Ruto and Uhuru; To bring peace in Rift Valley sort out land issues not holding rallies

I was going through the Sunday Nation of 27^th May 2012 the following day(yesterday) just to catch what I could have missed. I had not read the entire column on William Ruto’s rally in Nakuru so I indulged myself. Many things disgust me about Kenyan politics but few tickle the bug that makes my fingers itch for a key board to punch. Here I am; my good pastor spared a whole month to teach me about honouring my leaders so I will be as civil and sober as I can be.

Ruto is reported to have said he will hold peace rallies across Rift Valley with his new found ally Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. I almost busted out- MADNESS! Then I remembered I am alone in the room. I put the paper aside and stared at the ceiling. It is only a fool who does the same thing over and over expecting different results. The two ‘kings’ are definitely naked- tough not exposing what the artist from South Africa imagined Jacob Zuma exposes. Who will point it out to them?

I don’t have their personal contacts so I will indulge myself on this medium that makes me a third rate scribe. Central and North Rift Valley is mainly inhabited by the Kalenjin as a majority and Kikuyu as a minority. The Kalenjin regard the area as their ancestral land which the Kikuyu ‘grabbed’ part of by the help of the Kenyatta regime ‘Kiambu mafia.’

Let me try to be candid but wise in a way, land is so emotive in this country. Whatever happened in the seventies happened and the people moved on. They never thought that by settling people in the Rift Valley they were creating a problem that will take generations and more resources to solve.

In my local ‘Baraza’ every weekend where I always spot some NSIS agents hovering around like vultures, I heard one thing that made stop in my tracks. The few Kalenjins in the group told us what a circumcised Kalenjin boy is taught. Now that they are men, the community expects them to guard and protect three things; land, family and cattle.

To them Ruto and Sang are facing crimes against humanity charges at The ICC for their peoples cultural obligations. Land is at the core of Kalenjins life that not even a political agreement can take that away . They even warned us not to dare buy land from a Kalenjin in the Rift Valley- they will claim it back at some point.

Back to my two good ‘kings’- the problem with peace in the Rift Valley is land, not politics. You don’t solve land issues at a political rally; you do it in a board room or a court of law. If politics would solve this, then all should have been well after the 2002 general elections. Moi as a Kalenjin elder and president tried to hand back the presidency to Uhuru- a Kikuyu. It did not, so politics will not bring peace in the Rift.

Preaching peace is good and encouraged but it will not bring lasting peace. According to these Kalenjin members of the ‘baraza’ -not  Kalenjin IDPs from Mau Forest still live by the roadside in Rongai and the Kikuyus displaced from Eldoret are settled nearby with several police posts to boot. These Kalenjin IDPs are then given land to settle in Eldoret far from their ‘home.’

I know the ICC case has brought Uhuru and Ruto closer but let them not lie to themselves that the problem in the Rift Valley will be solved by mere talk. It is prudent that with the new land policy in place, measures should be taken to sort out the Rift Valley land mess. Historical injustices must also be seen to be acknowledged even if they can’t be reversed.

Going into the general election, one issue that is catastrophic to leave to politics and the people who dispense politics is LAND. Talk about peace, you have a constitutional right to do so but it is not enough. After the rallies, sit and sort this out. It is not a walk in the park, but that is what leadership is all about. Even if you both fail to clinch the presidency and no matter the outcome at the ICC, if you manage to sort out this, your legacy in this country is secured if you care about it.

On a flip, the growing number of youth in the rift valley is a time bomb. As the land is divided further into smaller un-economical portions, the people hit hard are the young people. These are the ever ready gang for hire or community’s rapid response team.

Land is not everything. The Asian community own strategic land, enough to give them maximum economic returns. The rest they lease, get their investment returns from it and return it to the owner when the lease expires. These are the same people who run our economy and employ a majority of Kenyans. This will only sink in if these youth are exposed to the other side of economics that is not directly related to land.

It is time as country we learned to take the tough road if it means it will solve some of our social problems once and for all. This problem of election year evictions in the Rift Valley is what spilled over and gave birth to mungiki in Central Kenya. If we sweep hard decisions under the carpet, they will come to haunt us soon.

Leadership is desired by many but few know its magnitude. The problems in the Rift Valley will not be solved at political rallies and political arrangements that do not take into account the core issues on the ground. As we go into elections, let us remember to Live and Let Live. We will not solve all our problems, but we can agree to keep the peace as the matters are being sorted.

LIVE and LET LIVE

The Tiriki of Vihiga County can teach us how to finish tribalism

                                             Tiriki circumcision dance- vukhulu

I had decided to quit blogging on social issues but the backfired anthropologist in me won’t allow. I am not a historian so my hypothesis is a result of my interest in people and their well being. When the writing bug bites, it gets too itchy to brush aside.

 I have been commenting on issues in the social media to quench my writing thirst. The vitriol targeted at Mr. Ngunjiri Wambugu from his kith and kin kept me busy. Though it could not quell it all together so I come back stuttistically to express my new found (but adopted) slogan of LIVE and LET LIVE.

wambugu

I grew up among the Luhya in Western Kenya. I first learned the Idakho dialect in lower primary class at Musingu Primary but grasped Tiriki from my interactions out of school as Kaimosi Friends Primary was as cosmopolitan as any urban primary school. I spent ten good years among the Tiriki including four high school years in Maragoli land. Vihiga County is made up of three Luhya sub-tribes of Banyore, Tiriki and the populous Maragoli.

Watching Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale go through his motions in and out of parliament brings memories of my time among the idakho. The walks to Khayega for bull fighting and the passionate isikuti dance thereafter. The song ‘mkangala’ was a toast of the only Luhya sub-tribe that according to me is spoke with passion and zest. Listening to Kimaragoli is cool, while the Tiriki to me are a balanced lot of passion with restraint.

The Tiriki speak Lutirichi (or Ludiliji) and occupy the West of Vihiga County bordering Nandi County. There is a Kalenjin sub tribe of Nandi called Terik which has sometimes led to comments that Tirikis are not Luhyas or Teriks are not Kalenjins. That is a point to note but I will hold the Teriks constant (to do justice to my Mathematics lecturers now that I am a self confessed admirer of Anthropology) and differentiate the Tiriki.

Tiriki is sub divided into several clans which include; Balukhoba, Bajisinde, Baumbo, Bashisungu Bamabi, Bamiluha, Balukhombe, Badura, Bamuli, Barimuli, Baguga, Basianiga and Basuba. Thanks to my former school mates- I am a ‘Musuva.’ I write this as an adopted Tiriki in the order of the clan of Basuba (Basuva). Don’t take offense when I used ‘b’ and ‘v’ confusingly in Luhya words. I have never understood the use of the two but my own definition is that idakho use ‘b’ while Tiriki use ‘v’ in written and sometimes a gliding ‘b’ in spoken.

I chose Basuva because I am a Suba and it is believed that the Basuva are originally from the Luo sub-tribe of Suba. According to a Tiriki, Mr. Lusasi- it is believed that only two clans- Baumbo and Balukhoba are the original Tiriki clans. Baumbo are believed to have come from Luos as the word ‘Bambo’- is Tiriki for Luo. The rest were adopted from Kalenjin and other Luhya sub-tribes.

Another point to note is that all these clans regardless of their ‘origin’ have adopted the Tiriki culture most of it picked from their Terik grandfather. Like the five year boys’ initiation cycle called itumi. Then a circumcised Tiriki man cannot eat food that has fallen to the ground and many others. 

Here comes my point, if our forefathers could adopt and integrate people from different social origins why do we find it hard to integrate? Has development and education eroded our social side and taken us back to the olden times as prehistoric (before the written word) judgment finds us with no defense.

This is the case with almost every African tribe. I believe the prisoners who escaped from the colonial Mageta Island prison may have found a home in current Bondo district. My workmate who hails from Murang’a is a proud Kikuyu but accepts that his grandfather was a Maasai whose nickname Abaiya (Maa for a man with a family) evolved to his current name Kibaiya. 

The late political activist Oulu G.P.O who died fighting for the rights of Kikuyu young men- mungiki was a Luo descendant of a Luhya grandfather. His grandfather had a bone to pick with his Luo neighbours. He went to follow up and in the settlement he got land and he chose to live among his ‘former’ enemies. His children and grandchildren are as Luo as Jakoyo Midiwo and the Suba in me.

Education and the recent global village initiatives have left us more closed than open minded. We have failed where education is meant to replace a closed mind with an open one. In terms of social integration, our ancestors beat us. Negative ethnicity is not only primitive nor even prehistoric but primeval.

We are getting into the election mode and the best we shall do is to appoint some people tribal elders as we demonize the Ngunjiri Wambugu’s of our times. These are people who have decided to fight the tribal prejudice associated with our country even if it means standing alone. The problem is to fight tribalism you have to associate with it, you cannot do it in a vacuum. This may bring some backlash but focus will sift the chuff from the grain. If we do not do something- the next ‘presidential referendum’ will end up in Pyrrhic victory for whoever wins.

To push my agenda further I will write about the Kikuyu like- Kasiemba clan from my ‘cosmopolitan’ home of Uyoma Naya in Siaya County. The development and social growth of someone else does not necessarily mean a depreciation of the same on your side. Live and let live, there are lessons to learn and an opportunity to build each other by bridging our weaknesses with our strength in diversity. LIVE and LET LIVE.