UN report points to systematic marginalisation of Nyanza

The UNDP's report revealing that life expectancy in some parts of Kenya is now only 40 years is most unsettling and doubly so coming at a time when the Kibaki government keeps vaunting the turn-around in the economy. In many ways this is a false economy. The report also puts into perspective the deliberate marginalisation of Western Kenya principally Nyanza. It is not for good reason that poverty levels in Nyanza are only matched by those in North Eastern Kenya. The region's marginalisation has been so systematic over the past two decades to the extent that it is now systemic. To be persecuted for a political belief when this belief actually hurts no one is most unfortunate. Our democracy is flawed, the economy flawed, the political system flawed... everything is so flawed there's urgent need for an overhaul of the very fabric that constitutes the Kenyan nation, otherwise to borrow the words of Benedict Anderson, Kenya will simply be an imagined nation that demands no allegience whatsoever, especially to those from Nyanza.