Joramogi, Lets forget about the forthcomming elections

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

William Munene's article titled ''Is Kenya ready for a Luo President''? is an open letter to many of you who still dream in Kenya as a unitary project. I foresaw this many years ago and thats why I am for regional autonomy. This idea of pretending about national unity while other regions remain underveloped and underfunded cant' be allowed anymore.

I am for the regionalism principle, that is governmental powers and responsibilities being divided between the regional, national and local governments. Matters that the national unity governments cannot handle satisfactorily are entrusted to the regional government. The artichets of the unity system have all long portrayed those agitating for majimbo as tribalists thus blocking constitutional changes to this effect. At the same breadth, the current government is not ready for Majimbo as captured by Yash Pal Ghai review team. While this is so, many are well aware that 70 percent of Kenyans signed up for Majimbo system of governance.

In a regional system, the central government is prevented from becoming all-powerful and is given only the powers it needs. State governments are established as “Regional Localities,” free to handle local affairs according to the political desires of their constituents.

In unitary system, almost all policies and decisions emanate from the central government. The result of this can be seen by all unity dreamers and Kenya project advocates, i.e.CBK, Kenya Revenue Authority, Anglo Leasing, etc.

It is also important to understand why have some countries adopted Majimbo?

The answer to the above question is simple; some countries have adopted Majimboism because of the need for new forms of functional administration since some political modalities have become insufficient in coping with people’s needs and problems. Kenya falls under this category, the country lacks Majimbo as the best manure to help realise peoples regional dreams without begging the Nairobi government.

Under the current unitary system; corruption, tribalism and nepotism have been re modelled branded and re-launcehed. It is no wonder that we have new names in our local political vocabulary; Railaphobia, Luophobia, Jonam as un-electable....and the negative tagging and branding games goes on. Majimboism brings about greater autonomy for people in far-flung regions thus letting them address their needs and problems in their own way and making available adequate resources. The system promotes de-cecentralization both administrative decentralization (deconcentration) and political decentralization (devolution).

It is also important to note that, Majimbo has been universally accepted as the best system as its the closest to the ideal of operationalizing democracy than any Unitarian dictatorship.

William ODuor
Århus Denmark

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"I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action." MALCOM X