Can real secessionists please stand up and be counted?

NASA leader Raila Odinga with Mombasa and Kilifi governors Amason Kingi (left) and Hassan Ali Joho (right) at the Sun N Sand Beach Resort in Kilifi County during the NASA consultative forum where they said plans were underway for the swearing in of their leader as the president of the people, December 17, 2017. [PHOTO BY GIDEON MAUNDU/STANDARD].

During the recent meeting in Kilifi to discuss secession, NASA leader Raila Odinga walked out as Governor Amason Kingi started to give details of the plan. Raila did not endorse the plan, and instead, called for dialogue with the Government.

While this may have been as a result of NASA’s lack of a clear strategy – especially since Raila’s boycott of the repeat presidential elections on October 26 – it was also part of a longer tradition whereby politicians from Kenya’s dominant ethnic communities, especially Kikuyu and Luo, have more often than not favoured a powerful central Government, as opposed to extensive decentralisation and/or complete secession of certain regions of the country.