By Brian Kiprono - Reporter
Kenya, November 15 2025 - Embakasi East MP Babu Owino turned ODM’s 20th anniversary celebration into a moment of open defiance on Saturday, issuing warnings to President William Ruto’s government while challenging the direction of his own party as it reshapes itself after Raila Odinga’s death.
Speaking at the Mama Ngina Waterfront in Mombasa, Owino, one of ODM’s most vocal younger leaders, delivered an impassioned speech that underscored deepening tensions within the party over rising living costs, political appointments and the future of opposition politics in Kenya.
While the event was meant to honour ODM’s two-decade journey and the legacy of the late Raila Odinga, Owino used his platform to signal that ODM risked losing touch with its grassroots if it softens its watchdog role.
“If the cost of living goes up, we will go to the streets. If school fees go up, we will go to the streets, whether they like it or not,” Owino declared, warning the Kenya Kwanza administration that economic frustration could trigger a return to mass action.
Questions Over ODM Appointments
Owino then turned inward, openly questioning the party’s latest leadership appointments approved by ODM’s National Governing Council on Friday. The new lineup includes Senator Oburu Oginga as party leader, with Abdulswamad Nassir, Simba Arati and Godfrey Osotsi as deputy party leaders, alongside a raft of other senior officials. While congratulating the appointees, Owino asked whether the party had deliberately overlooked him.
“I saw our ODM leaders being given seats. Congratulations, but allow me to ask: did you look at this Babu and see that he is not capable of anything?” he posed, a statement interpreted by observers as a sign of growing generational discontent in ODM.
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Honouring Raila, But Warning of Drift
In a moving tribute, Owino described Raila as a bridge, ladder and shield, metaphors that highlighted both the depth of the party’s loss and the vacuum left behind. “Baba was a ladder that helped us climb. That ladder is no more,” he said.
But his tribute quickly shifted into a cautionary tone, signalling fears that the party could drift from Raila’s ideals if internal democracy is lost in the transition.
A Party at a Crossroads
The ODM@20 celebrations exposed a widening gap between the party’s old guard and its younger, more activist wing, a divide likely to shape debates ahead of the National Delegates Convention.
ODM seems to struggle defining its place in the broad-based government and reconstructing its leadership structure, and Owino’s outburst signals that the fight over the party’s future, and its identity as a protest movement or governing partner, is far from settled.
