BY NT CORRESPONDENT.
A suit has been filed seeking unconditional leave to conduct a referendum to allow Kenya to be divided into two.
Mr Mathew Okwanda Mwilista and Alex Misingo Matisha filed the petition seeking leave to enable them secede from Kenya.
They claim that their community has been subjected to poverty and underdevelopment for reasons they were never part of.
They argue that their community has been marginalized economically, socially, culturally and politically.
We have been given a derogatory tag as professional “cooks and watchmen”.
“Since the said merger of the people comprising the former Eastern Province of Uganda; the said community has undergone severe discrimination, and victimization in job allocation and general development funding,” they said.
The duo argue that the Abaluyia leaders voiced their concern in writing to the Lancaster House Conference Talks on Kenya’s Independence in 1960; however, their plea has been ignored to date by subsequent governing regimes.
Similarly they argue that inhabitants of the said former Eastern Province of Uganda have never since the time of the alleged transfer of their territory experienced any fair, cultural, social and economic development save for severe marginalization, and economic underdevelopment in all sectors.
They further claim that the merger of the former Eastern Province of Uganda with the British East Africa Protectorate was illegal, and the same violated the United Nations Charter and the United Nations Governing Assembly Resolution No. 1514 (XV) of December 14 1960.
In the petition they say that the Government of the United Kingdom by design failed to resolve the Abaluyia Question when it was in a position to do so before granting independence to the British East Africa Protectorate; and therefore liable to pay reparations for the anguish and sorrow suffered by the said Community to date.
High court Judge Chacha Mwita directed the petitioners to serve the petition to the respondents and appear for directions on October 18.
