A time for Abagusii to come together, talk as a family
SAM NYAMWEYA
There is no doubt the Abagusii, a community whose majority citizens and descendants reside in the land of hills and “God’s bathroom” is blessed in so many ways.
Their journey to this land was wrought with tribulations; hostile, warlike and numerically superior neighbours, disease and pestilence.
They had to be hyper-sensitive to their environment to survive, exist. Perhaps, to ward off the enemy, their sensitivity and defensive instincts morphed into their often talked about hot temper!
It is this DNA of survival, industry, pride, hospitality and independence that has enabled the community, despite its ‘minority’ status in the Kenyan ethno-political parlance, to stamp its indelible and enviable footprints in the socio-economic, political, sports, educational and technological spheres.
Their honour and pride in the struggle for Kenya’s independence, though often not acknowledged, cannot be wished away.
For instance, one of their gallant sons, Otenyo Nyamaterere, who was executed and his head carted away to the UK museum where it lies to date, after killing a European colonial administrator, is testimony of their contribution to free the country from colonial chains.
This is also true of heroine Moraa Ngiti, who galvanised the community against the colonisers and their collaborators. And indeed, the community has made an enviable and significant contribution to our motherland in all spheres.
Sadly, because of the ever-conniving, treacherous, retrogressive and ethno-superiority driven politics, the contribution and potential of Abagusii, like other smaller communities, has been overshadowed and relegated to the periphery as others with numerical might lord it over the country.
This has been and will continue to be the bane of our politics, and general growth, unless reversed.
This is why as the country hurtles to the watershed 2022 election with communities strategising to stake their claim on the post-Uhuru Kenyatta presidency, the Abagusii have to pose and ask themselves how to place themselves and their leaders as key players in the succession race. It should no longer be a “go-to vote top-up” community!
In the current government, sits one of our sons Fred Matiang’i, who has excelled as top performer in all dockets he has held, and who is now skating on thin ice with calls for his ouster echoing from the background.
He has been marked as a sacrificial lamb — never mind his experience and performance — in the dirty game of politics because he lacks political solid ground to stand on!
I look back with great nostalgia to our glorious political days of when as a community spoke with one voice and pray that the patriotic spirit of our leaders—late Zachary Onyonka, Simeon Nyachae, Lawrence Sagini, James Nyamweya, Andrew Omanga, George Anyona, Sephania Anyieni, George Morara and Mark Bosire among others—arise to guide our current leaders to unite and chart a new political destiny for the community.
It is time to look to the future and let any missteps and ego trips of yesterday be consigned to the dust bins of history.
Unless this happens, we will be relegated to socio-political oblivion in these seismic political times. The moment to engage and talk as a community is now.
Who will be our Moses to lead the community out of the political Misri we are stuck in? — The writer is former FKF President and senior community leader
