{"id":1549,"date":"2025-10-20T09:38:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1549"},"modified":"2025-10-20T01:28:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T01:28:32","slug":"ex-kenyan-leader-raila-odinga-buried-after-days-of-memorial-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1549","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Kenyan leader Raila Odinga buried after days of memorial events"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Former Kenyan prime minister and revered long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga was buried in the west of the country after a service attended by thousands on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Now finally Baba is home,&#8221; his son, Raila Odinga junior, said beside his father&#8217;s casket, draped in the Kenyan flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Olamide, Wizkid - Kai! (Official Video)\" width=\"980\" height=\"735\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7tChMHOrQJM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The burial concluded days of memorials that at times led to chaos, with at least five mourners dying at other events and dozens injured at a public viewing on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Odinga died on Wednesday aged 80 in an Indian hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He became prime minister after the bloody and disputed 2007 election, and was the main opposition leader for many years, losing five presidential campaigns, most recently three years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He retains a devotional following in the west of the country. Former US President Barack Obama, whose Kenyan family hails from the same region, called Odinga a &#8220;true champion of democracy&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Politicians, relatives and throngs of his supporters waved Kenyan flags and held his picture aloft as they gathered at Sunday&#8217;s memorial service, which was held at a university in Bondo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Even in the grave, he still remains our hero,&#8221; one mourner told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Military personnel carried Odinga&#8217;s coffin to the front, where a choir sang and speakers, including Kenyan President William Ruto, remembered him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;His courage, his vision, and his unyielding faith in our collective destiny will forever illuminate the path of our nation,&#8221; Ruto said in a post on Facebook about the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;His return to Bondo was not merely a homecoming; it was the embrace of a grateful Republic bidding farewell to one of its greatest sons, a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of justice, democracy, and the enduring unity of our beloved Kenya.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Odinga was buried nearby at his late father&#8217;s homestead, where there is a family mausoleum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Multiple memorial events had already taken place, including a state funeral in Nairobi on Friday and a public viewing in a stadium in his home city of Kisumu on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the viewing, tens of thousands filed past his open coffin, many crying out the phrase &#8220;we are orphans&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least three people were killed when\u00a0police opened fire to disperse mourners, with dozens more injured in the chaotic scenes that followed. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cgjd6j3j099o\">(BBC)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Kenyan prime minister and revered long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga was buried in the west of the country after a service attended by thousands on Sunday. &#8220;Now finally Baba is home,&#8221; his son, Raila Odinga junior, said beside his father&#8217;s casket, draped in the Kenyan flag. The burial concluded days of memorials that at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1993,183,1991,1992,1994,181],"class_list":["post-1549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign","tag-barack-obama","tag-kenya","tag-raila-odinga","tag-raila-odinga-junior","tag-state-funeral","tag-william-ruto"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ex-Kenyan leader Raila Odinga buried after days of memorial events - Tona Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Kenyan prime minister and revered long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga was buried in the west of the country af\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=1549\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ex-Kenyan leader Raila Odinga buried after days of memorial events - 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