For more than five decades, Oburu Oginga lived in the shadow of one of Kenya’s most recognizable political families but he was never simply Raila Odinga’s elder brother.
The 83-year-old politician had a political career of his own, one that began long before he eventually found himself holding the leadership of the Orange Democratic Movement.
Born on October 15, 1943, Oburu was the eldest son of Kenya’s first Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He grew up in a family where politics was hardly a distant subject. His father was already at the centre of Kenya’s struggle for independence and would later become one of the country’s most prominent opposition figures.
Oburu took a somewhat different route before fully settling into politics.
He studied economics in Moscow, earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and later worked as an economist in the Ministry of Planning and National Development.
But politics eventually pulled him in.
In 1974, he became a councillor in Kisumu Municipality. Two decades later, he made the jump to national politics, winning the Bondo parliamentary seat in 1994 — the same constituency that had been closely associated with his father.
For the next several years, Oburu was a familiar figure in Parliament.
He served as Bondo MP until 2013 and held a position as Assistant Minister for Finance. After losing the constituency seat, he returned to Parliament as a nominated MP and later served in the East African Legislative Assembly.
In 2022, he returned to elective politics once again, this time winning the Siaya Senate seat on an ODM ticket.
But it was the death of his younger brother Raila in October 2025 that completely changed Oburu’s political role.
For decades, Raila had been the face of the Odinga family’s national politics. When he died, the question of who would steer ODM suddenly became unavoidable.
Oburu stepped into that space.
ODM first named him acting party leader before the party formally ratified him as its leader in March 2026.
It was an extraordinary turn in his political life: the elder brother who had spent years working alongside Raila was now responsible for steering the party Raila had built into its next chapter.
Oburu’s leadership, however, came during a very different political moment.
ODM had entered into a working arrangement with President William Ruto’s administration, a move that generated debate both inside and outside the party. Oburu defended the arrangement as part of an effort to pursue national unity and avoid a repeat of Kenya’s history of political confrontation.
For a politician whose career had crossed several eras of Kenyan politics, it was another chapter in a long journey.
From Jaramogi’s Bondo to Parliament, from economics to party politics, from being Raila’s elder brother to becoming the man at the top of ODM, Oburu’s career followed the changing shape of Kenyan politics.
And perhaps that is what makes his story unusual.
He was never the loudest member of the Odinga family. He did not command the enormous crowds associated with Raila. But he remained a constant presence in the background of one of Kenya’s most politically influential families.
Now, following reports about his health and his recent medical visits, attention has once again turned to the veteran politician.
