Inside Raila's quest to modernise his 'bedroom'

On the front page of The Standard of September 6, 2004, a picture showed Raila Odinga, then serving as the Minister for Roads, Housing and Public Works, taking former First Lady Lucy Kibaki on a tour of Nairobi's Kibera slums.

This was perhaps the first time for the First Lady to venture that deep in the sprawling slum. She was there to inaugurate one of her projects, the Kibera Education and Empowerment Programme.

While the many dignitaries on tow may have been looking over their shoulders for any trouble, Odinga was at home here, a place he called his bedroom.

During the tour, he announced that the much-awaited slum upgrading project would commence shortly.

Mr Odinga, who passed away in October 2025 at the age of 80, left a significant legacy in the country’s urban development, particularly in slum upgrading initiatives.

Kibera, one of Africa’s largest informal settlements, was Odinga’s political base where his word was the law.

As the Narc government took power in January 2003, one of Odinga's pet projects was to transform Kibera’s mud-walled structures into modern homes.

“The president will be here for the ground-breaking ceremony soon,” he told residents during the visit with the First Lady.

Raila, who was also serving as the area Member of Parliament, was fully behind the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP) initiated through a partnership between UN-Habitat and the government.

The project, launched during the global observance of World Habitat Day on October 4, 2004, was part of the UN-Habitat’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Despite the noble ideals, this was going to be an arduous task considering the various roadblocks faced by successive governments in their efforts to modernise Kibera.

Key among them was how to relocate any segment of the population to pave the way for construction.

Kibera sits on more than 600 acres with a population that ranges between 500,000 and one million, housed in over 20,000 structures.

Constructing any permanent buildings at the site while affected populations went on with their daily activities was bound to create logistical challenges.

“Soweto East Zone A residents were supposed to temporarily relocate to flats in Athi River. The problem was that Athi River was 23 kilometres away from Kibera—a tragedy to local social and economic networks,” reads a newsletter by Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a federation of slum dwellers in Kenya.

According to the organisation, only through the intervention of Raila Odinga was the relocation shifted to a five-acre site across the slum next to Langata Women’s Prison.

In September 2009, the first batch of 2,000 Soweto households relocated to the 600 units in 17 five-storey blocks in Lang'ata. Interestingly, the decanting site took on the name Raila, after an adjacent village.

In the meantime, Odinga continued to champion the slum upgrading project in Soweto East Zone A, especially during his tenure as the country’s Prime Minister.

The Soweto houses are nearly identical to those at the Lang’ata decanting site.

In April 2016, 697 residents who had taken part in a balloting exercise at Nyayo Stadium presided over by the then Lands, Housing and Urban Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi flocked to the new site for the handover ceremony that signified the first successful slum upgrading project in Kibera.

These apartments in Soweto, adjacent to the Affordable Housing Project under construction, are known as Canaan, a euphemism used severally by Odinga to refer to better tidings for his followers had he become president.

“Over ten years ago, the government came and told us of the plan to build modern houses for the residents. Many were sceptical, considering that this was not the first time such promises were made,” said Christopher Munjogu, one of the beneficiaries during the handover exercise.

"Things were not made any easier by the pronouncement that our homes will be demolished and the residents relocated to a new site in Langata."

According to the former executive director of UN-Habitat Anna Tibaijuka, more than 70 per cent of Kenya’s urban population live in slums “with limited access to water and sanitation, housing, and secure tenure”.

These urban slums suffer the most from environmental degradation and high crime rates.

In addition, proponents of slum upgrading projects across the world say the urban poor pay more than 170 per cent more than residents in Nairobi’s leafy suburbs for unreliable and poor-quality water and close to 130 per cent for unsafe electricity connections.

Dr Patrick Bucha, who served as the Housing Secretary at the then Ministry of Housing, Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, says these were among the statistics Odinga wanted reversed through slum upgrading projects.

Odinga also wanted the infrastructure upgrades to cover not only Kibera but all other slums within the country.

“I was part of the team from the Ministry that worked through the design and implementation phases of the first Kibera upgrading project and had regular contact with the former Prime Minister. Raila was a very resolute man who stopped at nothing to ensure that residents in slum areas lived in a dignified manner,” says Bucha.

While eulogising Odinga, Bucha says the slum upgrading project breathed life into the marginalised communities, turning them into vibrant, functional neighbourhoods equipped with essential services, including playgrounds, modern commercial centres, water, roads, electricity and sanitation.

“Raila wanted Kibera residents to live in modern houses where water and sanitation were on par with any other well-developed part of the city. He always said that people in Kibera and other slum areas in Nairobi or Kisumu lived as if they were not part of society. To him, proper housing and associated infrastructure upgrades were human rights issues,” says Bucha.

According to Bucha, poor roads made Kibera inaccessible to outsiders, a factor that contributed to reduced economic activities since many feared venturing deep into the slum.

“Some of the best artisans making doors and windows are found in Kibera. However, few could access such items due to poor infrastructure. Today, the Langata Link Road that cuts through the slum has opened up large sections of Kibera, leading to vibrant commercial activities. The road was among those the former Prime Minister pushed for when the other key by-passes were being developed,” says Bucha.

Raila Odinga’s legacy in slum upgrading is deeply woven into Kenya’s urban development narrative.

With him gone, however, analysts fear this absence may create a leadership gap in advocating for slum dwellers, a segment that formed much of his political base.

Whether his vision will be sustained depends on the commitment of current leaders to prioritise the needs of the urban poor and continue the work he began.