Technological Initiative Scaling up citizens Demands for Service Delivery in Kenya

An initiative that creates a platform for citizens to voice their concerns and demand improved service delivery in Kenya is already creating a lot of impact in getting leaders and government officers. 

The initiative dubbed HUDUMA, is a citizens initiative of Social Development Network

(SODNET) in partnership with USHAHIDI, UN Millennium Campaign and Twaweza.

The goal of the strategy is to contribute to the improvement of service delivery by providing simple technology/media based tools and channels to amplify citizens concerns, displeasure, complaints, or suggestions on their perceptions on service delivery by duty bearers.

Huduma intends to nurture more vibrant a more vibrant citizenry that is able to make demands for improved service delivery, more accountability and robust democratization process through increased grassroots participation.

The channels allow citizens to to report a number of issues or complaints e.g lack of water, medicines, potholes,, lack of teachers, to an huduma channel, mostly an SMS number (3018). The conversation, including feedback, are managed through the huduma channels.

                                                                  Sodnet Executive Director Prof Edward Oyugi speaks at the Capacity Building Workshop on the Huduma initiative in Nairobi.

The initiative initially focused on  six counties, namely Nairobi-Langata, Muranga, Bungoma, Kisumu and Pokot, but it has now expanded to other areas of Kenya and is currently being scaled up in other countries. In each country, the action will work with professional groups as a means of verifying citizens demands. 

The initiative has already began to create demands for improved service delivery and has been attracting participation from different areas of the country from citizens who are keen to voice concerns.This has been witnessed in Langata in Nairobi and in other regions where those in authority have been able to respond to citizens queries.

As part of the efforts to up scale it in Kenya and in the Eastern Africa Region, SODNET has recently organized a capacity building workshop which drew participants from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia at Nairobi's Methodist Guest House , on December 2-3, 2011.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Some of the participants at the workshop. The blogger, Oloo Janak checks the information about Huduma.

The issue of service delivery is big and increasingly, citizens are looking for ways to amplify their voices and this technology will prove useful in getting citizens to direct their complaints.

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TUJU's encounter at Kondele in Kisumu: A publicity Stunt?

Many people in social sites and in the mainstream media concur on the need to not only condemn the recent violence against presidential aspirant, Raphael Tuju in Kisumu but to stop undue linkage of such acts with Raila or any other person without evidence. I do not know who the stone throwers were who disrupted Tuju's campaign raly.

The point however is that Tuju chose to go to Kondele and not any other part of Kisumu or Nyanza with full knowledge about how the crowds there often behave. The same Kondele crowds often tell off Raila in some instances. Many politicians who go courting them have rich experiences with the youths in Kisumu and elsewhere.

A section of Kisumu City, Kenya

Many young people and most stakeholders in Kisumu Town and Nyanza appreciate the need to keep violence out of politics and more so in Kisumu and many people within the Youth Movement in Nyanza have done much towards managing the youths positively, a process that continues.


There are moments when some of us have also had to ask some of those who fault Raila to restrain themseves from merely falling into the band wagon of those who want to be seen as standing up against  Raila, so to speak. This was the case when some of us felt there was no need to organize the youths to heckle Raila or hold placards on the day the PM was visiting Kisumu with some benefactor who wanted to aid a school in some slum. 

Raila is not infallible and neither is he impermeable to ideas and opinions and there are many people who have successfully reached him and influenced or offered opinion to help change his thinking about things, with positive results.

What I disagree with is the undue pre-occupation with Raila in everything even when this is unwarranted. Indeed as David Makali noted recently in an opinion article in The Star, anybody who wants some publicity or popularity or media coverage must pour vitriol on Raila. I notice this pre-occupation often in these forums and I have always said there are many presidential candidates who we should discuss and seek to mercilessly interrogate as we do Raila.

But to elevate Raila to a demi-god against whom all others must be measured and from whom the very highest standards must be sought or the heaviest demands be made, is to be deceitful. I have even written about the futility of any politician, especially from Nyanza campaigning on the platform of "finishing" or "taming" the Odinga dynasty as missing the point because the problems of Nyanza cannot be laid at the step of Odingaism per se, if we were to be honest.

I have said elsewhere that Tuju or any other person from Nyanza need not be politicians, MPs or be presidents to help change Nyanza for the better. Let's learn to make a contribution to the betterment of Nyanza from the humble positions and modest resources that we have because there is space for all of us.

I have not seen anybody trying to make a honest effort to change Nyanza running into any problems. But grandiose ideas about pulling Raila down or finishing the Odinga dynasty -like it or not, are often treated with the kind of reaction that met Tuju and you have a practical experience in that area.

Let us take the case of Cyprian Awiti formerly of Marie Stopes Clinic. He has done some commendable development work, helping through harambees etc without necessarily attempting to antagonize the Luo community or making it his trade mark to make Raila his punching bag. He has no problems.


The reality is that Kenya is composed of ethnic nationalities that largely still guard their own or show greater loyalty to their own leaders - all the communities. The Luos have acquired undue prominence due to their population and history in national politics from the 1950s through to the present time. The Kalenjin are gravitating around Ruto now yet we don't see this bravado being displayed against him or the lampooning of the Kalenjin community as "following him like sheep", Uhuru the same etc.

On the media, it is true there are biases due to a variety of factors including ownership, ethnicity, and uninformed opinions and stereotypes and generalizations over the years. Why is it that the Luo are portrayed in the media as the most prone to HIV/AIDS as if other communities do not die of the scourge? Why is the media hyping the whole question of the "ter -calling it wife inheritance-instead of the proper term of widow guardianship, or carry campaigning for the circumcision among the Luo and not so much among the Turkana, Teso or others?  Who owns the media that stereotype the Luo as lazy, violent or blind or bewitched followers of Raila?

The politics of media ownership is as a thing many of you from Nyanza who have been leaders, continue to be or aspire to be,have never taken seriously and the manipulation of public opinion by those who own the instruments of mass communication will continue to make the community begin to recoil into self blame as is now emerging, sadly even among the elite.

How come enterprising monied people from Nyanza have never thought about serious investment in the media or joint partnership yet they are the largest consumers? Cut off the Nyanza and Western Province Media consumers and the media in this country will virtually be dead! Is this area of investment also being blocked by Raila's dominance of Nyanza politics? His name sells, why has no Nyanza Enterprise used it effectively to create jobs or create a sustainable media venture?

The media the world over is not non partisan or objective. That is not possible. Indeed there is nothing wrong with the media taking positions, but in many countries, US, UK, etc, it is based on ideology or interests other than ethnicity. What is demanded of the media is fair play so that even as they take a certain stand, they should also give space to the other side to either make their point ore reply to any claims made against them and even then, they are not obliged to give equal coverage or opportunity to all the contesting sides. The media may have a social role but it is basically business with big players including politicians. How come Royal media stole the very soul of the Luo community by naming one of its media outlets, _Ramogi (the Luo Patriarch), kar chuny Jaluo- and often uses the outlet to stereotype the community,  without anybody protesting against such insult.

Look at the opinion polls, which are basically commissioned by interests both within the media and political class. They never do the polls on their own volition, it is at the behest of a client, most of them anonymous and they will, using the partisan media, begin to play up certain positions to build scenarios that will breed violence by raising false hopes here or dashing them at the same time.

Kenya Correspondents Association members, the journalists spread across the country- are operating within certain circumstances, both influenced by their employers and also their communities. There are many cases of violence or political intolerance in many parts of this country but those regions have effective gatekeepers within the media who ensure issues from those regions are not overly blown out of proposition, Kisumu and Nyanza have no such effective gatekeepers and the region must continue making news, mostly negatively.

I will give you one case. A minor incident between some few boda boda operators in Kisumu slightly more than a year ago occurred at Kondele in which they burnt a tyre. Because it was Kisumu, the incident was played on national television for a whole day during prime time news with the slant that Kisumu had predictably erupted into violence again!

That afternoon, more than 200 people, among them tourists who were due to fly to Kisumu cancelled their flights and hotel bookings -afraid of the violence. What was the cost to the economy of Kisumu and Nyanza? How many cases of violence occur in Nairobi or other towns including police shootings of alleged criminals etc and these never feature as much as any incident in Kisumu?

The authorities in Nairobi were frantically calling the police and the provincial administration in Kisumu over this eruption of violence to which the Kisumu authorities  genuinely expressed surprise as the magnitude of the so called violence was so negligible that the police at Kondele patrol, base had dealt with it when it occurred and sorted out the disagreement between the bod aboda operators early mid morning!

Kisumu residents were equally perplexed that TV stations were running "violence" footage of tyre burning in Kondele when the streets were clear and people were going about their business normally.

If as people from Nyanza, using whatever media, build a negative belief and opinions about the people, leaders and the region, it will stick. Remember the old Luo adage about "Ng'ama ketho gire konye ketho!

I am sure I have taken a disappointingly radical but realistic view of things and I dare invite all of us to discuss openly the question of ethnicity and the challenge of national cohesion/nation building. I know of many Luos who are trying to run away from their "Luoness", to appear more nationalistic, partly out of selfishness and deceit or naively thinking that other communities will appreciate them mre and tell them that "look, you are more liberated that the rest of the more undemocratic Luo who follow Raila like sheep".

Oginga Odinga Street, Kisumu.

We have heard such comments before and for some of us, it does not make us recoil into self blame or make us attempt to appear good as defined by other people. There are people who even say Luos are only fit in the opposition and expect Raila to ditch the Grand Coalition for the Opposition benches.

 Youth in Migori during a police recruitment process. 

Dare suggest that Raila and his Luos have played the role of opposition long enough and now is the turn for any other community to fit into that shoes and vigorously perform the watchdog role. You will see them coming up with excuses or some other spurious arguments.

Kajiado seething with anger over fraudulent land deals

It is not clear if the mapping the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) did on the so called "County Hotspots" included Kajiado but there is enough resentment to classify it as a hot spot. The Maasai feel besieged and overrun by other communities, especially the Kikuyu.

They are are alive to the fact that they welcomed them and other communities over the years and even sold land willingly. But they are angry at the levels of fraudulent land purchase processes by cartels, among government officers, ranging from the Provincial administration, lands and survey departments and their agents who take advantage of them.

They are also unhappy with some of their own kinsmen, especially the ones managing the ranches and conservancies who have also perpetrated fraud on them, often refusing to be transparent in their management of the resources or seeking to benefit from the subdivision of the plots.

During a recent forum at Loitoktok attended by about 40 stakeholders drawn from the entire county, it was clear the people are seething with anger over cases of what they say are arm twisting  and  plain fraud being visited on them by land buying cartels.

"If you want to sell 50 acres, the land registrar and a chain of people involved in processing the purchase will add another 50 acres behind your back in his name, friends or "clients" and before you know it, you have lost a huge chunk of your land!," said one of the participants, bitterly.

They claimed some of the government officer look at Kajiado as "a gold mine" and often resist or quash transfers to other region because of the bounties of this county. The level of economic colonization by non Maasai is just beginning to sink in and with it is emerging political control, sometimes, overtly through the sponsorship of weak Maasai candidates or those who are less likely to openly advocate for Maasai interests.

The forum, organized by Freidrich Ebert Foundation in partnership with the Kenya Correspondents Association explored issues of national cohesion, conflict mitigation, resource mapping and investment for the new county with the focus of diffusing the simmering ethnic tensions.

There is a silent revolution among the Maasai over the land question born out of these bitter experiences and they have began to quietly plan how to counter what they believe is injustice from which their numerous attempts to get help have often hit brick wall due to the power and influence of those involved.

Key issues discussed included mapping and developing strategies to utilize or exploit the resources such as land, wildlife and tourism, livestock, sand, Magadi soda and other minerals, improvement of infrastructure, planning the towns, improvement of education and enhancing citizens participation.

Kajiado residents are opposed to the expansion of Nairobi to cover some parts of thecounty and Nairobi  better be prepared to negotiate this within the context of any development plans that the Nairobi Metropolitan Ministry and other agencies may design.

Quite clearly, the communities that have settled among the Maasai must be alive to the undercurrents and begin to engage and not brandish the constitution as their"shield and defender"in their unmitigated thirst for Massai land and other resources, including the increasing political hegemony that has began to so rankle the Maa community.

Indeed NCIC and other players have a job in their hands to manage the delicate relations between communities here and other multi-ethnic counties in the count down to the implementation of devolution. It would be foolhardy to create counties purely for certain communities but immigrant communities have no choice but to also behave with decorum and manage their relations with the host communities.

Migori County: A Kuria shares his experience at the hands of fellow Kuria people

In our continuing updates on how the Kuria Community has scaled up demands for county seats, new interesting angles are emerging. Interviews with various Kuria leaders reveal that the claims about the community issuing demands on the sharing of county seats is not a shared feeling among members of the community. Many Kuria leaders and ordinary people are keen to develop consensus and the spirit of give and take through dialogue which has been going on since October 2010. But there will always emerge those pushing for hard positions. 

A Kuria peace practitioner had a rude shock when he attended a meeting convened by fellow Kuria people. Discrimination, it appears, will go very deep in the county and for the Kuria, the clan factor will be a headache, both for the community and the entire county. George Chacha shares his experience below:   

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"A meeting was called, for purportedly Kuria leaders. It was expected to focus on devolution, chapter 11 of the new constitution. I marshaled all my resources and training; acquired from the numerous workshops that I had attended before, and the experience and understanding that I had cultivated in the dynamic political sphere both at local and national levels.

I sauntered into the conference hall at the Border Point Hotel trying to keep time.
Finding a handful of participants, I selected my seat and sunk into the comfort of the premises.

I was called outside and asked who invited me, to which I responded that a Kuria lady, Jane Moronge, in Nairobi had asked me to represent her as she could not make it home.

"This is a meeting meant for only the leaders from the BAKIRA CLAN! I am sorry there seems to be some mix-up. Kindly just greet the participants and...sorry just leave",said the usher.

I was tongue-tied!I just couldn't find words to respond; me, a Kuria being discriminated by my fellow Kurias just because I belong to another clan, a Mugumbe and not a Mukira? Oh no!

I went inside, took to the floor, and said; "I am sorry, that I seem to have gate-crushed a meeting not meant for all. I am sorry that I am a black sheep in the midst of white sheep. I wish you well and bye", I said; very hurt and concerned. Concerned that the Kurias have been echoing fears that the Luos will discriminate against them, marginalize them and have no time and space for them. Yet they can do exactly that to those they perceive as being not of their group. What a shame! In that meeting there were people with degrees; some with big appointments. How can someone of such a character stoop too low!

Later it emerged that this was a meeting meant to ensure that this particular clan clinches the top county positions! Talk of devolution, and there is very wrong understanding; that devolution also means devolving clan/ethnic identities to as far as possible.

On whose behalf were they negotiating for the positions?

Now I know how Rose Parker (a black American) felt when she was asked in public bus to give the seat to a white man during those dark moments of the American History.

With my resource of perceived ID, my passion for one united county and rich training acquired with support from the EU through KAS, I walked out, though not having taught/shared anything but having learned so much about 'my people', for free and within such a short time- a record 7 minutes!

What an experience!
CRY OH MY BELOVED KENYA; A HOME FOR SO MANY YET ONLY FOR FEW."

Kurias scale up demands for a 50-50 leadership slots sharing

Some of the leaders from the Kuria Community who have been driving a hard bargain for Migori County leadership positions, and making threats of possible armed struggle to realize their demands, have come out in the open.

The committee, led by one time MP and Assistant Minister Shadrack Manga, and whose patron is area MP Dr. Wilfred Machage, were in the news on Tuesday demanding that the leadership positions in the devolved government be shared on a 50-50 basis with the Luo.

The Standard Newspaper on Tuesday carried a story on page 29, saying indicating that the Kuria community wanted the positions of governor, senator, deputy governor and a post they called "chief secretary" to be shared equally between them and the Luo.

"The constitution calls for equity in leadership and resources," Manga was quoted as saying. The former assistant minister could have been speaking for himself following reports in Kuria that he is interested in being elected senator.

There is serious division among the Kuria leadership with the committee being seen largely as a Machage outfit and composed of some of those who vehemently opposed the constitution. A few of them are moderates. On the opposite side are those who feel they are being sidelined by the MP and his core group in the affairs of the constituency and the community and who supported the constitution.

There is also the Kuria Professionals, who have taken a less combative approach and have been involved in their own consultations on the fate and Kuria's participation in the county.

There have been county consultations since October last year and the Manga Committee pushed the same hardline arguments, even indicating that it would suffice to negotiate among the MPS alone and that they had consulted the Minister for Public Service Dalmas Otieno. It has also been clear they have been seeking to solicit the support of the Abasuba and the Luhyia in Uriri, campaigning on the platform of "consolidating the votes of the communities who have been oppressed by the Luos over the years."

The County Consultative Forums have been led by Migori Civic Local Affairs Network (CLAN), a local organization that has worked on governance, human rights and service delivery monitoring issues since 2001. It needs to be said that the Manga committee made very difficult demands during the consultative forums, even locking out Migori CLAN, were paying for the meeting bills, out of two of the forums meant to develop consensus among them.

Similar but more open meetings were organized for all the other constituencies, namely, Migori, Nyatike, Uriri and Rongo and Constituency Committees established. The Kuria team led by Manga argued they did not want to be treated as a " constituency" and later chose not to attend County level meetings unless the "entire committee" was invited, even where, for logistical and practical considerations, the numbers per constituency had to be limited.

Fortunately despite their attempts, other Kuria leaders chose to be part of the consultations and have participated in building consensus on key issues. The consultative forums have focused more on getting the people to understand devolution, mapping out conflict issues, patterns and strategies for conflict mitigation, resource mapping, monitoring the process of constitution implementation and developing strategies for investment.

The County level meetings were attended by key leaders among them all the District Commissioners, and the Regional Commissioner for South Nyanza Mr. Erustus Ekidor. The MPs who were all invited, skipped the forums, with one excuse or being busy, on foreign trips or some other reason. Machage attended one of the Kuria meetings and it was clear from that point that fro the committee, consultations among stakeholders other than with the MPs was not useful.

All this work is now being put in jeopardy by the hard positions being adopted by the Committee led by Manga, and which has the support of the MP Machage, whose outrageous demand for the extension of the Kuria territory to cover the rest of the County up to Awendo and Rongo in the per-referendum period, brought tension.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission, will if not careful, play into the hands of this group and alienate a bigger section of the County stakeholders. But the stakeholders have so solidified and remain so focused that any attempt to reverse the gains made and undermine the level of consensus reached will not be welcome.

The latest consultative meeting under this framework was done on September 21 bringing together civil society groups to create one solid platform for dialogue. The committee put in place to work nout modalities completed its work on October 3, yesterday and it had the participation from Kuria non of who have taken the strident position now emerging from this group led by Manga.

Cohesion Commission promoting agitation by minority groups

The National Cohension and Integration Commission has just release a report in which it has flagged out "hot spot counties" which it says may be more prone to conflicts as devolution takes root in Kenya with the new constitution. 

The comments that have been attributed to the Commission in the media appear to give a picture of a body listening more to agitators and extremists elements from the minority communities. Take the case of the claim by the Commission that the Kuria were considering the option of waging an armed struggle against, presumably, their more populated Luo neighbours, now together with them in Migori County.

It is understood Dr. Mzalendo Kibunjia and his team have been interacting with the Kuria but they have not brought the different communities in the county together to sample their views. Migori County comprises the Luo, Kuria, Abasuba, Luyhia, Somali, Kisii, Nubians, Kikuyu, Asians and a sprinkling of other ethnic groups. All of these, including the Kuria were together in Nyanza Province, in the former South Nyanza District and later in Migori District before Kuria became became a district in 1993.

Over those years, the Kuria never took up arms to fight for the  their rights or perceived domination by the Luo. what has suddenly changed now when in fact the provisions in the devolution section of the constitution give them greater recognition and guarantee them equity in the distribution of resources?

Stakeholders and the communities in the county are actually ahead of the Cohesion team as they have been consulting since immediately after the referendum and have achieved consensus in many respects. They have mapped out conflicts, both human and other resources and suggested practical ways of mitigating any conflicts that may arise.

Many stakeholders from the communities in Migori are outraged that such comments can come from a commission that seeks to build cohesion, and more so before it has engaged all the communities in the county in dialogue to sample wider views. 

Certainly more views will emerge both in this space and other media to challenge this emerging trend where the commission wants to arrogate unto itself the mandate of amplifying the sentiments of ethnic jingoists, some of whom like in the Kuria case, never supported the constitution but now are seeking to position themselves to benefit from its alluring provisions, not least, the creation of the counties with the additional space for leadership opportunities.

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