For Winnie Odinga, her late father Raila Odinga’s political career was more than a family story; it was a front-row lesson in loyalty, betrayal, struggle, defeat and the changing relationships that come with politics.
The EALA MP said she witnessed many of the difficult moments that marked Raila’s more than four decades in formal multiparty politics, experiences that have shaped how she now looks at elective leadership.
Winnie spoke on Thursday as she represented the Odinga family during Raila’s posthumous induction into the Kenya Publishers Association Hall of Fame at the Nairobi International Book Fair.
She said Raila’s book, The Flame of Freedom, has become especially important to her as she starts building her own political career, giving her a way to reconnect with her father’s thoughts and experiences.
“When somebody you love dies, you begin looking for them everywhere; in photographs, in old messages, in videos, in things they said that you didn’t pay attention to. And books give us something extraordinary - they allow somebody who is no longer here to speak again. The Flame of Freedom gives me just that,” she said.
“I can open a page and hear my father’s mind working.”
Raila died on October 15, 2025, aged 80, after a political career that spanned more than 40 years in Kenya’s multiparty era.
Winnie said she grew up seeing her father face political pressure and difficult moments, yet he repeatedly managed to endure the challenges that came his way.
Among the experiences she remembered was Raila’s time in detention, when he kept communicating with his family through letters. Some of the letters, she said, took up to six months to reach them.
“I witnessed the struggle for multiparty democracy. It wasn’t something I came to read later in a book. I knew the meetings, the marches, the fear, the intimidation, the funerals, the arrests. I knew the men who stood up when standing up came with a price,” she said.
The political journey also taught Winnie that success and failure are both part of politics, and that life must continue even when an election does not produce the desired result.
She said she saw friendships formed through political struggle, including relationships where people remained together despite having little to gain from doing so.
But she also witnessed relationships fall apart, showing her that political loyalty can be unpredictable.
“I knew marvellous friendships, the kind forged in struggle, the kind where somebody stands beside you when there’s nothing to gain by standing beside you. And I knew glorious betrayal too, the kind only politics can manufacture, where today’s sworn enemy becomes your brother and occasionally where your brother can wake up and discover that he loves the enemy more than you,” she said.
Despite the arrests, disappointments, betrayals and election setbacks that marked Raila’s career, Winnie said she also learnt about the ability to keep hope alive through difficult times.
She said his experience taught her that hope can survive even when people face political disappointment, imprisonment and the effects of age.
Winnie also spoke about the value of documenting personal experiences, saying Raila’s book gives readers an opportunity to hear his side of the story rather than depending entirely on accounts written by others.
“Because eventually the rallies end, the posters come down, governments change, and politicians who once swore they would never sit together somehow discover that the chairs next to each other are quite comfortable - but your written word remains.”
She said the book could help younger Kenyans who never had an opportunity to meet Raila understand the ideas and beliefs that guided him throughout his political life.
Winnie said such readers can use his own account to consider whether the Kenya he fought for eventually became the country he had hoped to see.
“And I think he would have liked that. Knowing him, he would have probably joined the argument. So publishers, I want to say something very simple - keep publishing the difficult ideas. Publish people you agree with, publish people you disagree with.”