Ida Odinga

Ida Odinga
Spouse of the Prime Minister of Kenya
In office 17 April 2008 – 9 April 2013
Preceded by	Ngina Kenyatta
Succeeded by	Post abolished
Personal details
Born	Ida Anyango Oyoo 1950 (age 66–67)
Spouse(s)	Raila Odinga
Children	Four

Ida Betty Odinga (born Ida Anyango Oyoo in 1950) is a Kenyan businesswoman, activist and educator. She is the wife of Raila Odinga, the former Prime Minister of Kenya.

Odinga earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Nairobi in 1974 when she was 24 years old. She worked as a teacher for more than twenty years after graduation. She married Raila Odinga, with whom she has four children.

Raila Odinga was imprisoned in 1982 as a political prisoner by the government of President Daniel arap Moi. Ida Odinga largely raised her children herself during those years while working as a teacher.

Odinga founded the League of Kenya Women Voters in 1991, which promotes opportunities for women in the political arena. She served as the chairperson of the League. She has also championed a host of other causes, many focused on women, children and health in Kenya. Odinga has advocated for the prevention of breast cancer and fistulas, and eradication of the chigoe flea. She has also mentored Kenyan schoolgirls and sat on the board of directors for an organization which aids paraplegics.

She became the managing director of the East African Spectre, a liquified gas cylinder manufacturing company, in 2003, becoming one of the first women to head a major Kenyan corporation.

In 2010, Standard Digital News named her the second most powerful woman in Kenya.

In a 2012 interview with CNN International, Odinga elaborated on her life as a politician's wife. She told CNN's Felicia Taylor, "It's good to be a wife, but it's good to be an educated wife. Being a wife, it's just not a position of subordination -- it's a position of strength."

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