Ida was born on 24 August 1950 in Migori County. She grew up in a family that valued education, discipline and service. Her mother, Rosa Oyoo, was Kenya's first Black nurse and was trained at the King African Rifles Hospital, which later became Kenyatta National Hospital. Her father was a respected doctor in Kisii.
Excellence was expected in their home, not requested. "My mother was a pioneer and that shaped how I viewed the world. She taught me that women can do anything if they work hard enough, even when the world doesn't expect them to," Ida once said.
Ida attended Ogande Girls High School, where she was known for her intelligence and calm authority. Teachers described her as "a voice of calm leadership," someone who spoke in ways that made others listen.
She later joined the University of Nairobi, pursuing a Bachelor of Education (Arts) degree.
It was there that fate brought her together with a young engineering lecturer, Raila Odinga. They met in 1972, when Ida was a second-year geography student. A year later, on September 1, 1973, they married, beginning a partnership that would weather political storms, detentions and transformation.
"We didn't marry into comfort. We married into struggle, but it was a struggle with purpose," she said.
After graduation, Ida began teaching at Kenya High School, one of the country's top girls' institutions. For more than two decades, she inspired hundreds of students, among them the late Dr Joyce Laboso, who later became Governor of Bomet County. Her students remember her as firm but nurturing: a teacher who demanded discipline and excellence in equal measure.
"Teaching is not just a job; it is a way to shape tomorrow," Ida often said.
For more than five decades, she was the steady force behind the late Raila Amolo Odinga, Kenya's former Prime Minister and long-time opposition leader.
Yet beyond her husband's towering political career, Ida carved her own legacy as an educator, women's rights advocate and trailblazer in corporate leadership, pushing the boundaries of what was possible for Kenyan women.
"My life has been about standing up, even when it was easier to sit down. If that inspires even one young girl to dream bigger, then it has all been worth it," Ida Odinga once said.
During all protests and election campaigns, and even in the low times of the former Premier's life, Ida has been the frontline soldier to give him a shoulder to lean on. She has been the pillar of the family and the family enterprise as Raila pursued other avenues.
Her story is not simply that of a political spouse. It is the story of a teacher who became an activist, an activist who became a leader, and a leader who became a symbol of resilience in the face of repression and gendered expectations.
Her journey mirrors Kenya's own post-independence evolution: from one-party autocracy to multiparty democracy, from silenced women to vocal leaders, from shadows to the spotlight.
"I never set out to be in politics. But when history knocks, you must open the door," she often says.
In 1982, following a failed coup attempt, Raila Odinga was arrested and detained without trial. Ida, left to raise their young children, shouldered the burden alone.
She continued to teach, but the regime's hostility toward the Odingas soon reached her classroom.
"I raised my children on my salary as a teacher. I was the mother, the father, the provider, and the counsellor. It was tough, but it made me stronger," she told CNN in 2012.
She was expelled from Kenya High School and ordered to vacate her staff quarters.
"They told me to leave because my husband was an enemy of the state. But I knew history would vindicate us," she recalled.
Those years transformed Ida from a supportive spouse into a quiet symbol of resistance.
"When Raila was in prison," she said, "I was not just a wife. I was a mother, a father, a protector and sometimes even a soldier in my own way."
As Kenya moved toward multiparty democracy in the early 1990s, Ida recognised another struggle: the fight for women's inclusion in politics. In 1991, she founded the League of Kenya Women Voters (LKWV) to empower women to participate in governance and public decision-making.
Through workshops, voter education, and advocacy, the League gave countless women the confidence and tools to contest elections and engage in leadership.
"A society that silences its women silences its own future," she often said.
"When women are absent from politics, the nation loses half its wisdom."
Her activism extended beyond politics. Ida became a prominent advocate for women's health, leading campaigns on breast cancer awareness, fistula prevention, and the eradication of jiggers in rural Kenya.
She also mentored schoolgirls, offering scholarships and mentorship programmes that helped shape future generations of women leaders.
In 2003, during the NARC government, Ida took on a new challenge. She became the Managing Director of East African Spectre, a family-owned liquefied gas cylinder manufacturing company.
This appointment made her one of the first women in Kenya to head a major corporation, breaking new ground in a male-dominated business world. She provided strategic leadership and turned the company into a model of female-driven corporate success.
Her achievement was recognised nationally. In 2010, The Standard named her among Kenya's most powerful women, a testament to her growing influence across sectors.
Ida's passion for education remained central to her life. One of her proudest accomplishments was leading a Sh176.9 million fundraising drive to construct a modern library at Ogande Girls High School, her alma mater. The library, which accommodates more than 500 students, stands as a permanent symbol of her belief in the transformative power of education.
Through every phase of her husband's career, from his imprisonments in the 1980s to his tenure as Prime Minister between 2008 and 2013, Ida remained a constant source of stability and counsel.
She balanced political life and family with grace, commanding respect across political divides.
"It's good to be a wife," she told CNN, "but it's even better to be an educated wife. Being a wife is not about subordination; it's a position of strength."
Today, at 75 years old, Ida Betty Odinga stands among Kenya's most respected figures. Her name is etched alongside those who shaped the nation: not through loud proclamations, but through steadfast commitment to justice, education and equality.