By PHILIP OCHIENG

On Tuesday, a “Luo” individual will become the most powerful man in the world. A Luo? Of course. Why else would Kenya’s lakeland community which goes by that name be so electrified by Barack Obama’s impending anointment as the commander-in-chief of the world’s only superpower?

Yet the question is stark: Is Obama a Luo? To answer “yes” or “no,” one would first have to define a Luo. There are at least two possibilities. There is, first, what the Luo themselves may imagine as their blood heritage.

There is, secondly, what Paul Mboya called Luo Kitgi Gi Timbegi, a book in Dholuo which describes the character and customs of “Jokowiny.” For the character and customs of a tribal community need not coincide with its blood composition.

Language and culture

We should stress the term “Jokowiny” because, although it is almost forgotten now, that is the correct name of the Luo of Kenya and Tanzania, a people whose language and culture are almost uniform from the Luhya border to Tanzania’s Mara.

The attitude by Jokowiny that we are the Luo alienates many pedigree Luo communities, such as the Padhola, Lang’o, Kumam, Acholi and Karamojong of Uganda, the Alur of Congo, and the Nuer, Anuak Nuer, Dinka and Shilluk of the Sudan.

Indeed, the Sudanese and northern Ugandan Luo are more genuinely Luo than we because they are less removed from the original home of dispersal and, therefore, less influenced by non-Nilotic elements.

But yes, by a certain definition, the 44th President of the United States is JAKOWINY – JAKOWINY (with an “A”) being the singular form of JOKOWINY (with an “O”). It means “descendant of Owiny.”

Owiny was a brother of Adhola, the eponymous ancestor of Charles Onyango Obbo‘s Jopadhola. The PA in “JOPADHOLA” and in other Ugandan and Sudanese Luo languages is their equivalent of KA among Jokowiny (and means “of,” or “offspring of” or “homestead of“).

The celebrated name OKOT P’BITEK is really “Okot PA Bitek” (“Okot of Bitek” or “Okot son of Bitek“). In both pronunciation and writing, the “a” in PA and KA is usually dropped when the next word begins with a vowel. That is why we say JAKOWINY, and not JA-KA-OWINY.

The PA in Padhola means the same thing as the KA in such Kowiny place names as KARACHUONYO (“home of Rachuonyo“), KAMAGAMBO (“land of Magambo“) and KANYIDOTO (“where the daughters of Doto are married“).

The word element KA was common to all Nilotes, including the ancient Egyptians. The word “EGYPT” itself is only a European corruption of HEKAPTAH (“home of the god Ptah“). The KAPTAH part of HEKAPTAH is what has come down to us as “COPT.”

The same word appears in such place-names among the Kalenjin – a Nilotic people – as Kabartonjo (“land of Bartonjo“), Kabianga (“dwelling place of Bianga“) and Kabarnet (“Barnet’s base” – named after a colonial Anglo-Saxon missionary).

For the Luo belong to the culturo-linguistic super-community that anthropologists call Nilotic or Nilo-Saharan – which includes the Maasai, Kalenjin and Teso – and who now spread from Tanzania to Egypt and from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Darfur and Nigeria.

Barack Obama Senior belonged to KOGELO (“homestead of Ogelo“). He was Jakogelo (“offspring of Ogelo’s home“). Jokogelo (“people of Ogelo“) are a clan of the Alego. That is significant.

In his book History of the Southern Luo, B.A. Ogot – the eminent Luo historian – suggests that the Alego (and the professor’s own Gem people) are the quintessence of Jokowiny.

They were the first to arrive in what is now Kenya. Adhola and Owiny were leaders of an advance detachment of the Luo as they drifted along the Nile – fish being their staple. On hitting Lake Victoria, they exchanged words, and Owiny was forced to move ahead.

It was after wandering through what are now Manyala, Samia, Imbo and Sakwa – driving the autochthonous Luhya (a Bantu cluster) from their homes – that Owiny and his followers finally settled in what we now call Alego.

It was from Alego that Jokowiny spread out, northwards to Gem and Ugenya, eastwards to Seme, Kisumu and Winam and southwards to Asembo, Uyoma and across the string of water – Nyanza Gulf ? which intrudes into and divides Kowiny-land into two parts.

   LuoLand – Kenya | Click Here For MAP of KENYA |

Yet it is appropriate that the term “Jokowiny” is now in disuse, except among Adhola’s people. They retain in folk memory the bitter quarrel that forced their brother Owiny eastwards. So they know all the Luo to the east of them as Jokowiny.

Completely swallowed

But since then other Luo and even non-Luo branches have arrived to commingle with Jokowiny. Among these are my own group – Abasuba – who, although completely swallowed by the Luo, were originally not even Nilo-Saharan, but a composite of Bantu refugees, mostly from Buganda.

A culturally imperious community, its ethnic arrogance has been heightened manifold by the colonially created ethnic rivalry that characterises Kenya’s politics. But I repeat that the arrogance cannot be explained by any “ethnic purity.”

The Kenya Luo are so influenced by other communities that they are a mind-boggling heterogeneity of blood, culture and language. One reason is that they adopted exogamy (the taking of wives from other tribes) very early in their Southward Ho.

They shared with the ancient Hellenes the habit of waylaying foreign women and literally pulling them into bed as wives. So for Senior to grab wives from as far away as Hawaii and Massachusetts – and Caucasian ones to boot – was no big deal.

Given time, he might even have grabbed an Afghan, a Cherokee, an Eskimo, a Fijian, an Iraqi, a Lithuanian, a Mongolian, a Pole, a Shona, a Vietnamese, a Wolof, a Yoruba and a Zaramo – not to mention hundreds from Luoland, apart from Kezia.

The Luo would have noted his “he-man-ship” with complete approval. That is what makes them such a “bloody” heterogeneity. But that, too, is why, in their view, Senior’s son, the 44th President of the United States, cannot be anything but a Luo.

They are fiercely patriarchal, thus the offspring belong strictly to the father’s tribe, clan or what the Luo call THUR and DHOOT. THUR refers to the ridge that rises between two streams and is often identified with a clan.

DHOOT (the two “o”s pronounced separately) is the word for “door.” It literally means “mouth of the house” – from DHOK, “mouth,” and OT, “house.” The “mouth” element can be seen also in the term DHOLUO, the name of Jokowiny’s language, literally: “mouth of the Luo.”

Jokowiny assume that people speak with their mouths. But not all Luo communities think so. The Acholi know their language as LEPLUO (“tongue of the Luo“). However, used away from real doors, the word DHOOT refers to the immediate genealogical “house,” namely, the gentile clan.

Person of my house

All Nilotes had the habit of calling a spouse a “house.” In polite society, a Luo speaks of JAODA (“my wife” or “my husband“), a word which translates literally as “person of my house.” When, in Genesis, Joseph says he has found favour in “Pharaoh’s house,” he is resorting to the Nilotic euphemism for “wife,” here the queen.

Barack Obama is 50 per cent Caucasian, but as far as the Luo are concerned, only a Luo is capable of deeds as heroic as Barack’s. In tradition, the Luo divided humanity into three categories ? Joluo (the noblest), Jolang’o and Jomwa. The rest of mankind were Mwa, worse than useless.

But, of course, a shameless Mwa people called Britons punctured gaping holes into this bloated arrogance just by hurling a magical spear known as the gun.

Nevertheless, because he has done those deeds a whole continent away from Luoland, Barack outshines Adhola, Aeneas, Ausonius, Cadmus, Cain, Danaos, Delphos, Hesy, Imhotep, Luanda Magere, Gor Mahia, Tom Mboya, Memnon, Menes, Nyikang’o, Jaramogi Odinga, Owiny and Pelasgus among other Nilotic heroes.

In short, his mother does not enter into the equation, even though she contributed 50 per cent of his biological make-up and almost 100 per cent of his cultural upbringing.

As far as the Luo are concerned, Barack Obama is 200 per cent Luo.

That is the point you miss by dismissing Barack Obama as a mere American who will not give priority to Kenya, Luoland and Nyangoma-Kogelo. A people does not live by bread alone. By pulling off a feat like that and boosting their pride to the utmost, Barack has already delivered.

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About The Author: Philip Ochieng — is a Kenyan Luo, and an Editor with the Nation Media Group. Like Obama Senior, he too went to the US on the famous Tom Mboya Airlift of 1959 [when hundreds of Kenyan students were given scholarships to American universities]. He first met Obama Senior in Tom Mboya’s Nairobi office [Mboya was then the secretary general of the Kenya Federation of Labour]. Obama and Ochieng met up again on returning to Nairobi and remained drinking buddies for many years.

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American politics is tribal.

Not in the sense of Kikuyu and Luo and Kalenjin and Kamba and all our competing ethnic groups, but racial and ethnic components do account for the differences in this richly diverse country.

At the most basic level in the nation of 305.3 million people, it is Black and White. Obama Versus McCain.

Then there are the Hispanics, a sizebable group with about 14 per cent of the population compared to about 13.3 per cent that is black.

There are the Asians, who are a distinct minority at five per cent, and the largely forgotten and ignored Native Americans, who make up about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Among the whites, things get very complicated, depending on how people chose to classify themselves in the census.

There are the majority White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. There are Catholics. There are Hispanic whites.

There are religious or ethnic groups like the Jews; and there are the various white ethnicities — Italian, Greek, German, Dutch, Irish and many more that went into the original melting pot.

Within the white community, for instance, political pollsters look not just at the above distinctions but also at sub-genres like education, sexual orientation, region, occupation, rural or urban, farming or industrial, new industry (IT) or old industry (mining, motorplants) and so on.

These are the Tribes of America for whose votes Barack Obama and John McCain are competing to win one of the most compelling presidential campaigns in US history.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the latest stop on a whirlwind tour between last Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee and the final debate set for New York on Wednesday.

Before Philadelphia, Mr Obama made several stops in Ohio while his running mate Senator Joe Biden campaigned in Florida, another key state whose electoral vote could determine the outcome of the election.

Republican candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have been equally busy in the week or so between the two debates, covering, sometimes together and sometimes separately, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Winsconsin.

National opinion polls show Mr Obama increasing his lead over Mr McCain, reaching double-digit 11 percentage points — 52 percent to 41 per cent — according to the latest Gallup daily tracking poll at the end of the week.

The margin was mirrored in the latest Newsweek poll. But outside the major national events like the presidential debates, the campaign is being fought at the grassroots level, block by block, town by town and state by state.

   A pro-Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month

What matters in the American political system is not the national popular vote, but the state-by-state popular vote which determines the number of electoral votes through which the electoral college elects the president.

The outcome in some states can already be predicted — New York generally votes Democratic — so the candidates are concentrating their efforts on the so-called battleground states where the outcome is still uncertain.

There is no need, for instance, for Mr Obama to spend too much in California where he already commands nearly 54 per cent of the popular vote to Mr McCain’s 39 per cent.

The Republican candidate would not bother too much about the state’s 55 electoral votes because he has little chance of overturning Mr Obama’s majority.

The reverse holds true in another large state like Texas with its 34 electoral votes where Mr McCain holds an unassailable 51 per cent advantage over Mr Obama’s 38 per cent.

So the campaigns are almost over in California and Texas and in a large number of other states where solid red indicates support for the Republican candidate while solid blue shows support for the Democrat.

But then there are the states where the outcome is still too close to call; they are coloured light blue or pink depending which way they lean.

And there are some states where the candidates are virtually tied; they are marked with blue and red checks.

Almost all the polls now indicate that if the certain states for either candidate are counted, Mr Obama has a clear lead.

If he also captures the states leaning strongly towards him — those where he has more than a five per cent margin — then all the key pollsters including Reuters, Newsweek, Zogby, Gallup, give him an unassailable victory over Mr McCain in electoral votes.

Some estimates already give Mr Obama just over the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory; most give him a clear margin of between 330 and 350 electoral votes compared to Mr McCain’s 190 to 210.

Mr Obama’s tremendous surge is being attributed to the way in which he has steadily eaten into the regional and demographic groups that have been supportive of McCain or of the Republican party in general.

States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri and quite a few others were just weeks ago solidly for McCain. Now they are seen as leaning towards Mr Obama or are too close to call.

According to the conventional wisdom of electoral demographics, Mr Obama’s key support comes from non-white groups including blacks and Hispanics; the youthful 18-29 age group; those with postgraduate educations; women; the urban poor, mostly black; and groups that are ambivalent towards religion.

Mr McCain’s strengths have been among whites, other than Hispanic; senior citizens over 65 years; the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) and whites who attend church frequently or for whom religion is important.

On the demographic map, therefore, Mr McCain’s support base has been in the traditional Republican strongholds, the middle and central United States that are largely agricultural bastions of conservatism; while Mr Obama’s support has been in the big cities on the densely populated East and West coasts.

His support among whites has been limited, as described above, to young, modern, well-educated urbanites.

That is what has changed. I was at an Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee, last Tuesday on the same day the two presidential candidates had their second debate.

Nashville is the home of country music.

Tennessee as a whole is a very white and conservative state; guns, church and ranching are the defining characteristics. It is a solid red state where the 11 electoral votes are all but assured for Mr McCain.

But observing the Obama march around Belmont University, one could hardly have believed it.

The participants were mostly white, as would be expected of Nashville. But they were not just the young, educated and modern white generation generally seen to side with Mr Obama.

The chanting crowd included middle-aged to elderly white men and women of the type that instinctively would be fearful of and hostile to the prospects of an Obama presidency.

That is the demographic that Obama is stealing from McCain in states around the country and the one that might secure him victory.

Article — Originally posted in The Daily Nation on 10/11/08

For the non native speakers, ricochet is a military term that defines the firing of guns or howitzers, usually with small charges, at an elevation of only a few degrees, so as to cause the balls or shells to bound or skip along the ground. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ricochet+firing).

I find good reason to use the term for an otherwise idiotic article written by an ignorant and uneducated Kenyan lawyer who runs a shadowy firm deeply connected with (if not created by) the darkest side of the Kenyan establishment and the paramilitary, the Kipkorir Mafia.

For those who are not experts in the Military Art, I find the Wikipedia entry quite illuminative of the reason I use the term; “Ricochets are a common danger of shooting because after bouncing off an object the bullet that ricochets poses an ‘unpredictable’ and serious danger to bystanders, animals, objects, or even the person who fired the shot” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet).

Mr. Donald Kipkorir – Gideon Moi’s Fraudulent Trustee

Simply put, Mr. Donald Kipkorir (known to have “looted Kenya” and then betrayed his boss, Gideon Moi, after having first cashed what was thought of as sufficient for his seemingly respectful firm – http://kenyanomics.blogspot.com/2007/08/gideon-moi-and-looting-of-kenya.html), in an article compiled to help re-invent the African History and Politics, suggests what would mathematically trigger the rise of an Islamic Republic of Eastern Africa.

In his far-fetched innuendo, the ignorant Kalenjin lawyer reveals the volatility and the fallacy of parts of the Kenyan establishment that have been tele-guided from other continents with respect to their next movement.

You may not be familiar with the Kalenjin people, who – Nilo-Saharan of origin – inhabit part of Kenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalenjin_people), having migrated there from Ancient Ethiopia (today’s Sudan).

Being exposed to eventual reprisals from the part of a reputed as vindictive leader, like Gideon Moi, if he happens to consider you as a fraudulent trustee, means that you’ve got to find some strong backing. This is what Mr. Donald Kipkorir did, and he even threatens his former boss with ‘revelations’….

The loathed bosses of Mr. Donald Kipkorir

Would you like to find out who stands behind the authoring lawyer, Mr. Donald Kipkorir?

It’s not difficult; just search whose interests he defends.

In his article, the Kalenjin lawyer expresses his care for the lost swag, the captured (off the coast of Somalia) ship which was carrying 33 T-72 tanks, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns for the Kenyan army — which certainly does not need these weapons.

These are the strong backers of the lawless lawyer whose text — judged by specialists of International Law — is tantamount to the Law of the Jungle, and totally dishonoring of and defamatory for a human being.

You may consider the Kalenjin origin of the author as relevant of the jungle, but this is sheer western supremacism and racism; the Kalenjin are highly civilized and have kept among their religious traditions some of the most authentic Hamitic, Ancient Egyptian beliefs, namely the cult of Isis. As in the case of every nation, there are good Kalenjin and bad Kalenjin; in fact, Mr. Donald Kipkorir is the shame of the Kalenjin.

Not only is he the shame of the Nilo-Saharan nation, but he risks becoming the responsible for their forced Islamization.

As his bosses, the formidable and reviled Kikuyu generals of the pathetic Kenyan army, have been maddened because of the easy achievement of the Eyl Somali pirates, they ordered him to write in support of the illegal interests of the Kenyan militarists who will use the 33 T-72 tanks and the rocket-propelled grenades in the next face off with the Luos, the Somalis and the Oromos of Kenya.

Kenya is an English Colonial Fabrication

In fact, Kenya is not a nation, is not a state, and is not a society; it is an English colonial fabrication geared to destroy the Muslim community and political tradition in the East Coast of Africa. Large parts of Kenya, including the coast, are inhabited by Muslims, similarly with the Tanganyika coast and Zanzibar. All these Muslim populations have been ruled for many long centuries by various local rulers who exercised their power under the auspices of the Ottoman Sultan (and to lesser extent the Shah of Iran) and interacted peacefully with the Somalis, the Yemenites, and the Indians.

The evil colonial borderlines have been established according to an English — French plan that was set up in order to make of the Eastern African Muslim majority a minority residing within irrelevant and fabricated realms like Tanzania and Kenya. Disconnected from the Somalis, the East African Muslims became a minority in each fake colonial state, and were deliberately marginalized. The other African nations, who were forced to be part of these fake states, had been in harmonious terms with the coastal Muslims who for more than a millennium did not express any concern to islamize the African inlanders, as most of them worshipped God through monotheistic concepts. The conflicts started when all the different components were forced by the monstrous colonial elites of England and France to live within a state that they never conceived or needed.

The present article is not a point by point refutation of the fallacious suggestions of the bribed and lawless lawyer of the Kikuyu Kenyan paramilitary. It only consists in a revelation of the prevailing panic among Mr. Donald Kipkorir’s backers and the elucidation of their despair.

Their panic and despair are highlighted by Mr. Donald Kipkorir’s proposals that Kenya and Abyssinia (fallaciously re-baptized ‘Ethiopia’) invade and divide Somalia.

Of course, generically speaking, anyone understands the scheme of two countries attacking and dividing a third; the typical case is Poland, attacked and divided among Prussia, Russia and Austria in the late 18th century. But by then, there was no International Law, practically speaking.

Donald Kipkorir: Utterly Gross

Today, it is utterly gross for a supposed lawyer to suggest something so directly opposite to the quintessence of the International Law. However, this is the least one can say about the panicked, fraudulent (ask Gideon Moi) and lawless Mr. Donald Kipkorir.

His suggestion comes at a moment the Abyssinian army admitted its defeat in Somalia and are about to abandon the Horn of Africa country, in an effort to better implement the racist Amhara and Tigray Monophysitic tyranny over the outright majority of the wretched and starving country (consisted of Amhara and Tigray Muslims, and Oromos, Ogadenis, Sidamas, Afars, Agaws, Kambaatas, Shekachos, Kaffas, Hadiyas, Gedeos, Wolayitas, Anuak, Shinasha, Berta and Gumuz who all total 82% of the country’s total population).

In fact, the Somalia expedition, combined with the ongoing Ogaden revolution, is about to bring the world’s most loathed and most bestial tyranny to total collapse.

The World’s Most Venerated Heroes of the 3rd Millennium

As if the Abyssinia lesson from Somalia were not enough, the panicked, fraudulent (ask Gideon Moi — always!) and lawless Mr. Donald Kipkorir suggests that the militarily impotent Kenya attempts to ….. invade the Somali south, which is the area of the world’s most venerated heroes of the 3rd millennium, the noble and brave Somali Liberation and Re-unification fighters, who already liberated Kismayu.

• – Does Mr. Donald Kipkorir expect to recuperate the 33 T-72 tanks, the rocket-propelled grenades and the anti-aircraft guns ordered by his bosses?

Too comical a question! Why? Ask the Eyl Somali pirates!

• – Does Mr. Donald Kipkorir expect his bosses’ tanks to … fly over Somalia?

This would be the only prerequisite for a Kenyan victory in the Somali South…..

In fact, what Mr. Donald Kipkorir suggests, if materialized (which would be paranoid to attempt and impossible to achieve), would result in a dramatic increase of Muslim population in both, collapsing Abyssinia and ailing Kenya.

This increase of the Muslim population in both Kenya and Abyssinia (immediate consequence of Mr. Donald Kipkorir’s suggestions’ materialization) is not a mere matter of figures but an affair of radicalized and armed populations.

Islamic Republic of Eastern Africa

When the extremely well armed Somalis of the South will be “part of Kenya” (assuming always on the basis of the suggested bunkum), their fight for liberation of Somalia will be transformed into a struggle for the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Eastern Africa that will encompass Sudan, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania, as it will be coordinated with the struggle of the Eastern and Northern Somalis (who would be annexed by Abyssinia – on the basis of the suggested bunkum), the Oromos, the Ogadenis, the Afars, the Amhara and Tigray Muslims, the Hadiyas, and all the Muslims of the Sudan.

Such the radicalization will be that, assuming that the suggestions of Mr. Donald Kipkorir are materialized, it would be a matter of less than 2 years for the Islamic Republic of Eastern Africa to rise.

As many suspect a plan for the rise of an Islamist regime to rise in the Middle East and confront Israel before 2012, Mr. Donald Kipkorir’s suggestions may simply reveal the plan’s provision for the southern wing of the Islamist empire.

In a world where Kenya would be a mere memory…..

The historical and political refutation of Mr. Donald Kipkorir’s flawed and erroneous arguments will be the subject of a separate article. Here, I re-publish the lawless Kenyan lawyer’s proposals on how to help the Islamic Republic of Eastern Africa become a reality.

Kenya and Ethiopia should dismember Somalia and divide it between themselves

By Donald Kipkorir

Supporting the Southern Sudan government is in our long-term strategic interest and we should not shy from it. The truth of the matter is that as a Western ally, Kenya is an existential enemy of Arab countries, Sudan included. Annexing Somalia is thus in our strategic interest and we must do it now as the financial meltdown continues to take away the attention of the world. — Donald Kipkorir

Why Kenya and Ethiopia ought to annex and divide Somalia

Last month, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, the world’s foremost investment banks, went bankrupt and we witnessed the financial chaos in the western capitals.

In the fog of international headlines on finding a financial bail-out in Washington, a rag-tag army of 50 semi-naked men on rickety boats captured a ship carrying 33 T-72 tanks, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns off the coast of Somalia.

The capture of mv Faina and the stalemated talks amid the surrounding American and Russian warships made me think that maybe this is the time to find a final solution to the Somali problem.

Since 1960, the country has been a lawless state that is a haven for terrorists and pirates. The pirates have told us the destination of the captured weaponry causing tension and panic in Washington, Nairobi and Khartoum.

If it is true that the final consignee was the government of Southern Sudan, as they allege, I will be on the same page with the Kibaki government for the first time.

I am a fervent supporter of a strategic foreign policy even if it attracts us enemies of such malevolent and despotic regimes as that of Khartoum.

Supporting the Southern Sudan government is in our long-term strategic interest and we should not shy from it. The truth of the matter is that as a Western ally, Kenya is an existential enemy of Arab countries, Sudan included.

Annexing Somalia is thus in our strategic interest and we must do it now as the financial meltdown continues to take away the attention of the world.

Somalia as a state exists only in world maps. It is a classic case of a failed state. It is a state dismembered into as many independent units as there are sub-clans. Its 90-strong cabinet is emblematic of the actual number of units.

The Horn of Africa country has no functioning government. The so-called transitional federal government, led by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, is confined to a shell-shocked presidential compound.

There is no standing or even sitting army or judicial systems. By all accounts, Somalia is a black hole in international law. Together with Afghanistan and Pakistan they are known as the training grounds and refuge for international terrorism.

Kenya has been a victim of such terrorism, leading to near-destruction of its tourism industry. We cannot afford another such attack. We have the potential to develop our tourism to compete with, if not outpace, Egypt and South Africa. But we cannot do so if Somalia continues to be a non-state.

Somalia neighbours Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Of these, it is only Ethiopia and Kenya that have strategic interest in Somalia. Djibouti is a primitive entrepot that can’t even supply water to its 600,000 people, who are forced to drink that imported from France or Coca Cola. Therefore, Djibouti is out in the quest for the final solution to the Somali puzzle.

Kenya and Ethiopia must and ought to dismember Somalia and divide it between themselves along the 4 degrees latitude, each taking all the land below and above the line.

The division will make both countries extend their territories by roughly 300,000sq km and additional populations of about five million.

Once Kenya and Ethiopia have sent their combined army to Somalia and declared the annexation, we will present to the world a fait accompli.

In 1845, America annexed Texas from Mexico and forced the Texan legislature to pass a specific legislation stating that it accepted the annexation. The annexation has stood to date and, for good measure, President George W. Bush is a proud American Texan.

For Kenya and Ethiopia, having the Somali legislature to endorse the annexation will be cake-walk. At any given time, most, if not all, Somali legislators are in Nairobi.

We will have them convene in one of our hotels and to pass the appropriate statutes dividing their country.

When the allied forces liberated Germany from Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, they sent the bill to Berlin.

Our cost of annexing Somalia will be settled by Mogadishu. Somalia is known to have huge deposits of oil, natural gas, uranium and iron ore. Immediately after the annexation, we will invite our strategic foreign friends (not China please) to come and exploit the resources for us.

Kenyans ought to know that although Somalia is a failed state, its positive statistics are impressive. Without a structured economy, its gross national income per capita is US$600 (Sh40,000), when ours is $550 (Sh36,800). Of its universities that operate without budgets and with armed militia guarding them, three are in Africa’s top 100.

International law forbids the use of force by states against the territorial integrity and political independence of others. Somalia doesn’t have either.

But the law also recognises irreversible processes like the extinction of states such as in the USSR, emergence of new states from former USSR and Yugoslavia, and annexations like that of Texas. International order hates reversing completed processes, more so if the world is a better place.

If we do not annex Somalia and now, we will be a victim of its failed status and pulled down by it. We will not be able to achieve our strategic foreign policy in the region, or attain the Vision 2030 goal.

The time to annex and dismember Somalia is now; Washington and Moscow will be grateful.

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About The Author: Donald Kipkorir — Mr. Kipkorir is a lawyer and partner at the law firm of Kipkorir, Titoo & Kiara, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Kipkorir, Titoo & Kiara was established in 1996 and currently has 8 lawyers and 2 consultants as well as a capable team of paralegal and support staff.
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Note: The Muslim populations of Mombasa want to belong to Greater Somalia — not the fake colonial fabrication “Kenya.”