It was in bad taste to witness nearly the entire elected leadership of Homa Bay county give a wide berth to President William Ruto on his maiden visit to the lakeside county.
Instead of coming out to welcome the President and help the country to heal and forge forward after a brutal general election, Governor Gladys Wanga and Homa Bay Town MP Opondo Kaluma stayed away, citing other engagements.
Had it been the ODM leader making a visit to the region, even to attend a funeral, the entire elected leadership in the region would have mobilised to grace the occasion, with pomp, joy and colour. All roads in Nyanza would have converged in Homa Bay.
We are past the campaign period and displaying this type of gesture is irresponsibly immature and goes a long way to deprive the people able representation and access to the President and his government.
It may just have been a church meeting, but the President, in his magnanimity, was politely sending a message to the region of his willingness to embrace the entire country and work with the region. He was indirectly holding out an olive branch, testing the waters for an inclusive government.
We will be too quick to discredit his leadership for alienating the region from development to appointments when in essence, we are our own enemy, displaying resentment and unnecessary resistance to those in power.
We all had information that Ruto would visit Homa Bay. What special invite did Kaluma need to grace the occasion? A time is coming when you will struggle even to see a Cabinet secretary in a function in the region due to your open rebellious streak.
From 1966 and the days of KPU, the Luo community has openly displayed resistance to the government, failing to embrace leadership from other communities and sticking with our own, in the name of unity. The unity has served one purpose, to solely benefit a few individuals at the apex of the community leadership and not the community.
Luos who have attempted to work with successive governments since 1969 have found themselves on the receiving end, sometimes victims of brutal physical attacks, not from the government but within the community.
We have accused them wrongly of choosing to work for and with the president, for we must all be in one basket, even when perishing, sinking deep. Yet we continue to blame successive governments for not working with the Luo, depriving the region of resources.
We must stop pointing fingers and carry out self-assessment as a people and boldly point out our mistakes. Our style of politics has gravely wasted us and will continue to cost us more.
We must not wait for a nod from one person to embrace the government and to work with the President.
We pride ourselves as Democrats, as a people who gallantly fought for freedom yet we have fashioned ourselves to a single-party orientation in the region, almost illegal to work with other Kenyans.
Let us stop our retrogressive culture of unnecessary political resistance and rejection, thinking it is a mark of heroism. Let us stop this self-inflicted culture of isolation, looking at others as enemies.
