Lawyer Mugambi Imanyara has opened up about the little-known tussle that once pitied him against Raila Odinga, revealing how a twist of fate later forced the ODM leader to turn to him for help just months before the 2007 General Election.
In a TV interview, Imanyara recalled how, shortly after the 2005 constitutional referendum, he foresaw that the “Orange” side of the campaign — which had successfully opposed the government’s proposed constitution — would eventually form a political party. Acting on that instinct, he quietly moved to register the name Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) under his own name.
At thettime, the move sparked outrage among key figures in the Orange camp, who accused him of opportunism. Raila and his allies were forced to operate under the banner ODM–Kenya (ODM-K) after failing to secure the original ODM registration.
“I could tell the Orange side would turn into a political movement,” Imanyara said. “So I took the initiative to register it. That decision didn’t sit well with Raila’s group — they tried everything to get me to surrender it.”
He recalls that even then–Attorney General Amos Wako intervened, urging him to hand over the registration. But Imanyara stood his ground. “They wanted to pressure me into giving it up,” he said.
The tension would only make sense two years later.
In the run-up to the 2007 elections, ODM–Kenya was thrown into chaos after a bitter fallout between Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka over the party’s presidential ticket. Kalonzo’s camp, backed by Dan Maanzo, retained control of ODM–Kenya — effectively locking Raila out and leaving him without a political vehicle.
With time running out and the elections fast approaching, Raila reached out to the very man his team had once fought — Mugambi Imanyara.
“The first thing Baba said was that he regretted fighting me over ODM,” Imanyara recounted. “He told me he never imagined he’d one day need what I had registered. Then he asked, ‘Can you show me the certificates?’”
Imanyara agreed to transfer the ODM registration to Raila, a move that instantly solved what had become a major political crisis. “You can imagine the celebration that followed,” he said. “Suddenly, Raila had a party again.”
That decision proved monumental. Under the revived Orange Democratic Movement, Raila led a strong campaign that saw ODM win more parliamentary seats than President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) — setting the stage for one of Kenya’s most hotly contested elections in history.
