'BABA' LAID TO REST

Thousands of mourners, relatives, and dignitaries said their final goodbyes to Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Sunday when he was laid to rest near his farm at Bondo near Lake Victoria in western Kenya.
Sunday's Anglican funeral procession and burial went ahead with no serious incident after an explosion of national grief this week, in which at least five died and hundreds were injured when a mob of hundreds of frenzied fans trying to glimpse his body overran the authorities.

"Now at last Baba is home," his son and namesake, Raila junior, said as his father's coffin draped in the Kenyan flag lay beneath a marquee. Odinga senior died on Wednesday aged 80 in India where he was receiving medical treatment.

Odinga was also widely referred to as "Baba" or "father" in Swahili. After the principal service in Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University, the funeral procession moved to a private burial with a military gun salute.

Former US President Barack Obama eulogized Odinga in a social media statement on platform X as a peacemaker who always placed his country's interests ahead of personal ambitions.

"Like few other leaders anywhere, he was willing to walk the path of peaceful reconciliation without compromising his principles," Obama stated.

The service was also attended by current President William Ruto, along with former Kenyan and Nigerian presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Olusegun Obasanjo.

Though better known as an opposition leader, Odinga was prime minister in 2008 and made political alliances with Kenyatta in 2018, and with Ruto a year ago, as part of a career spent making switches. He was once jailed for treason and lost five bids to become president.

Returned to India on home soil, the first public glimpse of his body on Thursday became deadly when police opened fire to disperse people who had pushed their way through a stadium gate.

Two more died and more than 160 others were hurt during the state funeral in capital city Nairobi on Friday, while dozens more were hurt on Saturday when his body was brought to the political base of his Luo tribe in the city of Kisumu.