Hospital and Research Centre confirmed that Odinga collapsed during his routine morning walk on the facility’s premises. He was rushed to a nearby medical facility but was pronounced dead around 9:52 a.m. IST (around 7:22 a.m. EAT).
Raila Amolo Odinga, is a veteran politician who served as Kenya’s Prime Minister and remained a towering figure of the opposition for decades.
Odinga, the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Azimio la Umoja coalition, had traveled to India several days earlier for what his family and party initially described as a routine medical check-up and a period of rest. His death comes after weeks of intense, often conflicting, speculation over his health status ,which his political allies had repeatedly dismissed.
The news brings an abrupt end to one of Africa’s most enduring political careers, marked by periods of detention, political mobilization, and five unsuccessful but deeply impactful campaigns for the Kenyan presidency.
Odinga, the son of Kenya’s first Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was a central figure in the fight for multi-party democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, spending years in prison under the autocratic rule of President Daniel arap Moi.
His political journey was defined by his relentless pursuit of the presidency:
He served as Prime Minister from 2008 to 2013 following a contentious 2007 election and subsequent post-election violence, culminating in a power-sharing agreement with then-President Mwai Kibaki.
He contested and lost the presidency five times (1997, 2007, 2013, 2017, and 2022), each defeat triggering significant political tension and, in several cases, widespread unrest after he claimed the results were fraudulent.
In 2018, he shocked the nation by entering a political truce known as “The Handshake”with his long-time rival, President Uhuru Kenyatta, which restructured the country’s political landscape.
