KARACHUONYO CONSTITUENCY LEADS THE REST IN GREATER SOUTHERN NYANZA IN MOST ATTRACTIVE DEVELOPMEENT RECORD AND TRANSPARENT DISBURSEMENT OF CDF MONEY.

Constituency Profile By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

KARACHUONYO constituency is one of the most advanced rural constituencies in the greater Southern Nyanza region.
The constituency is also showing the way, how best the government devolving funds such as CDF, School Bursary Funds, Road Maintenance Funds, and HIV/Aids control funds is distributed in an accountable and transparent manner. Thanks to the area MP, Eng. James Kwanya Rege, the former Information and Communication Permanent Secretary.

Rege, a communications expert by profession, has done what is unthinkable by other MPs representing rural constituencies in the Luo-Nyanza. Instead of filling the positions of CDF committee with semi-illiterate people, which is the trade mark of most legislators in the region, he has chosen to work with intellectual elites from the region.

The chairman of the CDF is a professor at the Maseno University, while the manager and all members of the disbursing committee are people of high integrity, and individual personalities who have excelled in other fields.

Karachuonyo is located in the tip of southern shore of Nyanza {Kivirondo} Gulf, and surrounded by three other constituencies, with Rangwe in the South, Kasipul-Kabondo in south east, and Nyakach in the East Karachuonyo is reputed for having the least  changes in the number of MPs ever since its inception in 1962 as a parliamentary constituency. Its electorate are  reputed to be  some of the most enlightened and intelligent voters in Luo-Nyanza.

At the general election that ushered in independence in 1963, Karachuonyo was one of the electoral areas, which were under the grips of KANU in Luo-Nyanza, but interesting its first MP, the late Elijah Omolo Agar, an Indian trained economist, stood as an independent candidate and gave a KANU official candidate, the late Mr. Joseph Gogo Ochok, a thorough beating. Agar won the seat and immediately joined KANU in parliament.

Agar’s unique and unbelievable victory over a KANU candidate did not come as surprise. It was the result of politics of intrigues within KANU, where two of the party luminaries were each sponsoring a parallel candidate against the other. Agar was sponsored by the late Tom Mboya, while Joseph Gogo Ochok was considered as a Mr.Jamogi Oginga Odinga point man in Karachuonyo.

At the time, Mboya’s word in South Nyanza was like the law. Mboya had a upper hand over the late Jaramogi, though the two were serving the same party, with Jaramogi as its Vice President, while Mboya was the KANU secretary General. The two had very sharp ideological differences, giving credence to rumors at the time about the existence of KANU”A” and KANU “B”. But this was the truth of the matter; there were two sets of KANU candidates in almost every constituency throughout KENYA.

Agar did not last long. He met a fatal car accident at Ruga, on the main  Oyugis Kisii road while driving in the evening. He sustained a serious damage of his spinal code, and inspite of professional treatment in the United States, he remained on the wheel chair until his death. After Agar’s death, the former Karachuonyo Regional Assembly member, an ex-primary school teacher, David Okiki Amayo, won the by-elections that followed.

Amayo repeated the same during the election proper, when the general election was called in 1969 and successfully defended his seat again in 1974 and 1979. Amayo was in big trouble in 1983, when he lost narrowly to his former schoolmate at Kamagambo SDA Training School, the outspoken and former head of Lang’ata Women Prison, Mrs Phoebe Muga Asiyo. Amayo moved to the High Court and challenged the election of Mrs Asiyo, citing certain irregularity.

But when a by-election was called, the two battled it out in a straight fight and bruising election, during which the entire Luo elites joined Mrs Asiyo’s side. Amayo was considered to be a Moi’s right hand man in Luo-Nyanza, and as such, was one of the few Luos collaborating with the KANU government, which had kept Jaramogi out in the cold, from the mainstream national politics. Leaflets and cartoons depicting Amayo as Andhoga{traitor] were dropped in Karachuyonyo on nightly basis. Many Luo took leave of absence from their places of work, and even those who were serving in the civil service joined in the fray on Mrs Asiyo’s side.

The most intriguing thing concerning Amayo’s defeat in the hands of the Iron Lady, was that even the Permanent Secretary the Office of the President in charge of Provincial Administration and Internal Security, the late Hezekiah Nelson Oyugi, was not comfortable with Amayo leadership, and was covertly supporting Mrs Asiyo, and yet, he was another Luo right hand man of Moi. Oyugi worked covertly through the intelligence system, and provincial administration ,to ensure that Amayo was out of Parliament at all costs.

Oyugi did the same thing to Rangwe MP, who was sacked as an Assistant Minister, and expelled from KANU. Muga lost his seat in the same fashion as Amayo. And later Dr. William Odongo Omamo similarly in Bondo, due to Oyugi. At this point, secret information started reaching Moi’s ears that his most trusted PS had some hidden agenda after he had sidelined all former trusted friends and political associates of Moi in  Luo Nyanza, and replaced then with his own sycophants under the KANU queue{Mlolongo} election of 1988, which was also Oyugi’s brainchild.

Amayo bounced back in 1988, and was appointed an Assistant Minister in the new KANU government, against e expectation of many, that this time around, he was going to clinch a full cabinet portfolio. Others read mischief in the part of Oyugi, the PS, but he later succumbed to illness and died before completing hi term. His younger brother, Lazarus Ombaye Amayo, although fresh from an Indian University, won the by-election that followed on a KANU ticket, but after serving briefly as an Assistant Minister, lost the seat back to Mrs Asiyo in the first multi-party election of 1992, This time around Mrs Asiyo contested on a Ford Kenya ticket.

In the 1997, a radical US and Norway trained economist, Dr. Paul Adhu Awiti won the Karachuonyo seat on NDP ticket and retained the same in 2002, this time around on NARC ticket. But Dr. Awiti, who at one time served in the KANU/LDP merger as the Planning Minister, lost his ministerial position following the fallout in NARC, which was caused by the outcome of the referendum voting of November2005, in which Raila Odinga led Orange Democratic Movement, inflicted heavy defeat to the Kibaki led Banana group.
The people of Kabuoch and  Kanyamwa in Ndhiwa and Kadem, and Karungu in Nyatike, consider themselves as the indignant people of Southern Nyanza, while treating other communities as outsiders and immigrants or sojourners, coining the name{Nyokal},which was widely used by the colonialists in classifying and dividing the communities in the region before independence in 1963.The closest cousins are the people of Kasipul-Kabondo constituency who are slightly more in terms of numerical numbers.

It has two administrative divisions, namely East  and West Karachuonyo  with 22 administrative locations. Eleven on each side of the two Divisions, sub –divided as follows: Acheng’Nyar-Juok{ consisting of the largest groups in the west {  and Adwet Nyar Maragoli {Kadweti}, a sub-clans of Rachuonyo’s youngest and fifth wife, which is the largest and occupying most part of Central and Eastern Karachuonyo, Nyaluo Nyar-Owaga, occupying the southern part and border Kasipul-Kabondo constituencies, Auma Nyar-Alego {Kauma} which is spread in Kibiri area, bordering Kochia in Rangwe Constituency and Nyipir Nyar-Lang’o {Kanyipir}, which occupies the central area.

It is subdivided in Eastern Division and West Division, by the historical mountain, known as God Huma ,which is full of folk tales or oral history, as the Kipsigis called this Mountain as  Tiluet Ab Komiyat.{loosely translates that the Mountain of Honey}.

Karachuonyo had 55,000  registered voters, while their cousins Kasipul Kabondo had 65,000 registered voters, as per 2007 voters roll..

Most parts of the constituency is full of semi-arid land, which also lacks sufficient rainfall, but some parts is full of black cotton soil, which is suitable for cotton production. In fact, Karachuonyo was the leading producer of cotton in 1940s and 1950s.This attracted private investors who established a cotton ginnery at Kendu Bay. The ginnery is still there, but has changed names several time, and is now under the Asego Investments, a company which is associated with the former Rangwe MP. Eng Phillip Okundi.

The company has been trying hard, encouraging farmers to grow more cotton, so that Kenya can produce even surplus in order to benefit from AGOA. But most of farmers are still rather skeptical, following the woes they suffered under the primary farmers co-operative societies, which never paid their dues, for the cotton delivered for years, until they wound up and went burst.

Other occupation for economic gains in Karachuonyo include fishing activities, though the fishermen are still grappling with the menace caused to their fishing by the ever presence of water hyacinth, the weed that has blocked the passage to many fishing landing sites in Lake Victoria.

Karachuonyo is also an area which is good for rearing both native zebu cattle, as well as the more economically important grade animals for milk. But the farmers still prefer keeping the native ones instead of investing in the new method. At the same time, the population of native cattle is also dwindling, owing to the vanishing grazing land, due to population pressure.

Other parts of the constituency, and particularly in Kanyaluo areas, is suitable for both maize and grade cattle for milk production. Milk is very scarce and the population depends mostly on the supplies from Oyugis Market, which is brought in by milk hawkers from Kericho, Bureti, Sotik and Kitutu Chahe areas.

The area is suitable for irrigation, using the abundance waters of Rivers like Awach and Oluch on the borer of Karachuonyo-Rangwe.
The area Mp, Eng. Rege, is working hard to ensure that the region resumes its former role of being the bastion of cotton growing. He has secured more than a dozen tractors in a close collaboration with a multinational company. The tractors can now prepare cotton fields for the farmers on credit. He will even supply the farmers with seedling at an affordable prices and on credit. This is hoped, will boost the cotton production in the area in the near future.

Karachuonyo’s history is also full of cultural and sporting events. It has produced some of the finest footballers in Kenya’s history. The most notable are pioneer Okombo Kemdo who played for the Kenya eleventh in position of centre half Number 6 in the Gossage Cup Competitions in 1940s,  Edward Odek Aringo also played in the Gossage team in the early 1950s.Others worth mentioning in this article are men like Tukiko Oyare, Mbim Ororo, Elmad Yimbo, Oraro Nyasore, Walala Okuta,Olela Waya Manael Awuor and others.

The younger generation of footballers who turned up for Kenya in regional competitions in East and Central African Tournaments include the likes of Charles Ochieng’ and Agonda Lukio in the middle of 1960s and 1970s.

In music, the young Karachuyonyo soldiers returning after being discharged from the KAR at the end of second World War brought acositic [Box Guitrs} guitars with them, though they were not so much talented, but they invented the music in the early 1940s, leading to the formation of the defunct Kendu Jazz Band in the 1950s. The pioneers were Joseph Bonga, Olero Burma, Okul Kaleah, Nyamuche, Dick David Ogweno [Bandmaster}.

The younger generation of guitarists and entertainers produced in Karachuonyo were the likes of the blind and genius Pius Olima {Randiti}, Ben Blustus Obollawayo, Were Kerry, Odiango Abuoga, George Ramogi, George Ojijo.

Residents of Karachuony constituency played pivotal role in shaping up the development of the entire Southern Nyanza, by producing early educationists, preachers, agronomists, veterinarians and medical doctors. This perhaps, could be attributed to the early arrival of the missionaries. They trained teachers from Karachuonyo, who were found almost everywhere in the entire  Southern Nyanza, and opened schools, with trained teachers in almost every school that came  in the early 1930s and 1940s.

Pastors and priest, evangelists and other teachings of Christianity spread like bush area in the region, which was earlier on impregnable due to primitive beliefs of the natives.

But one teacher, who historically remained the architect of development in the entire Southern Nyanza, is the late Mzee Paul Mboya. After graduating as a teacher at Gendia Mission, Mboya taught for a while, before he was made a pastor of the SDA church, at the tender age of 26. His talent and preaching prowess attracted the colonialists, who appointed him and made him a location chief for Karachuonyo, after the first Chieftains of Nyakiti, Oganyo Odero, Okoth Ougo, Orinda, Dola Maira. Paul Mboya served, then left the chieftainship to one of his cousins, Ex-Senior Chief Zephania Malit.

But in 1946, the colonialist transferred Paul Mboya to Kisii, where the South Nyanza district headquarters was located and charged him with the task of forming the African Local Native Council {ALNC}. And he was made its first secretary. The responsibility covered the whole of what is today called Gusii Region, Southern Nyanza and Kuria.

Paul Mboya was among the African top administrators from this continent who attended the Victory Parade in London in 1946, to celebrate the defeat of Adolf Hitler by allied forces in 1945, the man who had set the whole world alight. He against returned to the UK to witness the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11, in June 1953.

Mboya retired from active services in 1962, as the Clerk to the County Council of South Nyanza, based at Homa-Bay, after the separation of the Luos and the Kisii by the colonial government. But after he had built many market places, trading centres, DEB Intermediate Schools , dispensaries, Health Centres, feeder and access roads, which were by then under the local authorities. Although he was serving the entire district then, he did have a lot of influence for the funds allocations for the development of his native Karachuonyo.

In an interview with some elders at Kendu Bay, they readily acknowledged Paul Mboya’s efforts in developing Karachuonyo.

Eng. Rege is arguably trying his level best, though he is facing stiffest opposition from certain quarters. Mostly from those nursing parliamentary ambitions seem hell bent on sabotaging the development programme in the area, by using their ill gotten money in drugging the youth, and dishing out cheap cash.

Without mentioning names, Eng. Rege appealed to all able people living in his constituency to join him so that they could work together and  turn Karachunyo to be a fully developed.

There is urgent need to improve facilities like Medicare, schools, roads, fishing, and other area which require agent development. They can brainstorm and put their heads together and turn the  area to be the bastion of food grains.

Kendu-Bay Homa-Bay road is under construction and it is in its advanced stage. Once completed, this road will boost business activities in the region. He appealed to the government to tarmac the Oyugis Kendu-Bay road in order to crown up the region with good roads.

Ends
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com