President William Ruto’s Chief Economic Advisor, David Ndii, has waded into the leadership wrangles rocking the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Taking to his official X account on Monday, January 19, 2026, Ndii appeared to suggest that the Orange party’s founder, the late Raila Odinga, was buried with his political capital.
According to Ndii, Raila was the ODM party, and the ODM party is him.
“I have news for you. The African big man’s political capital is buried with him. He is the party; the party is him,” Ndii stated.
The economic strategist who once worked with Raila during the 2017 general elections, under the National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition, argued that the ODM members are now political orphans and that they have no inheritance.
Ndii further doubted if Raila’s political orphans would fare better than those left by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and his successor, Daniel Arap Moi.
“The political orphans have no inheritance. Will Raila’s orphans fare better than Jomo Kenyatta’s or Moi’s orphans? Doubtful,” he wrote on X.
Ndii’s remarks come amid ongoing infighting within ODM, with the party divided on its leadership and the support of the broad-based government arrangement that it entered with President Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
While the members allied to the broad-based government support the leadership of Raila’s elder brother, Siaya Senator Oburu Odinga, who took over the party’s leadership after the death of the former prime minister, there is another faction that does not believe in his leadership.
The faction that does not support the broad-based government arrangement, led by ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna, Deputy Party Leader Godfrey Osotsi, Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, and his Saboti counterpart Caleb Amisi, has been labelled party rebels.
The ODM rebels have been demanding a National Delegates Convention (NDC) so that proper changes can be made in the party leadership, calls that have been opposed by those allied to Oburu and the broad-based government.
