Ida Odinga at Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi on August 24, 2023 during their 50th anniversary party.
The event might have appeared small and not worth media headlines, but in real sense, it carried with it immense results both in the national politics and the heavenlies- that Ida Odinga was being made a canon in the Anglican Church of Kenya. The event took place in the Diocese of South Nyanza.
"We witnessed the colourful episcopal appointment of Mama Ida Betty Odinga as an honorary canon, with her assignment to the Stall of St Teresa of Calcutta, the Patron Saint of the 'Wretched of the Earth.'
"This recognition reflects her commitment to the cause of humanity, her resilience in uplifting the downtrodden, and her unwavering love for others," Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga enthused. It was indeed a day worth celebrating.
For those who watch politics with religion-tinted glasses, the elevation of Mama Ida to a canon, honorary, was phenomenal because she can now also say with Joshua of the bible that, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Her move now completes the presence of the ‘called’ in the top four political families in Kenya- President Ruto and the First Lady Rachel Ruto are well known for their strong brand of Pentecostal Christianity; Dorcas Rigathi, wife of the recently impeached deputy president, is a minister of the gospel at the House of Grace Church and the Deputy President designate Kithure Kindiki is the son of a retired pastor.
Religion and politics
If you want to get the importance of the ceremony that befittingly took place on Mashujaa Day on October 20, a day Kenyans have set aside to honour and recognise heroes in their midst and those who have gone by, you need to go back to the election cycles, especially the 2017 and 2022 ones.
In the two elections, Ida’s husband Raila Odinga, the long-serving leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) didbattle against Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto respectively losing to the two men in the race for State House.
Odinga has had to fend off claims from his opponents that he was not very serious with matters of God. In fact, in the last polls, Ruto managed to marshal on his side a congregation of pious church adherents who- having the confidence of people who were hearing from the throne room of haven itself- declared him to be God’s own candidate,
Poor Odinga was left to fight so that the mud of being labelled a habitual visitor to shrines where the Word of God is not preached could not stick. Now those without good grounding on the Bible might say that it was Odinga who was being castigated and not Ida.
However, a casual reading of the scriptures will readily disabuse such people of those thoughts. We read in Genesis 2:24 thus: Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
What this means in essence is that if you throw mud at Odinga and call him a ‘mganga’ you are also doing so on Ida since the two are now one. Perhaps it was such painful accusations that formed Mama Ida’s radical decision to be a canon.
The sad downturn of this is that were Odinga to get picked for the prestigious chair of the African Union Commission for which he is running, Mama Ida’s newfound status might not come in handy in the local political scene.
Imagine a situation where one of the candidates goes to an Anglican Church and before they can start on Odinga and his alleged unchristian ways, they find Mama Ida as part of the team preparing to give the word- and the Holy Communion- of the day. They would definitely temper their speeches.
Or when such epithet like them being pagans are thrown the Odinga family way and they counter that they are indeed Christians, with Mama Ida addressing the media in her full glory as a Canon of the church, uniform and all.
Being good a good Christian calls on one to be of good cheer no matter the situation because as the famous hymn goes, there is no shadow of turning with God meaning God can be relied on to be rocksteady in all occasions.
So in the eventuality that Odinga finds himself in faraway Addis Ababa for the AU job, Canon Ida can use the new duty station as a mission field and use the opportunity to spread the good news of the gospel, for the Great Commission expects every follower of Christ to tell the world of the message of Jesus Christ. And the heavens and earth shall rejoice!
