Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, mother, mother Aida Odinga, Rosemary.
Thank you very much, I am grateful. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Let me start again by saying Mama Aida Odinga, Rosemary, Junior, Winnie, and the entire family of our late friend, our esteemed friend Raila Amolo Odinga. His Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya, His Excellency William Samoei Ruto and First Lady Rachel Ruto. Foreign leaders and neighbors who have visited us have come to mourn with us.
How are my fellow pilgrims? How are you again?
Thank you very much. We are here together as Kenyans to celebrate the life of our fellow Kenyan leader, my friend, but I loved him as my brother, His Excellency Raila Amolo Odinga. As we have been told here, we knew him by different names, Agambo and Tinga. But as Kenyans from all corners of the world, we knew him and respected him as a father.
And we called him father because the honorable Raila Amolo Odinga loved his country Kenya more than anything else. His Excellency Raila Amolo Odinga was a father to all, he had no ethnicity and he loved the country and all Kenyans, and that testimony was borne by his diverse friends. If you went to visit him at his home, you would find friends there from every corner of our nation, Kenya. Raila loved you because of your vision. He loved you because of your thoughts. He loved you because of your actions but not because of your race or ethnicity.
Today Kenya has lost a leader. A leader whose democratic history in our nation of Kenya cannot be written without the name of Raila Amolo Odinga being number one. Kenya's history of defending human rights and the rights of all citizens cannot be written without the name of Raila Amolo Odinga being number one. The history of settlement and ensuring that citizens at the grassroots level have the ability to lead and govern themselves and have leaders who implement the problems of the citizens at the ground level cannot be written without Raila Amolo Odinga's name being number one.
In short, what can I say? I say this. Raila has left us physically, but in our souls, in the spirit of Kenya, he will continue to live on for years and years as we move forward, my friends. Raila loved peace. Raila loved the unity of our nation. Raila was happy to see Kenyans coming together, working together, and building their nation together. Raila was a defender of everyone's rights. Where he was seeing no justice, Raila was at the forefront to ensure that rights were achieved.
And my colleagues, I tell you this, we remember the late Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Odinga for defending the independence of our country. And every time we sing the national anthem we say we will protect our freedom with our blood and sweat. Today as we bid farewell to our father Raila Amolo Odinga, I also want us to pledge that we will not accept as Kenyans human rights, democracy and all those things that Raila advocated. We will not allow them to go back. We will not allow them to go back. We will move forward with these rights in mind for those of us who are left and those yet to be born. That is what our brother would like to see and that is the way to see his legacy as the leader of our nation.
Colleagues, this is not a day of many things. I have come to mourn a friend and brother but I cannot end without saying that even though today we are sad and mourning, as Kenyans we must seize this opportunity because Raila could not have done what he did if he had been supervised by the powerful mother of labor, Mama Aida Odinga and her children Rosemary, Junior, Winnie and her entire family. We, Kenyans, thank you for giving us Raila to serve the country and by supporting him, he will have the strength to serve us all.
My point is to say, my brother, well, my colleagues, just a little bit of castor oil, not a big one. You know, sometimes after work, when we're just sitting there, why are we given something small, because you're laughing? I'm talking about something small, so I say porridge and tea, but when we were chatting, sometimes we were wondering, you know, those old people who have gone, the Jaramogis, the Jomos, the Nikumas, the Mwalimu Nyerere, what do you think they'd be talking about if they sat down? Oh, I was saying, you know, they talk politics like us, they just look at us and they laugh at our nonsense here. He says, eh, but you know, I'm very keen to know, now my brother, you've gone before me, now I already know that you're talking to each other there, and it's not that I'm in a hurry to get to you, but we still want to calm down, calm down a little, may God help us, but I know that when our time comes, you will be there to tell us the way to walk those roads there. Therefore, my brother, I pray to God to have mercy on you and may you rest in peace with your companions, knowing that we remember you and what you have left behind, we will continue to do so, and your family is now ours and we will continue to protect and cherish them and stand with them at all times. I say rest in peace brother, may God bless your family and give them comfort and strength, and may God continue to bless our Kenya, East Africa and Africa in general. Thank you very much, God bless you.
