Petitioners File Western Kenya Secession Bid in Court
Two petitioners have filed a petition at the High Court seeking to have Western Kenya region declared autonomous.
Mathew Okwanda Mwilitsa and Mr Alex Misigo Matisa filed the petition at the constitutional division of the High Court, asking it to let the people of former Eastern Province of Uganda under the colonial rule to chart their political destiny in a referendum.
“The petitioners are personally and on behalf of their community urging the honourable court to be pleased to grant the people occupying the territory formerly known as the Eastern Province of Uganda leave to hold a referendum so as to exercise their right to determination in terms of their rights to nationality, territorial integrity, economic, social and culture as a people,” the petition states.
The two sued the governments of Uganda, Kenya and Britain for abolishing the once united Abaluhya kingdom. Mwilitsa hails from Kakamega County while Mr Matisa lives in Vihiga County.
“The inhabitants of the former Eastern Province of Uganda were between the years 1895 – 1962 a distinct, cohesive, homogeneous and a united community under the able leadership of their King Nabongo Mumia, whose territorial jurisdiction spread from Jinja in present-day Uganda to Kijabe with the boundary being at Susua in the then British East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya),” the petition further states.
The petitioners allege that the colonial government refused to listen to demands by the Abaluhya community to have their own kingdom during the Lancaster House Talks in the United Kingdom that culminated to Kenya’s Independence in 1963.
They argue that Luhya community was part of Uganda and their territory was given to the then British East African Protectorate, now Kenya, against their wish.
“The official representatives of the dominant group occupying the Eastern Province of Uganda being the entire Abaluhya Community comprising the Wanga Kingdom voiced their concern in writing of their planned merger,” Mr Mwilitsa states in an affidavit.
He further claims merger was a plot to destroy their cultural and social fabric, which was well knit under the leadership of the able king of the Abaluhya.
“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 14 th December, 1960."
“The Government of the United Kingdom by design failed to resolve the Abaluhya 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,” the petition states.
They further submitted that after independence, Luhyas suffered severe discrimination, and victimisation in job allocation and general development funding.
“The community has similarly been marginalised economically, socially, culturally and politically and in the end the community has been given a derogatory tag as being ‘professional cooks and watchmen’”.
The two want the court to compel the Government of the United Kingdom to pay reparations to the Abaluhyia Community for randomly and arbitrarily putting them Kenya, and giving a deaf ear to their demands before granting independence to the former East Africa Protectorate, now Kenya.
They also want the court to rule that the inhabitants of the former Eastern Province of Uganda are at will to make free choices of their territorial integrity without external force or intimidation and that Article 15 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the right to citizenship, self-determination and territorial integrity applies to their petition.