All omens show that the turn of the Luhya to eat is nigh

At the next census, in August 2019, people from the 18 sub-nations that form the Luhya will constitute the largest ethnic group in Kenya, given the uninspiring reproduction rates in the competition.

Give or take a few deaths since the last census at which community numbers were confirmed at 5.3 million, the Luhya look poised to go into the 2017 elections with at least 4 million votes.

Yet, people continue to deny the Luhya the moniker of tribe, saying they cannot unite, eat or vote together.

For the longest time, members of the Luhya community have been speechless in the face of power, biting their tongues instead of making demands.

Their share of the national cake has remained un-eaten as a result.

A national refusal to touch, smell, see, taste or hear the Luhya as a tribe — dating back to the days of Henry Morton Stanley — has prevented the community from occupying leadership positions in government since Kenya became independent and frustrated the quest to bestow upon its members prosperity commensurate to their numerical strength.

Luhya is the only community whose sons have thrice come within sniffing distance of the presidency and is, therefore, comfortable with the smell of power.

Mr Musalia Mudavadi, now crowned community spokesperson by dint of poll popularity, was Vice-President between November 2002 and December 2002; Michael Wamalwa’s nostrils were flaring to take in presidential air between January 2003 and August 2003; and Mr Arthur Moody Awori was in place between September 2003 and January 2008.

Ascendancy to power has been frustrated by incoherence. The Luhya are a veritable Tower of Babel: despite common customs, taboos and stories of origin, they speak gibberish in their mother tongue.

One Luhya says he has a headache, and his kinsman from across the valley hears that the other has an ache in his rear end. Government comes around offering soda and, because of the difficulties of pronouncing and hearing certain letters properly, everybody interprets it as a demand for the exercise of conjugal rights.

The unveiling of Mr Mudavadi as the community spokesperson after a scientific survey found him to be the most coherent, articulate, skillful and thoughtful Luhya should still the voices of confusion in the community.

The new spokesperson brings with him a matchless capacity to hear everybody and speak on their behalf; he will think for them, negotiate on their behalf and eat on their behalf.

This a role Mr Mudavadi is extremely well-suited for. As recently as five years ago, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, as he then was, signed a deal to make Mr Mudavadi president complete with 10 per cent control of government and then walked back from his pledge, claiming he had conversed with demons.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge. Wracked by guilt for failing to give the Luhya their due, it appears that President Kenyatta has chosen to make amends by putting one Luhya after another in important government positions in an emergent architecture power as the population savours the taste of saliva springing from the glands in torrents, summoned by the sight and smell of roast meat.

Former Anglican Church of Kenya Archbishop Eliud Wabukala is poised to be appointed chairman of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, where the careers of ambitious political upstarts are brought to a screeching halt.

In a seemingly arranged accident of fate, another Luhya, Mr Wafula Chebukati, is set to be appointed as the chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, where his younger kinsman, Mr Ezra Simiyu Chiloba, is the chief executive officer.

It is not unimaginable that they would be required to take instructions from their spokesman

With Parliament’s refusal to be intimidated into disallowing manual voting, counting and transmission of election results this year, the omens show that the time for the Luhya to eat is nigh.

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