Country Luos Will Settle in After Leaving Kenya

Over 10,000 Luos are seeking a referendum to enable the community leave Kenya and form its own country over alleged discrimination by the Kenyan government.

In a case filed at the Milimani High Court, petitioners from Luo community led by Ojijo Ogillo Mark Parscal, want the court to issue orders compelling the government through Attorney General Justin Muturi to cause a referendum to be held to enable Luos leave Kenya.

“That the court orders the respondent (the Attorney General) to cause a referendum to be held for Luos to leave the state of Kenya and become their own state,” one of the orders they seek reads.

Grounds
Through Ojijo, the over 10,000 petitioners seek a referendum on various grounds including that the Attorney General (the respondent) has shown consistent acts of discrimination, profiling, harassment, torture and oppression of the Luos.

“We, the Luos of Kenya, guided by Article 20 of the African on Human and People’s Right (as adopted in 1981 in Nairobi, Kenya, and entered into force in 1986), hereby file a complaint with the African Commission on Human and Peoples Right, in Banjul, The Gambia; The United Nations Human Rights office;  the East African Court; and the High Court of Kenya; to grant us our human rights of self-determination of forming our own state; as provided for in Article 20 (1) and 20 (2),” the court papers read in parts.

Adding that;

“Over 103 years since declaration of Kenya as a colony by the colonialists in 1920, and up to 60 years after independence, Luos have consistently been profiled, hated, abused, threatened, tortured and harassed.”

Ojijo wants the court to certify the application as urgent in a bid to expedite what he describes as the community’s quest to form its own state.

“Unless the matter is addressed urgently, the ethnic profiling, discrimination, lack of development, and harassments shall continue and these shall prejudice, harm and limit the applicant’s submission to self-determination,” the applicants say.

Right to self-determination
He petitioners argue that government regimes; current and the past, have perpetuated a culture of impunity through alleged rigged elections that deny Luos the ability to lead and grow economically.

According to Ojijo, the Luos should be allowed self-determination, since it’s their constitutional right.

He states that people have a right to decide their own fate in matters politics, territory, livelihood and thus have a right to self-determination.

“The right to self-determination consists of Luo rights to freely pursue their economic, social and economic development, ideally through democratic governance,” he says.

The petitioners also want the court to allow the community to secede from Kenya saying that denying them the right will amount to torture and colonisation, making the Luos be part of a community they do not want to be part of.