Winnie Odinga Mocks Kenyans Asking Raila To Revive Maandamano

East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Member of Parliament Winnie Odinga on Thursday, November 9 trolled Kenyans seeking intervention from his father, Azimio la Umoja leader, Raila Odinga amidst an unbearable increase in taxes and fees for government services.

The EALA MP was responding to a user on X (formerly Twitter) who urged Raila to organise fresh mass demonstrations against the government over the punitive tax measures.

"Si uambie baba yako aweke maandamano," the user pleaded, which can be loosely translated to "Why don't you tell your father to call for demonstrations".

Winnie in response however slammed the user, urging him to stop bothering her father and accusing him of being among Kenyans who celebrated after Raila lost to President William Ruto in the August 2022 general elections.

In particular, Ruto, his allies, and supporters had goaded him throughout the campaigns and vowed to send him to retirement in his hometown, Bondo, in Siaya County after defeating him in the polls.

"Si ulimtuma Bondo? Achana na Babangu," Winnie responded. This can be loosely translated to "Didn't you send him to Bondo? Leave my father alone".

Raila has been silent in recent weeks since Azimio and Kenya Kwanza agreed to have fresh bipartisan talks to address issues affecting Kenyans including the cost of living.

Ruto and Raila have locked horns since the 2022 elections, with the latter claiming that the polls were manipulated in favour of the former. 

Raila furthermore has been organising several demonstrations and threatened to continue with the protests until his grievances were addressed. Among his concerns were lowering the cost of living, reconstitution of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which conducted the August 2022 polls, and opening of IEBC servers. 

Despite various recent forums, the former Prime Minister has steered clear of threatening to stage fresh mass protests over the ever increasing number of punitive taxes.

The latest punitive measures saw the government announced that the fees for replacing identity cards shot up more than 10 times from Ksh100 to Ksh2,000. The government also proposed increasing the fee for first-time ID applicants to Ksh1,000.

Kenyans seeking to change their particulars in their ID card will be forced to part ways with Ksh1,000 while those seeking identification reports will have to pay Ksh1,000 up from Ksh300.

Furthermore, the charges for acquiring a birth certificate were raised from Ksh50 to Ksh200, the same as acquiring a death certificate.

Late registration of a birth certificate will now cost you Ksh500 from Ksh150 which also applies to the late registration of a death certificate.

The government also raised the fees for ordinary passports from Ksh4,500 to Ksh7,500, for an ordinary 34-page passport.