For a long time, Siaya County, formerly Siaya District has been the hotbed of opposition politics in Kenya. This is simply due to the fact that, the doyen of opposition politics, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga hailed from the region, more specifically, in Bondo which is currently one of the six sub-counties in Siaya.
With the advent of devolution following the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution in August, the same year, Siaya became one of the 47 devolved units in the country.
With such a history, any occupant of the position of the Governor of the County Government of Siaya was bound to be sitting on a political hot seat. This is occasioned by the fact that the leadership of the dominant political party in the region for a long time has been largely occupied or controlled by the members of the Odinga family.
This is where the current Governor of Siaya, His Excellency, Hon. James Bob Aggrey Orengo finds himself. The Governor himself, his deputy and the majority of the Members of the County Assembly of Siaya, comes from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, which was formerly headed by the late Rt. Hon. Raila Amolo Odinga and interestingly, albeit officially, has Raila’s elder brother, Dr. Oburu Oginga as its party leader, who also doubles up as the Siaya Senator.
In late 1970s, Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya had its mayor, Margaret Kenyatta, the daughter of the late President Jomo Kenyatta stationed at City Hall.
As Joseph Karimi and the late veteran journalist, Philip Ochieng, recounts in their book, “The Kenyatta Succession,” the mayor was earlier poised for a diplomatic appointment to Saudi Arabia around early 1976 but it was later rescinded due to security reasons following infamous Israeli invasion of Uganda’s international airport at Entebbe on July 4, 1976.
Following reports that the Palestine Liberation Organization had threatened Kenya with many things including hijacking aircraft belonging to then East African Airways, it is said that Margaret Kenyatta would have been risking her life greatly had she agreed to the ambassadorial posting in that country.
Interestingly, Margaret Kenyatta had publicly withdrawn from contesting that year’s city mayoral elections but decided to change her mind even though she had exhausted the two term constitutional limit as was required by the Local Government Act.
A keener look at the intrigues revealed a well-orchestrated move to protect the interests of the larger Kenyatta’s family. First of all, the posting to Saudi Arabia of the mayor, as the writers put it, was to protect the charcoal business of Peter Muigai Kenyatta, mayor’s own brother who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs.
At the center of this battle was the Deputy Mayor, Andrew Ngumba, who had firmly entrenched himself as the candidate of the majority of the councilors for the mayoral position in the coming elections. Ngumba who was a close relative of the Kenyatta’s through marriage but was also a political ally not of the family but of a former mayor of Nirobi, Charles Rubia.
Rubia had a bone to crack with the Kenyatta family due to his successor Isaac Lugonzo having been literally bundled out of City Hall in order, reportedly, to make way for Margaret Kenyatta.
The battle for the control of City Hall was so tense that president Kenyatta himself had be sought at State House in Mombasa by various delegations allied to both his daughter Margaret Kenyatta and the Deputy Mayor, Andrew Ngumba, in order to intervene in the impasse.
In order to save face and prevent public humiliation and embarrassment of the first family, the decision to impose the daughter of the president as the Mayor of Nairobi for a third term in office was shelved and elections were held as was scheduled later with Andrew Ngumba winning the elections.
But was followed was a well calculated smear campaign that bordered on political witch hunting with accusation after accusation of corruptions scandals and alleged service delivery failures ostensibly to bring down the former Deputy Governor’s administration.
Coming back to Siaya County, the latest battle pits Siaya Governor James Orengo against Senator Dr. Oburu Oginga, his Deputy Dr. William Oduol and Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi. The rift is historical as it stems from the gubernatorial campaigns in 2017 and 2022 polls.
Mr. Orengo is regarded as a vocal critic of the broad-based government deal which ODM is part of and he has ridiculed the party’s contentment with the six Cabinet positions that President Ruto allocated the party.
Recently, CS Opiyo Wandayi led a delegation comprising of the members of the County Assembly of Siaya in the company of the Speaker, Hon. George Okode to meet President William Ruto at the Coast, something which did not go down well with the Governor.
It can be remembered too that sometime in May 2025; members of the County Assembly of Siaya declined to accompany Dr. Oburu and other leaders to state House in the Governor’s absence ostensibly because it was regarded as being tantamount to insubordination by some MCAs and at the same time it was said that the visit had been initiated by the Governor himself and it would be fair that it be done in his presence.
These wars have so much escalated to the point of for example, CS Opiyo Wandayi branding Orengo an “enemy of progress,” on the premise that the governor is concentrating on activism while failing to focus on delivering services to the people who elected him.
Equally, the Siaya Senator and the current ODM Party leader, Dr. Oburu Oginga had in a separate function last year asked the governor to resign and walk out of ODM so that he could continue with his criticism of the broad-based government.
As reported in one of the dailies, “Daily Nation, May 19,2025” in an article written by Kassim Adinasi and Rushdie Oudia, titled, “ How Siaya is new theatre of political war in Nyanza,” Dr Oburu went bare knuckle with the governor saying, “ why is he vomiting on us while still inside? Can’t he get out and vomit on us while outside. It is improper for him to continue with his activism while in the Orange party,” said Dr. Oginga.
Interestingly, it was this same script that was played out against Mr. Andrew Ngumba, the former Deputy Mayor at City Hall during the reign of the late President Jomo Kenyatta.
Mr. Kibaara Kabutu who at that time was the Nairobi branch KANU chairman, led a delegation of the party to present a memorandum containing names of KANU ‘dissidents,’ including MPs and councilors, who were to be purged from the party for having “violated” their own voluntary pledges of loyalty to KANU.
As reported by Joseph Karimi and Philip Ochieng in “THE KENYATTA SUCCESSION,” the memorandum talked of the Ngumba’s group of “biting the hand that has been feeding them.” Kabutu revealed that his delegation to State House, Mombasa, had suggested to the President that the dissidents forfeit their election tickets and stand, if they were still interested, on tickets other than those of KANU.
This is the exact message that Dr. Oburu and the likes of CS Opiyo Wandayi are delivering to the governor, Hon. James Orengo, that, “you cannot bite the hand that feeds you.” And that is the ODM party that sponsored him to office.
The mistake that Ngumba and his group did then was to dare oppose the very daughter of President Kenyatta. They told the president in clear terms by addressing him thus, “…Your Excellency…You will no doubt remember that since independence, the post of Mayor of Nairobi, has never been contested by two people…Your Excellency, this has been the procedure which everybody has been supporting. But this year, some elements have attempted to rear their destructive faces. They have openly defied the ruling party, KANU, without whose tickets they would not have been councilors. The KANU Nairobi branch sponsored Councillor Miss Margaret Kenyatta as the only candidate for the mayoral post, and this is what we have been doing since independence. Your Excellency, some councilors have decided to defy the ruling party, thereby biting the hand that has been feedin them…equally KANU has decided to withdraw its sponsorship [of them]…”
As things stand now, even before, the head of Jaramogi Odinga’s family since his demise in 1994 has been Dr. Oburu Oginga who incidentally following the death again of his younger brother, the late Rt. Raila Amolo Odinga late last year,assumed the leadership of ODM party. And it is that party that sponsored Mr. Orengo for the gubernatorial race in 2022 thus ending up occupying the Governor’s seat.
Going against the dictates of his boss, the current party leader is being treated as being tantamount to defying the party and by extension going against the wishes and the legacy of the late Raila who presumably entered into the broad-based arrangement with Ruto’s UDA.
Things aren’t so rosy for the one-time fiery legislator for Ugenya Constituency and former Senator for Siaya County. It is a delicate balancing act which he has to play with tact because at the heart of all these altercations is the battle for the control of the larger Odinga’s political empire and business interests which are intertwined with the political economy of the County and beyond.
On the other hand, democracy that James Orengo alongside the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and other multi-party heroes fought hard for during the early Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) is on trial.
The death of the former ODM supremo and the architect of devolution, Raila Odinga has also left a void which has necessitated various political actors to fight tooth and nail in order to position themselves strategically in order to ensure political survival both now and in the future.
With that history in mind, the Siaya Governor, Hon. James Bob Aggrey Orengo must tread carefully.
Dr. Abiero Awuora is a strategy expert and a public policy analyst. He currently studies Development and Policy Studies at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technonoly (JOOUST).
