Category Archives: Tradition

KENYA: ROW EMERGE AS KER RIAGA OGALO IS CONTROVERSIALLY REPLACED AS CHAIRMAN OF LUO COUNCIL OF ELDERS

BY INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER.

Cracks have emerged amongst Luo elders following the controversial replacement of the embattled Luo Council of Elders’ former chairman Ker Meshack Riaga Ogalo.

Riaga was over the weekend replaced at a function in South Nyanza which was also attended by several elders and leaders from the region amongst them , the Prime Minister Raila Odinga and a host of Luo Nyanza MPs

Earlier the elders and a section of the MPs held a closed door meeting with the PM at Sony Sugar’s guest house at Awendo trading center before the team left for a declaration at Awendo grounds in Migori town .

During the colorful ceremony which was skipped by the immediate former chairman and those who back him, Willis Opiyo Otondi was crowned the new Ker.

Otondi hails from Kisumu county and his election into the seat sometime this year is still is pending before a Kisumu court after Riaga and his team obtained a court injunction.

In a quick rejoinder Riaga maintained he was still the chairman of the council insisting the constitution guiding operations of the outfit fully recognized him as such.

Speaking to this journalist on phone Riaga dismissed as futile attempts to oust him claiming they were politically instigated and vowed to resist those behind the schemes.

While hitting out at those who attended the Migori function Riaga dismissed his ouster as the work of some ODM MPs he did not name and went on to describe it as a Raila affair which he can not accept or respect and vowed to continue serving in that capacity .

He said having been elected into the chair , he can only be replaced upon death adding that the constitution is very clear on how succession should happen at the council and declared he was not a coward.

Controversy pitying the Luo council of elders began sometime this year when Riaga reportedly made a trip to Libya allegedly without seeking the opinion and approval of a section of its members.

Some were also unhappy with his decision to champion a campaign which saw an NGO push male circumcision amongst the community which traditionally did not practice the cut.

The spirited campaigns which was backed by scientific evidence indicating male circumcision could reduce HIV infection rates amongst those circumcised by up to 60 per cent met both resistance and support from different people in the community.

It was however embraced by key politicians from the community including Raila himself and several youths have since undergone the procedure medically.

But unconfirmed reports indicated that while in Libya Riaga could have met president Mummar Gadaffi who is alleged to have plaid host him and other elders according to the information.

The Libyan meeting was reportedly attended by several other council leaders from other tribes across Africa with some coming from the neighbouring Uganda.

Those who were opposed to the meeting accused Riaga of using his position to allegedly seek funding with claims that he was intending to uplift the community through various development projects while in reality the monies were to be kept by him.

Another school of thought is however of the opinion that the embattled Ker attracted problems to himself the moment he began edging closer to the Eldoret north MP William Ruto who currently is a bitter political rival of ODM supremo Raila Odinga.

Those who believe his problems can be traced to his closeness with Ruto claim Riaga who convened a fundraiser at his home with the former minister as the chief guest should have seen it coming all along.

They argue that having been elevated into the office of Ker by Raila , Riaga should have known better than embrace Ruto who is now perceived by many in political circles as the premier’s arch rival.

Kisumu town west MP lawyer Olago Aluoch joined the fray and called on the embattled chairman to swallow his pride and accept the verdict of the people gracefully.

Many observers from Luo Nyanza are now waiting to see what impact , if any will the new development have on the politics of the region.

The bitter Riaga himself while faulting the move said it was wrong for Raila who will be gunning for the presidency come the year 2012 to back another man from his native central Nyanza region as the head the council of elders.

He said politicians should keep off the affairs of the council although it is not lost on many that Riaga himself was a beneficiary of the same politicians when Raila picked him to the chair and left out the late controversial KANU stalwart Oselu Nyalik who for along time opposed the Odingas politically.

Apart from the late Jaromogi Oginga Odinga who until his death was also Luo Ker , many previous holders of that office have traditionally come from the greater Southern Nyanza.

ENDS.

ARABS’ MORTAL HATRED AND ENSLAVEMENT OF THE BLACK RACE

By NAIWU OSAHON

Jerusalem was captured by the Arabs in 638 CE. Alexandria in Egypt fell to them in 643 CE. In 698 CE, they captured Carthage thus ensuring their political influence in all of northern Africa around the Mediterranean. Arabs did not move into the region until much later but tried to control it at the time with language and the Islamic religion. The Arabs began to invade Africa in large numbers from 749 CE when they settled in Alexandria, Egypt. They were mistakenly seen as African cousins and were welcomed as saviours from the oppressive rule of the Byzantium (Graeco-Roman domination.) The Arabs did not directly force their religion on the African Egyptians at first, that followed later, but unlike Christianity, Islam could not be translated into local languages.

With the Africans, looking for something to replace their banned traditional religion, and imposed Graeco-Roman Christianity, literacy in Arabic soon spread, and assisted by inter-marriages and Christian apostasy, (the reverse was punishable by death in Islam) to gain relief from taxation, Islam quickly became the religion of the land.

Although the Qur’an does not distinguish between races, there is a strong legacy of racism against Africans from early Islam because the language, traditions and customs of the Arabs supports the down grading of the African race. Dr. Azumah in his book: The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa provides several examples of Islam’s hatred of Blacks. There is the example in the hadith in which an Ethiopian woman laments her racial inferiority to Muhammad, who consoles her by saying, “In Paradise, the whiteness of the Ethiopian will be seen over the stretch of a thousand years.”

Another hadith quotes Muhammad thus: “Do not bring black into your pedigree.” In fact, the Arabic word for slave, “Abd,” became equated with Africans and Blacks with the advent of Islam. Osama Bin Laden, in a discussion with the Sudanese-American novelist, Kola Boof, in Morocco in 1996 said, “when next you meet an Arab, you should ask what is the Arabic word for slave, you’ll discover that the words are the same “abeed.” Which is why, when an Arab looks at a black African, what he sees is a slave.”

Muhammad owned and sold Black slaves. In fact, he ordered and built the pulpit of his mosque with African slave labour. The Qur’an encourages sex with female slaves in several places. Classical Islamic law allows a light-skinned Muslim man to marry a Black woman, but a Black Muslim man is restricted from marrying a light-skinned woman. As the literature of the time put it, “only a whore prefers blacks; the good woman will welcome death rather than being touched by a black man.”

So interwoven is slavery with Islam that Islam’s holiest city, Mecca (site of the Haj pilgrimage), was a slave trading capital. Quoting Azumah again, up until the 20th century, Mecca served as the gateway to the Muslim world for slaves brought out of Africa. “It became a custom for pilgrims to take slaves for sale in Mecca or buy one or two slaves while on Haj as souvenirs to be kept, sold or given as gifts.”

Muslim Arab and Persian literature depicts Blacks as “stupid, untruthful, vicious, sexually unbridled, ugly and distorted, excessively merry and easily affected by music and drink.” Nasir al-Din Tusi, a famous Muslim scholar said of Blacks: “The ape is more capable of being trained than the Negro.” Ibn Khaldun, an early Muslim thinker, writes that Blacks are “only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings.”

Ibn Sina (Avicenna 980–1037), Arab’s most famous and influential philosopher/scientist in Islam, described Blacks as “people who are by their very nature slaves.” He wrote: “All African women are prostitutes, and the whole race of African men are abeed (slave) stock.” He equated Black people with “rats plaguing the earth.” Ibn Khaldum, an Arab historian stated that “Blacks are characterized by levity and excitability and great emotionalism,” adding that “they are every where described as stupid.”

al-Dimashqi, an Arab pseudo scientist wrote, “the Equator is inhabited by communities of blacks who may be numbered among the savage beasts. Their complexion and hair are burnt and they are physically and morally abnormal. Their brains almost boil from the sun’s heat…..” Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani painted this no less horrid picture of black people, “…..the zanj (the blacks) are overdone until they are burned, so that the child comes out between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly-haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions…..”

Arabs’ attitude to Blacks derives from Genesis’ racist fiction of the three sons of Noah – Ham, Japheth and Shem. Arabs claim that “the accursed Ham was the progenitor of the black race; that Japheth begat the full-faced, small eyes Europeans, and that Shem fathered the handsome of face with beautiful hair Arabs,” of course.

After the Arabs had conquered Egypt and shortly after Muhammad’s death, they began demanding Nubian slaves from the south. This continued for 600 years. Dominated African kingdoms were forced to send on a regular basis, tributes of slaves to the Arab ruler in Cairo. From as early as the 6th century CE, they had developed slavery supply networks out of Africa, from the Sahara to the Red Sea and from Ethiopia, Somalia and East Africa, to feed demands for slaves all over the Islamic world and the Indian Ocean region. The African male slaves were castrated and used as domestic servants or to work the Sahara salt deposits or on farms all over the Islamic world.

The African female servants were continuously raped before being sold to households to be used as sex labour. Off-springs from the illicit encounters were largely destroyed as unworthy to live. Between 650 CE and 1905 CE, over 20, 000,000 African slaves had been delivered through the Tans-Sahara route alone to the Islamic world. Dr. John Alembellah Azumah in his book: The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa estimates that over 80 million more died en-route. A text from Dr. Azumah books, provides this quote from a Zanzibar observer about the travails of African slaves en-route to slave markets around the Arabic world.

“As they filed past, we noticed many chained together by the neck… The women, who were as numerous as the men, carried babies on their backs in addition to a tusk of ivory or other burden on their heads… It is difficult to adequately describe the filthy state of their bodies; in many instances not only scarred by [the whip], but feet and shoulders were a mass of open sores… half-starved ill-treated creatures who, weary and friendless, must have longed for death.”

A Muslim herdsman, in Dr. Azumah’s book described the fate of those who became too ill or too weak to continue the journey as follows: “We speared them at once! For, if we did not, others would pretend they are ill in order to avoid carrying their loads. No! We never leave them alive on the road; they all know this custom.”

When asked who carries the ivory when a mother gets too tired to carry both her baby and the ivory, the herdsman replied, “She does! We cannot leave valuable ivory on the road. We spear the child and make her burden lighter.”

Between 9th and 10th centuries, several millions of Zanjs (Black) slaves were imported from Zanzibar to Lower Iraq where they constituted more than half the total population and worked to clear saline lands for irrigation and to cultivate sugar. The African slaves were transported through Mombasa, Zanzibar and the Sudan. More millions of African slaves were involved in the Islamic experience on the East African route than in the West African/Sahara route. At first, they were used largely for military purposes then as domestic servants, concubines or eunuchs, in affluent Muslim households. In Northern Africa, many became galley slaves, and in the Persian Gulf, pearl divers, port labourers, sailors, or date farmhands. Some notable Africans from the Arab slavery experience included the Nubian eunuch, Abu I-Misk Kufur, who became regent of Egypt in the 10th century, and Sidi Badr, who briefly seized the throne of Bengal in the 1490s. There was also the 17th century great African Muslim general, Mails Ambar, who led the resistance of the Deccans against the Mughals. A distinctive African community has survived culturally in a place called Jiruft in Iran.

With the death of Askia Muhammad, the Emperor of Songhai, in 1528 CE, Songhai Empire started falling apart. This was the opportunity Ahmad al-Mansur, the Emperor of Morocco had been waiting for to conquer Western Sudan after his Spanish humiliation. He took his time to plan his invasion and when he felt ready in 1591 CE, he sent an army of some four thousand musketeers under the leadership of a Spanish mercenary officer called Judar Pasha. The army crossed the Sahara and was on the border of Songhai before serious attention was given to it. Songhai’s ruler, Askia Ishak II, called up a superior number of army but relying on traditional weapons. The two armies met on April 12, 1591, at a small town called Tondibi, about fifty miles from the capital city of Gao. Inspite of the brave stand of the Songhai army, the Moroccan soldiers overwhelmed them and moved into the country to wreck havoc.

Prof. Clarke informs us that: “The Moroccan invasion of Songhai and eventually, other nations of the Western Sudan was made all the more tragic because in most cases it was Muslim against Muslim. The invaders from North Africa and their European mercenary troops did not spare any one, not man, woman or child. They pitilessly slew the now demoralized citizens who cried out to them; we are Muslims, we are your brothers in religion. The war brought no honour to either side and in the years that followed, an appreciation of African intellectual and material contribution to Spain and the other nations of the Mediterranean sphere was lost from the respectful commentary of human history.”

The mid 18th century saw the growth of Islamic Tariqa, an aggressive form of religious worship intolerant of traditional or other religions, culture or customs. Tariqa had two divisions, Tijaniyya and Qudiriyya, and were usually led locally by charismatic, learned and well-travelled clerics, determined to purify and cleanse fellow Muslims and conquer non-believers through the jihad (holy war.)

Usman Dan Fodio of Sokoto (Northern Nigeria) and Umar Ibn Said Tall of Tukolor (Western Sudan) were two of such leaders who started out as reformers and ended as rulers of large tracks of land and people. Many African Muslim leaders have used the rhetoric of jihad to capture power for themselves. When the Yoruba leaders in western Nigeria were fighting each other for supremacy in the 1820s because of the breakdown of Oyo kingdom, jihad leaders invited from Northern Nigeria to intervene, grabbed the leadership of northern Yoruba land instead. Their advance southwards, “to dip the Koran into the sea,” as they called it, was only stopped after a hard fight at the edge of the forest into southern Yoruba land.

Samori Toure used jihad to take over control of a large portion of the Upper Niger region in the 1870s and 1880s. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad, having conquered eastern Sudan, declared himself the Madhi only to be succeeded after his death by another Muslim leader, Khalifa Abdallahi. Rabih, after taking over leadership of Central Sudan (i.e., south-west of Darfur) in 1893, advanced westwards to take control of Bornu in Nigeria from another Muslim leader who had himself dethroned the ancient Saifawa Dynasty founded in the 8th century CE. By the end of the 19th century CE, nearly all of Sudan from the Nile to the Atlantic was under Muslim leaders.

The chaos and devastation that followed the invasions finally set up Africa for the intense Islamic and European slave trade that followed. As the Muslim conquest and religion spread throughout North Africa and across the Sahara into West Africa, so did Arab hunger to enslave the Africans increase.

This trade in African slaves, begun by the Arabs, went on uninterrupted from the 6th century CE, to the 19th century CE, softening Africa militarily, culturally, economically, socially and politically, for the joint European and Arab onslaught on African people and economy, from the 15th century CE.

Arabs were the principal raiders and middle men for the Atlantic slave trade that decimated populations in West African. In the late 18th century CE, with most of the slave trade along the West African coast dominated by Christians, the bulk of the Arab slave trade shifted to Zanzibar, conquered then by Omani Arabs. Omani Sultan-Seyyid Said, an Arab, as the new ruler of Zanzibar, expanded the business in slavery and the trade in Ivory considerably in 1840, by re-opening and developing old established routes into the interior, to the Great Lakes and the Congo. While retaining some slaves to staff their expanding clove plantations in Zanzibar and neighbouring Pemba, they as usual, exported the great majority of their African slaves. Omani Arabs, as the Sultan’s invaders were known, raided villages, killing and maiming thousands of people in the interior of the African continent, to capture and sell some 20,000 of them yearly at their notorious Zanzibar slave market. From there, slaves were sold and cargoed all over the Mediterranean, Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Asia. Those destined for Sindh in Pakistan, for instance, first arrived in the Omani port of Muscat from where they were shipped to Karachi. Some reached Sindh through owner-to-owner transactions, originating from points along the Makran coast of the present day Pakistani and Irani Baloshistans.

The African slaves involved, were mainly Swahili from areas now known as Kenya and mainland Tanzania. The Muslim African captives faired no better than their West African kith and kin enslaved by the West in the ‘New World.’ Arabs did not only start and sell African slaves from the 6th to the 19th century in the Islamic world; they were the principal raiders, merchants and middle men for the Atlantic slave trade. In fact, even now, hundreds of years later, millions of African settler slaves are still being discriminated against and treated as the scum of the earth (untouchables) in Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, and all the Muslim states of Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Northern Africa.

Expansion of Western influence all over Africa, especially after the European partition in 1884 CE, tended to restrict Islam to purely missionary activities. During the period of sharing influence with the West over the direction of African destiny, Islam did not suffer the disadvantage of Christianity’s link with the conqueror regimes and so was able to consolidate and expand. By the 19th century, for example, 65%- 90% of the Swahili Moslem population of Zanzibar was enslaved, close to 90% on the Kenyan coast and in Madagascar was enslaved and in Ghana, 30% of the African Muslims were enslaved. Since the dawn of flag independence in Africa from the 1960s, it has been business as usual with regular threats of Jihad. Several African youths are being recruited into guerrilla activities after training in Libya, or deceived with promises of better wages, and smuggled out of Africa to the Arab world, particularly to Lebanon and Afghanistan, to work as domestic servants, behind iron walls of seclusion, deprivation, abject misery, and poverty.

Arab enslavement of Black Africans continues to this day in the Muslim world, particularly in the Sudan, Niger, and Mauritania. To admit that it is a mistake would be to admit the fallibility of the Qur’an and bring its divine origin into question. Even today, Muslims act as if Islamic slavery was a favor done to the millions of unfortunate men, women and children who were forcibly uprooted from their native lands and sent to lives of sexual and mental servitude deep in the Islamic world.

Arab imperialism is worse than European imperialism, only that the latter is less subtle and more widespread. Europeans relatively, have some conscience, not much, but they are, at least, slightly more tolerant of dissent than the Arabs. Europeans did not completely destroy African cultures. Our history and religions yes, while our cultures and traditions were largely derided as primitive and banned, ignored or marginalized. In all areas conquered by Islam, the natives lost their ethnic names, religions, and peculiar way of life, to those of their Arab masters. The slaves or the religiously colonized Muslims are left bare, without a past or future of their own, a worse form of slavery and emasculation.

The Arabs stripped us totally of everything, our history, religions, cultures, names, languages and traditions. Their religion overwhelmed our cultures and traditions wherever they conquered us, to the extent that Africans in Arab governed states today, no longer bear their original African names, nor do they remember their history. They cannot even recall that they were Black, independent and thriving communities, before the Arabs colonized them. They cannot imagine that they were the original settlers and masters of the entire Arab world. All African natives in Arab governed countries, think that Allah ordained their inferior status to the Arabs.

Egypt is still so intimidated by its glorious Black African past that its Arab government would not allow thorough research into Egypt’s past. President Gamal Abdel Nasser falsified Egyptian history when he declared Egypt an Arab Republic. Anwar Sadat was forced to divorce his Black wife, denounce his Black children and marry a light-skin cousin before becoming Egypt’s President. Egyptian authorities refused to allow American film makers to make a film on the life of Anwar Sadat in Egypt on the ground that the actor chosen for Sadat’s role was Black.

When Morocco left the OAU in 1984, it aspired to become a member of the European Union. In Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Mauritania and the rest of the Arab world, Africans are treated as the scum of the earth. They are second-class citizens at the very best in their own countries. Blacks in these countries cannot aspire to positions of respect or authority. There are hardly Africans in high government positions in Arab governed African countries. Like Brazil, which is just as racially cruel against their Black natives, there is no legislation favouring slavery (except in Mauritania.) It is simply a way of life that’s all. Blacks do not really exist or at best are not humans.

Mauritania left the Economic Community of West African States to join the union formed by the Arab North African States. A few years ago, Mauritania sacked all Black natives from their civil service positions. Black Mauritanians protest their plight to the African Union (AU) without receiving attention, because AU Black leaders fear offending their Arab colleagues in the AU. In Mauritania, they have had to declare an end to slavery six times in this century alone, and still nothing has changed for the captive majority African natives. African slavery is still in their statute books. African slavery in Mauritania is what the on going quarrel between Mauritania and Senegal is about. The quarrel forced Black African refugees to pour across the border from Mauritania into Senegal. In Algeria, Arabs throw stones at Black people, including diplomats, in markets and other public places.

To quote Prof. Clarke, “Arabs always act as though they are not in Africa. Once when I was visiting Egypt, I told my Egyptian Arab host to get a cab ready for the next morning that I was going to Kenya. So you are going to Africa to visit your people? We got no diseases here, why are you leaving us?” the host asked. Across the Red Sea, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Blacks are treated worse than animals after using their life’s savings to go there on pilgrimage. Hundreds of Blacks who have lived all their lives in Saudi Arabia are being repatriated daily after loosing an arm or a leg for some minor or trumped up offense and without regard for their comfort, welfare or rights. Racism towards Black Muslims in Saudi Arabia is so strong it makes one wonder if making pilgrimage to Mecca should be one of the five pillars of the Muslim faith, and why Blacks bother to be Muslim.

Col. Gadhafi saw vicious White racism in the tragic death in August 1997, of Princess Diana of Wales, the mother of a future king of England, and her Arab lover. What no one remembered to ask Gadhafi was whether he himself was disposed to allowing any daughter of his to marry even the richest Black man in the world let alone a Black Libyan. If one were to ask Gadhafi why Africans are not high up in his government, he might balk that all Libyans are Africans. In that case, one should go and find out the truth for oneself in the poor sections of town. One would be shocked by the plight of our African kith and kin that constitute the bulk of the population in oil rich Libya and other Northern African countries similarly afflicted with Arab racism. While pretending to champion pan-African interest, he is busy deporting Black immigrants.

On 9 May, 1997, in flagrant defiance of a UN embargo on flights in and out of Libya, Col. Gadhafi invaded Nigeria with his planes carrying 1,000 members of his rag-tag army, plus 500 journalists. They strategically occupied the Kano airport and his other reception facilities, with the connivance of the Nigerian Muslim dictator host. The purpose was to launch a jihad in supposedly religiously secular Nigeria, or at least precipitate a serious schism between the predominantly Moslem north of the country and the Christian and animist south. Right now the Moslem world is trying to use ‘Sharia’ to dismember Nigeria. Pakistan, Libya and Saudi Arabia, to name a few, have pumped substantial funds into Zamfara, the first of Nigeria’s Sharia states, to start the process of Islamizing, (or at least trigger mayhem and civil war) in Nigeria as in Sudan.

No nation in Africa has suffered more in the hands of the Arabs than Ethiopia. It has been going on since Arabs first invaded Africa in the 7th century CE. Recently, with Libya supporting the people of Eritrea, they destroyed the basic structure of Ethiopia, to cut her from the sea and weaken this section of Africa, and eventually all of Africa, for further Arabization. They did this mercilessly with religion.

In the last 38 years, Gadhafi at one time or the other, tried to force Libya’s unification with Egypt, Algeria etc., and has continued the effort since with Sudan. He forcibly annexed the Auzon Strip from Chad, and sponsored destabilization in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mali, Cote d’ Ivoire, Niger, etc in pursuance of his Arabization of Africa policy, laced with inordinate imperial personal ambition. In 1998, his strategy got a fillip with the founding of his community of Sahel-Savannah States (CEN – SAD) which he was hoping to use to control the envisaged African Union (AU.) The CEN – SAD, at the moment, ropes in 25 African states from West, East, and Central Africa, and includes Senegal, Cote d’Ivore, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Comoro Islands etc. Most of these unsuspecting African countries were stable until they joined CEN – SAD.

Col. Muammar Gadhafi pushed desperately for a United States of Africa government to be approved, set up, and launched right there and then, at the 9th ordinary Session of the Assembly of the heads of states of the African Union (AU) held in July 2007, in Accra, Ghana. He has heightened his Arabization policy pursuit at the AU level since 2001, pretending to be promoting the Pan-African agenda of Kwame Nkrumah. Chinweizu, the renowned scholar, described Gadhafi’s Arab-Black Africa government plan at the time, “as unification of nigger monkey with python.” Arabs themselves divide Africa into North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa to instigate a division and as long as the invaders continue to occupy our land and treat us as slaves in North Africa, the two segments of the continent cannot cohabit.

In a paper presented at the meeting of the Arab league in Amman, Jordan, in 2001, Muammar Gadhafi spelt out the Arabization agenda against Africa in language reminiscent of Adolph Hitler’s Lebensraum, (Hitler’s sick obsession to secure a living space for political and economic expansion in Europe) for the Germans, (the superior race.) Gadhafi in his address during the Amman’s Arab conference, invited his Arab brothers outside of Africa to come to Africa in the following words. “The third of the Arab community living outside Africa should move in with the two-thirds (about 250 million) on the continent and join the African Union, which is the only space we have.”

Gadhafi’s unbridled urge in modern times to enlarge Arabia inside Africa, is a continuation of the Arab war against Africans and the Arabization of African lands that started in the 7th century CE. Arabs have since settled on one-third of Africa, pushing continuously southwards towards the Atlantic Ocean. Arabs’ racial war against Black Africa started with their occupation and colonization of Egypt between 637 and 642 CE, decimating the Coptic or Black population. Between 642 and 670 CE, more Arab invaders poured into Africa and occupied areas known today as Tunisa, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, where they physically eliminated most of the native (Berber) inhabitants. The Berbers that escaped death ran westwards and southwards towards the Sahara.

In the 11th century CE, fresh Arab migrants of nomadic origin, migrated into North Africa to displace and drive the remaining pastoral Berbers deeper into the Sahara desert. With Arab consolidation and backing in Northern Africa, new waves of Arab invaders and migrants pushed deeper into the Nile banks, inhabited then by the Nilotic Shiluk, and continued all the way down to where Dueim stands today, belonging then to the Dinka and Furnawi autochthons. The entire territory was known at the time as Bilad as-Sudan (the Arabic for land of the Blacks) and currently includes the Republic of Sudan.

Continuing with their Arabization of African land policy through elimination, displacement, separation, marginalization and suppression, the Arab invaders of Bilad as-Sudan, over the passage of time, decimated the population of (the Nilotic Shiluk, Dinka and Furnawi autochthons) owners of the land, and pushed to restrict the rest waiting for elimination to Darfur area and the South of the country, which the Arab invaders are now intent on taking from the native Black Africans. This is the genesis of the war in Sudan. It is a racial war. The Arabs want the Republic of Sudan, which by land mass is the largest country in Africa, to be an entirely Arab state, by exterminating the Black native population gradually to the last person.

The war in Sudan is our modern day Haiti war in terms of Black liberation, and our recent fight against apartheid. Arabs are carrying out ethnic cleansing right now in Southern Sudan, with the financial support of the Arab world, particularly Libya and Saudi Arabia. China is backing them against Africa. The Janjaweed, with Sudanese and Arab governments’ backing, are trying to wipe out the Black population so as to expropriate their lands, but Africans, including Nigerians, do not know where their interests should reside. The Arabs succeeded in doing the same thing in Northern Africa where the original Nubian African owners of the land have almost all been wiped out and the rest marginalized (enslaved) by their Arab invaders/settlers since 642 CE. Islamization is not the problem in Sudan because the majority Furnawi people of Darfur are Muslims. Arabs do not consider Black Muslims authentic or of consequence. At best, they concede to Blacks, the role of ordained slaves or animals, to be used as beasts of burden by the “superior Arab race.” The rule applies to all Blacks, whether Muslims or non-Muslims and whether of Nigerian (Hausa/Fulani or Yoruba extractions) Tanzanians, Ugandans, Malians or African-Americans.

A traveller in Sudan observed in 1930 that “In the eyes of the Arab rulers of Sudan, the Blackslaves were simply animals given by Allah to make life of Arabs comfortable.” In 1962, the Arab Sudanese General, Hassan Beshir Nasr, while flagging off his troops to the war front against Black Africans in South Sudan, declared: “We don’t want these Blackslaves…….what we want is their land.”

A coalition of 50 charities in Darfur, Sudan, published a study in mid December, 2008, confirming what the world already knew that the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army, with the backing of their government, during joint or individual attacks, raped, tortured and killed Sudanese Africans and razed their villages to repopulate them with Arab nomads. They rounded up and abducted escapees from hide-outs in the bush, and at other times raided refugee camps to kidnap Africans as sex and labour slaves, working them to the bones as domestic and farm labour. The army flew their captives in planes to Khartoum at night and shared them among soldiers, like you allocate bags of commodities, and used them as sex and domestic servants.

Kidnapped victims interviewed, said their captors told them that ‘they were not human beings and that they were there to serve them.’ In the five years between 2003 and 2008, over 300,000 Sudanese Africans were killed, 100,000 abducted and 2.7 million rendered homeless refugees, with their land appropriated by Arabs. The Khatoum government admitted 14,000 kidnaps. You can imagine what happened when the world turned a blind eye on Sudan, in the twenty years between 1983 when the conflict began, and 2003. You have to ask yourself what African leaders are doing in AU with Arabs. Arabs are Africans’ mortal foes.

Al Qaeda’s bombing of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, left 260 Black civilians that included 12 Americans, dead. Over 4,000 Kenyans and Tanzanians were wounded. A remorseless top Arab journalist justified the attack by quoting Stalin: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); Ameer Spiritual (Spiritual Prince) of the African race; MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: ‘The end of knowledge’. One of the world’s leading authors of children’s books; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, County of Shelby; Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and uplift the African race.

Uganda: Angry Muslims besieged Nakasero Mosque and blocked the police patrol team

reports Leo Odera Omolo

ANGRY Muslims yesterday besieged Nakasero Mosque, confining its leader, Sheik Sulaiman Kakeeto, accusing him of attempting to demolish the mosque on Saturday night, the government owned NEWVISION reported on its online service this morning.
,

Hundreds converged at Snay Bin Amir Street at dawn after reports that Kakeeto had deployed workmen to pull down the dilapidated structure.

Wielding sticks, they surrounded the 70-year-old structure and warned of trouble if Kakeeto and his team continued with their plan.

Muslims with huge sticks standing near a Police patrol vehicle at Nakasero Mosque

On April 8, the Uganda Muslim Suuni Association and the Uganda Muslim Tabliq Community signed an agreement allowing businessman Mutaasa Kafeero to redevelop the place.

Under the about sh5b project, Kafeero is to build a multi-storied commercial building on Plot 4 Snay Bin Amin Street, and plots 17A, 17B and 17C on Entebbe Road, where the mosque is located.

The structure will have four floors, the top floor being the mosque and the third floor to act as offices for the mosque and lock-ups.

Mutaasa, who is supposed to occupy the rest of the building, will be in charge of the structure for 75 years, according to the agreement.

Last evening, Kakeeto vowed to go ahead with their arrangement.

Huge crowds of Muslims raided the mosque, where they vowed to block anybody from pulling down the mosque.

Raising their fists in the air, they chanted “Allah Akbar” (God is great).

As tempers flared, Makindye West MP Hussein Kyanjo, Sheik Najib Musisi of the once-contested mosque on William Street in Kampala, and the Police attempted to calm the situation.

Calling for a “logical approach”, Kyanjo said: “We should put our differences aside as we try to solve this problem. We should avoid chaos.”

The situation was contained after a meeting between the Muslim leaders, Kampala South Police boss Moses Kafeero and Abdulhakim Ssekimpi.

During the brief meeting, it was agreed that the two parties, the one for and that against the redevelopment, meet on Thursday to “reach an amicable solution”.

Yesterday, Mutaasa told New Vision that he was committed to building a place of worship that conforms to Islam once the differences are resolved.

Ends

KENYA: ULTIMATUM ON KISUMU AIRPORT

By Dickens Wasonga

ULTIMATUM

The completion of the ongoing work of the expansion of the Kisumu Airport has come under threat as members of the Kogony community have given the airport authorities a two Week ultimatum to solve the mystery surrounding their compensation on the land.

Led by nominated councilor George Weda and Kogony ward councilor Joseph Osir, they instructed the resident engineer Patrick Cain who is overseeing the work at the airdrome to organize for a meeting with the Nyanza provincial Commissioner together with Kenya Airport Authority (KAA) managing director and two permanent secretaries from lands and transport ministries to find a solution to the impasse.

Addressing the press after a meeting with the airport authorities at the site, the two civic leaders said they agreed with the resident engineer to organize for such a meeting in a fought night to come up with a lasting solution on the issue.

They accused the government of taking too long to meet their demands citing that with the ongoing fencing of the facility, they risk not being compensated on the already acquired land.

They said they had given the government enough time to meet their demands but it has been reluctant to solve their problem.

The two civic leaders even threatened to derail the work at the facility should their ‘rightful demands’ fail to be recognized and solved once and for all adding that they risk losing their support on the ground should they fail to win the battle.

The councilors said according to documents they have, their clan donated 206.09 Ha of land for the construction of the airport subject to their resettlement on an alternative land.

However, they added that the title deed on the lease certificate indicates 362.9 Ha thus say 158.81 Ha of their land is in dispute.

“It is the disputed 158.81 Ha of that land that makes us fill there’s a foul play in the expansion of this airport,” said councilor Weda.

And in a letter written by the two leaders to the KAA MD and dated October 3, 2010, they said the land was donated by their community in 1914, 1942 and lastly in 1975/76.

They said their clan (Kogony) was to be compensated by swooping the land with 1 ½ times land in Muhoroni (LR 3102 or LR 640)

They said their community did not acquire the land in Muhoroni adding that KAA and the ministry of Lands promised prior to the current construction of the airport full compensation of the land and construction of an ultra modern double stream primary school (Usoma) which was relocated to a new site as it lied on the demarcated airport land.

“All these have not been met and we’re left wondering when our people shall get justice,” said councilor Osir.

They also challenged their area MP Olago Aluoch to take the matter to the house should the meeting slated in two Weeks time fail to bear fruits.

“Our former MP Rev. Kenn Nyagudi tried to help us solve this impasse but unfortunately he lost his seat before his dreams could come true,” said councilor Weda.

The complains came just when the Prime Minister Raila Odinga asked KACC boss PLO Lumumba to name and shame those engaged in corrupt land deals when he led the government in the official handover of more than 50 title deeds to ministries and institutions at Ardhi house in Nairobi.

Ends

Kenya: AKUKU DENJA is dead.He died at the age of 94 and believed to have married over 100 wives

Reports Leo Odera Omolo in Kisumu City.

Death has occurred of one of the most prominent and eligible polygamist in Kenya Mzee Ancentus Akuku Ogwela, alias Akuku Denja {Dangerman]. He was aged about 94 years.

File | NATION Polygamist Mzee Akuku ‘Danger’ with family members. He died on Saturday.

He collapsed in one of his homesteads and died on Saturday night, but had been unwell for sometimes.

Considered as one of the wealthiest Luo man during the years of early 1940 and late 1950s, Akuku Danja is believed to have married more than 100 wives. At the time of his death he had about 43 of them have either died of old age while other left on their own volition or divorced for one or the other reasons. Mzee Akuku Denja hails from Kanyamwa sub-clan of the Luos, in the same clan of the legend medicine and the greatest witchdoctor of all the time Gor Mahia son of Ogada.

Akuku Denja had established five homesteads with the major one which he used to referred as the headquarters located at Aora Chuondho in Kwabway Location,Nyarongi Division, Ndhiwa district in Homa-Bay County. The homestead is next to the market and also next to the main-Rodi Kopany-Karungu Sori. He had another home in his native Kanyamwa with the third major home homestead established in Karungu East, Sori Division in Nyatike district in Migori County.

Standing at about 6feet 4 inches and heavily built. Akuku Denja was a humanist, friendly, jokily and wearing a smiling face all the time. He earned the name Danger because he preferred calling anyone who he comes across “Danger Man “including friends and foes, his sons in-law and relatives.

An industrious man with lust for education Akuku Denja built and established three primary school on his own where the large number of his children estimated to be in excess of 250tool their early elementary education before proceeding to other schools and institutions of higher learning.

He had the best part of his wealth educating his children some who have excelled and graduates from public universities. One of his eldest sons the late Pius Olima Akuku a trained lawyer had served the government of Kenya as a resident magistrate before going into private law practicing business.

He had many sons and daughters who received good education and who are presently serving the country either in the public and private sector.

The Danger Man was reputed as strictly disciplinarians. Most of his children spent their time at home during school holidays tending to farm work or herding his large number of domestic animals. Despite having the largest number of wives and children the Danger Man’s home is a place where famine and hunger is out of bound. His wives and children engaged themselves, in farm work resulting in good yield almost every year, which is sufficient in feeding the largest family in modern Kenya with enough surpluses for selling and generating school fees.

Akuku Denjas own married daughters are not allowed to walk back home without written consent of their husband, giving specific reason for the visit, the specific number of days permi9tted for the wife to stay at home with her parents. Any of his already married daughters who simply walks back homer without a written permission from their husband are given specific time and hours, during which they must end their visit and travel back to their husband’s homes, failure of which they faced forceful deportation out of Danger man’s home.

On arrival home the daughters’ reports at the father office and registered their presence before proceeding to their own mother’s houses. His brothers-in-laws on a visit to one of his wives must also register their arrival at the Danger man’s office before proceeding to their sister’s houses in similar fashion. The family works as a team, especially during the cuoti8vation, weeding and harvesting times.

There are unconfirmed reports that his wives are transferable from one home to the other within his five homesteads. For example he would simply walk into his homestead in Kanyamwa and ordered any of his wives living there to proceed to the Headquarters at Aora Chuodho and the woman must obey or else she could find herself forcefully being deported to the headquarters even without her consent.

Akuku Denja acquired his wealth after a humble beginning life as a tailoring man and then venture into farm produce buying and selling and shop-keeping and was later to become the first man to purchase a motor vehicle in his own village in the late 1940s.

A case in point is an incident which occurred a couple of years ago when one of his daughter who was married to a wealthy businessman in Homa-Bay, who had abandoned a small child with her husband and was seen roaming about with some youths, most of them high school students. She was seen in dance halls and other public joint.Akuku Denja sent her a warning toi return to her husband and child as quickly as possible.

When she defied his warning, the old man registered the complains with children offices and to the police at Homa-Bay. And the young mother was apprehended and sentenced to six months imprisonment for neglecting her child. While she was serving her prison sentenced Akuku Denja offered her younger and perhaps best educated sister to the businessman.

Upon coming out of prison the young mother vowed not to go anywhere, but rejoined young her husband and child so the businessman, ended up having married to two young women .from one family of the Danger Man. Whenever his daughters disagreed with their husbands on petty domestic squabbles they do avoid going directly back to their parents home, but only ending up visiting relatives in the neighborhood before going back to their husband. This has made Akuku Denja’s dozens of daughter the most liked women and men are competing to get married to them. They are loosely called “Nyar-Danger”{ meaning the daughter of danger man]

He will always ne remembered as a development conscience man who9 contributed part of his hard earned wealth towards the development of schools, dispensaries,health centers and other economic infrastructure in both Ndhiwa and Nyatike constituencies.

He was a closed friend of both the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and the late Tom Mboya, the former Minister for Economic Planning wjh0 was assassinated in 1969 and his close political associate Dr Joseph Gordon Odero-Jowi who alter served as Kenya’s Ambassador to the Un after losing his Ndhiwa parliamentary seat in the 1969,

In 1962 immediately soon after the founding President the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was released from colonial jails in Northern Kenya and during his first visit to Southern Nyanza Mzee Akuku Denja was one among the elderly who spoke at a meeting between him and Luo elders from the region. The same happen when Kenyatta visited the region in 1966 as the president of n independent Kenya, Akuku Denja was one of the elderly spokesmen.

When Mzee Kenyatta was jokingly told by Mboya that Akuku Denja had more than 50 wives and was accompanied at the meeting by a young woman, one of his latest at the time, Kenyatta took a careful look at him and Jokingly remarked “Kumbe yeye ni Dume kweli kweli”{he is a real bull] sparing a prolong laughter by the elders in attendance of the meeting which was held at the Homa-Bay D.C’s residence.

The late Asentus Akuku ‘Danger’ poses with his youngest wife Christine Ajwang’ at his home in Ndhiwa in this 2008 photog

Akuku Denja also developed close working relations with the one time two terms Ndhiwa MPs Zablon Owigo Olang’ and another former area MP Matthews Otieno Ogingo’ Upon learning of his sudden death Owigo Olang sent his heartfelt condolences to the family. He paid a glowing tribute to Danger man, saying his loss is irreplaceable. He aid the grand old man was steadfast in development undertaking and activities and was progressive and hard working, but humble man wh9i loved everyone.

Mzee Akuku had been reportedly unwell for close to three years, and at time was seen walking with the support of walking sticks which looked like crunches. He had promised this writer an up-date interview sometime back, but it never materialized.

Ends

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

Kenya: Churches want Murugi sacked over gay remarks

From: Rose Kagwiria

Well i wonder if there is anything good out of our churches today. What were they expecting minister Murugi to say. Take it seriously guys even the pope himself forgave those hormos. I wonder what these churches are thinking? The other day Evans Machera quoted some bible verses where Jesus said whoever knows is not a sinner can start throwing the stone on that woman. Nobody did it. How many of our clergy are sodomizing our sons? How many are raping our daughters? How many are making our daughters pregnant and give them money to go for abortion? How many are having sex with people’s wives? Yet they remain serving in our churches. The same people can dare challenge our minister for accepting these brothers, sisters, sons and daughters in our community. Did she at any time say she wanted people to be gays, lesbians or prostitutes? If she said this then one can condemn her. Did these churches expect her to tell them to go to jail because they have sinned. I think the whole issue is more complicated than the church think. I would have expected the church to hold crusades and educate the youth on the dangers of these practices. One time they dont want cardhis courts another time they dont want women in need to be seen by health professionals, and so many other things they dont want , yet they dont offer a solution. Does it mean the church today is only thinking NEGATIVELY but never CONSTRUCTIVELY? Read this .

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/1025144/-/11jolxwz/-/index.html

Rose
+254722672157

Kenya: E. Murugi’s unconstitutional Remark on Gays / Lesbians

‘We need to learn to live with men who have sex with other men..we are in the 21st century and things have changed’. That was the statement by Minister Esther Murugu – Special Programmes to a seminar for homosexuals, lesbians and sex workers.

The current constitution outlaws gays / Lesbins marriages and as well it has (not?) legalised prostitution. But the new bill of rights contains clauses outlawing discrimination on nay grounds, including race and gender. Conservative Kenyans complained that the contentious clause would pave the way for gay marriage.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu attacked the African clergy for closing doors for Gays and Lesbians. In particular, Tutu asked the Kenyan clergy to allow Gay/Lesbian to access to facilities like health, counselling and more so provide love. Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Intersex (LGBIT) together with the KNHRC organized the first public gathering of the Gays and Lesbians applauding the CoE for inclusion of their rights in the constitution.

Should President Kibaki and Raila Odinga then take action against Esther Murugi as per the Sheikh Mohmaed Khalifa of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya?

Kombo Elijah

KENYA: FILM SCRIPT SYNOPSIS FOR PRODUCTION

(THE EPITOME OF LOVE)

BY AKECH OBAT MASIRA

A SCREEN PLAYS BY MISANGO ARTS ENSEMBLE

(based on voluntary medical male circumcision)

SYNOPSIS

CHANGE of attitude is a major challenge in a major communities faced with the idea of change outside the general cultural mainstream. The Luo nation is not left out, especially when it comes to male circumcision which is currently in vogue. Diehard traditionalists still find it hard to com to terms with a practice that has, belatedly been proven to be insulation against the pandemic HIV and AIDS as well as sexually transmitted infections.

The understanding is still is still wavering, caught between tradition and the remedy to a palpable healthcare, whereby families, couples and communities at large find themselves caught on the horn of a dilemma. Medical science in its unyielding efforts to salvage mankind from the jaws of disaster and catastrophe has come up with research findings that offer practical solutions to health and sex issues that continuously battle many in the cities and villages – human beings at risk.

This is where science and arts meet at a tangent, mingling and jostling each other to creatively emerge with a solution that would in the short – term as well as in the long – term address an issue that continues to boggle the mind. Gender in general comes into sharp focus in the promotion of male circumcision as an important measure in the reduction of STI , HIV and AIDS in society, the vulnerable, especially the youth in society, couples, family and the broader society, can therefore be sensitized on this single most important medical research to alleviate problem.

To project this in the public domain, the employment of drama as an aspect of mobilization, sensitization to create awareness and attitudinal change on MALE CIRCUMSICION in the general wider context.

In this context here with, is the “EPITOME OF LOVE” of a screen play focusing on the important of embracing this scientifically and medically tested and proven antidote. How do the vulnerable float with flux –

What does the mould hold? Two lovers exploring power of male circumcision (cut), alongside the dangers of HIV and AIDS.

BERTHA: Is a developmental coordinator, youthful and energetic, dealing with issues of HIV and AIDS.

BENJA: Is an ardent football fan, and a staunch Jaluo cultural traditionalist still unpurged from the practice of male circumcision.

But will BERTHA succeed in convincing BENJA on the importance of the male cut?.

WHY IS RWANDA SO CLEAN?

fromRose Kagwiria

I think we Kenyans should borrow a leaf from our dear neighboring country Rwanda. I really admire the type of governance in Rwanda. These guys have a day called OMUGANDA. Omganda is a day when everybody participates in clean ups or planting trees. This event takes place evry last Saturday of the month. The Omuganda day starts at 7am to 11am and ends with a public lecture. What an organized country. During these hours all the office work including matatu operation is stopped and everybody senior or junior participates. The council employees do their work rest of the days and this day they join other citizens. .

Dear Kenyans. we all know we can leave the council to do their work but this is like leaving the house girl to do all the work simply because you are paying her. The good house owners participate in house and compound cleaning when they are day off. We do this to be roll models of our children and even those house girls.

I am so happy that some people in Nairobi have thought it wise to do something to make Nairobi look like KIGALI. Keep up those people who have already started. I hope it will happen all over Kenyan towns. I hope too those bare hills with no trees will have somebody think about them.

Keep up Kenyans
Rose
+254722672157


Follow Me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertalai

kamba alphabet

From: carolyne nyamwala

1. A (Hay) FOR HUNDERWEAR (Underwear)

2 . B (Mbi) FOR Mbushit (Bullshit)

3. C FOR CEENAKI (Snake)

4. D (Ndi) FOR NDAMBILIU (W)

5. E (Hii) FOR HEATING (Eating)

6. F (Hef) FOR FINJAWT (Peugeot)

7. G (Nji) FOR NGONJIAS (Gorgeous)

8. H FOR ONY (Horny)

9. I FOR ICCUPS (Hiccups)

10. J (Njei) FOR NJUIS (Juice)

11. K FOR KETO (Kettle)

12. L (Elo) FOR LEMBO (Label )

13. M FOR MBIGIE-NJI (Big – G)

14. N FOR NGILINI (Green)

15. O FOR HOMBIT (Orbit)

16. P FOR FACKING (Parking)

17. Q FOR KWININE (Quinine)

18. R FOR LAIS (Rice )

19. S FOR SONJA (Soldier)

20. T FOR TWINGOH (Twinkle)

21. U FOR YULAINO (Urinal)

22. V FOR FENGETEMBOS (Vegetables)

23. W FOR “SII NDII” (See D Above)

24. X FOR ENGZEL ( Excel)

25. Y FOR Y (Why)

26. Z ( Nzedi) FOR NZED (Z)


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Kenya: RAILA had failed to resolve the raging dispute among the feuding Luo Council of Elders

Reports Leo Odera Omolo in Kisumu City

The Prime Minister Raila Odinga last Friday made a spirited effort in a bid to reconcile the feuding members of the Luo Council of Elders, but his arbitration flopped badly as each one of the feuding camps stuck to their guns.

The meeting was held at the Ofafa Memorial Hall, which is located at Kibuye on the Kisumu-Kakamega highway

It was the first time the Prime Minister faced such a rowdy and hostile crowd within the Luo-Nyanza, but he made good use of his political magnanimity to neutralize thre whole exercises paving the room for orderly meeting.

And it is hoped the decision he and his colleague are going to make will be in the interest of the majority because any unpopular move to retain Riaga Ogalo at the helm of the embattled Luo Council of Elders could have a serious political repercussion for the PM’s leadership in the region.

Raila was accompanied by two cabinet ministers Gerald Otieno Kajwang’[Immigration},James Agrey Orengo {Lands}, Two Assistant ministers Dr.Obiri Ogingas {Fiance and Prof. Ayiecho Olueny {Education}. Also in attendance were MPS John Olago Aluoch {Kisumu Town West}, Polin Ochieng” Daima {Nyakach},. John Mbadi {Gwassi}, Edick Omondi Anyanga {Nyatike} John Pesa {Miogori}, Oyugi Maguwanga {Kasipul-Kabondo},Jakoyo Midiwo {Gem} and Cyprian Ojwang” Omolo Uriri}.

Tension was high at Ofafa Memorial Hall and its environs as the meeting had attracted a large crowd of uninvited crowd of people. The hall was filled to capacity by a large number of people who had invaded the venue and even seized all the seats reserved for the invited representatives of the various ,but unexpected crowd apparently after the word had gone around that the Prime Minister was due to install the new Ker Opiyo Otondi.

And this was what was spelt out in the invitation letters which sent to individuals and groups inviting them to the venue of the ceremony. The newly elected Ker, a retired former Deputy Provincial Commissioner in the government had come to the venue armed with traditional regalia of beaded hut, gowns and {Ragwar} a piece of long wooden walking stick with two heads signifying a symbol of peace.

Former Ker chairman Meshack Riaga Ogalo had difficulties accessing the venue. He was temporarily prevented from entering the hall by supporter said his rival Opiyo Otondi who insisted he was uninvited guest and an outsider. But Ogalo took the advantage of the Prime Minister’s arrival and squeezed himself among the PM’s security details and forced his way to the dais where he sat beside Raila while Otondi sat on the other side with the Raila in the middle.

Earlier the supporters of Otondi and his group had at some point prevented two MPs james Orengoi and Dr Oburu OIginga from entwering the venue accusing them of supporting the iusted Riaga Ogalo’s group. And when Dr. Oburtu Oginga during his brief address which was punctuated with Boeing and heckling suggested that if the that election of the Otondi group was not properly conducted then there should be afr5esh election to have the matter solved once and for all, he was greeted with heckling and boeing forcing him to sit down.

Orengo who acted as the master of ceremony, changed the tune when he told the attentive crowd that it was the Prime Minister who had called for the meeting so that an effort could be made to reconcile the two feuding factions. Orengo then called for the delegates from the various constituencies to account and identify themselves where they were seated.

Orengo then called two elder from warring groups to address the meeting. One of the was Mzee Michael Odote Kojiem from Nyando who explained the meeting about the problems the elders had with the ousted chairman Meshak Riaga Ogalo’s leadership.

From Ogalo’s side Orengo called Mzee Yusto Ondigo Oyoo, who identified himself as a businessman in Kisumu town.Oyoo disputed that there was no election and that what ius claimed to be election was a meeting helf during the night. But his voice was cut down by intensified heckling. The second speaker was Ex-Senior Chief Omolo Anditi from Rusinga Island who accused the ousted chairman as playing dirty politics and even seeking friendship with unidentified politician who are opposed to Raila Odinga. He also mentioned the chairman secretive trip to Libya, which he claimed other Council members were not aware and only become aware through the press. Mzee Anditi also said he detested Riaga Ogalo collaborating with Kamlish Patni.

The Kisumu Town West MP John Olago Aluoch just rolled out of his pocket a copy of letter from the registrar of society which explained that the new team led by Mzee Opiyo Otondi had been duly registered as the new office bearers of the Luo Council of Elders and that Riaga Ogalo’s group’s registration had been cancelled.

He MP who spoke at the meeting expressed their support for the new team saying a change was inevitable because the former chairman had proved to be not a cohesive person but worked as lone ranger. Migori MP John Pesa, who is the chairman of the Luo Parliamentary group told Mzee Riaga Ogalo on his face to step aside peaceful and the community would prayer for his long life.

The new Ker Opiyo Otondi in address narrated in detail how some year back when the former chairman of the Council Mzee Joash Koyo Opien died. “We sat down as members of the executive and voted for Mzee Hesbon Otieno Omanjo an accountant by profession from Kanyamkago. But it was the advice of the Prime Minister, who told us that Omanjo was from Alego the sub-0clans of his uncles and that his anointing would reflect badly to other people who could sparked bad rumors and bad talk that He {Raila} had anointed his uncle to be the Ker of the Luo Council of Elders. And that it was It was Raila who had suggested the name of Mzee Riaga Ogalo. And because we all respected as our leader we succumbed to his request though reluctantly. But ever since that time it had been a nightmare working with Ogalo. We have heard allegation of begging and even harassing and intimidating MPs. We also conducted the election after we were told by the Prime Minister in June that we were there on acting capacity, and that it was time we conducted election to legitimize ourselves and we just did that”, said Otondi amid prolonged applause.

IMMIGREATIO Minister Otieno Kajwang’ accused the ousted chairman Riaga of creating conflict with MPs, saying that he had caused bad blood by taking sides on political local issues. He said if the situation remained unchanged he personally would push for the abolition and dissolution if the Council.

Orengo told the gathering that it was in bad taste for anyone to move to court instituting legal matters seeking for the judicial redress of the leadership of the Council and advised Mzee Riaga to apologize for his actions.

In his address the Prime Minister narrated the history of “Ker” giving the example of the Kabakaship in Buganda. He all the time the Kabaka must be one man reign of power. In the same context the issues surrounding the institution of Ker must be emphasized that the Luo community can only be one at a time. This is institution must be jealously protected and preserved.

He emphasized the need for elder to work in harmony and give cuotur4alguidabncetothe community and should not waste their time on useless squabbling.

A the end the Prime Minister told the inquisitive crowd to disperse saying he and the MPs and selected elders would sit down consult each other over the leadership wrangling with the Luo Council of Elders and the issue would be communicated to the public at an appropriate time

But a source claiming to be close to Raila has confided to us that the Prime Minister would ensure that the protection those who had served his late father .Jaramogi Oginga Odinga faithfully and loyally. This is the category on which Mzee Riaga Ogalo fall under.

But judging from speeches by the MPs and other elders, Mzee Riaga Ogalo could just simply throw in the towel.. The entire Luo community some to be uncomfortable with his leadership, and the sooner he pack up and go home the better. He seemed to have rubbed shoulder with everyone among the Luo political leadership the wrong way. Other accusation include his political,associatio9n with the High Education Minister, the man who has vowed to make things difficult for Raila Odinga in 2012.

Earlier Otondi had told the enthusiastic crowd that upon Riaga return home after his first trip to Libya with Kamlesh Patni, had donated a Matatu Van to the Luo Council o Elder, but the council had rejected Mr Patni donation of van and told Riaga to make good use of it as a personal, property.

The meeting ended with no proper solution to the dispute over who is the Ker and the community eagerly waiting to get on which he would be performing the official installation of the new Ker Opiyo Otondi.

Raila had obviously read the mood of the community that a change was inevitable in order to make the Luo Council of elder a popular vehicle for progress and economic development.

Ends

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

Uganda: new terror threat by Al-Shabaab terorists against nation during Ramadhan

Reports Leo Odera Omolo

UGANDAN security is on full alert ahead of Idd festivities, which mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan slated for tomorrow,the government owned NEWVISION reported this morning

Al-Shabaab on Tuesday demanded that Uganda withdraws her peacekeeping troops from the war-torn Somalia, or face more attacks.

Accordingly, security has been stepped up to counter the threats, said Police spokeperson Judith Nabakooba.

“We call upon the public to be vigilant, especially during this period of Idd,” she said yesterday.

The latest threat was issued by the Islamists’ radical leader Sheikh Fuad Mohamed Khalaf ‘Shangole at a mosque in Mogadishu.

Defence spokesperson Felix Kulayigye yesterday said violence will not work.

The Somali-based Islamic militants claimed responsibility for the twin bombings, which killed 79 people in Kampala on July 11.

“I advise them to try something else but not threats of violence because it will not work. It will not make us change our stand,” Kulayigye said.

The Ugandan troops are serving under the African Union force called AMISOM. “Our troops will not leave Somalia as long as the African Union wants them there,” he said. “The people of Somalia want peace and that is what took us there.”

He added: “We are not in Somalia for adventure; it is by conviction to ensure the return of peace for our brothers.
“We have been defending Uganda since February 6, 1981 and we have never backslid on that. Ugandans should remain vigilant and let us know of suspicious people.”

The militants on Tuesday accused President Yoweri Museveni of becoming an obstacle to stability in the war-torn Somalia and warned him not to send more troops to Somalia.

Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers are assisting the Somali Transitional Federal Government. Uganda recently sent 750 troops of the 10,000 more soldiers it pledged during the recent AU summit in Kampala.

AU officials said last week AMISOM’s troop level had recently risen to 7,200. The force is seeking a more robust mandate that would allow it to hunt down insurgents.

Uganda’s fight against al-Shabaab has received a boost from several countries since the July 11 attack. The US, Britain, Kenya, among others, rushed investigators to work with the Kampala team, leading to the arrest of over 50 arrests.

In fresh investigations, two more Kenyans were early this week arrested in connection with the blasts. Habib Sulaiman Njoroge was arrested at the Kenya-Uganda border post of Malaba while trying to sneak into Uganda. Also arrested is journalist Habib Suleiman working for an FM station in Mombasa.

A total of 34 suspects have been charged with terrorism, murder and attempted murder. Among them are Ugandans, Kenyans, Somalis and one Pakistani.

Ends

Kenya: Harambee is not a Hindu god and can not be a hindu word it is a Swahili word and Kenyan

Dear Friends,

I would like to say that as much as the word Harambee may sound the same as the Hindu word Hare Ambe or the like I object in the strongest terms that it means the same with what the Kiswahili word means. The word is a Bantu word from one of the Miji Kenda dialect Halumbe Which meant pull or push together. The word is a kin to another word Kulumba which means make or prepare like in the composing of a poem hence a poet known as Mlumbi.
The word has resemblance with a Luhya word khulumba which can be translated to push. When all is said and done, it is not fare to give a meaning to a word because it sounds like another word in a another language. For example we have words in our Kenyans languages which mean something else in another language. Some can not be uttered by the speakers of those languages. For Example Kipchoge’s Second name or Surname Keino can not be uttered in a church in Kitui or among the Kikuyu. Does the same sound of the word make the word have the same meaning in both languages?

Second, it is in History that Mzee Jom Kenyatta is the one who used this name Harambee when he found the Mijikenda people using it to urge the people to work together. It means to pull together so if our National team and the technical bench with the support of the goverment pull together, we can win games.

If we think that since the word harambee may sound the same as hare ambe hare rama hare krishna etc, and therefore making our harambee satanic, then why cann’t we go ahead and remove all the names of the days of the week; Monday, Tuseday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Satuday and Sunday from our calendar because each of them was a day dedicated to Roman gods?

In applied lingustics and sociolinguistics, when a word is taken from language A and used to mean something else in language B, the original meaning becomes absolete as far as the speakers of language B are concerned. For example the Kiswahili word Meli which mean a ship, came from the English word Mail meaning letter. To us kiswahili speakers we know that meli is that ship that sails on the in ocean. The word as it exists meli has no meaning in English whatsoever.

Another word related to this is the Word Man of War which was translated into Kiswahili as manowari , to us manowari is an Armored boat, in oher places it is defined as a venomous dangerous sea organism. Does this change the way we use the word in Kiswahili? There are other many words like Keya a name used by many Communities in Kenya which actually is the abreviation of The Kings African Rifle ( KAR) Panyako,- Pioneer Corps, Girimiti agirimiti, jirimiti, chilimiti – Agreement, Kandarasi- contract, Aluvanze- advance salary, and other names like Perpetua- Pelepetua( especially among the Luhyas- Scholarstica- Sikolo, Bartholomeus- maturumayo, etc

Harambee is not a Hindu god and can be a hindu word it is a Swahili word and Kenyan, it is only used in Kenya. Tanzanians do not use it.

I know the person who wrote a book on this issue of Harambee from Eldoret and when I asked him to talk about what I have raised here he couldn’t speak.

Kenya: The time is ripe for the Luos to abandon “Wife Inheritance” obnoxious practices

LAST WEEK WAS A BAD ONE BECAUSE IT LEFT THE TRAILS OF TEARS SHEDDING AND BURIALOF YOUNG WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN KILLED BY THEIR INHERITORS

It is time the Luos abandoned this repugnant and backward tradition and culture.

News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In kisumu City

The last two weeks were so bad. A number of shocking incidents occurred in various parts of Luo-Nyanza involving grisly murder of young women and their children ,one of which the entire family of a mother and her three children were whipped out by her bloody thirsty inheritors.

In all the reported incidents, the suspect culprits were reported to be strangers who came from unknown strangers who came handy to inherit the widow left behind by their deceased husbands.

Luos are the fourth largest single tribes in Kenya following the Kalenji, Luhyia and Kikuyu. But the communities still practising some heathen and unacceptable tradition, which are unacceptable to the modern society in Kenya.

But the shocking action of beast like inheritors, which saw many families shedding tears and burying their beloved young ones, has left everybody in this region where such repugnant and abominable backward practices are still very common and thriving among the families and clans despite of advanced information torth3 villages about the scourge of Hiv/Aids epidemic.

It calls for the elders and key figures and politicians within the community to go back into drawing board. They should brain storm and chart for the best way of educating families against the danger of “Wife Inheritance” practices. The practice is bad and ads no value to the family. And it is time it was abandoned. The practice has lost its original intention and value in the modern society.

The practice has increasingly become dangerous, because the younger generation of Luo male and females have abandoned the norms and cultural virtue and tradition, which were governing the “Wife inheritance” in the past. The community at large has lost disciplinary practices.

These days young widows in Luo-Nyanza can now pick anybody they meet in beer halls or in dark corners of the City, towns and market places, and the next day the couple become husband and wife. This is in sharp contrast, and completely contrary to the laid down cultural norms and tradition rules.

In the old days when this tradition thrived to the best interest of the families involved. It was a practice highly valued by the community. It was meant to protect both the wife and the children of the deceased. And not simply for sexual escapades between the inheritor and the widow as such, but it meant a lot to the families concerned.

The circumstance, in which a widow was required to be inherited, varied. First was for the continuity of the family. Secondly was for the protection of young children and property of the deceased. And that is the reason why the families used to go for the best man of good character and generous enough to take care of the welfare of the young children left behind by his cousin or brother in the same way he could cater for his own children. Lazy person who is known not to be active in farming or greedy fellow were out of bound for this noble practices which was cherished by the community for generations after generations.

Before the widow was inherited, there were behind the scene consultations between he and the elderly mothers within her immediate families. The role of the elderly women, most of them her mother-law was to advice her accordingly as to who is the best son within the family who could help her bring her young offspring’s up and so forth. .

It was a serious vetting. Men from families suspected of practicing witches, men from families known to be suffering from serious diseases such as leprosy, asthma, mental illness, tuberculosis, epilepsy and other complicated diseases were not recommended for the job..

If the widow had defied the elderly mother wisdom and settle on someone of suspicious characters such as thieves, trouble shooters, quarrelsome or temperamental persons, the elderly women would throw the matter back to the elderly men within the family to deliberate on the issue. They would summon the widow and told her point blank the reason why they were not keen to approve her choice, but if she remain defiance, she was then advised that after the rejected man is the only her choice, the she was required to dismantle her house within the family and go and settle in the homestead of the man she had chosen as the best person to inherit her. She would live their until she goes past her production life, now with grown up children would bring her back to the family and built a home for her and her children.

Wife beaters and drunkards and men with history of murder were also some of the characters not recommended by the elders. And so were thieve sand other unbecoming characters within the society.

In all aspect of the practice, it was to go for the best person whose good and proven manner and character.

In Litare village in Kamasengre, Rusinga West Location on Rusinga island massive man-hunt was still going on by the weekend of a man who set ablaze the house of the young wife he had inherited. The man is still at large and th4e man hunt led by the area Assistant chief has proved fruitless. He is suspected to have boarded a canoe and pedaled himself across the Mbita Channel and went into hiding on the main land part of Mbita district.

This attack came after the man and his inherited wife had some misunderstanding the previous night and the woman ejected the inheritor out of her house. But before the night fall she and her three children slipped out of the house and went to sleep in her grand mother’s house. The man returned under cover of darkness bolted the house from outside and set it ablaze thinking his wife and children were asleep inside .The assailant fled from the village thinking that he had killed the entire family, but did not realize he had missed the target. A lot of property was burnt to ashes. He is still at large.

In Migoto village, Suna Migori, Silvanus Owuor Lwamba was not lucky enough to escape the mob justice and punishment from his heinous act. She used hoe in smashing the head of his inherited wife Esther Akinyi, nine year daughter Lilian and one year old son Barack Odhiambo.and fled at night.

The village woke up in the morning and found the three lifeless bodies laying inside their house. Youth owning motor bike taxis in the village mobilized themselves and gave chase to the suspect with whom they caught up near Kenya Tanzania border as he headed to Tarime across the border. The tied him up brought him back to the scene of the murder and lynched him.

According to the relatives, the couple had disagreement before the incident. The suspect had a quarrel with the wife and this prompted a meeting under the chairmanship of the woman’s father where e decision was made that the two should part the company. This did decision did not pleased the suspect, but he never objected to it. But the family made one silly mistake of allowing the couple to go and sleep in one house. The suspect had begged for permission to stay in the house for the night since it was getting late in the evening so that he could go the next day.

The relatives say the couple was constantly quarreling and at one time separated for a couple of months before the killer came back after they were reconciled. Neighbor said the bodies had deep cut on the heads and neck and an axe which is suspected to have been used by the killer and a hoe were discovered covered in the house covered with blood.

In Ki9sumu, police had vigorously pursued the killer of wife and her three children at Nyalenda Peri-urban of the City, and caught with him in his native Siaya district. Before the suspect could be arraigned in court, police had a lot of difficulties keeping away the crowd of onlookers baying for his blood suspect’s blood.

The crow which camped outside the police forced the intervention of senior police officers who summoned the four fierce police dogs to disperse the crowd after their plea with the building up crowd to disperse peacefully and go home had hit the rock.

One senior police officers addressed the crowd and told them,’ We have the suspect and trials against him will be instituted soon,”said the PPO Larry Kieng urging the crowd to go peacefully.

“We want kill him instantly, if you let him go to prison, he will kill many more innocent people,” shouted a man from the crowd in perfect English.

The trouble had started at Koidiaga in Gem constituency along the Kisumu Busia road where the public had identified him and wanted to lynch him, but he was rescued by the police..

The suspect was seen selling a radio set when police from Dudi Police Post were trailing him following a tip off. The suspect was seen moving around the market while looking for a buyer for his radio, perhaps to get enough money to escape further to a distant place. A man who claimed he knew him shouted at the top of his voice and this attracted the public.

The accused had killed his wife Pamela Akiny Orawo and her three children and fled the town. Was said to have been a boda boda bicyle taxi operator in Nuyalenda area,. He escaped by the night and vanished until last weekend when the police caught him in Gem area near the border of Gem and Butere/Mumias districts. He had inherited the deceased six years ago after the death of her husband. It was not immediately established whether he was related to the deceased husband of the woman or just a handpicked friend and lover. He did not sire any of the slaughtered children with the deceased.

But this particular incident left the City of Kisumu a state of shock. There could have been more similar incidents, but which went unreported in various part of rural locations. Religious leaders and clergymen have contributed these series of killings to the excessive consumption of “Chang’aa” which has since been licensed by the government.

Ends

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

About the author, Leo Odera Omolo is a veteran Kisumu baswed journalist who comments on various topics and writing for several publication locally and abroad. He operates in Kisumu and parts of Tanzania and Uganda. He could be reached on Mobile phone No 0722 486181 and 0734 509215

Kenya: Meaning of “Menengai.”

from Owuor Willis

Hi,

The word “Ngai” means God as per kikuyu language. May be we need to understand the prefix ‘mene’ to understand what it means. However, I do not understand very well what I read at:

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/news/InsidePage.php?id=2000016094&cid=159&story=Leaders%20defend%20Gideon%20over%20county%20remarks

Could more people help me understand more such that we end up with piece and make many friends.

Kenya: Embattled Luo Council of Elders met face to face for the first time since the coup

Writes Leo Odera Omolo At Kendu Bay In Rachuonyo district.

Two factions of the splinter groups within the embattled Luo Council of Elders met face to face for the first time since the much highlighted ousting of the former Council chairman Meshack Riaga Ogalo in an inside boardroom coup last June.

They met face to face during the burial ceremony of an elder Mzee Lawi Ouya at Simbi, Kogembo village in Central Karachuonyo Location, North Rachuonyo district.The present of the members of the two factions had caused a lot of tension in this quiet and sleeping rural village.

Members of the factions had travelled from allover Luo-Nyanza to Karachuonyo after the news went around that the Prime Minister Raila Odinga would attend the high profile burial. But the PM skipped the function and instead attended a church service in Nairobi.

The ousted chairman Riaga Ogalo is known to have been criss-crossing the entire Luo-Nyanza while seeking the public support, and at the same time and recruiting MPs from the greater Southern Nyanza to his side. Some of them like Dalmas Otieno [Rongo] and Joshua Orwa Ojode [Ndhiwa]have since gone public in support of the ousted chairman. He had also held a series of consultative meeting with politicians, civic leaders and ODM operatives in search of political goodwill in support in the battle with his ousters.

Former Karachuonyo MP Mrs Pho9ebe M Asiyo, who is herself known to be aligned to Ker Meshack Riaga Ogalo’s side implored the two groups to reconcile for ‘ the sake of the community’ amid the strong murmurs and strong feeling among the thousands of mourners that the two group should be disbanded to pave the way for a properly constituted Luo Council of Elders in which credible and nonpartisan elders should be elected democratically to serve as its members

Mrs Asiyo had prevailed upon the leaders of the two functions Mzee Meshack Riaga Ogalo [ousted] and the incumbent Mzee Opiyo Otondi [currently registered chairman]to shake hands as a sign of reconciliation spirit amid prolonged applause by mourners.

He former legislator said the current split among the elders was not healthy and insisted that they should reconcile and work together for the betterment of the community.

Buoyed by appreciation displayed by hundred s of the mourners urged, Mr Asiyo to encourage Mzee Opiyo Otondi who had earlier declined to speak to rise up and address them. She reminded the elders during the old time wrestling matches among the Luos when one threw his rival on the ground, he did not set upon him on the ground, but he must quickly stood up to allow the match loser to stand up .

Asiyo reminded the elders present who included Mzee Meshack Riaga Ogalo and others to reconcile for the sake of the community a request that both factions acknowledged.’ We are supposeand unity said Mzee Opiyo Otondi.

Mzee Riaga Ogalo denied that there were any wrangling and that the Council was intact. He insisted that he was till the chairman of the Council despite the fact that the Opiyo Otondi group has been duly registered by the Registrar of the Society.

Ogalo, however, is known to have been travelling the full length and width of the Luo Nyanza campaigning to regain his lost seat, and has enlisted the support of several powerful MPs ion the greater Southern Nyanza to lobby for his group, among them the influential, Mrs Asiyo.

THE TRIBULATION OF THE Luo Council of Elders, which is supposed to have succeeded the Luo Union [EA}a welfare organization started about ten years ago when the Prime minister Raila Odinga disbanded the original Council and replaced it with the operatives of the LDEP against the advice of many wise counsels.

Thereafter its members were always handpicked from the LKDP and later ODM operatives with no proper election. Elders had strongly asked for the Council to be de-linked to the ODM and operate on its own as a different entity in the same way and manner the Luo Uniin [EA]. They were citing the fact that after having been elected to the Colonial Legislative Council in March 1957, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who by the was the pioneer Ker [Chairman of the Luo Union E.A had relinquished his position to a non-partisan elder the late Pastor Joel Omer.

None of the current member of the Council had gone through the grass root elections, but all were just handpicked by Raila Odinga and his cahoots in Kisumu. This has turned the Council to look like a wing of the ODM in the same fashion as the party youths and women wing. The Council constitution stipulates that a member must come from his home grass root election and must not necessarily be an ODM operative.

During the brief stint of the KANU/LDP marriage of convenience and political rapport, Luo Council members had pressurized the retired President Daniel Arap Moi to anoint Raila Odinga as his successor to no avail. Sat one time, the Council members were invited to Kabarak home of the retired President for a meeting with Kalenjin elders, but no credible elder from the Kalenjin attended the meeting. They were duped to a discussion with the retired former government security intelligence officers and secret service policemen faking Kalenjin elders.

Another meeting was hastily arranged at the SONYSUGAR guest House in Awendo Town, where the best Luo speakers were assigned to persuade Daniel Arap Moi to anoint Raila Odinga as his successor. By then M<r Odinga was the KANU SECRETARY General, and within a week after Awendo meeting Mr Moi made publicly known while visiting the Mt. Elgon district that he had anointed Mr Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta as his successor.

Many credible and political elite as well as academicians wanted to know the criteria of electing member of the Council. And are known to be urging that concern to improve the electoral system so that the Council become representative and popular vehicle that would help the community gain economic empowerment instead of being used as a rubber stamp or a ladder by an individual for his own selfish ends.

Political pundits insist hat those sitting in the Council at the moment are stranger because none had the blessing of the grass root voters in their respect home and districts. The former Secretary of the Council Mzee Benjamin Okang’Tolo told this writer last week that he had long predicted a fall out, particularly when Raila Odinga moved and maneuvered him and his group out of the Council and replaced them with former jaramogi Oginga Odinga youth wingers. The Council lost its meaning and became part of the ODM.

SAs much as we are unanimously supporting Raila Odinga presiudetial ambitio,he should also reciprocate the good gesture by relaxing his hold on the Council matters and let it be a non-partisan and neutral organization serving all the Luos include ODM member and non-members equally.

Ends

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com

Kenya: WHO SAID KENYANS CAN’T SPEAK ENGLISH ?

From: Solomon Ojoo

Who said Kenyans can’t speak English?

AI yawa?!!!

Jaluo drives into a service station in his battered Volkswagen clad in shorts, All-Stars, funky beard and I-spoti (small hat). He hands the attendant the keys complete with a beautiful Tupac key ring:

“Jasa tank-Super” (jaluo means fill up the tank!)

Attendant: “How much?”

JALUO: “Omera adwaro petrol mar super full tank?” – meaning, hey I said super… Full tank!

Attendant: “I only speak English!”

JALUO: “No problem. Good day to you Sir. I currently feel a profound desire to replenish the propellant of my motorized vehicle. Therefore, I cordially request you to transfer, from your subterranean
Reservoir, a sufficient quantity of the combustible fluid of the highest octane rating to fill the appropriate receptacle of the said means of perambulation to the brim.”

Attendant: “YAWA?”

Jaluo: “Do you have a problem Sir? I thought you said you spoke only English?”

Attendant: “English? That is not English!”

JALUO “My dear Sir, are you veritably attempting to insinuate that you do not even recognize the language which you allege to be your singular means of communication?”

Attendant: “AN’GO

AI YAWA!

Biblical Interpretation; Eve & Lilith;

from Okiya Omtatah Okoiti
subject Identity of Women: Eve & Lilith

Eve & Lilith

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/eve-women/7evelilith.html

In an effort to explain inconsistencies in the Old Testament, there developed in Jewish literature a complex interpretive system called the midrash which attempts to reconcile biblical contradictions and bring new meaning to the scriptural text.

Employing both a philological method and often an ingenious imagination, midrashic writings, which reached their height in the 2nd century CE, influenced later Christian interpretations of the Bible. Inconsistencies in the story of Genesis, especially the two separate accounts of creation, received particular attention. Later, beginning in the 13th century CE, such questions were also taken up in Jewish mystical literature known as the Kabbalah.

According to midrashic literature, Adam’s first wife was not Eve but a woman named Lilith, who was created in the first Genesis account. Only when Lilith rebelled and abandoned Adam did God create Eve, in the second account, as a replacement. In an important 13th century Kabbalah text, the Sefer ha-Zohar (“The Book of Splendour”) written by the Spaniard Moses de Leon (c. 1240-1305), it is explained that:

At the same time Jehovah created Adam, he created a woman, Lilith, who like Adam was taken from the earth. She was given to Adam as his wife. But there was a dispute between them about a matter that when it came before the judges had to be discussed behind closed doors. She spoke the unspeakable name of Jehovah and vanished.

In the Alpha Betha of Ben Sira (Alphabetum Siracidis,or Sepher Ben Sira), an anonymous collection of midrashic proverbs probably compiled in the 11th century C.E., it is explained more explicitly that the conflict arose because Adam, as a way of asserting his authority over Lilith, insisted that she lie beneath him during sexual intercourse (23 A-B). Lilith, however, considering herself to be Adam’s equal, refused, and after pronouncing the Ineffable Name (i.e. the magic name of God) flew off into the air.

Adam, distraught and no doubt also angered by her insolent behaviour, wanted her back. On Adam’s request, God sent three angels, named Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, who found her in the Red Sea. Despite the threat from the three angels that if she didn’t return to Adam one hundred of her sons would die every day, she refused, claiming that she was created expressly to harm newborn infants. However, she did swear that she would not harm any infant wearing an amulet with the images and/or names of the three angels on it.

At this point, the legend of Lilith as the “first Eve” merges with the earlier legend of Sumero-Babylonian origin, dating from around 3,500 BCE, of Lilith as a winged female demon who kills infants and endangers women in childbirth. In this role, she was one of several mazakimor “harmful spirits” known from incantation formulas preserved in Assyrian, Hebrew, and Canaanite inscriptions intended to protect against them. As a female demon, she is closely related to Lamashtu whose evilness included killing children, drinking the blood of men, and eating their flesh. Lamashtu also caused pregnant women to miscarry, disturbed sleep and brought nightmares.

In turn, Lamashtu is like another demonized female called Lamia, a Libyan serpent goddess, whose name is probably a Greek variant of Lamashtu. Like Lamashtu, Lamia also killed children. In the guise of a beautiful woman, she also seduced young men. In the Latin Vulgate Bible, Lamia is given as the translation of the Hebrew Lilith (and in other translations it is given as “screech owl” and “night monster”).

It needs to be remembered that these demonic “women” are essentially personifications of unseen forces invented to account for otherwise inexplicable events and phenomena which occur in the real world. Lilith, Lamashtu, Lamia and other female demons like them are all associated with the death of children and especially with the death of newborn infants.

It may be easily imagined that they were held accountable for such things as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS, also called crib death, or cot death) where an apparently healthy infant dies for no obvious reason. Cot death occurs almost always during sleep at night and is the most common cause of death of infants. Its cause still remains unknown.

By inventing evil spirits like Lilith, Lamashtu, and Lamia, parents were not only able to identify the enemy but also to know what they had to guard against. Amulets with the names of the three angels were intended to protect against the power of Lilith.

Lilith also personified licentiousness and lust. In the Christian Middle Ages she, or her female offspring, thelilim, became identified with succubae (the female counterparts of incubi) who would copulate with men in their sleep, causing them to have nocturnal emissions or “wet dreams.”

Again, Lilith and her kind serve as a way of accounting for an otherwise inexplicable phenomenon among men. Today, 85 percent of all men experience “wet dreams” (the ejaculation of sperm while asleep) at some time in their lives, mostly during their teens and twenties and as often as once a month. In the Middle Ages, celibate monks would attempt to guard against these nocturnal visits by the lilith/succubus by sleeping with their hands crossed over their genitals and holding a crucifix.

Through the literature of the Kabbalah, Lilith became fixed in Jewish demonology where her primary role is that of strangler of children and a seducer of men. The Kabbalah further enhanced her demonic character by making her the partner of Samael (i.e. Satan) and queen of the realm of the forces of evil.

In this guise, she appears as the antagonistic negative counterpart of the Shekhinah (“Divine Presence”), the mother of the House of Israel. The Zohar repeatedly contrasts Lilith the unholy whorish woman with theShekhinah as the holy, noble, and capable woman. In much the same way, Eve the disobedient, lustful sinner is contrasted with the obedient and holy Virgin Mary in Christian literature.

Through her couplings with the devil (or with Adam, as his succubus), Lilith gave birth to one hundred demonic children a day (the one hundred children threatened with death by the three angels). In this way, Lilith was held responsible for populating the world with evil.

If you ask how Lilith herself, the first wife of Adam, became evil, the answer lies in her insubordination to her husband Adam. It is her independence from Adam, her position beyond the control of a male, that makes her “evil.”

She is disobedient and like Eve, and indeed all women who are willful, she is perceived as posing a constant threat to the divinely ordered state of affairs defined by men.

Lilith is represented as a powerfully sexual woman against whom men and babies felt they had few defenses and, except for a few amulets, little protection. Much more so than Eve, Lilith is the personification female sexuality.

Her legend serves to demonstrate how, when unchecked, female sexuality is disruptive and destructive. Lilith highlights how women, beginning with Eve, use their sexuality to seduce men. She provides thereby a necessary sexual dimension, which is otherwise lacking, to the Genesis story which, when read in literal terms, portrays Eve not as some wickedfemme fatale but as a naive and largely sexless fool. Only as a Lilith-like character could Eve be seen as a calculating, evil, seductress.

Lilith is referred to only once in the Old Testament. In the Darby translation of Isaiah 34:14 the original Hebrew word is rendered as “lilith”; according to Isaiah, when God’s vengeance has turned the land into a wilderness, “there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; the lilith also shall settle there, and find for herself a place of rest.” The same word is translated elsewhere, however, as “screech owl, “night creatures,” “night monsters,” and “night hag.”

Although it has been suggested that the association with night stems from a similarity between the Sumero-Babylonian demon Lilitu and the Hebrew word laylahmeaning “night,” Lilith nonetheless seems to have been otherwise associated with darkness and night as a time of fear, vulnerability, and evil.

In her demonized form, Lilith is a frightening and threatening creature. Much more so than Eve, she personifies the real (sexual) power women exercise over men.

She represents the deeper, darker fear men have of women and female sexuality. Inasmuch as female sexuality, as a result of this fear, has been repressed and subjected to the severest controls in Western patriarchal society, so too has the figure of Lilith been kept hidden.

However, she lurks as a powerful unidentified presence, an unspoken name, in the minds of biblical commentators for whom Eve and Lilith become inextricably intertwined and blended into one person. Importantly, it is this Eve/Lilith amalgam which is used to identify women as the true source of evil in the world.

In the Apocryphal Testament of Reuben (one of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, ostensibly the twelve sons of Jacob), for example, it is explained that:

Women are evil, my children: because they have no power or strength to stand up against man, they use wiles and try to ensnare him by their charms; and man, whom woman cannot subdue by strength, she subdues by guile.
(Testament of Reuben: V, 1-2, 5)

References to Lilith in the Talmud describe her as a night demon with long hair (B. Erubin 100b) and as having a human likeness but with wings (B. Nidda 24b). In Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen’s “Treatise on the Emanations on the Left,” written in Spain in the 13th century, she is described as having the form of a beautiful woman from her head to her waist, and “burning fire” from her waist down. Elsewhere, Rabbi Isaac equates her with the primordial serpent Leviathan.

From: odhiambo okecth

RE: We Can’t Ignore Harry on Jesus, Biblical Interpretation!

man of the Forest,

When it comes to things Judeo-Christian, I am better off leaving them to Prince Okiya. He can shed more lights on those alien things.

Oto
Green

— On Tue, 7/20/10, Henry Gichaba wrote:

From: Henry Gichaba

Oto,

You have to stick to what the scripture says. If you stray, you’d need to explain to me the rolle of Lilith, Adam’s second wife in relation to “Original Sin.” I’m sure most Christians don’t know that Adam was polygynous (had more than one wives).

What I mean here, Oto, is that the Bible says that through Eve, mankind was cursed with Original Sin. However, Lilith also had children – and essentially she didn’t pertake in eating the forbidden fruit, therefore, didn’t sin. Her descendants couldn’t possibly have been cursed with Original Sin.

Google further information about Lilith, please or read the works of Judeo-Christian Archeology for further knowledge on this.

Mobbi Gichaba, somewhere in the forests of North Carolina.

From: komarockswatch @ . . .

To understand this, you need to know that both Cain and Abel, when they came of age, they married and had children.

Now, where did they find the girls that they married?

This fulfils the truthfulness of the first creation as captured in Chapter one. Man and woman He created them. The woman then took off after conceiving and it could be hypothetical that she went away with two girls.

These are the two girls that Cain and Abel would meet later in life to marry and start the human rush.

But I have no known knowledge in such matters. Askofu and Dr [Bishop] Mbagaya, or Reuben Kigame can be shed more light here. They are the light of this world…

Oto
Green

— On Tue, 7/20/10, Henry Gichaba wrote:

From: Henry Gichaba
RE: We Can’t Ignore Harry on Jesus, Biblical Interpretation!

Christians and Biblical Scholars,

Please help us understand the Biblical accounts of creation in Genesis 1 (first Creation story) and Genesis 2 (second Creation story). In the first story, God creates man and woman at the same time. In the second story, God spells a deep sleep into Adam and when he (Adam) is asleep, God breaks one of his ribs and creates a helper for Adam.

Which of the two accounts of creation is true? Why do the two accounts differ even when they are written by the same author, Moses, and inspired by the same spirit?

Without ignoring Harry, please help us explain if Christians/humanity should follow the lifestyle and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Note: Do not rush to answer these questions or clothe them in blanket rigmaroles, you are in a zone where reason and debate must override value judgment.

Mobi Gichaba, somewhere in the forests of North Carolina.

Kenya: Luo Council of Elders Riaga Ogalo is supported by civic leaders in Southern Nyanza

Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Awendo Town.

ABOUT eleven chairmen from various civic bodies in the greater Southern Nyanza region gathered in Ndhiwa at the weekend and unanimously resolved to give their unqualified support to the embattled chairman of the Luo Council of Elders “Ker”Meshack Riaga Ogalo.

The group, which included local politician and opinion leaders and ODM party activists from several districts in the region gathered at the Unga village home of the Assistant Minister for Internal Security Joshua Orwa Ojode.

The group disowned the reported election of the new office bearers of the Cultural body headed by Mzee Opiyo Otondi, whose election took place in June after the alleged coup de tat that had ousted Riaga Ogalo and his team from the office. The new office bearers led by Otondi have since been registered by the Registrar of the Societies, while ousted Ogalo’s team has moved to the High Court challenging the validity of the report election of new office bearers.

The group threaten to form a splinter group of Elders in Southern Nyanza region, if those purported to have been elected a fresh were not ejected out of the office. They are in office unconstitutionally and should not be recognized by anybody.

The election of the new office besrers who are purported to have ousted Riaga Ogalo’s group took place at the Ofafa Memorial Hall, Kisumu in June 2010 after the Council had dissolved itself at a similar meeting held at the same venue towards the end of May this year. Some of the contentious issues, which led to the dissolution of the Council include the chairman’s secret visit to Libya without informing members of the Council’s executive committee. His acceptance of motor vehicle purported to have been donated by Paul Kamlesh Patni of the Goldenberg.

Other issues involved the control of funds earned from the rents payable by tenants operating businesses at the multi-purpose building complex, the Ofafa Memorial Hall in Kisumu, which was previously the property of the defunct Luo Union East Africa, a welfare organization which was banned along with other tribal organization by the retired President Daniel Arap Moi during the early part of his presidency in 1980s.

The Hall is reported to be fetching close to Kshs 100,000 monthly from rents payable by the various tenants, but its account was found to be allegedly in red and nobody seemed to be answerable as to where the money is or where the money goes.

Another group claiming to be the legally registered trustees of the defunct Luo Union East Africa had also moved to Court challenging the Council of Elders.

Earlier n May this year the Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the company of the Lands Minister James Orengo had visited the Ofafa Memorial Hall and addressed the meeting of the Luo Council of Elders under the chairmanship of the ousted Ker Meshack Riaga Ogalo and advised the Council of the need to hold regular election so that its members can gain public confidence. He told the group that the current office bearers of the Council were there only in acting capacity, but they had acted in that capacity for too long and therefore need fresh election so that they can restore the confidence of members of the community.

The ousted office is said to have been acting as the pressure group of the ODM and consisting of the former hard-core supporters of the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who were inherited by his son Raila Odinga, but did not reflect the true representation of the Luo Community on cultural matters, but were part and parcel of the ODM.

How the group become members of the Council remained a mystery as non-was voted by their local communities at home. The qualification for one to become an elder also raised eyebrows due to the fact that its current members were also ODM party activists. Most of the Council members were only hand-picked from the ODM’s Kisumu office with no blessing from the general population in Luo-Nyanza.

And when the trouble started brewing, members of the general public saw it as a golden opportunity which could enable them to elect the proper office of the Luo Council of Elders which could be n on-aligned or affiliated to a particular political party.

The Ndhiwa resolution only came in the wake of an earlier sentiments expressed by the Minister for Public Service Dalmas Otieno who while addressing a fund drive meeting in Kasipul-Kabondo two weeks ago had expressed the support for the ousted Council chairman Meshack Riaga Ogalo saying the purported election which took place in Kisumu was unconstitutional and illegal.

The wrangling about the Council leadership is likely to have a negative impact on the Luo politics, and could easily split the community into two different camps opposed to each other with new political dimension and repercussion, which might not augur well with Raila Odinga’s presidential ambition in 2012.

In the political, scenario in which the huge support that Raila Odinga enjoyed in Southern Nyanza vanishing I the thin air, “Agwambo’s” control of the voting pattern in the region could evaporate.

A good number of MPs from the greater Southern Nyanza region are reported to be in solidarity with Ker Meshack Riaga Ogalo and have since disowned the new office bearers dismissing them as pretenders and strangers and have been calling for an immediate solution to the Council leadership wrangling.

Ends

leooderaomolo@yahoo.com