The day Raila Odinga fell sick a month to elections

On a quiet Sunday evening on July 9 2017, news broke that Raila Odinga had just been hospitalised at Mombasa Hospital after heated presidential campaigns.

And with just one month to the general election, the fever rising and Raila then a front-runner in the presidential race, there was instant panic and anxiety that gripped the nation and especially in his strongholds.

Speculation was rife and tension palpable, even as some online outlets started circulating what would later be flagged as misinformation, claims that Raila had been poisoned while on the campaign trail.

As KTN’s Coast region reporter, working for one of the most respected outlets in the region, I suddenly found myself thrown into the deep end, tasked with breaking the sensitive news live on television to an anxious nation.

I got the tip-off at around 8 pm, and at the time, I was midway through editing the nine o’clock bulletin. Because of the urgency, I had to drop everything and rush to Mombasa Hospital, armed with my tools of work.

My senior cameraman, Moses Baya, had already left our office along Jomo Kenyatta Avenue for home. I rang him immediately and asked him to head straight to Mombasa Hospital.

Baya remembers the scramble vividly.

“We managed to arrive right on time, but no one was ready to speak to us in those initial moments, so the details were really scanty at that stage,” he recalls.
“We were getting calls from all over. This was a top presidential candidate, and because of that stature, we were between a rock and a hard place, we had to report accurately but share details by all means,” adds Baya.

Earlier that day Raila, vying on a National Super Alliance (NASA) banner traversed Kilifi County addressing rallies in Malindi, Ganze, Kilifi Town and Mtwapa.

Peter Mwangangi, a senior journalist with the BBC who was then NTV’s Coast region reporter, recalls how it was a tough balancing act to cover the breaking story. Unlike our KTN team, which was based in Mombasa, his crew was stationed in Malindi that evening.

“We had followed Raila through several rallies and were just filing for the 9 p.m. bulletin when these updates started streaming in. It was crazy we had to drive all the way to Mombasa Hospital that evening,” recalls Mwangangi.

That evening, an official statement from Raila’s aides indicated that after completing the Kilifi engagements, he and his team boarded a flight to Mombasa.

While at Moi International Airport just about to board his flight, his condition seemed to worsen and his handlers had to suspend travel plans.

They rushed him to Mombasa Hospital for immediate medical attention with initial reports suggested that he had suffered from food poisoning or dehydration possibly from something he had eaten earlier that day.

“We had initially suspected fatigue. Everyone knew Baba as a bulldozer who could easily hold even ten rallies in a single day without breaking, but he had taken a longer stretch on this day,” notes Baya.

Outside the Mombasa Hospital entrance pockets of distraught politicians and friends were forming and could be seen moving in and out of the emergency gate and they included Mombasa businessman Abubakar Joho and Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Shariff Nassir.

This was Raila’s fourth attempt at the presidency, and the stakes could not have been higher.

At the hospital, senior NASA figures arrived to show solidarity led by former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang’ula, and James Orengo. Their presence served as a deliberate counterweight to the panic the incident had occasioned.

Raila’s communications team later issued a statement trying to calm a jittery public, saying doctors had treated him and that there was “no cause for alarm.”

The following day, Raila appeared before cameras, smiling and assuring the nation:

“I am as fit as a fiddle. I had some stomach pains which have since disappeared after getting treatment.”

Politically speaking the Coast region has long associated with Raila serving as one of the strongest support bases outside his Nyanza support base and the region’s voters have often identified with his message of social justice and resistance to perceived marginalization by the political elite.

Raila’s long-standing advocacy for land reforms has particularly resonated with coastal communities over the years many of whom have historically faced landlessness and disputes tied to absentee landlords and historical injustices positioning himself as their champion.

Looking back, for journalists who covered that incident, there were incredible lessons about the peculiar intimacy of political reporting in such moments.

“For me, it goes to show how quickly the newsroom becomes the first line of national reassurance on the health of our dignitaries and we must always try to tell the whole truth and verify as much as possible,” says Baya.

“We did our best, under the circumstances, not to make theatre of the moment but to hold it steady to report the truth as accurately as possible,” concludes Mwangangi.