Kikuyu Elders Emancipate the Community from Cultural Bondage Including 1969 Oath Against Luos

Kikuyu Council of Elders and Kiama Kia Ma cultural associations have set the Agikuyu community free from cultural bondage, including the 1969 oath against the Luo community.

The 1969 oath barred the Agikuyu from socially and politically associating with the Luo community following a bitter fallout between Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. 

On Sunday, Kikuyu elders gathered at their Ruaka shrine in Kiambaa, Kiambu County where they set the community free of any cultural bondage pertaining to cultural events and acts of the period between 1969 and 2022. Being a cultural problem, the elders resolved to invoke cultural solutions through rituals and prayers.

In a joint statement themed "Harmful Campaigns by Persons of Ill based on Historical Acts and Utterances", the two associations said that the move followed three years of internal consultations. The statement was signed by the national chairmen and Kikuyu Council of Elders' national patrons, Ndungu Gaithuma, Wachira Kiago, and Kinyua Mwangi.

"Kikuyu elders have over the years been aware of a sinister campaign of disinformation by persons of ill will targeting the youth hinged in actions and utterances made during the turbulent period of the community's history from 1969 onwards," the elders said.

"Following extensive internal consultations that started in 2019, elders concluded that the campaign had the potential for causing irreversible social and cultural damage to the community, now and in future.”

Consequently, the elders announced that the community can now intermarry with any other communities without cultural hindrances.

"Our people can now freely marry and associate either politically or socially with any other community because they are henceforth free of any cultural bondage pertaining to cultural events and acts," elder Gaithuma said. 

The elders appealed to the community to disregard ill-intentioned persons, practices, policies, and politics designed to divide and deviate them from their common good.