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The Late Raila Amolo Odinga was an engineer by profession. According to his official website where his biography is published, the late Raila Amolo Odinga was born at Maseno Church Missionary Society Hospital, in Maseno, Kisumu District, Nyanza Province on 7 January 1945 to the late Mary Ajuma Odinga and the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the first Vice President of the Republic of Kenya.
He went to Kisumu Union Primary School, Maranda Primary and Maranda High School where he stayed until 1962. He spent the next two years at the Herder Institut, a part of the philological faculty at the University of Leipzig in East Germany.
The Herder Institut would train foreign students on the German language and was part of the philological faculty at the University of Leipzig in East Germany.
Raila received a scholarship that in 1965 sent him to the Technische Hochschule (technical college) of Magdeburg (now a part of Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg) in the GDR.
In 1970, he graduated with a diplom (roughly equivalent to a Master’s degree) in Mechanical Engineering and Welding. While studying in East Berlin during the Cold War, as a Kenyan he was able to visit West Berlin through the Checkpoint Charlie.
When visiting West Berlin, he used to smuggle goods not available in East Berlin and bring them to his friends in East Berlin.
He returned to Kenya in 1970. In 1971, Raila established the Standard Processing Equipment Construction & Erection Ltd (later renamed East African Spectre), a company manufacturing liquid petroleum gas cylinders.
In 1974, he was appointed group standards manager of the Kenya Bureau of Standards. In 1978 he was promoted to its deputy director, a post he held until his 1982 detention
In 1978 he was promoted to its Deputy Director, a post he held until his 1982 detention.
The late Raila Amolo Odinga, widely regarded as the father of democracy in Kenya, passed away on Wednesday October 15, 2025, in India where he was undergoing treatment.
Raila Odinga times: Life history of the man who never gave up on his dream
According to the BBC, he collapsed during a morning walk and was taken to Devamatha Hospital which is about 50 kilometres east of the port city of Kochi. The hospital said he had suffered a cardiac arrest and did not respond to resuscitation measures. He was “declared dead at 09:52” local time.
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