President Museveni has been crowned as a Luo elder at the closure of the fourth edition of Piny Luo Festival in Siaya County, Kenya.
At the regional annual cultural ceremony held at the Got Ramogi Hill shrines, Museveni was crowned alongside his host, Kenya’s President William Ruto, and former Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Amolo Odinga.
At the crowning ceremony performed by the Ker (cultural leader) of Luo, Odungi Randa, the two presidents and Odinga were handed a traditional seat of the ruler, the crown of leadership, a traditional cloth of an elder, a shield alongside a spear for protection, and a whisk for wishing peace to the people.
Later, the three newly crowned elders and other participants, who included the governor of Siaya County, James Orengo, were taken on a tour of Jaramogi Oginga Mausoleum and the four Luo traditional huts, representing the four sons of Luo.
President Museveni expressed gratitude to the Luo for recognising him for the fourth time, having been recognised before by the Luo in Uganda, who included the Alur, the Acholi and the Lango.
“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’re doing now is showing the unfairness of these borders, and I’m very happy that you’re showing this,” Museveni said.
He added that the Piny Luo festival that embodies the spirit of unity among East Africans by celebrating their shared heritage, culture, and traditions should also lead to the East African Federation if East Africans are to achieve prosperity in the region.
Museveni said that by 1900 the whole of Africa had been colonized and had been under the slave trade for 600 years, which was a humiliation of Africa, but in 1912 a new group of educated people started the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, which was the beginning of the modern resistance by the African people.
“They had four historical missions of chasing the foreigners and getting independence, creating prosperity for the African people, and ensuring strategic security by ensuring that Africa should not be under threat from anybody. The fourth mission was to use the brotherhood of the African people to achieve the other three missions. Among the four historical missions, we achieved the independence of African states, but integration was forgotten,” Museveni noted, emphasising that this has dragged the prosperity of East Africa and its strategic security, which can only be achieved through political federation.
The president hailed the past and present leaders, who include the late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, and now President William Ruto, who have been very supportive of 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, who met in Nairobi on 3rd June 1963 and declared that they would form the federation of East Africa.
At the same event, President Museveni drummed his support to former Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga, who is aiming for the chairmanship of the African Union but urged the leaders of East Africa to play a bigger role and ease their work.
“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.”
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’ll attend without any hesitation, and I’m amazed that you woke up at 5 am to undertake this journey of over 200 km to come here by road. That is friendship beyond the ordinary,” Ruto said, describing the event 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,”he said.
About the candidature of Raila Odinga for AU Chairmanship, President Ruto said the Piny Luo celebration confirms that their quest as East Africa to put forward the candidature of Rt Hon. Raila 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.
In honour of the event and in the presence of President Museveni, Ruto announced the official opening of the Lamogi campus of Nyangoma Technical Training College which is to immediately admit students beginning this January.
“We have built that institution at a cost of Ksh 400 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,”Ruto stated.
Odinga said that East Africans have been held hostage to the borders imposed by colonial times, and their view is that these borders should stop being impediments to the prosperity of East Africa and Africa.
He supported President Museveni and President Ruto that prosperity can be achieved through, among others, promoting trade first among the Africans, which is only 15%, yet that of the Europeans is at 70% and that of Asia at 60%.
“Africa trades more with others than itself. We’re saying let us open our borders so that people can move freely,” Odinga said.
The Governor of Siaya County, James Orengo, expressed gratitude to President Ruto for making it possible for President Museveni to join the closure 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,” Orengo said.
The three-day event that kicked off on December 31st, 2024, under the theme “Celebrating the Roots of Our Culture and Heritage” focused on promoting unity, peace, and reconciliation among various Luo communities across the region.
The cultural pilgrimage attracted different groups of Luo luminaries across Africa, such as Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, the Central African Republic, and other nations, led by their respective “Kers” (cultural leaders).
TheUgandan groups included the Alur, Acholi, Padhola, and Jo Nam, while others included the Alur of the DRC.
The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Community Affairs, Rebecca Kadaga, also attended the event.
Luos are said to have settled in Got Ramogi as they migrated from Sudan. The hill has occupied 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.
Later in the day, President Yoweri Museveni and President Ruto officially opened the newly constructed Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Stadium in Siaya County in western Kenya, which also hosted a friendly match between Kenya’s most successful soccer club, Gor Mahia, against Uganda’s Kitara FC.
Gor Mahia won 9-8 on penalties.
In his address after the football match, President Museveni urged the people of East Africa to create wealth through the four sectors, such as commercial agriculture, ICT, services, and manufacturing.
