Siaya Senator Oburu Odinga has opened up about his final conversation with his brother, the late Raila Odinga, revealing emotional details of their last exchange just hours before the opposition leader’s sudden death.
Speaking during an interview with NTV on Sunday night, the interim ODM Party Leader disclosed that the two had spoken on Tuesday night and had planned to meet in Dubai later in the week. Raila, who was receiving treatment at the Sreedhareeyam Ayurvedic Centre in Kerala, India, was scheduled to be discharged two days later.
“I spoke with him the night he died, and he was in very good spirits. We talked over a lot of issues,” Oburu recalled. “He was to meet me that weekend. I was to travel to Dubai on Sunday, and he was to travel there on Friday.”
Oburu revealed that the news of Raila’s death caught him completely off guard, as his brother had shown great signs of recovery. “When my sister called to tell me he had collapsed, I was preparing to go play golf. I almost collapsed myself,” he recounted. “Twenty minutes later, I received the dreaded news that doctors could not resuscitate him.”
He emphasized that the family had no reason to believe Raila’s condition was deteriorating, adding that public communications on his recovery had been genuine. Raila had earlier been treated for a blood clot in Mumbai before relocating to Kerala for recuperation.
Oburu further dismissed claims that the family, ODM, or government had hidden the true state of Raila’s health. He also confirmed that he was in the same room with Deputy President Kithure Kindiki when he made the now-famous phone call to Raila—a call that later became the subject of online discussions following Raila’s death from a heart attack the next day.
The senator’s account offered a poignant glimpse into the final hours of a man many Kenyans considered the face of democracy and reform.
