Museveni crowned Luo elder alongside Kenya's Ruto and Odinga

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 CULTURE 

President Yoweri Museveni was Thursday crowned a Luo elder at the closure of the 4th Piny Luo Festival in Kenya's western county of Siaya.

He was crowned alongside his host, Kenya’s President William Ruto, and former Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Amolo Odinga.

The annual regional cultural ceremony was held at the Got Ramogi Hill shrines and the crowning ceremony was performed by the cultural leader of Luo (Ker), Odungi Randa.

Museveni, Ruto and Odinga were each handed a traditional seat of the ruler, the crown of leadership, a traditional cloth of an elder, a shield and spear for protection, and a whisk for wishing peace to the people.

Later, the three newly crowned Luo elders and other participants — including Siaya County governor James Orengo — were taken on a tour of Jaramogi Oginga Mausoleum and the four Luo traditional huts, representing the four sons of Luo.

Oginga, Odinga's late father, was the first vice-president of independent Kenya.

President Museveni expressed his gratitude for the recognition.

“I thank the Luos for making me an elder in the community. I think this is an honour for the people of Uganda. What you are doing now is showing the unfairness of these borders, and I am very happy that you are showing this," he said.

The Piny Luo Festival is seen as an embodiment of the spirit of unity amongst East Africans by celebrating their shared heritage, culture, and traditions.

Museveni said the festival should lead to the East African Federation if East Africans are to achieve prosperity in the region.

He hailed past and present regional leaders for supporting the East African Integration process.

He presented a gift of four plaques to Luo cultural leaders, which contained a publication in the Uganda Agus containing a picture of the East African leaders, including former Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta, former Tanganyika President Julius Nyerere, and former Ugandan President Milton Obote.

Those three leaders met in Kenya's capital Nairobi on June 3, 1963 and declared that they would form the federation of East Africa.

In Siaya, Museveni drummed up support for Odinga, who is eyeing the chairmanship of the African Union.

“We are supporting the candidature of Raila Odinga for African Union chairmanship, but the real work will be us in charge of these governments and the people of East Africa,” he said.

'Friendship beyond the ordinary'

On his part, President Ruto expressed his appreciation to President Museveni for gracing the closure of the Piny Luo festival at short notice.

“You have demonstrated resilience. 

"When I requested you to come, you graciously informed me that any event that brings East Africans together you will attend without any hesitation, and I am amazed that you woke up at 5am to undertake this journey of over 200 kilometres to come here by road. 

"That is friendship beyond the ordinary,” said the Kenyan leader.

He described the festival as a celebration of culture in the context that the multicultural community of Ugandans, Kenyans, Sudanese Ethiopians, and Congolese is one people.

“And it is the context that we can belong to one community but also belong to different nationalities and that we can belong to different communities but also belong to one nationality. 

"As we celebrate this culture to build our bond and friendship with East Africans, we must use the artificial boundaries that exist not as roadblocks but as stepping-stones and not as hurdles but as bridges for our people, their goods and services to cross borders between our countries because there cannot be a thriving Kenya or Uganda without a successful East Africa."

On compatriot Odinga's AU bid, Ruto said the Piny Luo celebration confirms that their quest as East Africa to put forward the candidature of Odinga is the correct thing to do as a candidate not for Kenya but for East Africa to champion the unity and progress and the success of Africa as a continent. 

Ruto announced the official opening of the Lamogi campus of Nyang'oma Technical Training College, which is to immediately admit students starting this month.

“We have built that institution at a cost of Ksh400 million. My instructions are that a plaque be put there to show that this institution was opened in the presence of Mzee Yoweri Kaguta Museveni so that we also use it as a landmark for the celebration of East Africa,” said the Kenyan president.

In his remarks, Odinga said East Africans have been held hostage to the borders imposed by colonial times, and that their view is that these borders should stop being impediments to the prosperity of East Africa and Africa. 

He agreed that prosperity can be achieved through, among others, promoting trade first among the Africans.

“Africa trades more with others than itself. We are saying, let us open our borders so that people can move freely,” said Odinga.

Host governor Orengo thanked Ruto for inviting Museveni to grace the closing of the Piny Luo Festival and urged the two presidents to begin with the federation of Kenya and Uganda.

“If it is the federation of the willing, possibly one of the things that can come out of this Piny Luo Festival, you can pronounce today that beginning from now on, any Kenyan can walk across to Uganda and any Ugandan can walk across to Kenya. 

"It would be the beginning of the journey of the East African federation, and we want to see it in our lifetime,” said Orengo.

The three-day festival was themed around "celebrating the roots of our culture and heritage".

It focused on promoting unity, peace, and reconciliation among various Luo communities across the region.

The cultural pilgrimage attracted different groups of Luo luminaries from Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, DR Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic, and other nations, led by their respective cultural leaders. 

The Ugandan groups included the Alur, Acholi, Padhola, and Jonam.

Uganda's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Community Affairs, Rebecca Kadaga, was among the high-profile people in attendance.

The Luo are said to have settled in Got Ramogi as they migrated from Sudan. 

The hill has a special place in the history of the Luo and is considered the spot where the Luo first settled during their migration before occupying various parts of what is present-day Luo Nyanza.