In the run-up to the 2002 elections, ODM leader Raila Odinga was among the closest allies of former President Mwai Kibaki, whose presidency has largely been attributed to his (Raila) "Kibaki Tosha" endorsement.
Raila also took over Kibaki's presidential campaigns after he was involved in an accident, which left him with a broken leg, leaving him in a bad condition and later having to take his oath while on a wheelchair.
According to Dan Gikonyo, Kibaki's personal doctor, Raila also completely took charge of Kibaki's transportation to England for further treatment, despite frustrations from then-President Daniel Moi's government.
He says that Raila secured seats for the three of them in the first-class cabin of a Kenya Airways plane after the airline had insisted that it could only give them free seats at the back of the plane, which Raila said was impossible.
"We still had old government, we were challenging the old government, they (KQ) were not very cooperative. They gave us three seats at the back of the plane and honourable Raila said " No, we cannot put our President at the back of the plane, we must put him in the first class," Dr Gikonyo said in a video of KTN News interview shared on Facebook.
Kibaki's doctor further says the ODM leader even footed the plane fares.
He says that when the time came to get Kibaki in the plane, considering that he was lying on a stretcher, Raila was again prepared and came with a group of young men to carry him.
The group had to literally crawl on their knees with Kibaki's stretcher on their shoulders from the door to the seat designated for Kibaki, given that there was no enough space to move the stretcher while walking.
"I have a lot of respect for Raila; He came with some young men, about eight or nine of them and they carried that stretcher across that aisle to the front on their knees, from the entrance to the front of the plane, I have never forgotten that," he said.
And though Kibaki nominated Raila, then the Langata MP to his cabinet after flooring President Uhuru Kenyatta in the race, the two parted ways a few years later.
They engaged each other in a historical political fight in the 2007 polls.
The contested poll results resulted in a bloody encounter between their allies after Raila rejected Kibaki's reelection, which saw the retired President sworn in at night by the then Chief Justice Evans Gicheru.