OPINION: BY NDAVI MUOMBE (Hawaii U.S.A).
Following the demise of Paul Ngei and Mulu Mutisya in 2004, the Kamba Community was handed over to Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.
Unfortunately, his navigation has not borne fruit for the 5 million regional population two decades later.
He has not strategically and creatively positioned his community to benefit from Kenya’s development dividend.
Time and again, Kalonzo joins coalitions which benefit him to the exclusion of community. Year in, year out, from one electoral cycle to the other, the Kamba Nation – especially rural folk – are kept waiting and hoping. Just like they plant every season, rain or no rain.
The One-Million-Dollar question is: How and when will the fate of the Kamba Nation change for the better?
From a historical standpoint, very sadly, a recent opportunity was lost when the three former Governors outside the Wiper fraternity – Charity Ngilu, Alfred Mutua & Kivutha Kibwana (self – declared retiree) – could not unite. They disintegrated after arousing their community to the tintillating taste of a post – Kalonzo era.
No blame can be cast because this disunity dynamic is historically traceable as intrinsic in the Kamba body-politic. It has in fact moved on and is now manifesting itself within the Kamba UDA/Kenya Kwanza Alliance (KKA) forces, crippling the only entity currently possessing the potential to mount a real challenge to SKM’s strangle-hold on the community.
Clearly, divine intervention remains the ultimate solution for the Kamba question. But in my view, this needs a united political and religious leadership to take a repentant community before their Maker. SKM can see no point in this as he is the key beneficiary of the status quo.
Admittedly if the Kamba people continue to reap a raw deal in national affairs, Kalonzo should not be blamed any more. He and his brigade have demonstrated they have no sustainable solution to offer. Kambas and any alternative leadership should squarely blame themselves.
The Kamba people should now focus on: Kitui: Malonza, Monica, Mueke, Nimrod, Musila, Munuve, Mutambu, Annastacia, Nyamu etc. Makueni: Nduva, Mbaika, Mutuse, Mbaluka, Muteti, Adelina, Kisoi etc. Machakos: Mutua, Muthama, Vincent, Munyaka, Caleb etc. Nairobi: Sonko Mbuvi, Sen. Mutinda etc.
All the above and many others I do not know, must ditch personal ambition and work under any one person or committee agreed upon by the others if they care for the welfare of the community. Only a united team of the above can overthrow the region’s ONE PARTY hegemony, thereby freeing the community from marginalization and endemic under development.
The President will not organize the Kamba UDA /KKA leadership. Kambas should put their political house in order themselves, like other communities.
I don’t envy the Kamba political class; they seem to be in a perpetual state of animated paralysis. Perhaps this is their destiny and by extension that of the community. What a pity!
