Kenya has held a state funeral for revered opposition leader Raila Odinga, a day after security forces killed several people after opening fire to disperse crowds of mourners at a stadium hosting a public viewing of his body.
Thousands of mourners gathered amid a heavy security presence at Nairobi’s Nyayo National Stadium on Friday, waving white handkerchiefs and dancing at the venue, which was bedecked with large banners featuring Odinga’s portrait, while others blew whistles and vuvuzelas, a brightly-coloured plastic horn.
President William Ruto attended the ceremony, alongside heads of parliament and the judiciary. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was among the African dignitaries present.
Odinga, 80, died from a suspected heart attack at a health clinic in southern India on Wednesday, triggering a huge outpouring of grief across much of his home country.
Affectionately known as “Baba” (father in Swahili), Odinga was arguably the most important political figure of his generation in Kenya.
Though mainly known as an opposition figure, Odinga became prime minister in 2008 and also struck a political pact with former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018, and with Ruto last year in a career of shifting alliances.
Although he never succeeded in winning the presidency despite five attempts, he played a central role in returning the country to multi-party democracy in the 1990s and is credited as the main force behind a widely praised constitution passed in 2010.
The mourners who attended Friday’s ceremony paid tribute to Odinga’s efforts as an activist.
“Raila Odinga, the father of democracy in Kenya, was a selfless leader who would risk everything – even his life – to make Kenya work,” Jean Jerry Abeka, 24, told the Reuters news agency.
Odinga had, however, become a controversial figure of late, said Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from his funeral service.
There have been a lot youth-led antigovernment protests over the past year, said Soi, and Odinga’s political party “aligned with the government so a lot of people say that he was a betrayer”.
However, “right now they’re saying that even though there was anger, a lot of them are saying they want to remember him for the things that he did for this country,” concluded Soi.
There were chaotic scenes on Thursday as his body was repatriated from India and taken to a stadium on the outskirts of Nairobi to lie in state.
As huge crowds surged towards a VIP gate at one point, security forces opened fire, killing at least three people, according to prominent rights group VOCAL Africa.
It said on X that it had confirmed “three bodies from Kasarani (stadium) have been received this evening at City Mortuary.”
Police also said three people were killed, but Kenyan channels KTN News and Citizen TV put the number of deaths at four, with dozens injured.
Odinga’s body will next travel to western Kenya, his family’s home region, where more huge crowds are expected on Saturday, before a private burial service on Sunday.
His death leaves a leadership vacuum in the opposition, with no obvious successor as Kenya heads into a potentially volatile election in 2027.
