A traveller arriving in Siaya by bus early one morning marveled at the majestic panorama afforded by the eminent structure that is Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Stadium. The traveller who was from southern Nyanza proclaimed that even Gusii and Homa-bay stadiums could not match the majesty of the stadium in Siaya.
It was an acknowledgement for me that despite its numerous shortcomings, the County Government of Siaya had gotten something right. It was also an acclamation of the farsightedness of the man at the helm of this construction.
It is a well-documented fact that construction of the stadium was begun way back before the current governor came into office. And if it’s true that the office bearer is engaged in nothing more than consuming excessive doses of alcohol and dancing to the local ajawa rhythm, then he could very well have neglected completion of the project (after all civil rights movements have been using the construction cost as a pedestal upon which to launch scathing attacks on the current administration).
The truth is that farsighted Governor James Aggrey Bob Orengo foresaw the completion of the stadium as one of the landmark priority projects in the first half of his administration, singularly as important as the cotton ginnery in Madiany or the rice mill in Usonga.
True leaders, we are told, look beyond the immediate scope, benefits or obstacles of a project to the impact in the next generation. True leaders use the royal we in speech and address themselves to issues of national or universal magnitude.
Recently, while launching the construction of a sub-County headquarter, Governor Orengo revealed that fuel Levy Funds are not proportionately utilized by the central government in the construction of roads.
How many governors are there in Kenya, seized of similar information but too timid to speak to authority?
During the burial of former Education CS, the late Prof George Magoha, Orengo publicly acknowledged there was corruption in Siaya but he also posited the presence of goodwill to fight it. Shortly afterwards he broke ranks with a legislator whose name had featured prominently in tender-preneurship.
Such acts of boldness and wherewithal to nip corrupt practices in the bud define the statesman who for half a century has stood with the common mwananchi in the struggle to uphold social liberties and enshrine the Constitution of Kenya.
Claims that the governor has changed since assuming office and given free-reign for cronies to loot the Treasury are baseless and malicious as the real Orengo has all his life championed for accountability and good governance at the risk of losing his life.
Much has been written about Orengo’s poor development track record as a legislator for Ugenya Constituency and as a Senator of Siaya County. These graphic literature turns a blind eye to the fact that Ugenya is today a bedrock of agricultural progress and produces the highest number of people in the civil service not by dint of any magic but astitute leadership. The literature turns a blind eye to the construction of Siaya Ardhi House where today the department of lands is headquartered as an outcome of efforts of Orengo while a Cabinet Secretary.
The people who turn a blind eye choose instead to be indoctrinated into a bandwagon of criticism zealotry which encompasses shouts that the progress witnessed in Siaya right now should be curtailed in the upcoming ballot and thereby denied continuity.
We leave choruses of kumi-bila-break to a different cadre of human beings capable of obvious apologist activity. We climb the pedestal of knowledge and understanding and ask those who want to find wrong to consider also that only lazy minds will look at things from a single skewed perspective.
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