Kisumu, 26/ 02/ 08
By Leo Odera Omolo
  
THE Orange Democratic Movement members in Ainamoi constituency in Kericho district have appealed to the party’s Pentagon member William Ruto  to exercise some kind of impartiality in line with the movement’s cherished democratic principles.
   
In Kipsigis tradition and culture there is nothing like leadership inheritance, therefore, the residents have asked Hon Ruto to steer clear as far as the forthcoming ODM nomination exercise in the forthcoming by-election to fill the leadership vacuum left by untimely demise of the late Hon David Kimutai Too, the slained former MP elect for the area.
   
The residents have also appealed to the MP for the neighbouring Belgut constituency Hon. Charles Keter to mind his own constituency’s businesses and to leave the electorate  in Ainamoi alone to vote for a candidate of their own choice when the seat is declared vacant by the speaker of Parliament.
   
The residents were reacting to what they termed as unwanted remarks made by both Ruto and Keter during the funeral  of the slain MP at his village home in Chepkoiyo, Ainamoi.
   
Ruto, they claimed, had blundered into making a serious error of judgement when he made a futile attempt to front the late MPs’s younger brother Mr. Benjamin  Too as the most suitable person who would fit into his late brother’s shoes by way of taking the mantle of political leadership in Ainamoi.
   
The residents have also faulted Keter for having exploited the emotion of the mourners to prevent all the other parliamentary aspirants who had contested the election during last December and lost to the late Too from addressing the huge crowd of mourners. This, they said, was a total mockery of democracy.
   
The residents have also appealed to the ODM leader Raila Amolo Odinga to tame both Ruto and Keter or risk losing the current nearly man -to -man support the ODM support he (Raila) and the ODM is enjoying among the Kipsigis community.
   
The community had joined Raila Odinga and other democratic forces in taming Daniel Arap Moi by voting for change against the old KANU’s autocratic system previously practiced in Kipsigisland with impunity. As such, they will not allow Ruto and Keter destroy all that they fought for.
   
In December of last year close to 14 parliamentary aspirants contested the Ainamoi seat. Most of them were eliminated during ODM’s much flawed preliminaries. Some of them immediately and quickly jumped on the bandwagon of other parties and went on to contest for the seat during the election proper arguing that the former military chief is the most consistent person whose loyalty to the ODM party goes beyond comparison.
   
It has also since emerged that the retired President Daniel Arap Moi and PNU had spent a very colossal amount of money and made other campaign logistics abundantly available to KANU aspirants in nearly all the eight parliamentary seats in futile efforts to dislodge the ODM. But with presentation of the likes of Lt Gen Koech, ODM became unstoppable and sailed through capturing all seats to the chagrin of the retired mentor Moi and his political cronies in Kipsigis land.
   
The forthcoming by-election in Ainamoi could be a test of the political magnanimity of Raila and his colleagues. Residents says they are aware of political maneuvers of Ruto and Keter of supporting youthful political novices in the constituency. Keter in particular is severely criticized for not being comfortable with strong individuals political personalities in Kipsigis land and of playing dirty political brokerage in the area. All these political machinations and schemes are well known to the electorate in Ainamoi.
   
But a few notable ODM stalwarts remained loyal and vigorously campaigned for both the late Too and Raila Odinga.
   
Those notable personalities whose loyalties to the party remained intact include the populist retired fomer deputy CGS Lt Gen John K.Koech, former Kericho mayor Joel Siele, Councilor Rop, Allies Kiplekwet, Eric Sang, Chebosien Rop and Andrew Moritum.
   
Those who defected to other parties include former Minister for Water and Development Eng Kingeno Arap Ngeny, Dr Paul Chepkwony Arap Koros, the immediate former area MP Noah N Too, Mrs Anne Kibet and Kiptanui Kirior.
   
Lt Gen (Rtd) John Koech not only campaigned in Kipsigis land but actually teamed up with other campaigners at the Pentagon and extended his activities to the entire Kalenjin region. He contributed immensely to ODM success in Kipsigisland and also in the Diaspora.
   
A group of public opinion leaders in Ainamoi have come up with the idea which will be presented to Raila Odinga immediately after the seat is declared vacant. They would pressurize Odinga and his Pentagon team to consider the possibility of giving direct ODM nominations to Lt.Gen Koech.
   
Taking into account the gender issue, others argue that Mrs Rehel Yegon could have been a suitable ODM nominee.

    
It has been leaked that apart from Buret MP Franklin Bett, who is credited for having backed the idea of giving the community one slot in the nominations, most Kipsigis MPs did not want anyone to be nominated to Parliament from the region and Hon Keter stands blamed for the apathy.
   
At the Bomas, Lt Gen Koech was chosen to lead the ODM campaign in the South Rift region which also covered Kericho, Buret, Bomet and Kilgoris and part of Molo and Narok, a role which he played with zeal. He had inspired the community who overwhelmingly voted for Raila and ODM MPs and sent PNU and Moi’s agents packing after being given a run for their money.
   
A rumour in the region is that Moi’s agents had succeeded in infiltrating the ODM rank and file. They sponsored ODM candidates in Konoin, Kipkelion, Buret, Bomet and Ainamoi. They sponsored weak candidates to win ODM preliminaries so that they could eventually lose to KANU in the election.  The idea is said to have flopped with a thud.
   
ENDS
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

  Kisumu, 20/02/2008
       By Leo Odera Omolo
  
  Farmers in Western Kenya, especially those farming in the North Rift Region, are facing a planting crisis following recently increased fuel prices and the high cost of all other farm inputs.
  
  Reports emerging from Eldoret town say that soaring prices coupled with the effect of the post-election violence have forced some large and small scale farmers to consider abandoning the cultivation of maize and wheat for fear of incurring heavy losses.
  
  Farmers now want the government to re-introduce the guaranteed minimum return (GMR) loaning scheme policy to cushion them in case of crop failure.
  
  One prominent farmer in Uasin Gishu district, Mr. Said Chepkeitany, remarked “we are likely to experience low harvest this season due to high cost of production.”
  
  The shortest GMR loan scheme policy, which protected the farmers against incurring losses following poor harvests, was scrapped by the government several years ago leaving farmers with no alternative but to take risks in agricultural investment.
  
  Fears by the farmers have been confirmed by the Agricultural Ministry’s field officials who admitted rising production costs would interrupt this season’s planting programming.
  
  The price of fertilizers like double ammonium phosphate has increased from Kshs 2600 to Kshs 3400 while diesel has increased from Kshs 77.29 to Kshs 82.24 per litre.
  
  The North Rift region covering Trans-Nzoia and Uasin Gishu districts have long been recognized as the granaries of Kenya. The region produced 12 million bags of maize and 3.7 million bags of wheat last year.
  
  The farmers in the region were motivated to increase the acreage under production for maize and wheat following the disbursement of Kshs 482 million by the government through the Agricultural Finance Cooperation (AFC) to boost productivity.
  
  The revival of agricultural mechanizations through tractor hire services and the revitalization of the Kenya Seed Company and AFC have also enabled farmers to increase crop acreage.
  
  The reports also paint a gloomy picture for milk production in the country indicating that dairy farmers and several milk processing companies are also strugging to keep up with milk demand in the country.
  
  The low milk supply is due to the post-election violence that characterized the milk-producing Rift Valley.

  
  The company’s branch manager Rosemary Aloo was recently quoted by the local press saying “our production process has been revised to match the milk supplies we receive from our outlets in the Province.”  She added that “a bulk of our suppliers in the region have been affected by the violence.”
  
  Although the relatively calm central Province has provided the lifeline supply, it is being fought for between the big players in the dairy industry–Spin Knit Dairy, New KCC and Brookeside Dairy–as well as by other small-scale processors that dot the province.
  
  Statistics from the Kenya Dairy Board, the market regulator, shows that, by last year, milk production had grown by almost 100 percent over a period of four years.
  
  Production in the country stood at 3.8 billion litres annually compared to 2.8 billion litres in the year 2004.
  
  However, this year’s production is expected to take a nosedive in the first quarter. The majority of farmers engaged in milk production in the Rift valley Province have been displaced from their farms and have had dairy cattle stolen.
  
  Over the past two years, Kenya has developed as a net exporter of milk mainly to its neighbours in the region and to Middle Eastern countries. Of the total sales revenue for family businesses, about 10 percent originates from export sales.
  
  
  Ends
  Leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
   
  

  KANO VILLAGERS WERE SHOCKED AS THE DECOMPOSED BODY OF A KISUMU TYCOON WAS EXHUMED IN A LEGAL  TUSSLE 

 Kisumu, 21/02/2008
  
  By Leo Odera Omolo
  
  The completely decomposed body of a Kisumu and Nyando districts based business tycoon was recently exhumed from the grave after burial for a couple of weeks in what observers believed was a struggle among his family members over the inheritance of his massive wealth.
  
  Mzee Paul Odero Isacka, aged about 88 years, died of natural causes more than a month ago after a long bout with illness.
  
  Commonly known to his peers as “the Lord Mayor of Ahero, Paul Isacka Odero was a prominent businessman in both Kisumu and Ahero towns and also a large scale sugarcane farmer around Tamu settlement scheme in Muhoroni area.
  
  For many years he was the main distributor of beer and Tobacco in the old larger Kisumu district and built his wealth from his sugarcane farming and other businesses in Kisumu and Ahero towns. He was also involved in the real estate development business.
  
  Soon after Odero’s death, his immediate family made elaborate funeral arrangements. The plan detailed how the tycoon’s body would be removed from the Aga Khan Hospital mortuary and driven to his Kisumu Milimani House for a brief stop-over and public viewing.
  
  Also in the burial plan was an arrangement for the late Mzee Odero to stay briefly at his ancestral home in Nyakoko Village, Kamagaga sub-clan in North East Kano location before his body was driven to his Muhoroni farm house for a public viewing and overnight stay..
  
  Kamagaga sub-clan is the place where Mzee Paul Odero had established his  traditional homestead. His first wife’s house is still standing there and his relatives wished him to buried there in accordance with Luo tradition and culture..
  
  But in the early 1960s Mzee Odero became one of the local entrepreneurs and pioneers who moved to the new settlement  in Muhoroni. He bought a large scale farm with a complete ultra-modern European house that had been built using white settler aid lived.  Odero, a polygamist, had several homes.  He lived in the European-stle house with his first wife and also moved his other family members to the settlement. 
  
  Mzee Odero, however, did not dismantle his rural home nor the rural house of his first wife.  In Luo tradition, this is symbolic and is taken to mean that the traditional home remained intact.  Even his elder son Peter Oguko Odero maintains a cottage in the same abandoned homestead even though he divides his time between Kisumu where his first wife resides and Eldoret where his second wife resides.
  
  On the day of the body’s transportation to Muhoroni, the Jo-Kamagaga sub-clan members armed themselves with crude weapons. They intercepted the body which was being transported on the back of a pick-up and forcefully seized it after beating up the truck driver.
  
  The clan felt that Mzee Odero’s Muhoroni home was only a commercial farm house.  They believed that, because he had bought someone else’ readily made home, the Muhoroni homestead should not be his final resting place. They forcefully grabbed the body and buried it in his original old home. The burial, according to eye witnesses, took place at 9pm in the evening. Neither Mzee Odero’s wives nor his sons were there to witness the burial.
  
  The Muhoroni villagers’ actions prompted Mzee Odero’s sons to move to court and demand that his body be exhumed and handed over to them for burial at his Muhoroni home. Despite having enormous wealth, the business mogul never wrote any death will.
  
  The court ordered that the body be exhumed and preserved in a morgue pending the full hearing and determination of the suit brought forth by Mzee Odero’s eight relatives.
  
  Mzee Odero’s body was exhumed by prisoners under tight security and was mounted by heavy armed police men. Villagers who dare to moved close to the grave were tear-gassed and kept at a distance as the security men surrounded the old homestead while a prisoner dug out the body.
  
  The empty grave was later partially covered with an old door.  People in Kamagaga village, located about 5km north of Ahero town are still startled by the event.
  
  It was not possible to immediately establish which mortuary the decomposing body was moved to but eye witnesses report that it was carried in a polythene bag as the coffin was left intact in the grave.
  
  Family members were unwilling to discuss the matter.
  
  Ends

  Leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
  

   
  By Leo Odera Omolo
   
      
  Trouble is brewing in the usually quiet Tea Board of Kenya over the board representation in some parts of the tea growing zone.
  
  The source of the problem is the current Sotik zone representative in the board Mr. Titus Korir whose tenure is schedule to expire next month. Korir is a former corporate director of the James Finlays TEA Company Limited. He is also doubling as the current chairman of the Kericho based Tea Growers Association of Kenya (KTGA).
  
  He retired from the company about five years ago but was retained on a three year contract that has since expired. Both large and small scale tea farmers in the Sotik zone have disowned Mr. Korir arguing that he represented the area in default, and that the time is ripe for the farmers to pick one of their own to represente their interests in the Tea Board of Kenya.
   
  Meanwhile, officials of the Kenya Plantation and general Agricultural Workers Union have put up strong arguments saying that since Mr. Korir has keft the services of the James Finlays Tea Company he should no longer sit in the KTGA board because he has ceased to be a player in the tea industry. He is not a large scale tea farmer anywhere within the tea industry fraternity.  Therefore, the sooner he removes himself from the KTGA the better.
  
  A source at the unions office in Nandi Hills  warned that unless Mr. Korir stops forthwith from acting on behalf of KTGA, the union would consider the option of not recognizing the board’s decisions, especially those concerning industrial relations matters.
  
  Sotik farmers said they were firm and would no longer consider Mr. Korir as their representative. “We are in the process of proposing the name of a true and genuine farmers from the Sotik zone who would represent our interests in the board,” said one farmer who requested anonymity for fear of possible consequences.
  
  According to a Union source, Mr. Korir, after retiring from the James Finlays Tea Company (formerly African Highland Produce Limited), has now moved to the KTGA headquarters based in Kericho Town from where he is now operating as an executive director on a daily basis.  Yet the position of the KTGA chairmanship is a non-executive one. The union finds this to be mischievous. Once a Director of  James Finlays Tea Company retires from the tea company, he immediately relinquishes his position to a full-time serving director of the same firm. His mandate expires and he should not continue to create despondency within both the KTGA and Tea Board of Kenya.
  
  Workers and staff at the James Finlays Tea company where Mr. Korir had served in senior positions for many years had celebrated his exit, saying that he was running the company with an iron fist. He is blamed for heavy handedness in tackling tea workers matters, and for having promoted sectarianism and nepotism in the services of the company as well as tribal cleansing.
   
The Union is blaming the management of the James Finlaysd for allegedly allowing and enabling Mr. Korir to continue frustrating the workers even though he had already retired from the company. “Sooner or later we shall ignore any discussion involving industrial maters with the KTGA if Mr. Korir continues to sit chairing the board’s meetings. The union might consider the possibility of revoking most of its agreement with KTGA under the chairmanship of Mr. Korir,” said a union source in Nakuru.
  
  The Unions secretary General Francis Atwoli, who is also the secretary general of the Central organization of Trade Unions of Kenya (COTU-K) could not be reached for immediate comments on the issue.  The CEO of James Finlays Tea Company, Mr. Nail Davies, also could not be reached for his immediate comment.
  
  But a source at the Union hinted that they were not comfortable with the controversial former James Finlays  Tea Company  director and would support his immediate removal from the KTGA. “After replacing him from the office, the company should not allow the same person whose services had been discontinued to represent them in the sensitive KTGA board which is the one handling its industrial relations mattrers,” said a top union official.
  
  Ends
  
  leooderaomolo@yahoo.com