Oburu Fires Back at Uhuru: If Raila Won in 2022, Why Hand Power to Ruto?

Oburu’s intervention has transformed Uhuru’s comments from a retrospective political opinion into a direct question about the conduct of the transition between the August 2022 election and Ruto’s inauguration on September 13 of that year. The ODM leader says the former president must explain not only what he believed happened, but also why he did not act on that belief when the alleged electoral injustice was unfolding. Nation

The renewed controversy comes as Kenya’s political parties begin positioning themselves for the 2027 General Election. It also follows the death of Raila, whose supporters have continued to view the 2022 result as a historic injustice despite the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision upholding Ruto’s victory.

What Uhuru said

Uhuru made the remarks on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, during a Jubilee Party meeting in Nairobi. He said he remained convinced that Raila had won the election and suggested that the performance of the coalition supporting Raila in parliamentary and county contests was inconsistent with the presidential result.

“We did everything to help Baba become President of the Republic of Kenya. He got the votes, and to this day I know that he is the one who won those votes,” Uhuru said.

He also questioned how the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition could have secured strong results in legislative and county elections but failed to win the presidency.

“How can you say we were defeated when we had most of the MPs, governors and senators? How were we defeated in the presidency?” he asked.

Uhuru further rejected claims that he was responsible for Raila’s defeat. He argued that he was not a presidential candidate and said he had worked as Raila’s political ally during the campaign.

“I was not on the ballot,” he said, adding that he had been “Raila’s handyman”.

The former president also said that he accepted the Supreme Court’s decision and handed over power to Ruto without disputing the outcome. That statement is now central to Oburu’s criticism.

Uhuru’s position therefore contains two elements that ODM considers contradictory. First, he says Raila won the election. Second, he says he accepted the court’s decision and peacefully handed over the presidency to Ruto.

For Oburu, those two positions require a public explanation.

Oburu’s three questions

In a statement issued on Thursday, Oburu said Uhuru’s remarks confirmed what ODM had believed and maintained after the 2022 vote: that Raila had won the election.

However, he questioned why the former president had raised the issue four years later rather than during the immediate post-election period.

Oburu’s central question was direct: if Uhuru was convinced that Raila had won, why did his government facilitate the transfer of power to Ruto?

“If he was convinced that Raila Odinga had won, why did his government facilitate the transfer of the instruments of power to a person he believed had not won?” Oburu asked. Nation

The ODM leader also questioned why Uhuru did not speak more forcefully in 2022 if he believed the election had been stolen. Raila challenged the result before the Supreme Court, but the court dismissed the petitions and upheld Ruto’s election.

Oburu’s third concern is what Kenyans are expected to do with Uhuru’s disclosure today. ODM accepted the outcome after pursuing the available constitutional avenues, he said, and chose to move on in the interest of national stability.

The party now wants to know why the former president is reopening an issue that had been legally concluded.

“These are not academic questions,” Oburu said, arguing that elections concern the sovereign will of the people and the legitimacy of government.

The criticism is particularly significant because Oburu is Raila’s elder brother and the current leader of ODM. His response reflects both a party position and the continuing emotional impact of the 2022 election among Raila’s family, supporters and political allies.

The official 2022 result

The official results remain clear.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission declared Ruto the winner of the August 9, 2022 presidential election with 7,176,141 votes, equivalent to 50.49 per cent. Raila received 6,942,930 votes, or 48.85 per cent.

The difference was 233,211 votes.

The other presidential candidates received far fewer votes. George Wajackoyah obtained 61,969 votes, while David Waihiga received 31,987.

Ruto therefore crossed the constitutional threshold requiring a presidential candidate to secure more than half of all votes cast. The IEBC formally declared him president-elect, with Rigathi Gachagua as deputy president-elect.

The result was disputed almost immediately. Four of the seven IEBC commissioners publicly distanced themselves from the declaration at Bomas of Kenya. Vice-chairperson Juliana Cherera, Francis Wanderi, Justus Nyang’aya and Irene Masit said they had not participated fully in the final stage of tallying and described the process as opaque.

Their objections intensified public suspicion around the result. The commissioners raised concerns about the aggregation of figures, the failure to announce certain totals and the manner in which the final results had been processed.

However, the dissent within the commission did not automatically invalidate the result. The legal question was whether the alleged irregularities affected the constitutional validity of the election and the final outcome.

That question was taken to the Supreme Court.

What the Supreme Court decided

Raila and other petitioners filed challenges against the presidential result. The Supreme Court consolidated seven petitions and considered allegations concerning the IEBC’s technology, the transmission of Forms 34A, the tallying process, voter suppression, discrepancies between presidential and other election results, and whether Ruto had attained the required 50 per cent plus one vote.

The court delivered its main decision on September 5, 2022. Its detailed judgment was issued later, on September 26.

The seven-judge bench unanimously dismissed the consolidated petitions and upheld Ruto’s election. The court declared that Ruto was validly elected president-elect under Article 140(3) of the Constitution.

The court did not say that the election was perfect. It acknowledged that Kenya’s electoral system had weaknesses and that technology had failed in some polling stations. It also recognised that the 2022 election had generated widespread concerns about public confidence in the IEBC.

But the court’s finding was that the petitioners had not provided sufficient evidence to prove that the irregularities were of such magnitude that they affected the final result.

The judges examined the technology used by the IEBC, including the Kenya Integrated Election Management System, or KIEMS. They found no evidence that unauthorised persons had interfered with the results transmission system or that the election technology had been compromised in a way that altered the outcome.

The court also considered failures of KIEMS kits. In some areas, voters were identified manually using printed registers and other complementary mechanisms. The court noted that 86,889 voters were allowed to vote manually after technological problems, and it found no evidence that this failure invalidated the election nationality.

On the alleged discrepancies between votes cast for presidential candidates and votes cast for other positions, the court examined the evidence but did not find proof that the difference demonstrated fraud or manipulation sufficient to overturn the result.

It also rejected the claim that Ruto had failed to attain the constitutional threshold.

Legally, therefore, the 2022 presidential election was settled in Ruto’s favour. Uhuru’s claim that Raila won is a political assertion that conflicts with the official result and the Supreme Court’s binding determination.

Why Oburu’s question matters

Oburu’s challenge is not necessarily a new legal petition. It is a political and accountability question.

He is asking what Uhuru knew, when he knew it and why he acted as he did.

The former president was in office when the election was held. He was also the head of state when the IEBC declared Ruto president-elect, when the Supreme Court heard the petitions and when the transfer of power took place.

Uhuru’s conduct during the transition was visible. He met Ruto at State House on September 12, 2022, a day before the inauguration. He congratulated Ruto and attended the swearing-in ceremony, where he formally handed over the instruments of power.

That transition was widely presented as evidence of Kenya’s constitutional order and institutional stability. Unlike the 2017 election, which was annulled by the Supreme Court and followed by a repeat presidential vote, the 2022 result survived judicial scrutiny.

From that perspective, Uhuru’s recent statement raises a difficult question: was his acceptance of the transition a constitutional duty, a pragmatic decision to protect national stability, or an indication that he did not possess concrete evidence that Raila had won?

There is an important distinction between believing that a preferred candidate performed better than the official result suggests and possessing evidence capable of overturning a constitutional declaration.

Uhuru may have reached his conclusion from campaign intelligence, political assessments, parallel tallies or his interpretation of results in other elective contests. But he has not, in the publicly available remarks, presented a detailed alternative tally or identified specific polling stations where votes were allegedly changed.

That distinction is critical.

A claim that Raila “won” politically is different from proving in court that Ruto did not win legally. The Supreme Court dealt with the second question. Uhuru has revived the first.

The parliamentary argument

Uhuru’s argument is based partly on Azimio’s performance in other races.

Azimio initially secured more National Assembly seats than Kenya Kwanza. It was also credited with winning 23 governorships, compared with 22 for Kenya Kwanza, while two governors were elected as independents. In the Senate, however, Kenya Kwanza won 24 directly elected seats against Azimio’s 23.

These results demonstrate that the 2022 election was competitive and that Azimio had substantial national support. They do not, on their own, prove that Raila won the presidency.

Kenya’s electoral system involves separate contests for president, governor, senator, member of parliament and member of county assembly. Voters can split their choices across parties and candidates. A voter may support one party’s parliamentary candidate while choosing a different presidential candidate.

The fact that Azimio performed strongly in legislative and county elections is therefore politically significant, but it cannot substitute for a presidential tally.

The Supreme Court considered the alleged disparity between presidential and other elective results. The existence of different outcomes in different races was not, by itself, proof of manipulation.

The parliamentary argument nevertheless remains powerful in political debate because it speaks to the perception that Azimio had a broad national coalition. Uhuru’s point is that the coalition’s electoral strength appeared inconsistent with a presidential defeat.

Oburu’s response, however, is that if Uhuru believed the disparity proved Raila had won, he should have offered that explanation during the legal challenge or disclosed the evidence before facilitating the transition.

The Handshake and political responsibility

The dispute cannot be separated from the political relationship between Uhuru and Raila.

The two leaders had been bitter rivals during the 2013 and 2017 elections. Their March 2018 “Handshake” dramatically altered Kenyan politics. It reduced tensions after the disputed 2017 election and created a working relationship between the president and the opposition leader.

The partnership later produced the Building Bridges Initiative, which sought constitutional amendments on issues including executive power, representation and inclusivity. The initiative was eventually blocked by the courts.

By 2022, Uhuru had shifted his political support from Ruto, his deputy and 2013 and 2017 running mate, to Raila. Ruto had become estranged from the administration and built his campaign around opposition to what he called dynastic politics.

Raila’s campaign was backed by the Azimio coalition, while Ruto ran under UDA within the Kenya Kwanza alliance. The election was framed as a contest between continuity and change, establishment power and outsider politics, and “dynasties” and “hustlers”.

Oburu argues that ODM made substantial political compromises in support of the alliance with Uhuru. He has referred to decisions involving elective positions and coalition arrangements, saying they were made in good faith to strengthen Raila’s presidential campaign.

That history explains why Uhuru’s claim has caused renewed anger within ODM. Supporters who believed the former president was responsible for delivering the state machinery and political support necessary for victory now want him to explain why the campaign ended in defeat.

Uhuru, for his part, says he did everything possible to support Raila and rejects claims that he failed to campaign adequately.

UDA’s response

Ruto’s allies have rejected Uhuru’s claim.

The United Democratic Alliance has described Ruto’s victory as decisive and conclusive. The party has accused Uhuru of refusing to accept the 2022 outcome and of attempting to undermine the electoral process after the Supreme Court settled the dispute.

UDA has also pointed to the peaceful transition as evidence that the result was accepted through the constitutional process. Its response reflects a broader political strategy: to portray Uhuru’s remarks as an attempt to revive an old defeat and weaken Ruto ahead of 2027.

The issue is particularly sensitive because Ruto and Uhuru remain political rivals. Ruto has repeatedly blamed the previous administration for economic difficulties, while Uhuru has criticised the Ruto government’s performance and its tendency to attribute current problems to the past.

The latest exchange gives both sides an opportunity to mobilise supporters around the unresolved emotional legacy of 2022.

For UDA, the message is that Ruto won legally and politically. For ODM, the message is that Raila’s supporters were denied victory and that Uhuru has now confirmed their long-held belief.

Neither side has yet produced new evidence that would alter the legal record.

A transition versus a political confession

The strongest aspect of Oburu’s criticism is that it focuses on responsibility rather than merely disputing the vote count.

If Uhuru truly believed Raila had won, there were several possible moments when he could have acted or spoken:

• When the IEBC was tallying and preparing to announce the results.

• When four commissioners rejected the declaration.

• When Raila filed the presidential petition.

• When the Supreme Court delivered its decision.

• When Ruto was sworn in.

Instead, Uhuru accepted the court’s decision and presided over a peaceful transfer of power.

There may be constitutional and practical reasons for that decision. A president cannot simply refuse to hand over power because he disagrees with an election result. Once the IEBC makes a declaration and the Supreme Court upholds it, the outgoing president is bound by the constitutional process.

Refusing to transfer power without a judicial basis could have triggered a constitutional crisis and destabilised the country.

But that does not fully answer Oburu’s political question. Uhuru could have complied with the court while still publicly maintaining that Raila had won. He could have released evidence, explained the alleged discrepancies or disclosed his reasons for accepting a result he considered wrong.

That he did not do so until four years later is why ODM views the timing as problematic.

Uhuru now says that “we know what happened” and that Kenya should not repeat the events surrounding the 2022 contest. But without details, the statement leaves the public with an allegation rather than a verifiable account.

What can be established as fact?

Several facts are not in dispute.

Ruto was declared the winner by the IEBC with 7,176,141 votes against Raila’s 6,942, 930.

Four IEBC commissioners publicly rejected or distanced themselves from the declaration, raising concerns about the tallying process.

Raila and other petitioners challenged the result in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the consolidated petitions and upheld Ruto’s electrion.

Uhuru met Ruto before the inauguration, congratulated him and handed over power on September 13, 2022.

Uhuru has now said that he remains convinced Raila won.

Oburu has demanded an explanation for the apparent contradiction between that belief and Uhuru’s role in the transition.

What has not been established publicly is the evidentiary basis for Uhuru’s claim. The former president has referred to Azimio’s performance in other elections and his personal knowledge of the campaign, but he has not presented a complete alternative presidential tally.

That distinction should guide responsible reporting. It is accurate to say that Uhuru believes Raila won. It is not accurate to present that belief as proof that Raila actually won the election.

Why the controversy is trending

The dispute is trending because it combines three emotionally powerful issues in Kenyan politics: Raila’s legacy, Uhuru’s political responsibility and Ruto’s legitimacy.

Raila died after a career defined by opposition politics, electoral disputes and repeated presidential bids. His supporters regard him as a leader who was repeatedly denied the presidency despite commanding substantial public support.

Uhuru, who once campaigned against Raila but later became his ally, is now appearing to validate the supporters’ deepest suspicion. His statement therefore carries more weight than a routine comment from an opposition politician.

At the same time, the claim directly challenges the political foundation of Ruto’s presidency. Although the Supreme Court upheld Ruto’s election, assertions that Raila actually won keep alive questions about the credibility of the 2022 outcome.

The timing also matters. Kenya is approaching another politically charged electoral cycle. Parties are looking for narratives that can consolidate supporters, portray rivals as illegitimate and frame the next election as a corrective moment.

Oburu’s response prevents Uhuru from controlling the interpretation of his own statement. Rather than allowing the former president to present himself as a witness to electoral injustice, ODM is asking why he did not act as one when the dispute was active.

The larger lesson

The controversy exposes a recurring weakness in Kenya’s electoral politics: legal closure does not always produce political closure.

The Supreme Court settled the 2022 petition according to the evidence presented before it. But courts cannot resolve every political suspicion, private belief or allegation that emerges years later.

If Uhuru has new evidence, the public deserves specifics. He should explain what information led him to conclude that Raila won, whether that information was available to the Azimio legal team, why it was not presented in court and why he accepted the transfer of power despite holding that view.

If he does not have new evidence, his remarks may be understood as a political judgement rather than a factual finding.

Oburu’s question is therefore legitimate as an accountability demand, even though it does not overturn the official result: why did an outgoing president who now says Raila won facilitate the peaceful transfer of power to Ruto?

The answer may lie in the difference between private conviction and constitutional responsibility. Uhuru may have believed that Raila had stronger political support, yet accepted that the lawful process had produced a different result. Or he may possess information that he has not yet disclosed.

Until he provides a fuller explanation, the controversy will remain suspended between allegation and evidence.

The official record says Ruto won the 2022 presidential election and that the Supreme Court upheld his victory. Uhuru’s new claim reopens the political argument, but Oburu’s response has shifted the focus from whether Raila won to what Uhuru knew, what he did and why he chose to speak now