Tribal Politics

Prime Minister Raila Odinga Saturday censored some leaders for propagating negative ethnicity while seeking political mileage among their community.

He warned Kenyans to be cautious of such divisive politicians but embrace cohesive virtues that foster unity of all the tribes in the country.

The premier told fellow countrymen to exploit and harness the diversity of different ethnic groupings for the good of the nation and future generations.

"We must be wary of these leaders who go about daggling their tribal tag in their political moves and this was evident during the just concluded Bomachoge and Shinyalu by elections" he said.

Odinga told mourners when he attended burial ceremonies in Khwisero and Sabatia constituencies respectively that the country could no afford a recurrence of events that characterized the aftermath of 2007 polls.

Reforms

He announced that the coalition government had embarked on radical institutional reforms in key sectors of governance to review and formulate sound policy guidelines to rectify anomalies in the current system.

"We want new constitutional dispensation in the country to address the loopholes and hurdles that have perpetuated bad governance" the premier said.

He said the coalition had put in place commissions to review the boundaries, electoral laws, while others were instituted to come up with recommendations on reforms in the police and the judiciary.

Odinga hinted that the country was likely to adopt a devolved system of governance when the constitutional debate comes up and said the recent budget was tailored within the framework of the system.

“We want to see the majimbo system in place so that resources are decentralized and retained within respective administrative units making local authorities more relevant than it is the case at the moment,” he stressed.

The premier made the criticism during the funeral of James Ambundo, the father in law to nominated ODM MP Rachel Shebesh in Khwisero.

He later joined mourners to bury Mama Salome Adira who was the grandmother of Hamisi MP George Khaniri in Sabatia.