By The Main Editor,
NAIROBI
A Kenyan architect has stirred laughter, nostalgia and political debate after unveiling an architectural design of a grand Raila Odinga mausoleum, guarded by a stone lion straight out of the Ford Kenya emblem.
To ordinary eyes, it’s just art — but to political veterans, it’s loaded satire.
Is the designer paying homage to Raila’s legacy, or cheekily suggesting that his political journey has come full circle — back to Ford Kenya;the party his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, co-founded and chaired?
The architect, who calls himself a “reformist with a pencil,” insists his creation is symbolic.
“The lion represents the roar of Kenya’s reform era — once fierce, now fading,” he said.
“And every lion, however far it wanders, eventually comes back home.”said Phillip Wanyonyi Wekesa a Bungoma based political analyst.
That statement alone has set off waves of political interpretation.
Raila, once a Ford Kenya stalwart, famously left after internal rifts saw Wamalwa Kijana, Musikari Kombo and later Moses Wetang’ula take the party’s wheel.
From there, he toured Kenya’s political jungle through NDP, NARC and finally ODM — always in search of a reliable vehicle to State House.
Now, this mausoleum design — a dome guarded by a lion and encircled by 47 pillars representing Kenya’s devolved counties — seems to whisper that maybe Raila’s journey was never about changing vehicles, but finding his way back to the first garage.
The lion’s mane in the design is etched with three words: Justice.Equity. Human Rights. — all principles deeply rooted in the original Ford Kenya manifesto, long before the 2010 Constitution enshrined them.
Online, Kenyans have turned the design into a political comedy show.
Wanyonyi joked, “ODM is Ford Kenya with better branding.”
Another teased, “That lion isn’t guarding Raila — it’s guarding his old membership card.”
But behind the laughter lies a serious message — a call for Kenya’s reformists to reconnect and rekindle the spirit that once united them under the Ford Kenya banner.
The list of those being “summoned by architecture” reads like a who’s who of Kenya’s second liberation: James Orengo, Anyang’ Nyong’o, Farah Maalim, Gitobu Imanyara, Kiraitu Murungi,Tim Wanyonyi of ODM,Dr Eseli Simiyu, Paul Muite, Paul Otwoma, CS Wycliffe Oparanya, Wycliffe Wangamati, Dr Oburu Odinga, John Munyes, Wafula Wamunyinyi,Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, Didmus Barasa of UDA,Dr Boni Khalwale of UDA, Raphael Wanjala of ODM, and Eugene Wamalwa of DAP-K — all of whom have, at one time or another, carried Ford Kenya’s reformist torch.
The question is whether Wetang’ula, now Ford Kenya’s leader and Speaker of the National Assembly, could open the gates of the lion’s den and bring these elder reformists and younger firebrands together into one nationalist movement — perhaps even attracting UDA’s restless youth looking for ideological roots.
After all, as the architect grinned while unveiling his design,
“The monkeys never change — only the forest keeps getting renamed every election.”
And maybe that’s the most profound truth yet.
Even the late President Mwai Kibaki built much of his 2002 governance agenda — devolution, equality and rights — from Ford Kenya’s original reform blueprint, while his DP party was still editing its manifesto.
So perhaps this mausoleum isn’t just an artistic monument.
It’s a political mirror — reflecting Kenya’s long, winding search for home, and a lion’s quiet reminder that the roar of reform never truly dies.
ENDS
