RE: The nature of decline: distinguishing myth from reality in the case of the Luo of Kenya

"He hesitates to point out that this myth has been sustained by a small Luo elite, mostly associated with the House of Jaramogi and its hangers on, who have benefited a lot from holding a whole community to ransom, as chips in a power game that benfits them, nada."

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Kahihu,

It is one thing to entertain whatever opinion you have about the Luo, and to be happy with it, but it is completely another to constantly wave your contempt and ridicule of the Luo people right in front of us like that. I don’t know why you keep coming to this forum bandying your fake, unsolicited advice to the Luo. Why don't you go advising the Tesos or Pokomos for a change? Who do you think you are, really? Which Luo has ever asked you for your advice? On what?

The Luo are a community of more than four million people. Do you really want people to believe that this community of more than four million people can be held hostage by one family? Do you seriously believe that the Luo community cannot think beyond what it is directed to do by the Odinga family? Really? What do you take us for?

Can you tell this forum how the Jaramogi's family contributes, or has contributed, to the underdevelopment of Luoland? These are direct questions and I would like you to answer them. Does the Odinga family place boulders, rocks, and stones on the Nairobi-Kisumu road, preventing the so-called development from flowing from Nairobi into Luoland?

Does the Odinga family destroy hospitals in Luoland? Do they prevent children from going to school in Luoland? Do they sabotage government projects in Luoland? If so, which ones? Which bridges or roads or hospitals or schools or factories in Luoland have the Odingas destroyed, frustrating government development programs in Luoland?

How comes that the same Odinga family that always prevents the government from developing Luoland never prevents the government from collecting taxes in Luoland? Isn’t it very interesting that the same Odinga family that is always bombing roads and bridges and factories and schools in Luoland never prevents the government from harvesting taxes in Luoland.

When it is time to collect taxes from Luos, the Odingas are apprently very good and very law-abiding; when it is the turn of the government to reciprocate for the taxes it collects in Luoland by developing the region, then all of sudden it is the the Odingas becoming very nasty and anti-development and preventing development from flowing into Luoland. If the government can have its way with collecting taxes in Luoland, how comes the same government cannot have its way with developing the area it collects taxes from?

Tell me, was it also the Odinga family that killed Tom Mboya? Should the Odinga family also be blamed for the death of Argwings K’Odhek? Was it Raila who killed Dr. Robert Ouko? Who killed Horace Owiti Ongili and Otieno Ambala? Who killed Crispin Odhiambo Mbai? I guess it was also the Odinga family.

Why was Raila Odinga detained for eight long years? Was it also the Odinga family, detaining Raila in order to hold a whole “community hostage,” to use your own words?

Who detained Wasonga Sijeyo, the longest serving detainee in Kenya’s independent history? And Ramogi Achieng’ Oneko? I suspect all this was also done by the Odinga family in a clever subterfuge to hold the whole of the Luo community hostage and prevent it from getting development from your government.

My friend, let me tell you something, political persecution is real. Just because your tribesman is the president, and your community is now at the center of power, making you giddy and excited, does not lessen the reality of government oppression, persecution, and marginalization. Have you forgotten about the experience of the Tutsis under Juvenal Habyrimama, or the experience of Southern Sudanese? Or the Ogonis of Nigeria? Or the Ibos of Nigeria, just to mention a few?

Lakini, kweli, people forget very quickly. Was it not your community crying just the other day about Moi persecuting it? Were you not the ones crying with the Luo just the other day that you were being finished by Moi?

Have you forgotten? So soon? What makes you think that it is only your community that can suffer from persecution; that other communities’ suffering can only be fake? Just because you are happy, does that mean that everybody else must be happy?

When you were crying just the other day that your community was being finished by Moi, which family was holding you hostage? Was it also the Odinga family?

There are many Kenyan communities going through misery in Kenya today. The Turkana are very poor. The Somalis of Northeastern province are also very poor. The Maasai are very poor. The Luo are also very poor.

If the Odingas have to be blamed for the underdevelopment of Luoland, which family should we hold responsible for the underdevelopment of Maasailand, Luhyaland, Turkanaland, and Tesoland? Should the Mijikenda also blame the Odinga family for their underdevelopment?

Listen, my friend: keep your unsolicited advice to yourself. Luos don’t need it. If you have too much time in your hands and too much knowledge in your head, why don’t you direct it towards solving your Mungiki problem?

I will conclude by telling you one thing, my friend. Power comes and goes. Who knew that power would one day vanish very suddenly from Sani Abacha’ hands? Or Samuel Doe’s? Or Kwame Nkrumah? Or Daniel arap Moi’s?

One day power will leave your community, and if you don’t create the right institutions for equitable distribution of resources right now when you have the time and power to do so, before power does leave, as surely as it must one day, you will once again just find yourselves as miserable as the Luos that you have turned into your daily whipping boy, ridiculing, scape-goating and blaming for everything wrong in Luoland, in particular, and Kenya, in general.

No condition is permanent, my friend. Gloat for now, for pride comes before a fall. Mpanda ngazi hushuka, na hata nyinyi pia mta shuka one day.

(Unedited)

Meshack Owino.