The key word is investment

My Dear friends,

We have a problem in our backyard and to those who are yet to engrave this problem into their mind; I can only say ....sorry! As I've said in the past few days, we have to meet and discuss how we to invest in our backyard. We have to meet, without meeting the debate will not end and the suffering will continue unabated. To those who share my point of view, lets move ahead and do something and to those who don't like the idea of meeting, ''ang'o marach'' to paraphrase Dr. PLO. Lumumba in his book. ''Joluo ang'o marach''??

As you know, we have been the victims of all forms of government of national unity terrorism, marginalization, and dehumanization. We have been the ones who can be easily removed from office without apologies; (remember Mr. Bernard Chunga's removal from the judiciary. The same plan was being hatched against Mr. Amos Wako, I can remember, Gumo led Luhyia in protest MPS saying, ''wameanza tena'' and the Mt Kenya scheme to remove Wako simply died like that. When Chunga was being crucified, our political representatives never uttered a word against this. As we speak, Mr. Moi is a frequent state house guest and a national advisor to Kibaki.) we are the ones whose promotions in the civil service are delayed or totally ignored; we are the ones whose schools are no longer performing in national examinations, we are the ones who suffer most after any political violence. Political assassinations, massacre etc.!

The Luo youth, his profession notwithstanding, is at the crossroads; and, unless something urgent is done, he may be lost to the Luo nation. The Luo are therefore constantly under severe threat in a country they contributed perhaps more than any other ethnic group to build. It is an irony that they are no longer at ease in the so called National Unity government mainly because they are not benefiting in terms of development allocation.

What do we do now?????? To move out of this quagmire, the Luo need to retool their strategies and reconsider their options. The Luo need cohesion in organization and in leadership. Lets' use the same energy to mobilize resources as we do in politicking. We have to first acknowledge that there is indeed a serious crisis of kech and underdevelopment in Luoland. The underpinning of that crisis is lack of development agenda for the past 45 years and our own attitude about things that needs no big mind to understand. Disorganization is a serious disease...... this must be addressed first before we can move ahead, second important thing; attitudinal change especially amongst our senior members of Luo nation must change. We must tell them in no uncertain terms that the callous bossy behaviour must be done away with.

Ka aweyo mano, economically, Joluo can still improve their fortunes. The Luo have survived so far because of their Helping or spoiling hand?? to quote Pr. Absalom Birai. Yet all is far from being well in Luoland land. Its' time for the helping hand to change tact. If Luo entrepreneurs, politicians, academics and jogueng' can pool their resources together in a cooperative spirit of enterprise we should be able to transcend the limitations of the hostile environment in which we find ourselves. The on-going privatization of public companies is a good example here. These companies are being bought using your taxes. This leaves us with very few options of catching up with our peers in terms of development.

We mustn't stop here and surrender as surrendering at this moment of time would only aggravate the bad situation. This is where investing amongst ourselves comes in. Being our brother's keepers implies confidence and trust. You cannot keep somebody you don't trust. But there is no reason why you should not trust your brother. It means we can pool our resources -- financial and otherwise -- for large-scale investment.

It is unfortunate that the on-going privatization exercise in Nairobi has found our people lagging behind. I once heard that some people are ganging up to buy telkom etc. The next thing you will hear is that, the same group of individuals will join hands to buy strategically located properties i.e. Sunset Hotel. The bad thing is; we will be the ones who troop these joints in big numbers. I now understand why we are the region that pays more tax than Mt Kenya to the so called government of national unity. It's a blank cheque!!

The future of business does not lie in small, individual or family businesses, but in corporate business ventures. All over the world companies are merging together, not only to protect themselves, but to increase their investible funds in the hope to reap higher dividends in the long term. The imperatives of modern economy should compel progressive Luos whenever they are to effectively respond positively to these imperatives.

On the nagging issue of the so-called Luo propensity to self-destruct let me remind Joluo, through this forum, that the stable future, which we wish for ourselves and Nythindwa, cannot be achieved through this pattern of behavior. It is a negative trait in our culture which if we encourage will lead to the destruction of the entire Luo nation.

William ODuor