{"id":13903,"date":"2026-01-09T19:59:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13903\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T19:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:59:18","slug":"odm-leaders-call-for-people-centred-dialogue-as-push-for-ndc-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13903\/","title":{"rendered":"ODM leaders call for people-centred dialogue as push for NDC grows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Emmanuel<\/a> By
\n
\n Emmanuel Too
\n <\/a>
\n Published on: January 09, 2026 09:43 (EAT)
\n \"ODM <\/p>\n

It was a meeting whose contents remained scanty, except for a few cryptic messages posted on social media by some of the ODM leaders who attended.<\/p>\n

\"Vocalize <\/p>\n

Audio By Vocalize<\/p>\n

A section of
\nOrange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leaders is calling for the voice of the
\npeople to be heard in resolving the sticking issues rocking the faction.<\/p>\n

Some of the
\nleaders who attended a closed-door meeting at a Nairobi hotel on Thursday are
\npushing for a National Delegates Convention (NDC) to decide the party\u2019s new
\nleadership.<\/p>\n

It was a meeting
\nwhose contents remained scanty, except for a few cryptic messages posted on
\nsocial media by some of the ODM leaders who attended.<\/p>\n

Top officials led
\nby party leader Dr. Oburu Oginga have held several meetings to calm rising
\ntensions threatening to split the party.<\/p>\n

And while those in
\nattendance, including ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna, the late Raila
\nOdinga\u2019s sister Ruth Odinga, Siaya Governor James Orengo and Suba North MP
\nMillie Odhiambo, called for unity, the push for a people-centred approach grew
\nstronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was basically
\na furtherance of what we discussed before, which is party unity and party
\ncohesion. A lot of the fights we are having is pointing guns at ourselves. We
\nneed to point those guns away from us. And the meeting we had yesterday was to
\npoint guns away from us,” said\u00a0Millie Odhiambo.<\/p>\n

Embakasi East
\nMP\u00a0Babu Owino on his part said: “It was clear that we need to come
\ntogether. Raila loved peace and unity. What would Baba do? He loved peace. That
\nwas what we were discussing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, we
\nwere saying we need consultation, we need dialogue, and to go back to the
\npeople and talk about the party,” added\u00a0Kisumu\u00a0Woman
\nRepresentative\u00a0Ruth Odinga.<\/p>\n

The leaders now
\npropose a people\u2019s dialogue to address the challenges threatening to break the
\nparty apart.<\/p>\n

Millie added: \u201cMembers
\nhave a voice. Other than delegation, the party has a lot of support. It now
\nbehoves us to carry people along with the transition.<\/p>\n

“What we need
\nis to have meetings at the constituencies and regions \u2014 in Kwale, Turkana,
\neverywhere\u2026\u201d stated Ruth.<\/p>\n

However, a more
\nradical faction led by Babu Owino insists that an NDC is the only way forward,
\narguing it will provide party members a democratic platform to elect new office
\nbearers following the passing of the late party leader Raila Odinga.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been
\nhaving grassroots elections, but it is time we call an NDC to give the people a
\nchance to elect their own leaders,” Babu stated.<\/p>\n

Buoyed by a recent
\nInfotrak report that ranked him highly in the succession debate, Babu declared
\nhis intention to run for the party\u2019s top seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people in
\nCentral, in Nyanza, in Nairobi hear that Babu is the party leader of ODM, ODM
\nwill be very serious. Ni Babu kwa sababu, bila Babu tabu. Baada ya Baba ni
\nBabu,” he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Emmanuel Too Published on: January 09, 2026 09:43 (EAT) It was a meeting whose contents remained scanty,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3806,3672,2198,80,9379,2204,2206],"class_list":{"0":"post-13903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-babu-owino","9":"tag-citizen-digital","10":"tag-edwin-sifuna","11":"tag-kenya","12":"tag-ndc","13":"tag-odm","14":"tag-raila-odinga"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}