ADVERT 
ADVERTThere is something intellectually lazy—and politically convenient—about the emerging campaign to make Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Vicky Ojwang’ Omollo the face of every political confrontation, every marauding youth and every act of violence witnessed in Nyanza.
Omollo may be powerful. He may be politically consequential. He may even have questions to answer about the performance of the security machinery under his docket.
But is he really the puppeteer pulling every string in Kisumu, Homa Bay and the wider Luo hinterland?
That is the question serious journalism must ask before the political court pronounces him guilty.
The allegations against Omollo have grown with remarkable speed. Every confrontation now seems to produce a familiar refrain: Raymond is behind it. Every group of youths carrying crude weapons becomes evidence of a sophisticated security conspiracy. Every police failure becomes proof of instructions allegedly emanating from his office.
ADVERTThe narrative is becoming so convenient that it risks becoming its own form of propaganda.
And that is precisely why it deserves interrogation.
Something profoundly disturbing has happened to Nyanza’s politics.
For decades, the Luo political response to perceived injustice was largely expressed through demonstrations, mass mobilisation and street protests. The region was often at the forefront whenever Kenyans took to the streets against unpopular governments or policies.
Then came the political earthquake of 2024.
The late Raila Amollo Odinga entered into a political understanding with President William Ruto. Whatever one thinks of that arrangement, it fundamentally changed the political equation.
The streets became quieter.
The 2025 anniversary of the Finance Bill protests passed without the kind of explosive mobilisation many had expected in Kisumu and elsewhere in Nyanza.
Perhaps the Luo had finally decided that political battles could be fought differently.
But 2026 has delivered a chilling twist.
The streets may have gone quiet—but the violence has not necessarily disappeared.
It has mutated.
Instead of confronting the State, rival political factions increasingly appear to be confronting one another.
Kisumu witnessed scenes that would have been unimaginable to anyone who believed the post-Raila political settlement had permanently transformed Nyanza politics. Political youths descended into chaos, property was destroyed and violence spilled into places that should have been politically neutral—including a church.
Then came Homa Bay.
The violence was bloody, ugly and deeply embarrassing.
Machetes, knives, metal rods and other crude weapons reportedly became part of a political vocabulary that should have disappeared from Kenya decades ago.
This is not protest.
This is not democracy.
This is political gangsterism.
And the question is not merely who supplied the goons.
The bigger question is who created the political environment in which young men believe violence is an acceptable currency of political competition?
That question should trouble every politician in Nyanza.
Yet somehow the entire debate has been reduced to Raymond Omollo.
The comparison with Hezekiah Oyugi has added another layer of political theatre.
Oyugi became one of the most feared names associated with Kenya’s old security establishment. His name evokes an era when the State had extraordinary powers, dissent was ruthlessly suppressed and security agencies operated under a political system radically different from today’s constitutional order.
Dragging that ghost into today’s politics may produce sensational headlines, but it does not automatically establish that Omollo is running a modern-day political militia.
Kenya has changed.
The Constitution has changed.
Institutions have changed.
And, importantly, the security architecture has changed.
Omollo is a Principal Secretary, not the Inspector-General of Police. He is not a provincial commissioner of the old order. He does not personally command every police officer in Kisumu or Homa Bay.
So before anyone declares him the mastermind behind Nyanza’s violence, a simple question must be answered:
Where is the evidence?
Not rumours.
Not WhatsApp forwards.
Not political speeches.
Not anonymous accusations.
Evidence.
Who paid the youths?
Who transported them?
Who supplied the weapons?
Who gave them instructions?
Who coordinated their movements?
Which political actors communicated with them?
Which police commanders knew what was coming?
Who ordered officers to stand down—or failed to order them to act?
Those questions would take us closer to the truth than a thousand paragraphs declaring Raymond Omollo guilty by association.
But defending Omollo from unsupported accusations should not be confused with giving him a clean bill of health.
Far from it.
The Interior docket carries enormous responsibility.
If heavily armed youths can invade political gatherings, attack opponents, disrupt church services and terrorise citizens while police officers appear paralysed or indifferent, then somebody within the security chain must answer.
If intelligence was available and ignored, somebody must answer.
If police commanders deliberately failed to intervene, somebody must answer.
If politicians have established relationships with criminal gangs, somebody must answer.
And if security officers have been compromised, they must be exposed.
That is where Omollo’s real test lies.
Not in political propaganda.
Not in ethnic loyalty.
Not in accusations.
In accountability.
There is also a dangerous political hypocrisy developing in Nyanza.
Some politicians are quick to condemn violence when it is directed at them but remarkably quiet when their own supporters are accused of unleashing it against political rivals.
That game must end.
You cannot summon a crowd, inflame its passions, unleash political rhetoric and then pretend to have no responsibility when somebody emerges from the crowd carrying a machete.
Political leaders must own their crowds.
They must discipline their supporters.
They must stop treating political opponents as enemies who deserve punishment rather than citizens who happen to disagree.
And Nyanza’s voters must also reject the dangerous idea that political loyalty requires defending criminals simply because they are “our people.”
That mentality is precisely how communities become pawns in political wars.
The Luo community does not have a genetic monopoly on political volatility, nor should anyone suggest that it does. Kenya’s history demonstrates that violence is manufactured by political circumstances—not ethnicity.
But Nyanza must confront an uncomfortable possibility.
The region may be moving from resistance politics to factional warfare.
That is far more dangerous.
When a community stops directing its anger towards policies and begins turning that anger against itself, political violence becomes easier to manufacture.
One faction fights another.
One politician mobilises against another.
Youth groups become private armies.
Criminal elements infiltrate political gatherings.
And before long, politicians are no longer controlling the violence.
The violence is controlling the politicians.
That is how 2007 began to look in Kenya.
And that is precisely why the warning signs of 2026 cannot be dismissed.
Anyone who believes that Nyanza could be turned into a theatre of violence in 2027 should not be dismissed as a prophet of doom. But neither should anyone be allowed to manufacture that fear for political advantage.
The answer is prevention.
Investigate the gangs.
Follow the money.
Identify the organisers.
Expose the politicians.
Hold rogue police officers accountable.
And prosecute criminals irrespective of whose political colours they wear.
As for Raymond Omollo, let the evidence speak.
If he has abused his office, expose him.
If he has facilitated political violence, prosecute him.
If officers under his administrative watch have failed spectacularly, demand answers from him.
But if the evidence does not connect him to the crimes being attributed to him, then the campaign to turn him into Nyanza’s political bogeyman should be recognised for what it may be: a convenient scapegoating exercise designed to conceal a much bigger and uglier political problem.
Because the truth may be far more uncomfortable than blaming one man.
The violence in Nyanza may not be the work of one powerful PS.
It may be the product of politicians who have discovered that unemployed and frustrated young men are cheaper than manifestos, easier to mobilise than voters and far more effective at intimidating opponents.
And that is the political cancer that must be confronted.
Raymond Omollo is not above scrutiny.
But neither should he be below the protection of evidence.
The question for Nyanza is therefore not simply “Is Raymond Omollo behind the goons?”
It is:
Who are the real godfathers of political violence—and why is nobody asking them the hard questions?
Because if Kenya sleepwalks into 2027 with political gangs replacing political ideas, the ghosts of 2007 will not need an invitation to return.
And when they do, blaming Raymond Omollo after the blood has already been spilled will be too little, too late.
