I have listened once again to Governor James Orengo make comments that are totally stuck in time. It is not so much that he is wrong. It is only that he speaks to things that cannot happen. Utopia.
There still seems to be in ODM a large number of politicians who want Raila Odinga to lose the AUC seat so that he returns to local politics for an exhibitionist race in 2027.
There are so many top leaders of the ODM Party wishing Raila to lose. Some say it publicly.
Governor Orengo, ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna, characters like Oduor Ong’wen and many others still want ODM to carry the burdens of opposing President Ruto’s regime with Raila leading the charge.
The ODM Party is not a human rights organization, eventhough the defence of human rights is at the heart of the party. ODM is a political party with the sole responsibility of capturing and exercising political power.
The core of the ODM “audience”, as James Orengo called it, are Luo. There is no ODM fueled anti-government fight that will not involve heavy Luo sacrifices.
Those of us who reject Luo involvement in the current anti-Ruto wars do so aware that the involvement of the Luo will be at the expense of the Luo, and not necessarily at the expense of ODM as a party. It is important to make this distinction so that it is not obfuscated.
Is it in the best interest of the Luo to fight the Ruto regime? What will that fight achieve for the Luo? Should Luos perenially fight for national ends, even as we become weaker and weaker, poorer and poorer? Which other community does that, year after year?
There are those in Kenya now shouting “Ruto Must Go”. It is easy and fashionable to join that shouting and mouth it louder than the bereaved but the question is, once Ruto is out, do these people have the same post-Ruto succession plans that Orengo has in his mind or will this be another FORD moment?
The fallout between Jaramogi and Kenyatta was at the expense of the Luo. It is the Luo that lost out. It is the Luo that stagnated.
For a community that was doing so well, having emerged in the 1940s and 1950s with all its social devices intact, the Luo decline from the late 1960s must be blamed on political miscalculations of our revered leaders of the time.
When Moi tried to ‘rehabilitate’ Jaramogi in the 1980s, history says Jaramogi was ‘tricked’ into attacking Kenyatta, who had been long dead since the late 70s but whose philosophy (which included Luo exclusion) was still very much alive and so, once again, Jaramogi lost out, and the Luo lost out.
The country would return to multipartysm in the 1990s and that was when Jaramogi was finally able to return to parliament, an institution he exited in the mid 1960s. By then, he was an old man with only two years left on his time on earth. Was that long torturous absence worth it? Did Jaramogi achieve anything much outside KANU? Did the Luo bring to Kenya the good governance and justice that Jaramogi had allegedly fell out with Kenyatta in pursuit of?
The Luo protest vote that has put many Luo leaders in power for years has had the effect of impoverishing the Luo community. The Luo must stop being dragged into wars that costs them more than it benefits them.
We will be told how we must not abandon the quest for justice. What justice is this that only come at our own expense, year in, year out?
The attempt to set up Luos for slaughter, torture and economic stagnation under Ruto is unacceptable. It already happaned under Kenyatta, Moi, Kibaki and Uhuru.
The Luo must learn to work in and with bad regimes too. It cannot be that regimes only become bad when such regimes embrace Luos.
Luos also need the roads, ports, hospitals, clean water, better schools, an end to state neglect and repression and, more importantly, so that the Luo presence in government, in any role, does not lead to others running away.
Orengo is misleading us. Awacho ayueyo.
