Category Archives: Colonial

Conflicts in Africa. Is it the Pride or the Price of African Democracy?

By Douglas Majwala.

Do wars and conflicts in lovely Africa mean evolution or revolution? Or do they mean second independence struggle? And the very primary question remains, who is behind all this, western powers or unfounded and bothersome leadership styles in Africa that do not seem to command what is right and forbid what is wrong? Which way forward for Africa? Are conflicts and wars Africa’s birthright? Is Africa castaway? Who can mentor Africa to the Promised Land? Has God forsaken Africa? Will the Armageddon improve shattered relationship between God and African leadership?

A civilian Being forced to accept futile democracy.

Armed conflicts in Africa have turned to be the laboratories for breeding refugees, poverty, disease and ignorance for where there is one no productive activity can take place and the same for medical services and education, almost every undertaking stagnates, thus amicably resolving these conflicts means redeeming Africa from the four major curses which have mainly stereotyped leaderships in the continent. Wind of socio-economic and political change in Africa has not been graced with delight and as the result the ball keeps rolling with great uncertainty, which put the continent under spotlight for uncertain destiny.

Riot police men in full combat to quell possible demonstrators against rigged elections.

In 50 years, the continent has seen 186 coup de tats and 26 very expensive major conflicts to date and perhaps many more are expected in duplicate the number above in just another time frequency of the like if situation is not well taken care of, Comoro leading with 19 coups since her independence in 1975. Totalitarian/tyrant cum red tape leadership systems have denied Africa opportunity for political progress, which would have laid foundation for today’s quest for strong and true continental unison. It does not ring a bell to hear that some post colonial modern African states have conducted free and fair elections only once or so in a couple of decades. Election hullabaloo and ululations are costing Africa her potential material and human resources (think of assassinations, jail terms on counts of differences in opinion and plundering of resources) hence a development curse.

Is Pangaring only way-out to express dislikes to counterfeight democracy?

Africa’s agenda in any global forum has always been like a goat’s case brought before hyena for judgment; Africans are born crying, live complaining and die disappointed. Africans in Diaspora remain the same as Africans in Africa in terms of dignity; the continent is developing at a snail’s pace and is somewhat like a fly in the ointment. Situation is critical in Sub Sahara which is endowed with more than half the wealth of the continent and approximately two third the global precious natural resources let alone productive human resource which is severely depleting of catastrophic HIV/AIDS and its partner diseases, tragic accidents, armed banditry, uncontrolled massive brain drain and protracted conflicts resulting into war related deaths.

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Butchered apparently for nothing other than tribalism that ensued during electoral mess up.

Afro-centric arguments that the continent is messed by and still grappling with colonial legacy hitherto stand very slim chance of convincement. This in great deal is of no solid reasoning base as some adopted post-colonial policies have come as the result of plagiarism from the then colonial powers thus making the policies barren for Africa though productive for the originators; African policy researchers have not been credited/crowned aloud for their good work, instead in very rare occasions their policy research work have been applied in the continental context. Instead, the foreign institutions through the shadow of NGOs have hired local research and non research experts at the cheapest cost to them though to our eyes the packs seems more than enough, to do the job for them which in turn they trade to the African governments and sometimes with greater returns [capital flight].

Can all this be blamed on the west or on African inept leadership that can not work effectively for the good cause of the people of the continent? It is even evident now that the leadership in the continent lacked stamina and vision in coordinating so called SAP [Structural Adjustment Programme] masterminded by the rich west through Breton wood sister Institutions. SAP has eventually proven to be the wrong prescription for pain killing and the leaders of Africa just swallowed it not knowing its worst reactionary effects which are now spreading like wild fire, to some extent in other countries SAP even laid ground for coup de tats and even losses in elections.

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Combatant servicemen walking past civilian who election turmoil cost his life.

Had the African leadership heeded indigenous/local expert’s warnings against accepting such like policies, perhaps Africa would have looked much better today than ever before thus, accepting counterfeited foreign policies in Africa is tantamount to betrayal against Africa and the Africans as doing so sparks holocaust. SAP aimed at cutting the costs for running the governments by streamlining their operations, but today it is even worse as un-controlled corruption is siphoning governments’ coffers to the worst extent ever experienced since colonial domination in Africa.

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Innocent citizens burnt in the church where they sought refuge following shelling by government security forces and tribal revenge for failed elections.

Opponents who have lost confidence in the judiciary systems, electoral commissions and the constitutional courts which have most of time never ruled victory on their side, have in turn resorted to insurgency with glowing hope for fostering politics of intrigue and retaliation should they manage to rise to power.

African leadership should bear in mind that the ruled in Africa want to live an alternative Africa not this waning Africa, they want Africa for which they sacrificed their blood, sweat, spirits and wealth during independence struggle for promised good course. They want to live Africa free from wars, conflicts, disease, ignorance, poverty, religion tensions, tribalism, plundering, aggravated democracy, geo-political secessionism and what not?!.

Can AK47 decide for the people democratic route they should take?

Assurance of daily bread has never been possible in Africa even after decades of flag independence with the marvelous natural ecological endowment. Lack of assured daily bread which is the priority for man regardless of his station of life has featured to be the evidence for shattered social security systems in Africa due to expensive investment in politics than anything else that is life giving. The ruled in Africa does not want Africa in which the cake of independence can not be shared evenly among the ruled and the rulers as this raises fears of xenophobia that perhaps independence was attained at the cost of blood and sweat of the poor ruled majority who lined up in the front for the struggle whilst the top brass kept in the air-conditioned lavish posh offices crafting policies and compiling data of the maimed and the killed in the independence battle fields.

The epitome of ailing agriculture in Africa which is the source of bread and employment for the majority can be traced not only in the western policy but rather in the poor African leadership as well let alone vague meteorology. African leadership of the current epoch has never prioritized agriculture as it has done in the defense and security. African leadership thinks its enemy will ever come from outside the borders where in fact even food insecurity can also dethrone the leadership. So when heavily financing defense and security, agriculture should also be equally financed. Failed agriculture which is the mother employer of Africans has brought about multi-dimensional poverty; today one can define poverty in every need, basic and or secondary.

Burnt to ashes during electoral chaos, the settlements of the poor civilians who no election
has ever given them dissent settlement since flag independence.

Terminologies like food poverty, income poverty, education poverty (illiteracy) e.t.c are heard and rampant in Africa than any other developing continent. Countless elections have passed, democratic and non-democratic, but not one has ever shown the voters [sons and daughters of Africa] roadmap to God-made Africa full of milk, honey, tranquility, love and precious stones e.t.c instead they are shown the road to civil wars, widespread corruption, animosity, multi-dimensional poverty, plundering, disease, ignorance, xenophobia, shamble democracy, fundamentalism e.t.c. In poor Africa every infrastructure is damn poor, health facilities, education, and transportation e.t.c. to the contrary, African leadership has ever echoed its determination to improve the situation but to no avail.

Fight for democratic principles in elections earned them death.

In today’s Africa likelihood is that 99% of the graves are of the poor, 99% of the jailed are the poor, 99% of the delayed justice in the courts of law are those of the poor prosecuting the rich, 99% of the hasty court judgments are those of the rich prosecuting the poor, 99% of the delayed justice in service delivery public offices are of the poor and vice-versa.

It is in Africa where it was alleged that some immoral leaders turned cannibalists (e.g. Late Idd Amin and Bouekassa) while some were arraigned either for sodomy or rape (e.g. Rev. Canaan Banana) tarnishing the good image of blacks and their naturally beautiful continent, are these really serious and keen leaderships on which people can be tempted to bet.?!. Does today’s Africa need them anyhow anymore? Even firebrand cum radical African politicians having been elected to the peak post and stonewall themselves following decades of un successful struggle for the throne sometime from behind the bars or bush, with all their dogmatic and rightist stands and some being in the unipolar economies, have snubbed their wananchi having been indoctrinated by their predecessors hence no noticeable material change have been recorded during their tenure.

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Minor crying for his killed mother in electoral mayhem. Can this plant hatred into the minor?

It is from this angle that donors see political activism in Africa as lacking ability and interest to analyse into the real roots of continent’s misery e.g. volatile political climate, poor social set-ups, corruption and economic backwardness, Africa is no longer the best performing economy but an economy marred by acts of fraud, struggle for power sometimes by dynasty and depletion of highly needed productive human resources through man-eater HIV/AIDS and chronic brain drain. Some African leaderships have since post-independence multi-party democracy been at loggerheads with donor community apparently for misuse of aid and betraying and sabotaging democratic principles which have resulted into bloodshed whilst our hospital blood banks are drying up for lack of it all. Can wrathful donor community assure us of our continental resurgence?

Douglas O. Majwala,
majwalaoriko@yahoo.co.uk
0752311287,
Box 9292,
Dar es Salaam.

IS OUR COUNTRY KENYA SINKING OR NOT???.

Original Released :1950s

Karachuonyo is a potential tourist destination in Western Kenya begging to be developed

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KARACHUONYO CONSTITUENCY POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY AND ITS POTENTIALITY AS A TOURIST DESTINATION IN THE FUTURE.

Second Profile By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

A political history of Karachuonyo constituency cannot be complete and comprehensive without mentioning one of Luo political giants of yester-years and a fallen hero.

This is the legendary Daniel Ojijo Oteko, who waged a war against the British Colonial rule in Kenya.

Ojijo Oteko died in suspicious and mysterious circumstances in 1944 at the peak of his active agitation against the country’s colonizers. His death arose suspicion that he was murdered by the British colonial masters.

At the time of his death, he had traveled to Kisumu. His mission, according to those privy to his story, was to have his nagging and painful teeth removed at the old Nyanza General Hospital. He was expected back home the same day. But this was never to be so. The great Ojijo Oteko was never to be seen alive again.

The information received by the family at home indicated that this great nationalist had died while in an operation theatre for the removal of one of his rotted teeth. The death raised eyebrows with the local people.

But what fueled most trouble and suspicion was the manner in which his dead body was handled by the Colonial Administration. It was brought back home under heavy police and soldiers guard. The coffin was completely sealed. Nobody was allowed to come close to the coffin. His wailing wife and relatives were kept at bay, at a safe distance by the soldiers, who had cocked their guns at the ready, to deal with anyone moving close to the graveside.

Up to this day, no one could tell whether the casket containing the remains of the late Daniel Ojijo Oteko was entered into his grace, which was later well cemented, with a concrete cross and inscription of his names, next to Wagwe-Pala road. And it was no surprise that some mischievous thugs recently dug out the body and stole it.

The rumors making the round at the time, was that Daniel Ojijo Oteko was injected with drugs that induced death by sleep, and that his head was separated from the rest of his body and sent to the UK, in similar fashion as the colonialists had done with the great Nandi Orkoyiot {Laibon} koitalel Arap Samoei in 1905, after he was lured into a fake reconciliation meeting and shot dead by a white officer.

Daniel Ojijo Oteko served the colonialists as a telegraphic officer at Maseno. There he linked up with early Luo nationalists like John Paul Olola, Barrack Owuor, Nathan Ojungo Otumba, Nyamunga Gor and others, and formed what was first known as Kavirondo Taxpayers Association around 1922, and became its Secretary General in 1926. The Association became popular by the name “Piny Owacho”, which loosely translates as “The Country has said”.
The Association is reputed to have established the link with the much more radical and aggressive Kikuyu Central Association{KCA}, led by the late Hurry Thuku.

Ojijo left Maseno and settled in his native rural home at Kanjira in West Karachuonyo. His leadership quality was quickly realized by the local population who elected him to the African Local Native Council {ALNC}.

The visit to Karachuonyo by the KCA leaders from Central Province made Daniel Ojijo Oteko a marked man under security surveillance for twenty four hours. On one occasion, as the story goes, and this happened at the peak of the Second World War, Ojijo Oteko was walking towards his home. On the way, somewhere near Wagwe Health Centre, he met with soldiers driving a large herd of cattle, which were seized from their owners at gun-point.

The soldiers were under the command of a white officer in the rank of a District Officer, a Mr Morgan Walker from the Kisii D.C’s Office. Ojijo Oteko inquired about where the animals were being taken to, and was told that the animals were destined for Kisii, and would eventuality be slaughtered, and the beef taken for feeding the African soldiers fighting alongside the British and allied forces, fighting against Adolf Hitler’s German forces.

Ojijo Oteko engaged the DO in classic queens English, telling the white officer how Karachuonyo community had contributed hundreds of young soldiers to the KAR, and as such cannot part with their animals. He ordered the animals be returned to their rightful owners.

The heated argument alarmed the soldiers, who were armed with guns. They got scared, and sensing the danger of possible rioting by the natives, the white officer concurred with Ojjo Oteko, and released the animals back to their rightful owners. This was the turning point in the life of the late Ojijo Oteko, as the colonialists, working in cohort with their local chiefs and collaborators, increased their surveillance on him wherever he went.

This particular incident also earned him a nick name “Ojijo polo Mor Yimbo”, which loosely translates {Ojijo the thunderstorm is roaring in the west}.

A year later, he was pronounced dead and buried secretly under heavy armed guards.

Karachuonyo Tourism potential
Karachuonyo is an area which is potentially important as a tourist destination in Western Kenya. It is a place, which is filled with pre-historic scenarios, like the volcanic lake “Simbi Nyaima”, the crocodile shaped rock which is located on the hill top near Kadel in Kibiri area, the hot spring which produces Bala mineral salt for animal feed on the eastern slopes of Huma-Hill. The hill has many folklore and folk tales. The Kipsigis community calls it “Tiluet ab Kumiyat” loosely translates {The Hill of Honey}.

Simbi Nyaima lake is the seasonal home of the ever migrating flamingos from other places like Lake Nakuru, Lake Baringo, Lake Natron and other lakes in the Rift Valley. The bird sojourns the lake once every year and then flies out. Deep and strikingly smelling, lake Simbi Nyaima is not suitable for swimming, as it is said to be the deepest, and has some internal connection with Lake Victoria, although its waters are salty.

The geological story of Simbi Nyaima differs sharply with the tales of the local communities. The volcanic lake is as old as six centuries. It came about as a result of tremor or earthquake accompanied by volcanic eruption, perhaps in 1680, according to geologists and technical experts.

But according to the local community, Simbi Nyaima was a curse and bad omen brought upon a community which was greedy and full of arrogance.

It is said that an ugly and starving woman had visited the village at Kolonde, near Lake Simbi Nyaima, and asked to be given shelter and food. She came when the villagers were busy feasting on native alcohol {beer} in a homestead, and animals were also slaughtered.

On seeing the dirty and ugly woman, the villagers sent her away. Her attempt to get food was thwarted by the work of several able bodied men, who gave her escort out of the beer hall and homestead.

The dirty, ugly woman took shelter in the next homestead, where she found a young woman with her four children. This particular woman gave her food, and after she had warmed herself around the fire place, the ugly woman asked the woman if she was married. She replied in the affirmative, and the ugly woman instructed her to go to the beer hall and call her husband.

The young woman did that, but when she told her husband that it was the ugly woman the group had expelled from the beer hall who was calling him, the husband slapped his wife and sent her parking.

She went back to her children and narrated the incident to the ugly old woman. The ugly woman, in turn asked the woman to collect all her children and that they should leave the home as quickly as they could.

They did this, and no sooner had they stepped out of the village than followed a heavy downpour, accompanied by lightening. It rained continuously for twenty four hours, and the whole village was flooded, and the people at the beer party all got drowned in the water. The people and their domesticated animals perished.

And that is the genetics of the lake “Simbi”. The events happened during the time when the inhabitants of the area were the Luo sub-clan called Jo-Waswa, who were the earliest inhabitants of what is today called Karachuonyo. They were followed immediately by Jo-Wagwe, Jo-Kagan and others, with jo-Karachuonyo, the largest group, arriving much later, followed by the Jo-Kano groups.

The Jo-Waswa are today scattered all over Luo-Nyanza, and the bulk of them live in the North Mara or Tarime district in Tanzania. Few of them are also scattered amongst the Jo-Kano sub-clans.

The Kendu-Bay Pier, which was built by the defunct East African Railways and harbors in the early 1930s could be used as a jetty for both motorized boats and steamers as well as big ships. And even for water sporting purposes. It used to be the place for calling steamers and lighters, which were ferrying grains from Southern Nyanza for storage by the NCPB in Kisumu. But for close to two decades, what used to be one of the busiest piers in Lake Victoria is now idle.

There is plenty of scenery for birds watching. What is required is the implementation of the forty year old sleeping Western Kenya Tourist Circuit, which was formulated as a tourist attraction policy in 1966, but which has never been put into effective use.

Another industry, which has yet to be fully exploited is the doormats making processes around Otok, Kiltal and other places in Central and East Karachuonyo.

As for communications, these important roads need to be upgraded to be all weather:
(1)The road leading from Kendu-Bay Kanyadhiang’ Bridge to Pala in West.
(2)The road crossing the West from Pala via Gogo back to the main Homa-Bay Kendu Bay road at Kandiege.
(3)The Oyugis Kendu-Bay road via Kosele.
(4)Gendia Mawego-Kadongo road.
(5)Mawego-Rakwaro and Mawego Sino-Kagolla-Sikri road.
(6)Mawego-Kadongo as well as Mawego-Rakwaro.
(7)Mawego-Kokwanyo-Sikri and back to the main Kidumu –Oyugis Kisii road.
(8)Another important link is the Kadiedo-Omboga-Karabok road and so many other small feeder rand access roads.

Ends
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Category Archives: Colonial

Conflicts in Africa. Is it the Pride or the Price of African Democracy?

IS OUR COUNTRY KENYA SINKING OR NOT???.

Original Released :1950s

Karachuonyo is a potential tourist destination in Western Kenya begging to be developed