How Raila Odinga can change the Luo narrative

The heading of this article may sound unfair to some. I, therefore, take this early opportunity to apologise to those who, quite understandably, will feel slighted by it.

For out of more than 40 communities that call Kenya home, it may seem cheeky to single out one for discussion on matters of resource allocation by the State.

But there is a narrative that has come to dominate our national thinking. It has been played so many times in our day-to-day conversations it now passes as a near gospel truth.

That the Luo people, in particular, may have been sidelined by previous administrations is beyond the scope of this article. What is not in doubt is that we have come from a difficult past when ruling party mandarins enjoyed excessive powers, which may have been grossly abused to punish whole communities over political differences.

The Jubilee administration assumed the reins of power in a completely different era. We were not only in a multi-party era, but had also ushered in a new constitutional dispensation that significantly reduced the powers of the president and reaffirmed the separation of powers between the three arms of government.

In the new dispensation, the independence of the Judiciary, Parliament, the Director of Public Prosecutions and various constitutional commissions, is not in doubt.

The main takeaway, however, from the Constitution is devolution of power and resources. The national government is obligated to allocate at least 15 per cent of national revenues to the devolved units, otherwise known as county governments.

The county governments, checked by the county assemblies, have the power to budget and allocate resources to various development projects. There are counties where development projects which could not be implemented in five decades have been accomplished in a record three years.

It speaks to the power of enabling people to determine their own destiny instead of planning for everyone at the national level. With proper management of resources at the county level, all the 47 counties should realise visible progress in infrastructure, healthcare, early childhood education and agriculture, among others. These should help cut down poverty by a significant percentage over the next 10 years.

The introduction of free child delivery in all Government hospitals is something that makes me particularly proud as a woman. I need not emphasise that lives were lost as women caught in the manacles of poverty had no option but to deliver their babies at home under the care of traditional birth attendants. Women from Luo-dominated counties have particularly benefited from this initiative as these regions experienced higher incidence of poverty compared to those in other parts of the county.

Despite these developments, I have witnessed a dangerous trend where political leaders from the Luo community have kept complaining of being marginalised by the Jubilee government. The complaints oftentimes make it sound like devolution never happened; free maternity services non-existent and presidential powers were intact.

 A few political appointments made by the President and his government may raise political temperatures but in the big scheme of things, they mean very little.

The role of a public officer is to use his or her office to deliver services to all Kenyans irrespective of their political persuasions or ethnic extraction. The real deal is in taking advantage of the benefits wrought by the national and county government to start new enterprises and grow existing ones.

I conclude this piece by making a special appeal to the Right Hon Raila Odinga to help change this narrative, not just among the Luo people but among all the Kenyan people who hold him in high esteem.