By Joshua Nyamori 
History does not announce itself with drama. It announces itself with a quiet test: who understands the moment, and who mistakes noise for power, or privilege for authority.
We are living through such a test.
In the weeks since the passing of the Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga (MHSRIP), three things have been dangerously confused in public discourse: ODM, the Luo people, and the Raila Odinga’s family inheritance. They are not the same thing. Treating them as such is not just intellectually lazy – it is politically reckless.
ODM is a political party.
The Luo are a people.
The Raila Odinga family inheritance is private.
Raila Odinga’s greatest achievement was not the party he built, but the discipline with which he separated these three realms. ODM was national, not ethnic. Luo loyalty was cultural, not transactional. His family affairs – however substantial – were never confused with communal destiny. That clarity is now under threat.
Let us be honest and unafraid of truth.
Raila Odinga bequeathed his children and wife considerable personal wealth – property, investments, and resources accumulated over a lifetime of prominence. That inheritance is legitimate. It is private. It is theirs. We are not interested. But it does not include the future of the Luo people, nor does it confer political trusteeship over a community of millions.
A people are not an estate.
A nation is not a will.
Grief is not a mandate.
The Luo people have honoured Raila Odinga in life and in death. They have mourned him with dignity. They have respected his family’s grief. But respect must never be confused with permission – permission to weaponise family mourning, to trade on a great man’s name, or to use inherited privilege to inject confusion into community and national politics.
History is merciless to those who mistake sympathy for surrender.
This is why the steady hand of Dr. Oburu Oginga Odinga matters so profoundly at this moment of uncertainty. He is not scrambling for relevance, nor advancing any narrow or sectarian interest. He is exercising stewardship at a historic point of transition. While no one can fully step into Raila Odinga’s shoes, Oburu is, for this moment, the closest custodian of that political centre of gravity- anchoring the party, calming the ground, and allowing necessary internal reorganisation to occur with order, dignity, and restraint. That role is not ornamental; it is essential.
But the destiny of the Luo people must never be tied to the squabbles of party reorganisation.
ODM can debate.
ODM can realign.
ODM can even fracture.
The Luo must still move forward as a people.
Oburu’s engagement with H.E. President William Samoei Ruto reflects this higher understanding. It is not submission; it is statecraft. It recognises a simple truth: power that listens is better than pride that shouts. For the first time in decades, the State is visibly present in Luo Nyanza – not as a campaign promise, but as infrastructure, housing, energy, markets, and opportunity.
This moment must not be sabotaged by impudence.
And impudence is exactly what we are witnessing from a restless clique – Winnie Odinga, loudly backstopped by Ida Odinga; Babu Owino; and Edwin Sifuna – who confuse visibility with value, rebellion with relevance, and lineage with legitimacy. Their politics is emotive but hollow, theatrical but thin. It excites social media while weakening real leverage.
One telling remark still hangs in the air: “Oburu is the party leader until…”
Until what, exactly?
Until inheritance matures into entitlement?
Until grief is converted into authority?
That framing betrays the problem.
Leadership is not held in trust for bloodlines. It is earned in service to the living. The Luo do not need tutors in grief, nor guardians of memory who offer no economic vision, no national strategy, and no electoral discipline.
Let us be clear, without cruelty but without fear:
The Luo will not tolerate being emotionally blackmailed – by surname, by volume, or by nostalgia.
We have buried too many dreams at the altar of perpetual grievance. We have learned – painfully – that politics built on resentment delivers streets, not schools; slogans, not jobs; funerals, not futures.
This time, we choose differently.
President William Ruto should continue speaking directly to the Luo people – not only through politicians led by elders like Dr. Oburu Oginga Odinga, whose legitimacy flows from restraint rather than appetite, but also through the full architecture of Luo society: cultural elders and councils, professionals and technocrats, faith leaders, civil society actors, informal traders and hustlers’ associations, farmers’ cooperatives, fisherfolk groupings along the lake, youth and women’s formations, savings groups, artisans, boda boda networks, market committees, and other grassroots community structures where real life is lived and understood. In such broad, honest engagement, he will find not hostility but readiness – a people prepared to trade noise for progress, protest for participation, and memory for momentum.
I am not a member of ODM.
I do not seek its offices.
My legitimacy comes from being Luo – and Kenyan – unafraid of truth.
The Luo are not asking for privilege.
They are claiming their place in the future.
And the future does not belong to the loudest.
It belongs to the wisest.
Disembe 
Nyanza Wire