Orengo and Tuju Clash with Oburu as Siaya’s Political Rift Deepens

Kenya, 11 April 2026 - Siaya is no longer speaking with one political voice.

It is arguing with itself in full public view, and the disagreement has now escalated into a defining ideological rupture that could reshape the post-Raila Odinga order in Luo Nyanza and beyond.

What was once a unified political fortress is now a battlefield of competing doctrines—one anchored in resistance, the other in raw pursuit of power—and the language from both sides is becoming sharper, more personal, and unmistakably final in tone.

At the heart of the unfolding drama is Governor James Orengo, who has effectively declared that ODM is still wandering in a leadership wilderness following the passing of Raila Odinga.

Speaking in Siaya while flanked by former Cabinet Secretary Raphael Tuju, Orengo delivered a sobering assessment that underscored both political uncertainty and emotional weight.

“We are still sourcing for Raila Odinga’s successor,” he said, pausing on a sentiment that immediately set the tone for a broader reflection on loss and legacy. “His death left a vacuum, and we are still searching for his apparent heir.”

Orengo’s argument went beyond succession politics; it was a philosophical warning.

In his framing, Raila Odinga was not just a leader but an ideological anchor whose absence cannot be quickly replaced by electoral arithmetic or party appointments.

“We are yet to find one whose philosophies and ideals resonate with the people as Raila did,” he added, suggesting that ODM’s internal confusion is not just organisational but existential.

Standing beside him, Raphael Tuju sharpened the ideological edge of the argument, placing himself firmly in what is increasingly being described as the “Linda Mwananchi” camp.

Tuju did not mince words as he laid out their political posture, arguing that the current administration under President William Ruto must be held to a strict democratic timeframe.

“We are rallying behind a Linda Mwananchi course,” Tuju declared, invoking a slogan that has rapidly become shorthand for resistance politics within sections of ODM-aligned leadership.

He went further, stripping any ambiguity from his position on the presidency.

“President William Ruto deserves only one term,” Tuju said, a statement that immediately aligned him with the faction that views opposition as a moral duty rather than a political inconvenience.

For Tuju, any narrative that normalises prolonged political accommodation is, in his view, a betrayal of public trust.

He also dismissed the idea of a broad-based political arrangement with the government as ideologically incoherent, warning that such arrangements risk diluting accountability and weakening the opposition’s role as a watchdog.

But even as Orengo and Tuju articulate a politics of resistance, a very different current is surging from within ODM’s evolving power structure, led by Siaya Senator Dr Oburu Oginga, who now occupies an increasingly influential position in the absence of his younger brother, the late former prime minister Raila Odinga.

His message is blunt, unapologetic, and politically disruptive in equal measure: opposition alone does not deliver power.

Oburu’s rallying cry, now widely circulated as “Tunataka power,” has become the centrepiece of a competing political philosophy.

“Tunataka power,” he has insisted repeatedly, not as a slogan of convenience but as a strategic doctrine.

“We want power, and we cannot get it by remaining in opposition all the time,” Oburu stated, laying out what he sees as the fundamental flaw in perpetual resistance politics.

“We must engage, we must cooperate, and position ourselves where decisions are being made.”

In Oburu’s worldview, political relevance is measured not by distance from power but proximity to it.

His argument is that influence is only meaningful when it translates into access, and access only comes through strategic engagement with the sitting government.

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“That is where power is,” he has declared, pointing directly to President Ruto’s administration as the centre of national decision-making.

Oburu has taken his argument further, introducing a deeply symbolic narrative of political destiny. In one of his most striking metaphors, he framed the country’s political journey as a choice between two roads.

“The Luo community will only reach its Canaan through the Singapore route with President Ruto on the steering wheel,” he said, suggesting that development and inclusion require pragmatic alignment with power rather than ideological isolation.

He warned that rejecting this path would have consequences. “Any contrary route will take us back to Misri—the land of misery, protests and backward development,” Oburu cautioned.

“We do not want that. Tunataka power.”

It is this stark contrast—between “Canaan” and “Misri,” between engagement and resistance—that has now defined Siaya’s internal political struggle.

On one side stands Oburu’s camp, which sees cooperation with Ruto not as betrayal but as strategic necessity. On the other stands Orengo, Tuju, and allies such as fiery ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna, who insist that political compromise with the Kenya Kwanza administration risks eroding the ideological foundation of opposition politics.

Sifuna and his allies argue that endurance in opposition is not stagnation but preparation, a long-term investment in democratic accountability and eventual political victory.

In their framing, the struggle itself is part of the identity, and abandoning it prematurely would weaken the opposition’s moral authority.

Thus, Siaya now finds itself suspended between two political futures that are increasingly incompatible.

One vision, led by Oburu, is pragmatic, transactional, and power-centric, anchored in the belief that access to State House is the ultimate political currency.

The other, led by Orengo and Tuju, is ideological, resistant, and rooted in the conviction that principles must not be sacrificed on the altar of proximity to power.

Between “Tunataka power” and “Linda Mwananchi,” Siaya is no longer simply debating strategy—it is negotiating its political identity in a post-Raila era.

And as the two camps harden their positions, one reality is becoming impossible to ignore: the unity that once defined ODM in its strongest years is now under its greatest strain yet.

Interior PS Dr Raymond Omollo has repeatedly told the residents of Nyanza that President Ruto means well for them and they stand to gain a lot if they stand with him.

He wonders that some of his critics like Orengo are the greatest beneficiaries of the national Government projects.

"The state is doing a lot including in the turf of its critics across the country. But even so they are undeterred. The state is committed to develop all regions equitably,'' he avers.

Oburu has been asking residents of Nyanza to warm up to Ruto and sing his development and transformative projects.

He says the search for power with Ruto on board has come to and end because Ruto is the most capable one to lead them to the land of opportunities. For ODM Linda Ground, that route is through Ruto, not anyone.