I Personally Paid For Your Ticket To Visit Raila in India, Oketch Salah Silences Ruth Odinga After Claiming She Barely Knew Him

A simmering feud inside the Orange Democratic Movement exploded into a full-blown public war on Thursday after businessman Oketch Salah issued a stunning point-by-point demolition of Kisumu Woman Representative Ruth Odinga, revealing for the first time that he was personally responsible for funding and arranging her business class flight to India to visit her ailing brother, the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The bombshell disclosure came just hours after Ruth had sat before cameras on a leading local television station and declared, with stunning casualness, that she barely knew the self-styled adopted son of Baba — claiming she had only met him about three times in her entire life.

Salah was having none of it.

In a two-page signed statement dripping with controlled fury but measured in tone, the Migori businessman tore into Ruth’s claims as fabrications, insisting that not only did she know him, but that she had reached out to him personally on multiple occasions, and that every single meeting between them had been at her own initiative.

“It is unfortunate that you chose to go before a major media house and make statements that are not accurate,” Salah declared, going straight for the jugular before laying out a damning narrative that threatened to upend Ruth’s carefully crafted version of events.

The central charge was explosive.

According to Salah, when Raila was receiving treatment in India at a hospital in Kerala, it was none other than Salah himself who lobbied for Ruth to be allowed to join them after her aide Jeff Oyier reportedly made repeated calls to Raila saying she desperately wanted to travel.

Not only did Salah claim he convinced a reluctant Raila to extend the invitation, he says he personally organised and paid for a business class ticket on Emirates Airlines for the legislator.

“For the record, I am the one who convinced Baba to have you join us in India, after Jeff Oyier called him several times saying that you wanted to come. I am also the one who arranged your business class ticket on Emirates,” Salah stated, the words reading as nothing short of a public humiliation for the Kisumu lawmaker.

The revelation fundamentally contradicts Ruth’s portrayal of Salah as a peripheral figure she barely recognised, and places her firmly within a web of interactions that she had sought to deny before millions of television viewers.

Salah also moved to pre-empt any suggestion that he had abandoned Raila in his final hours, explaining that the only reason he returned to Kenya before Raila’s death was because Raila himself had personally asked him to go back to oversee the conclusion of his son’s wedding, which had been postponed multiple times due to the leader’s deteriorating health. He added that he had been scheduled to meet Raila again in Dubai after the former PM’s departure from Kerala, a reunion that never came.

The blistering statement also ventured into deeply contested political territory. Ruth, speaking in her Wednesday interview, had sought to cast doubt on Salah’s standing within ODM, saying the party had resolved he should not be permitted to speak on its behalf since he holds no membership card.

Ruth Odinga

Salah dismissed this framing with remarkable force, declaring that ODM was never the private property of any one family and issuing what amounted to an ultimatum.

“ODM does not belong to you, or to me, or to any one family. If it does, then let that be stated openly, and I will step away without hesitation. Baba spent more than 20 years building ODM into a national party. It belongs to the people of Kenya, from every part of this country,” he wrote, in words that will reverberate through the party’s structures for days to come.

But perhaps the sharpest blade in his arsenal was reserved for the growing civil war between Ruth and her elder brother, ODM acting party leader Dr Oburu Odinga. Salah told Ruth in barely veiled terms that her public attacks against Oburu were a dangerous game of political self-destruction that she would live to regret.

“You should stop fighting your elder brother, who is the current party leader. Dr Oburu Odinga did not simply assume a position; he carries a responsibility, and Baba entrusted me, in good faith, to work with him. If you allow your elder brother to be put on the chopping board today, do not be surprised if tomorrow it is your turn,” he warned, in a prophecy that will not be easily forgotten.

Salah also refused to retreat on his most controversial claim — that Raila, in his final days, had resolved to endorse President William Ruto for a second term in 2027. Both Winnie Odinga and Raila Junior have furiously rejected this assertion, with Winnie suggesting in a previous interview that Salah should be urgently referred to a mental health facility. Salah was unmoved.

“Baba was clear to me that he intended to endorse President William Samoei Ruto for a second term. I am duty-bound to speak honestly about what he told me, without fear, without distortion and without seeking permission from anyone,” he stated, doubling down with a defiance that suggests this battle is far from over.

The public spat marks the latest chapter in a turbulent few months for the Odinga family and the party Raila built, as competing factions jostle over his political legacy, the direction of ODM, and the terms of any future pact with the ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition.

Raila Odinga died on October 15, 2025, aged 80, after suffering a cardiac arrest during a morning walk while receiving treatment in India. He had led ODM for over two decades, transforming it into one of Kenya’s most powerful political vehicles.

Salah, a businessman from Migori with no formal elected position, first attracted national attention during Raila’s final months by posting regular updates on the opposition icon’s health and describing himself as an adopted son. The claims have divided opinion sharply, with Oburu, his son Jaoko Oburu, and Mama Ida Odinga reportedly acknowledging him at various public events, while Winnie, Raila Junior, and now Ruth have moved to distance the family from him entirely.

Dennis Onyango, Raila’s former spokesman, stepped into the debate this week with a partial defence, telling a local radio station that Salah was indeed a familiar face around Raila and had been known to everyone in the leader’s inner circle. Onyango confirmed that Salah had accompanied Raila on travels and communicated regularly with the former PM, though he stopped short of endorsing the adopted son label.

Yet the walls have not entirely held. ODM national chairperson Gladys Wanga was compelled to publicly clarify last week that Salah neither represents nor speaks for the party in any capacity, a declaration that underlined just how alarming his growing visibility had become to the party establishment.

Salah closed his statement with a passage laced with the kind of quiet grief that no political statement can fully contain. “Finally, I say this with a heavy heart: I am the one who spent most of Baba’s final moments with him. Those moments were real, painful and deeply personal. I will not allow that truth to be erased or turned into political theatre.”

“I speak today not out of anger but out of respect for Baba’s memory and for the truth,” he concluded.

Whether that truth is accepted, disputed, or drowned out by the noise of a party in the throes of a succession crisis may well define the next chapter of Kenyan opposition politics.