By MN Reporter
Kuria East MP Marwa Kitayama has called on ODM leader Raila Odinga to ensure the minority Kuria community is given a county as a precursor of the community supporting BBI.
Kitayama has led elders to demand a county as they had stipulated to the Building Bridges Initiative taskforce.
Kitayama said despite the proposals not adding any county out of existing 47, as a community they need one as a special consideration.
“Raila is the de-facto leader in Nyanza and he is the one who should give the Kuria community a county, we don’t have to have other ideas in 2022 general elections,” he said.
He said the Kuria community has formed a caucus Sabaot and Teso in Bungoma and Busia counties respectively to push for their own counties.
“We have joined a caucus of other smaller and marginsalised communities in Kenya like Sabaot, Teso and Ilchamus to push our agenda, as for Kuria we are still demanding our own county otherwise we will reject the report,” Kitayama said.
His sentiments was shared by a group of elders drawn from the community led by Matiko Bohoko, a former Kuria West constituency aspirant who led elders in a press conference in Kehancha town.
The group said in Migori, all county seats and senior positions in county government are held by Luos which has marginalised them.
Migori governor Okoth Obado, senator Ochillo Ayacko, Woman Representative Pamela Odhiambo and speaker Boaz Okoth all hail from the Luo community.
“We have special issues as a community which is not fully addressed by the report, we want our own county,” Bohoko said
Migori, according to last population census has 1,116,436 across eight constituencies, with Kuria community making 305,385 or 27.4 per cent of the population in Kuria East and Kuria West constituencies.
The number is similar to other fully fledged counties: Tana River (315,943), Lamu (143,920), Taita/Taveta (340,671), Isiolo (268,002), Tharaka-Nithi (393,177) and Samburu (310,327).
We need our own county ala!BBI kitu gani ka akuna bridge ya kuria county
This is quite realistic Mr kitayama ….push for it we are behind you….. we are being misused and sabotaged by the so called luo boys
He is blind elected on jubeelee ticket , campaigned for jubeelee government,then commanding Raila to give them county.my question is
Who is president
Who is deputy president
Who promise them county
Kuria community should hold by election immediately
We have special issues as a community which is not fully addressed by the report, we want our own county,” Bohoko said. Why can’t he come forward and name those special issues or he thinks intimidating Raila with not supporting BBI will help Kurians? Let him just say that his problem is FGM! Just the other day they had Machage, Denita, Deputy Governor, 2 MPS and a host of other perks and he wasn’t even grateful. Waende kabisa. Their exit is long overdue. Nobody will miss them.
Of course we need our own county cuz if it is the issue of population we have it ,, secondly we have been marginalized for long ,,to sum up we will only support BBI if given a county otherwise let them not expect our support whatsoever.