President Ruto Reveals Details of Final Meeting with Raila Odinga Before His Death
President William Ruto has disclosed fresh details about his final formal meeting with the late former Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga, offering new insight into the pair’s last policy discussions before Odinga’s sudden death while receiving treatment in India on 15 October 2025.
Speaking during a dinner held for founding members of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) on Saturday, 15 November, the President recounted a private strategy session he held with Odinga months before the opposition leader’s passing. According to Ruto, the talks centred on an ambitious blueprint to restructure Kenya’s economy and accelerate the country’s push toward first-world status.
Ruto said the meeting was also attended by Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o and Prof Hino, Raila Odinga’s former economic adviser during his tenure as Prime Minister in the Grand Coalition Government between 2008 and 2013.
“The last formal meeting I had with Baba, we had sat down to craft how to move Kenya from a third-world country to a first-world country,” Ruto told the gathering. “Baba is the one who had called Professor Hino from the US to come to Kenya.”
He continued: “We agreed that we must move the railway all the way. We agreed that we must have a new airport. We agreed that we must do another 10,000 kilometres of tarmac. There are things that we had agreed must move Kenya from being a third-world country to a first-world country.”
The President added that Odinga had demonstrated unwavering conviction regarding the scale of infrastructure required to secure Kenya’s economic future—often pushing back against critics who viewed such proposals as overly ambitious.
“In honour of Baba and what he believed in—he even disagreed with many people on the matter of the airport and many things—because he could see the opportunity we were losing by not being ambitious with our plan and our programme,” Ruto said.
Ruto’s Vision for a “New Singapore”
Ruto’s remarks come amid his renewed calls for an accelerated national development programme to transform Kenya into what he has described as Africa’s “new Singapore.” The Head of State has recently outlined an expansive national agenda focusing on energy production, irrigation, industrialisation and large-scale infrastructure development.
He insisted that Kenya must dramatically scale up its energy output, arguing that the country’s current generation capacity—standing at approximately 2,300 megawatts—is insufficient for its economic ambitions. Ruto has pledged to boost national power generation by an additional 10,000 megawatts within the next five to seven years, a project expected to cost roughly KSh1 trillion.
“This is the moment, this is the generation, and this is the opportunity for us to move this country to the next level,” the President said. “We cannot remain a third-world country forever. We must raise the bar.”
Ruto reiterated that Kenya’s path to first-world status will require aggressive investment in energy, food security, and transport networks—areas he says were central to his final policy discussions with Odinga.
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President Ruto Reveals Details of Final Meeting with Raila Odinga Before His Death