Only politically myopic people can fail to see the significance of Kisumu legislators snubbing Uhuru’s visit to the lakeside town. Is Uhuru president for all Kenya and does his government deploy resources to all these regions equitably and fairly? The answer is an obvious no!
Recently, it was reported the region received the least of new Jubilee road projects. And this information was from the governments own economic survey reports. The systematic marginalization of Nyanza and much of western does not end there. Loans to sugar farmers have not been written off as they have been done for their coffee counterparts in Mt Kenya region. Sugar happens to be the most important food crop in these region supporting livelihoods of more than 8 million people.
A casual analysis of annual admissions into national universities and tertiary colleges, recruitment into the military, police and KFS & KWS show an unmistakable bias against the same region. It will take up to half a century to balance Jubilee’s skewed and selective development.
This is just a tip of the iceberg. We can still talk about fisheries, industry, health, education or new electricity connections. We can question government inability to reclaim Migingo Island.
Legislators are first answerable to the people and their primary duty is to oversight the executive arm of government. This is something Uhuru Kenyatta has yet to internalise.
Kudos Obura, Owuor, Shabbir, and all others.
