We will move to court to help you solve wrangle at the council, Lobby tells Luo Elders.

 Ker Nyandiko Ongadi who claims to be the Luo Council of Elders chairman.A lobby group has threatened to move to court to help solving the issue of who is the chair of the council between Ker Ongadi and Ker Willis Otondi-Photo Nation.

By Dickson Odhiambo

July 11, 2018.

We will move to court to help you solve wrangle at the council, Lobby tells Luo Elders.

THE Two warring factions of the Luo Council of elders have been told to solve their wrangles for the unity of the Luo Community once and for all.

A lobby group from Kisumu County has said the ongoing leadership wrangles in the Luo Council of Elders pitying two elders leading two factions of the council is not healthy at all.

Speaking in Kisumu during a fundraising ceremony in aid of Agulu Environmental Group Members to empower them economically, Chairman of Agulu Environmental Group Bernard Odinga said both Ker Willis Opiyo Otondi leading a faction of the Luo Council of Elders and his Rival Nyandiko Ong’adi leading another faction should see a way of resolving the current leadership wrangles.

Odinga says it is quite unfortunate that the two elders cannot sit and dialogue together so as to find an amicable solution to the current impasse rocking the Luo Council of Elders.

Odinga says if the elders fail to resolve the current leadership wrangle then the lobby will have no any other option other than moving to court so as to help in getting a solution towards the impasse.

“We want these elders at the Luo Council of Elders to sit down and dialogue and unlock the current leadership wrangle being witnessed and has threatened the unity of the Luo Community at large,” he says.

Odinga who is also the Chairman of the Nyanza Youth forum says the youth need the elders to lead in the right direction by having only one leadership of the Luo Council of Elders at a time  and not two leading two different factions.

“It is our wish that the elders of the Luo Council of elders who have been engaged in leadership wrangle to seek a solution because even as the Youth we are really confused since we do not know who is the real Ker of the Luo Council of Elders,” Odinga adds.

The leadership wrangles in the Luo Council of Elders begun during the reign of the late Ker Riaga Ogallo around 2010 when Elder Willis Opiyo Otondi was coroneted as the new Ker when Ogallo was claimed to have been dethroned from the leadership.

Mzee Otondi became Ker leading a faction while Riaga also remained Ker leading another faction till he died in the year 2015 where upon his death; Mzee Nyandiko Ongadi claimed to have taken the leadership of the Council while dismissing the leadership of Ker Mzee Opiyo Otondi.

Both the late Ker Riaga Ogallo and Ker Mzee Nyandiko Ongadi hail from South Nyanza region in Homa Bay County while Ker Willis Opiyo Otondi hails from Kisumo Nyahera in Kisumu County.

When Ogallo died, some of the Elders who were supporting him moved to Ker Willis Opiyo Otondi’s camp and now supports him as the Bonafide Ker of the Luo Council of Elders having deputized the Late Ogallo and now should be Ker upon Ogallo’s death.

Ker Nyandiko Ongadi who also spoke during the fundraising event has dismissed a section of Elders from the Luo Community who were invited to go and discuss the Boundary row between the two communities living at the borders of Nandi and Kisumu Counties.

He says those elders have not represented the leadership of the Luo Council o Elders, adding that they purport to represent the community as elders of the Luo Council of Elder hence they are not.

Ongadi at the same time said they should be unity among the Luo Community as this will help in bringing development through the devolved system of governance.

He says the current leadership at the four counties of within the Luo Community should strive to develop their regions through devolution.

“We expect the Governors of the four counties in our Luo Nyanza to strive and help in developing our counties through the funding being given because of the devolution,” Ongadi says.

ENDS: