Jirongo On A Bicycle: An Example For Us All

Cyrus Jirongo has been setting a great example for all our leaders. Read these two stories and ask yourself why your MP has not been demonstrating such exemplary leadership.

This has been going around in email.

In the midst of the hopelessness that we have watched helplessly, there are rays of hope.

This morning at a meeting, a friend who is Kikuyu but was born and brought up in Lugari (an area where the Kalenjin and several dialects of Luhya are dominant and borders Eldoret), shared with
us a story that I wish could be heard on national radio and TV as we have only been treated to the negative aspects.

After the major eruption of violence on Dec 30, his mother’s two buildings including the granary with the year’s produce was burned and her 8 cattle and 20 goats stolen. This was horrifying as she had always been assimilated into that community even though she is of a diffrent tribe.

Their local MP, Hon. Cyrus Jirongo who was voted in the small KADDU party, however decided to give leadership to his constituents. He put away his limousine and rode a bicycle to every village speaking to the people and showing them the folly of what they had done. They took the cue! They invited back the Kikuyu lady (as well as others who had been chased away) and different members of the community, in remorse and as a sign of their repentance, who are mainly peasant farmers took from their own produce and animals and restored what the lady had lost!

This is the only way for Kenya to heal back into a nation afre the divisions we have seen! We need more of these kinds of transformational leaders! Pray for more....!

It is such things that make one believe in Kenya, its leaders, and ultimately, in its people. As I see it, WE are all we have!

A few weeks ago there was another story on Jirongo in the Standard.

Lugari MP-elect Mr Cyrus Jirongo intervened to avert bloodshed in his constituency.

He dissuaded enraged youths out on a revenge mission on Saturday.

Jirongo, who had just addressed a peace rally at Lumakanda township, was on his way to Eldoret when his entourage ran into hundreds of people chanting war songs.

The Kaddu chairman alighted from his vehicle and began talking to the rowdy group to abandon its mission.

The move, at first, did not go down well with a section of them.

"Please I am begging you to go back to your homes. I am your MP and I promise to address all your grievances later but not in a charged atmosphere like the one we are in," pleaded Jirongo.

The MP confronted a group of young men, who were wielding machetes and took away their weapons. He warned them against harming anyone.

He pledged to establish a common fund that will assist victims of the recent skirmishes.