Imanyara: I gave Raila the ODM party, a revelation that’s rewriting the footnotes of Kenya’s opposition lore just days after the nation laid Raila Odinga to rest, as the unsung architect behind the Orange Democratic Movement steps into the spotlight with a tale of quiet sacrifice and seismic handover.
Mugambi Imanyara, the grizzled lawyer and one-time politician whose name evokes dusty courtrooms and defiant editorials, broke his long silence in an exclusive sit-down with NTV, recounting how he birthed ODM as a legal entity in 2005 from the ashes of the “Orange” referendum revolt, only to pass the reins to Odinga, transforming a fledgling coalition into the juggernaut that rattled Uhuru’s throne and Ruto’s rise.
It was a sweltering July in 2005 when Imanyara, then 48 and fresh off helming the iconic Nairobi Law Monthly that once jailed him under Moi’s boot, filed the paperwork at the registrar’s office.
The “No” camp from the botched constitutional plebiscite – that banana-rejecting ballot where Odinga, Kibaki’s ex-bedfellow turned bitter rival, rallied the masses – needed a vessel.
“ODM wasn’t Raila’s brainchild in ink; it was mine on paper,” Imanyara said, his voice gravelly over a cup of milky chai in his Lavington study, walls lined with faded clippings of his human rights crusades.
“We were a ragtag dream after the Orange wave crashed. I registered it to give the fight legs – formal, fierce, unkillable.” By August, with signatures from interim heavies like Musikari Kombo, ODM was born, a pressure cooker for the 2007 polls where Odinga’s near-miss (42% to Kibaki’s 46%) ignited the inferno that scarred the republic.
Handing over control? That came swift, in boardroom huddles amid the post-referendum rubble. Imanyara, ever the bridge-builder, saw Odinga’s star power – the Luo lion’s roar that could pack stadiums from Kisumu to the coast.
“Raila had the fire; I had the forge. Why hoard when unity wins wars?” he reflected, chuckling at memories of late-night strategy sessions in Karen, where egos clashed like thunder but vision bonded like mortar.
Odinga assumed the helm by late 2005, steering ODM into the 2007 cyclone, its pentagon of pent-up fury (Odinga, Ruto, Uhuru, Kalonzo, and Mudavadi) nearly toppling the house.
Imanyara faded to the flanks, contesting a parliamentary seat in 2007 but losing to a Jubilee tide, later dipping into academia and quiet advocacy. Fast-forward to today, with Odinga’s Bondo grave still fresh and ODM’s tents flapping in Azimio’s winds, Imanyara’s yarn feels like a timely tonic – or thorn.
“Raila’s the face, the force, the father we mourn, but founders forge the frame,” he mused, eyeing the party’s post-Baba scramble.
“I gave him the keys, but he drove it to Destiny. Now, who’ll steer without crashing?” Historians like Prof. Godwin Murunga hail it as “the unsung pivot”, a reminder that Kenya’s democracy dances on draughtsmen like Imanyara, whose Law Monthly once smuggled truths past censors.
“Did you know ODM wasn’t Raila’s from scratch? That’s the spark that lit the Orange fire.” As 2027’s horizon hazes with hustler heat, his handover haunts: legacies lent, not owned. In Nairobi’s relentless rain, one truth endures – behind every titan stands the quiet quill. What’s next for the party he penned?