Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna mounted a fierce and unequivocal defence of his tenure Thursday, publicly rejecting his removal as Secretary General of the Orange Democratic Movement as illegal, unconstitutional and a crude extension of President William Ruto’s creeping influence over Kenya’s main opposition party.
In a detailed written statement released a day after a faction of the ODM National Executive Committee convened in Mombasa and voted to strip him of the post, Sifuna said no lawful party organ had ever informed him of any allegations, invited him to respond to any complaint, or accorded him a hearing of any kind. That procedural vacuum, he argued, rendered the entire action a violation of both the ODM constitution and elementary natural justice.
A purge disguised as process
“Let me state, without fear of contradiction, that this action is illegal, unprocedural, and a blatant violation of the ODM Constitution,” Sifuna wrote. He identified his only discernible offence as a principled refusal to back any internal campaign to support Ruto’s re-election bid. “Kleptocracy,” he said pointedly, “is not a philosophy that an entire nation can give a second chance.”
Sifuna, who this month entered his ninth year as SG — the longest any individual has held the position — argued the late ODM founder Raila Odinga had understood and accommodated his reservations about alignment with the Ruto administration.
He warned that the party’s current direction was a desecration of Raila’s legacy, noting that a backdated gazette notice released on Feb. 3 to retroactively legitimize earlier leadership changes had cited a public comment window that had already closed three weeks prior.
Through all lawful means we shall fight for this great institution until the very end. We will challenge every illegality in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion. Surrender is not an option.
— Senator Edwin Sifuna, CBS, MP · ODM Secretary General
Owino declares war, allies rally
The pushback extended well beyond Sifuna himself. Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, flanked at a Nairobi press conference by Siaya Governor James Orengo, Vihiga Senator Godfrey Osotsi and Winnie Odinga, condemned the Mombasa session as irregular and driven by leaders “answering to instructions from elsewhere.”
Owino framed the confrontation in starkly existential terms: “The war has been declared. A line has been drawn. This is not going to stop anytime soon.”
Canaan’s promise, unbroken
Both men closed their remarks with appeals to ODM’s grassroots base, urging members to remain steadfast. Sifuna pledged to return to the party’s rank and file “bigger and more energised,” invoking Raila Odinga’s vision of a just Kenya — the promised land he called Canaan.
“We are the generation that will reach Canaan as envisaged by the late Raila Odinga,” he wrote, “and nothing will distract us from this endeavour.”
The standoff is expected to escalate rapidly, with legal challenges, contested elections for a substantive SG and a broader battle over ODM’s post-Raila identity all now firmly on the horizon.
