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In January, 7 1945 Raila Odinga was born at Maseno CMS-Hospital, in Maseno. His father was latye Oginga and Mother late Mary Juma Odinga. He went to Kisumu Union Primary School, Maranda Primary and High School until 1962. He received a scholarship in 1965 and went to the Technical University, Magdeburg. In 1970, he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. During the Cold War, as a Kenyan, he would visit West Berlin through the Checkpoint Charlie and buy goods not available in East Berlin and bring them to his friends in East Berlin. He therefore became a Hawker. He returned to Kenya in 1970, and lectured at the University of Nairobi. In 1971 he established the Standard Processing Equipment Construction & Erection Ltd, currently known as East African Spectre, a company manufacturing liquid petroleum gas cylinders. In 1974, he was appointed group standards manager of the Kenya Bureau of Standards. In 1978 he was promoted to its Deputy Director, a post he held until his detention in 1982. Raila was placed under House arrest for seven months after being suspected of collaborating with the plotters of a failed coup attempt against President Daniel arap Moi in 1982. He was later charged with treason and detained without trial for six years. According to a biography released in July 2006 it confirmed that Raila was far more involved in the attempted coup than he had previously claimed. His mother died in 1984, but the prison warders told him about it only two months later. On February 6, 1988, and rearrested in September, 1988 for his involvement with human rights and pro-democracy activists pressing for multi-party democracy in Kenya, which was then a one – party state. Raila was released on June 12, 1989, but re-arrested again on July 5, 1990, together with Kenneth Matiba, and former Nairobi Mayor Charles Rubia. Raila was released on June 21, 1991, and in October, he fled the country to Norway for fear of government attempts to assassinate him. At the time of Raila's departure to Norway, the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), a movement formed to agitate for the return of multi-party democracy to Kenya, was newly formed. In February 1992, Raila returned to join FORD, which was then led by his father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He was elected Vice Chairman of the General Purposes Committee of the party. In the months running up to the 1992 General Election, FORD split into Ford Kenya, led by Raila's father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Ford –Asili led by Kenneth Matiba. Raila became Ford-Kenya's Deputy Director of Elections. Raila won the Langata Constituency parliamentary seat, previously held by Philip Leakey of KANU. Raila’s father JOO died in January 1994, and Michael Wamalwa Kijana succeeded him as FORD-Kenya chairman, Raila challenged him for the party leadership. The elections were marred by controversy after which Raila resigned from FORD-Kenya to join the National Development Party (NDP). In the 1997 General Election, Raila finished third after President Moi, the incumbent, and Democratic Party candidate Mwai Kibaki. He retained his position as the Langata MP. After the election, Raila supported the Moi government, and led a merger between his party, NDP, and Moi's KANU party. He served in Moi's Cabinet as Energy Minister from June 2001 to 2002, during Moi's final term. In the subsequent KANU elections held later that year, he was elected the party's secretary general. In 2002, the then President, Daniel Arap Moi, pulled a surprise by endorsing Uhuru Kenyatta – a son of Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta to be his successor. Moi publicly asked Raila and others to support Uhuru as well. Raila and other KANU members, including Kalonzo Musyoka, George Saitoti and Joseph Kamotho, opposed this step arguing that the then 38 year old Uhuru, was politically inexperienced and lacking leadership qualities to lead government. The Rainbow Movement went on to join the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which later teamed up with Mwai Kibaki's National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), a coalition of several other parties, to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) that eventually defeated Moi's protege, Uhuru Kenyatta.
President Kibaki did not appoint Raila Odinga Prime Minister on assuming office as perceived to have been agreed in the memorandum of understanding (Kenya's current constitution does not recognize a Prime minister); neither did he give LDP half the cabinet positions. He instead sought to shore up support for his NAK faction by appointing MPs from the opposition parties (KANU and FORD people) to the cabinet. The perceived "betrayal" led to an open rebellion and a split within the cabinet, which culminated in disagreements over a proposed new constitution for the country. The government-backed constitutional committee submitted a draft constitution that was perceived to consolidate powers of the presidency and weaken regional governments as had been provided for under an earlier draft before the 2002 Elections. Raila opposed this, and when the document was put to a referendum on November 21, 2005, the government lost by a 57% to 43% margin. Following this, President Kibaki sacked the entire cabinet on November 23, 2005. When it was formed two weeks later, Raila and the entire LDP group were left out. This led to the formation of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) - an Orange was the symbol for the "no" vote in the constitutional referendum. In January 2006, Raila Odinga was reported to have told police that he believed his life was in danger, having received assassination threats. On July 12, 2007, Odinga alleged that the government was withholding identity cards from voters in places supportive of the opposition and that the intended creation of 30 new constituencies was a means by which the government sought to ensure victory in the December 2007 parliamentary election. In August 2007, the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya split in two, with Odinga becoming head of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) while the other faction, the ODM-K, was headed by Kalonzo Musyoka. On September 1, 2007, the ODM elected Odinga as its presidential candidate in a National Delegates Conference held at the Moi International Sports Centre in Nairobi. Odinga received 2,656 votes; the only other candidates receiving significant numbers of votes were Musalia Mudavadi with 391 and William Ruto with 368. Earlier, Najib Balala had withdrawn his candidature and endorsed Raila. The defeated candidates expressed their support for Odinga afterward, and Mudavadi was named as his running mate.Odinga launched his presidential campaign in Uhuru Park in Nairobi on October 6, 2007, which saw a record attendance in this or any other venue in independent Kenya. The police estimated an attendance of close to 50,000. Following the presidential election held on December 27, the Electoral Commission in controversial circumstances declared Kibaki the winner on December 30, 2007, placing him ahead of Odinga by about 232,000 votes. Odinga accused Kibaki of fraud, and violence broke out in the country as ODM supporters attempted to make the country ungovernable.[20] Following two months of unrest, a deal between Odinga and Kibaki, which provided for power-sharing and the creation of the post of Prime Minister, was signed in February 2008; it was brokered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Odinga was sworn in as Prime Minister, along with the power-sharing Cabinet, on April 17, 2008. Previously the post of Prime Minister had not existed since 1964, when it was briefly held by Jomo Kenyatta following independence; Odinga is thus the second person in Kenya's history to hold the position. Raila Odinga has progressively transcended beyond his original base support among his native Luo mainly occupying Kenya's Nyanza province, to wield considerable support in the Coast, Western, North Eastern, Rift Valley and Nairobi provinces. A Gallup/USA poll taken in September 2008 found him to have an 85 percent approval rate. Further to this, there have been recent calls from the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Martha Karua, for Raila to answer allegations regarding impropriety in the purchase and subsequent sale of land on the Kisumu Molasses Plant.
Baptised as an Anglican in his youth Odinga later became a Born-Again Christian through an Evangelical church in Nairobi. Odinga is married to Ida Odinga (born Ida Anyango Oyoo). They live in Karen, Nairobi and at Opoda Farm, Bondo County). They have four children—two sons and two daughters: Fidel (born 1973), Rosemary (1977), Raila Jr (1979) and Winnie (1990). Fidel is named after Fidel Castro and Winnie after Winnie Mandela. Winnie is currently an International Area Studies major at Drexel University of Philadelphia, PA. In a January 2008 BBC interview, Odinga asserted that he was the first cousin of U.S president Barack Obama through Obama's father. However, Barack Obama's paternal uncle denied any direct relation to Odinga, stating "Odinga's mother came from this area, so it is normal for us to talk about cousins. But he is not a blood relative." Obama's father came from the same Luo community as Odinga. He briefly played soccer for Luo Union (later known as Re-Union) as a midfielder.Raila Odinga is an industrialist with interests in liquefied gas cylinder manufacturing (the East African Spectre), industrial ethanol production and Petroleum import and distribution. He has been actively engaged in championing democracy in Kenya since the Moi era, during which he was detained several times. Mr. Odinga was appointed by African Union to mediate in Ivory Coast between Outarra and Gbagbo
