Wajaluo are blessed with being booksmart. They make up the bulk of Kenya’s high-paying white-collar jobs.
Wajaluo are big spenders, and entertainment businesses thrive in estates ziko na Luo majority.
Even most of their lawmakers seem more educated and polished, versus their peers in parliament.
Therefore, it makes no sense that their home counties are so poor, relative to the national economy. Even the county with the region’s biggest city, Kisumu County, is eclipsed by nondescript counties such as Nyandarua and Meru counties, (based on GDP PPP from IMF records). On GDP Per Capita, Kisumu County ranks at 13th, while Migori is 42nd.
Juzi I saw Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo building mud homes for poverty-stricken people. Imagine being so poor that a matope house comes as a blessing.
Such a contrast from to the flashy Luo lifestyle we see across the country.
PS. This isn’t a tribalism post, and this isn’t to say that poverty is exclusive to Nyanza Region.
The LUOs are said to be big spenders yet are seriously under-represented in top estates and top clubs in places like karen, lavington and kilimani, it’s a myth, they spend “big” in local joints to impress hustlers while actually staying poor themselves
What economic activities did the white man leave behind in Luo Nyanza, compared to Mt. Kenya region and the coastal region ?
At the time of Independence, Mt.Kenya region and some parts of Rift Valley were way much ahead in terms of investment compared to the rest of the country.
Actually, these two regions have seriously regressed, while other regions haven’t picked up.
Nyanza is also blessed with the best resources in Kenya i.e shitloads of fresh water, highly fertile soils, minerals including gold, natural forests, large swarthes of arable land etcetera.
Years of Jaramogi opposition politics marginalised the Luo nation.
Njaruos are also very hostile no investor in his right mind will invest in a region where your property will be burnt down every 5 years because you annoyed their baba.
For Nyanza to survive, the Jaramogi dynasty must first collapse. They also need to shed that hostile image which is very hard to do.
It is safer for a tourist to visit North Eastern than to go see where Obama’s foreskin was born there in Kogello.
In Nyanza you just don’t know. You might get drunk call baba a kypii and you won’t believe where the boulders will come from. Uchomewe gari… wacha ikae. Au sivyo @Tom Bayeye Otieno?
As I said, the post doesn’t mean that poverty is exclusive to Luo Nyanza. What I’m pointing at is the disconnect between the spendthrift lifestyle of the urban Luos and the poverty in their home counties.
Njaruos were collaborators. They received every concievable goody from mzungu e.g cash crops rice, tobacco, sugar cane, timber you name it.
Factories everywhere. Irrigation canals, thriving fish canning industry. Mzungu wanted Nyanza to be the top trade capital on Lake victoria and he invested in the best ferries to serve East Africa.
Wajaluo walishindwa hizo industry zote zika collapse.
Imagine if Jaramogi had focused on exporting rice to China in the 1960s after he fell out with Jomo. He would’ve created an alternative economy. Or rolled Tobacco cigars.
Remember that even Cotton is grown in Nyanza. Mzungu had built world class cotton ginneries in Nyanza region.
I know what I wrote as the title, and it would still be accurate if I used any other county instead, because it’s not a comparison.
Kuna tofauti between kusema County X is the poorest county in Kenya, and saying County X is poor.
You’re welcome.
