Ruth Odinga warns of threat to democracy after Homa Bay violence

Ruth Odinga links Chemelil Sugar Academy attack to wider sugar sector crisis

Kisumu Woman Representative Ruth Odinga condemned the violence surrounding the planned Linda Mwananchi rallies in Homa Bay, warning that political leaders risk pushing the country towards a dangerous path if they continue mobilising youths to disrupt political gatherings.

Odinga said she was deeply troubled by events preceding the rallies, accusing political leaders of using young people to perpetrate violence and prevent the organisers from holding their meetings.

“My heart is bleeding at the events preceding Homa Bay Linda Mwananchi’s scheduled rallies today,” Odinga said.

She condemned what she described as attacks targeting the political convoy and the assault of journalists Fred Ooko and Brian Ongoro of AFP, whose equipment was reportedly destroyed.

“An attack on the press is an attack on every Kenyan’s right to know,” she said, adding that attacking a political convoy violated Kenyans’ constitutional rights to movement, assembly and association.

Odinga also expressed concern about what she described as a troubling pattern in Luo Nyanza, saying the region’s history of fighting for democracy should make it a defender of political freedoms rather than a place where dissent is suppressed.

“As a leader born in a political family, and conscious of the history of our country, I cannot help but see a dangerous pattern in Luo Nyanza, where a region whose sons and daughters paid the ultimate price for us to get democracy has turned around and is now being used to stifle the very democracy those before us fought so hard for,” she said.

She questioned who was behind the alleged mobilisation of youths and who stood to benefit from political divisions.

Odinga invoked the legacy of her late father, former Vice-President and independence-era politician Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who she said spent much of his political life fighting for Kenyans’ right to choose their leaders freely.

She also cited the deaths and sacrifices of other prominent figures associated with Kenya’s democratic struggle, including Argwings-Kodhek, Tom Mboya and Prof. Crispin Odhiambo Mbai.

Odinga said Mbai, a political science professor at the University of Nairobi and a native of Homa Bay, played a key role in the constitutional review process and chaired the Devolution Committee at the Bomas constitutional review conference before his death in 2003.

She said the devolution system that Mbai helped champion was eventually incorporated into the 2010 Constitution, seven years after his death.

“We must take stock as a community,” Odinga said, arguing that political differences should be settled through debate rather than violence.

She condemned the alleged use of pangas, stones and hired youths to disrupt political gatherings, saying political rallies and dissenting opinions should not be treated as criminal acts.

Odinga said the violence witnessed in Homa Bay, including the alleged mobilisation of youths to disrupt a notified political gathering and attacks on journalists, should concern every Kenyan.

“Watching what unfolded in Homa Bay today – youth mobilized and paid to disrupt a lawful, notified political gathering, journalists beaten for doing their jobs, a whole town shut down by fear – I have to believe my father and his generation are turning in their graves,” she said.

“This is not the Nyanza they bled for. This is not the democracy they envisioned.”

The Kisumu Woman Representative said Nyanza had historically produced some of Kenya’s strongest advocates for multiparty democracy and freedom of expression and should therefore be at the forefront of protecting political freedoms.

She challenged political leaders to stop turning young people against one another over political differences.

“So what is my point? We, the leaders, stand accused,” she said, accusing politicians of mobilising and funding youths to disrupt lawful political gatherings.

Odinga warned that Kenya was moving rapidly towards a dangerous political environment where reversing the consequences of violence could become difficult.

“We are rattling pretty fast towards a dark abyss, and when we get there, getting out of it will be a different story,” she said.

She called for an immediate end to the violence, urging leaders to protect political pluralism and ensure that future generations inherit a society where disagreements are resolved through dialogue.

“We owe our children a Homa Bay and a Nyanza, where political disagreement is a conversation, not a battlefield,” she said.