A year after Raila Odinga’s death, the business empire that he quietly built has braved the void left by the influential politician, with several shifts being initiated in the operations and shareholding of some of the entities in this commercial network.
East African Spectre, the jewel of the Odinga family, has even made a bold move, with the 50-year-old gas cylinder manufacturer shifting its operations to a bigger plant equipped with the latest machinery in January this year.
The East African Spectre, which Raila started in 1971 by selling his Opel, had long operated from Mombasa Road, behind Panari Hotel.
However, in January the company relocated to a more strategic location close to the Nairobi Inland Container Depot in Embakasi, leaving its 50-year-old factory as a storage facility.
Meanwhile, Be Energy, the oil and gas company in which the Odinga family held a 35 percent stake, has undergone a shake-up of its ownership structure and boardroom, with the Raila family taking a back seat in the day-to-day operations of the company that is majority-owned by Saudi’s Bakri family.
New directors—Jackson Awele, one of the former Prime Minister’s lawyers, and William Ojonyo, Oburu and Raila’s cousin—have taken up boardroom seats initially occupied by Raila Odinga Junior and Oburu Odinga.
Mr Awele was part of a battery of 42 lawyers who backed Raila, then opposition candidate, in his case against President William Ruto at the Supreme Court and the suit that was linked to the push to amend the Constitution via the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).
The Bakri family owns 65 percent of Be Energy through International Energy World S.A., a firm registered in Panama.
Additionally, the 2,801 shares, or 35 percent stake, that the Odingas held through Pan African Petroleum Ltd have been transferred to Africanable Corporation—a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
It is unclear whether Africanable Corporation is owned by the Odingas or whether the share transfer was the result of a sale.
However, the Odingas’ interest in the company has been kept alive by Ojonyo and Awele, who admitted to Business Daily that Raila was his client and thus would not divulge information on when these changes were made as it would go against advocate-client confidentiality.
“The information you are looking for, even if I had it, I would not ordinarily give it to you,” said Awele, before adding that he is restrained by advocate-client confidentiality.
However, major significant movements seem to be taking place at the East African Spectre.
Beyond the decision to move the plant to the 2.7-acre land, a new leadership style is also emerging at East African Spectre following Raila’s death.
The directors of the company, mostly relatives of the late politician, are taking up other roles, with Oburu Odinga, Raila’s elder brother, replacing the former Prime Minister as the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement.
Spectre’s managing director, Ida Odinga, the late Odinga’s wife, has been appointed Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep).
Raila Odinga Junior is also eyeing the Kibra Constituency seat, which was once held by his late father.
The three are also board directors of East African Spectre, which means that physical contact between management and the board has reduced, with interactions becoming largely virtual, said East African Spectre general manager Hudson Chitala.
In the run-up to Mr Odinga’s October 15 memorial, East African Spectre was chasing further financing for its operations and needed to apply for a loan whose documents needed the signatures and approvals of the managing director, Ida Odinga.
Ms Odinga has opened her home to East African Spectre managers even past normal working hours and on some weekends and holidays whenever there is an urgent need for her input.
Much like her late husband, Ms Odinga quickly picks calls and responds to messages from Spectre managers as a form of adaptation due to her reduced presence at the company’s premises.
“There is also nothing like work from the office. Whether it is a weekend, you will call her,” said East African Spectre’s technical manager Lawrence Oloo.
Mr Chitala added that, just like her husband, Ms Odinga has given management a free hand to make important decisions involving the business, hence continuity is not pegged on availability of directors.
Technical manager Lawrence Oloo said that future generations at East African Spectre will miss out on Mr Odinga’s strategy of selling his vision to workers.
Mr Oloo said the former Prime Minister would sell his vision for the company to interviewees and staff to have everybody on the same page.
The newly constructed mausoleum of former Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga at Kang’o ka Jaramogi in Bondo, Siaya County, on October 11, 2026.
Photo credit: Alex Odhiambo | Nation Media Group
“It is Baba (Raila Odinga) who did my interview. He did not focus on the technical aspects of things. Instead, for interviews, he would start with telling you the history of the company and where it is headed, and then ask you to pick it up from there. He was somebody who could inspire you and sell his vision. That is something that people who will join later will not experience,” Mr Oloo added.
Spectre’s management is optimistic that the company will weather the storm that is Raila’s absence, tough as it is, just as they weathered a near-similar one in the wake of Jaramogi’s death.
Other of the Odingas’ business interests remain unchanged a year after his death. They include real estate investment vehicle, Lennox Development Ltd, Kango Enterprises, Spectre International and Kisumu Development Trust Ltd.
“We will miss his (Odinga’s) networks,” Chitala says.
Mr Chitala, the Spectre general manager, adds that Mr Odinga had a knack for unlocking the most complex of stalemates that the company found itself in.
Before his death on October 15 last year, Mr Odinga had quietly built a massive business empire comprising commercial interests accumulated systematically over decades, anchored around energy, manufacturing and family-run holding structures that housed multi-million-shilling real estate.
The success of most of these ventures was bolstered by Odinga’s vast networks, which he built over the years, some through his political machinery.
With his death, East African Spectre is left to carry on without the late politician’s political networks and influence.
“Raila had a good network. Whenever we (East African Spectre management) had problems, Raila would help us out. Now we have to do that on our own,” Mr Chitala adds.
Mr Chitala recalls a few years ago when Spectre International had applied for a loan so that it could upgrade the machines and equipment it uses to produce gas cylinders.
Historical photographs documenting the political journey of the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga adorn the walls inside his mausoleum at Kang’o ka Jaramogi in Bondo on October 11, 2026.
Photo credit: Alex Odhiambo | Nation Media Group
While the application was being processed, the expected timelines for completion had passed and the East African Spectre management was unsure of what to do, so he shared the challenge with Mr Odinga.
Mr Odinga made a call to the chief executive of a leading lending institution. After a brief discussion, the chief executive said, “consider it done”.
The following day, officials of the lender came to their premises and helped unclog the pipe that had delayed the financing.
In January, East African Spectre relocated its operations to a new factory in the Kyangombe area, a result of that financing. The new plant sits on 2.7 acres of land and can produce 2,000 gas cylinders in a single eight-hour shift.
It can also revalidate 1,500 cylinders in the same time.
A combination of age—East African Spectre’s more than 50 years in the industry—and the four-year-old plant in Kyangombe has helped thrust the firm into the government’s subsidised gas cylinders programme.
While the cylinders are filled and distributed by oil marketing companies, they are manufactured at East African Spectre’s plant.
