Otiato GuguyuKenya is witnessing a resurgence of local village and clan ties as communities turn to welfare associations to form groups for resilience to weather the multi-year economic slump.
The number of welfare associations being formed is rising as communities form welfare groups to build schools, health facilities and start businesses for their children in an effort to supplant the Kenyan state that is hamstrung by debt and political resource misallocations.
Kenya uses Kes70 out of every Kes100 to pay debt, living very little for recurrent expenditure and almost nothing for development spending such as schools, holspitals an roads.
CS Treasury John Mbadi says the government has even been struggling with payroll and is having to resort to flash sale of state parastatals, renegotiating loan repayment with the Chinese state and partnering with wealthy individals and businesses to outsource state functions like building infrastructure.
Read also: Namuonja the Manyala who ruled North East Nyanza before we became Kenya
As the state retreats, communities are trying to create resilience at clan and village levels, rebuilding old pre-colonial structures to offer services, livelihood, and opportunity for progression within welfare associations.
Replacing Baba
The shift is also coalescing local and diaspora links, tying investment to kinship ties in a bid to secure trust which may in the long run, turn investments from the capital markets in Nairobi.
While welfare associations are usually small groups, family, friends and clans, and when they are bigger in the case of professional groups like teachers, their ambition does not go beyond decent burial, when done in scale at a community level and beyond, they have been able to mobilize the social capital that make significant change.
In the past, these mobilizations have proved powerful, delivering huge community investments like Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation (LUTATCO), which was central to the communities social and economic life during the colonial and independence period, that birthed leading political figures like the Odinga’s.
I am personally a chairman of one group, a secretary of another, and a member in two welfare associations, as such groups overlap on a regional and filial basis,
This December I was privy to be part of the launch of Namuonja descendants welfare group, which on the surface may seem, small but has the potential to recalibrate the social political landscape of Nyanza region.
Namwonja Mukudi Foundation is ambitious, setting out to put up a community college, health center, bursary and social assistance funds, while leveraging savings for credit and investments into the innovations of the group.
Borne out of thelegacy of Paul Khasamba Namwonja Mukudi, this assocaition has the capacity to change the diet, markets and social political landscapes of the Nyanza region by coordinating their interests and working in concert like their shared ancestor.
Multiplier
The impact can be multiplied given Namwonja’s ties stretch across disparate people Luhyas, Luos and Baganda from Mulambo Majimbo, Yimbo Kadimo, Bukhwaya in Osieko (present Bondo Sub-County, in Siaya County)), Busonga Bumwango Mwango hill in Alego Usonga and Odiado (Ugenya Sub-County, Siaya County), Bukangala and Bukhekhe in Samia (Samia Sub-County), Bukhayo in Matayos Sub-County, Buongo, Mundika, Bukhuma in Bunyala Sub-County, etc.
Namuonja Mukudi who today would have dominion over Nyanza and Western Kenya and parts of Eastern Uganda was a pre-colonial ruler whose reign ended under colonial decree when the British settlers favoured the Wanga King to rule over Kavirongo Gulf.
His progeny still control of land across the vast lowlands and may determine its future if they so chose to.
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