Explainer: Rare health condition that paralysed part of Raila Junior’s face
By Steve Ireri, October 24, 2025In the days following the death of his father, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Raila Junior found himself increasingly in the public spotlight, attending several memorial functions and delivering speeches on behalf of the Odinga family.
His calm composure and visible presence during these emotional ceremonies drew widespread public attention, but so did renewed conversations online about the partial paralysis on his face.
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Social media users began speculating about his facial appearance, with many wondering how the condition came to be and whether it is life-threatening.
However, according to him, the distortion stemmed from a medical issue he has lived with since infancy.
He explained that as a baby, he was diagnosed with a non-cancerous tumour in his brain that affected his nervous system, leading to partial facial paralysis. He said the condition developed around 1995 and has remained with him since then.
“So actually, nothing happened to my face, although I do suffer from a medical condition. It is a non-cancerous tumour that was in my brain, and it affected my nervous system,” he shared during an interview with a local radio station on March 13, 2019.
Junior added that the tumour was successfully removed and that he has lived a healthy life ever since.
He noted that the condition has never hindered his goals or defined his self-worth, stressing that he views it as a small part of who he is rather than a disadvantage.
“It happened while I was a baby around 1995, long ago. It is something that affected me and has always been with me, but I do not see it as a disadvantage,” Junior added.
He explained that some people who are unaware of his medical history often assume something happened recently, but that is far from the truth.
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He said he does not regard the condition as an obstacle to what he wants to achieve in life.
Junior further clarified that the paralysis is permanent but manageable and that he chooses to live positively, embracing life with confidence and gratitude.
“So, this condition I have is called facial paralysis. I move on with my life normally because it is not an impediment to what I want to achieve in life. Maybe only people who do not know what happened to me have issues with it, but I do not have a problem. The tumour was removed, and now I am okay.”
Facial paralysis
According to a report by Johns Hopkins Medicine, facial paralysis is a descriptive term for weakness or loss of movement of the facial muscles, and it can arise from a wide range of causes, each with its own prognosis and treatment path.
The report notes that facial paralysis may result from idiopathic or inflammatory nerve injury, such as Bell’s palsy, from infection or trauma, or from structural lesions such as tumours that compress or invade the facial nerve or its central pathways in the brain.
Facial paralysis and tumours
Research by Facial Palsy UK explains that tumours which affect the facial nerve or its pathway within the brain can produce persistent or progressive facial weakness.
Examples include facial nerve schwannomas or neuromas, cerebellopontine angle tumours such as vestibular schwannomas, skull base meningiomas, and other intracranial masses that exert pressure on nerve structures.
In such cases, the paralysis is driven by a structural lesion rather than the acute inflammation that typically causes Bell’s palsy.
Bell’s palsy
Medical reviews and imaging studies further highlight that when facial paralysis develops gradually or recurs, doctors must rule out the possibility of a tumour rather than assume it is Bell’s palsy.
By contrast, studies published in the US National Library of Medicine (PMC) describe Bell’s palsy as an abrupt and mostly idiopathic paralysis of the facial nerve that usually peaks within forty-eight hours and improves over weeks to months with conservative treatment such as corticosteroids and eye protection.
Tumour-related facial paralysis, however, tends to follow a different and often longer course, sometimes beginning in infancy, and typically requires imaging and surgical evaluation rather than medication alone.