Luo language is a group of closely related languages spoken by River-Lake Nilotes, who trace their origin to the area we today call Republic of South Sudan. The language calls itself "Dholuo" or "Lep Luo" in other dialects and is spoken by the Acholi of Uganda, Luo of Kenya, Jopadhola, Lango, Alur among other tribes. The language hasn't been standardised yet and there is still disagreement among scholars on matters ranging from spelling, script, alphabet to pronunciation of certain words. In fact, people don't even agree on whether the language should be spelled as "luo" or "lwo". The above not withstanding, the language, has enjoyed a huge resurgence in Kenya of late, largely due to music genres such as ohangla, benga and luo rumba which use it as their primary language. The langauge is now noticeably gaining a footing even in Kenya urban pop genres like Genge and Kapuka.  Sadly for non-natives, there is virtually no platform dedicated ...

 I was going through our online sister-magazine "The Kenya Con" a while ago and came across this article written in 2019 tittled "The Ruto Conspiracy" and just thought to myself, "This is interesting." The article analyses what the writer purports to be a well-orchestrated conspiracy aimed at derailing any chances of Dr. William Ruto succeeding Mr. Kenyatta as Kenya's president. The writer does a good job detailing the plan of the "Deep State" to finish the deputy president. Given that this was written well before the fact, it is hard to deny that the writer more than accurately predicted the outcome of the grand plan of "the establishment" to tame the one-time firebrand politician. Let's read together.. The articles starts on a solemn note, " If you had asked any Kenyan just one year ago who they thought was best placed to succeed Uhuru Kenyatta as Kenya’s next president, many would have picked William Samoei Ruto. Ask a...

I have never been a fan of politics but whenever I want to have a really good laugh, I tune to Kenyan politicians and watch their endless bickering, name calling and character assassination. I see right through their lies. Truth be told, none of these politicians have any of our interests at heart.   That is well documented. But what really puzzles me in this election is the amount of copy-pasting our leading presidential candidates have done from American politics. Kenya Kwanza translates to "Kenya First", a direct copy of Donald Trump's "America First" campaign slogan. In the context of American politics, the slogan and its resulting policy stance generally emphasizes nationalism and non-interventionism. William Ruto's watered-down version of the slogan has nothing to do with foreign policy or attitude towards globalization and international organizations. No, Willam Ruto uses the term to mean that he’ll put the interest of ordinary Kenyans first rathe...

 Kenyans will be heading to the polls yet again on the 9th of August, 2022. There will be over 50 presidential candidates to choose from, but let's be honest, the real contest is between Raila Odinga and William Samoei Arap Ruto. The other are just page boys and flower girls. Ruto enjoys a slender lead in opinion polls with little over 100 days to the elections. No matter what happens between now and August ninth (barring death to either of the two front-runners- God forbid) we're set to have one of these folks running the country. Little is however expected to change. At least not positively. Ruto promises a "bottom up" approach while Raila has been all about "upward social mobility". They roughly mean the same thing. What they aren't telling us is "what exactly they're going to do". It is one thing to throw around technical jargon and slogans and another thing altogether to spell out concise policy directions backed up with pragmatic appr...

We were all shocked when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) banned Kasarani Stadium late last year from hosting international games as the stadium "lacked several Caf criteria and requirements in order to properly host international senior competitions.." Before we could even recovered from the shock, FIFA followed suit and banned the country - for different reasons - from participating in any international games. It must have come as a shock to many, but we should have seen all these coming. Kenyan football has flirted with danger for so long and it has finally caught up with us. Kenya's football administration has been nothing but a joke recently. Our elite, top tier league is non-televised, and until recently, lacked a sponsor. Think about that for a second. Think about it again. Nigerian Premier League, South African Premier Soccer League, the Ethiopian League and even Zambian Premier League is beamed all over the continent for fans to enjoy. Even the third ...

Let me admit it upfront; most Luo names begin with the letter "O". Onyango, Otieno, Odhiambo, Okoth.. and the list goes on. The unwritten law in Luoland is that male names begin with "o" while female ones begin with "a". So many names conform to this norm that one may be excused to think that there are no names that don't. Far from it. They may be rare - and may even seem outdated - but there are indeed Luo names that do not conform to this unwritten law. And there aren't few. And I dare say they used to be more common then their "o-counterparts" in the past.  The fact that most people living day have grandfathers and great grandfather bearing the non-o variation is a testament to the fact that the non a/o names were more common in the past than they are now. Another fact that support this theory is the names of places and clans (which are obviously named after patriarchs) normally bear names that do not necessarily begin with "o...

This is not a drill. Dr. William Samoei Ruto may actually end up being Kenya's fifth president. He has come a long way and right now he is only one step away. He is the deputy president. That's the closest you can ever get to the coveted seat. And he seems to have a huge following of people who are ready to lay down their lives for him. His tribe is one of the largest in the country, let's not forget that. Let's forget instead the self-righteous pretense that elections in Kenya are won on the attractiveness one's policies and not the size of one's tribe or tribal alliance. For all the accusations and claims leveled against him, all the momentum seem to be with Dr. William Ruto. Ruto ticks all the boxes, who's gonna stop this train? Who's gonna stop him? Well, Raila Odinga, that's who. The most electrifying man in the history of Kenyan politics, Raila Odinga always seems to find the best formation for the stab, and boy, how good are things looking for...