More districts will not help Abagusii community

I cringe with disgust when elected leaders solicit for support from the government things that don’t matter to the electorate. The Abagusii leaders who requested President Kibaki to elevate Gusiiland to a full-fledged province was a purely misplaced priority. Judging by the requests of the Abagusii leaders last Monday in the campaign rally to drum up support for president Kibaki’ s re-election, led by honourable Simeon Nyachae, I have the audacity to say that they care less for urgent problems bedevilling the Abagusii people. Requesting for an extra district or a province does not make sense when majority of the Abagusii are living from hand to mouth. The impassable roads, high poverty levels, problems of tea farmers who continue to suffer due to the privatised Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), unemployment touching graduates from local and international Universities and insecurity, do not echo in the minds of elected Gusii leaders. Because it was a campaign rally, we expected Nyachae and his team to point out the development records President Kibaki has registered since he took over the Power in 2002, and also ask for realistic, measurable and achievable requests like rural electrification, piped water, more teachers to our primary and secondary schools which has reduced the standard of education in Gusiiland. President Mwai Kibaki’s wisdom of shutting down the request to declare Gusiiland a province needs to be applauded. Surely, if Rift Valley province which stretches from Lokchogio to Namanga has not been split, then our Gusii leaders are either playing bad politics or do not understand the real problems facing their community. The presence of honourable Henry Obwocha in the Presidential rally could have added more weight to point out what assistance the people of Gusiiland urgently want from the government not Districts or a province. As Minister for planning in the Treasury, he is judged with developmental trends in the Country working hand in hand with the Ministry of Finance. He was better placed to lead by example in this. It appears that the current politicians from Gusiiland have not traversed the entire community to see the real picture on the ground. What the elected leaders are failing to tell the people is how the new district will be funded, where its headquarters will be based since many Kenyans remember how the current District of Gucha brought a national circus on the actual location of its headquarters before it was finally settled at Ogembo. Practically, Ogembo town, which is the district headquarters for Gucha is a ramshackle, the government buildings are in a pathetic condition, the police headquarters looks like a bread kiosk, sanitation and sewerage system is poor, no proper piped water, nor enough land for expansion. Is this what our leaders want under the aegis of developing Gusiiland? We cannot keep launching new districts if the already existing ones are not well maintained. If I were Nyachae and his group, I would have asked the government of President Kibaki to allocate funds to develop the already existing five districts as well as improving the living standards of people in Gusiiland.