By Valentine Omondi

Homa Bay descended into chaos on Sunday as the Linda Mwananchi movement’s attempt to hold political rallies in the county was met with road blockades, stone-throwing, tear gas and attacks on its supporters, leaders and journalists, exposing deepening political tensions in the region ahead of the 2027 General Election.

The confrontation unfolded against a worrying security backdrop. On Saturday, police arrested 15 people along the Kisumu–Kericho Road after detectives intercepted three vehicles carrying people suspected of being armed with crude weapons.

The suspects were travelling in a grey Toyota Noah and two white Toyota Hiace vans, with the two vans operating under a matatu Sacco serving the Kisumu–Migori route. Police said they recovered machetes, pangas, knives, ropes, a metal rod or club, and several mobile phones. One suspect, believed to be the group’s leader, escaped during the operation and was being pursued by detectives.

National Police Service spokesperson Muchiri Nyaga said preliminary investigations indicated that the suspects had allegedly been hired to disrupt political activities.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that they are hired criminals who allegedly planned to disrupt political activities in the area,” Nyaga said.

Police, however, did not confirm that the suspects were specifically travelling to Homa Bay. Their arrest nevertheless came only a day before the Linda Mwananchi tour of the county, at a time when tensions surrounding the planned rallies had already escalated.

The situation became even more concerning inside Homa Bay, where police had earlier arrested three men suspected of planning to cause chaos during the gathering. The suspects were intercepted near Nyangweso Trading Centre along the Homa Bay–Kendu Bay road, with officers recovering two machetes, a knife and a jacket bearing National Youth Service markings.

Homa Bay County Commissioner Ronald Mwiwawi had warned young people against allowing themselves to be drawn into political violence.

“We don’t want to hear of a situation where anybody uses a panga to attack a fellow Kenyan. Those who are found doing so will be arrested,” Mwiwawi said.

His warning would prove significant as Sunday’s events unfolded.

Roads turned into battlegrounds

By Sunday morning, major roads leading into Homa Bay Town had been barricaded with large stones, with some sections rendered impassable. Tyres were also set ablaze at Oyugis Junction as tension mounted ahead of the movement’s rallies.

Videos from the morning showed vehicles struggling to get through sections of the roads as stones blocked access. The blockades were reported as the Linda Mwananchi convoy made its way towards Nyandiwa, Sindo and eventually Homa Bay Town. Police have not established that the road blockades were connected to the 15 suspects arrested along the Kisumu–Kericho Road.

The convoy, led by Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna and accompanied by Siaya Governor James Orengo, Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya and other opposition leaders, encountered resistance at several points.

In Ndhiwa, youths confronted the convoy and threw stones at vehicles, forcing police officers accompanying the leaders to fire tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowd.

Orengo, whose convoy was attacked at Ndhiwa, accused the police of abandoning their responsibility to protect political leaders and members of the public.

“At a centre like Rodi Kopany, the police should have been there, but you can see the police have totally given up and surrendered their authority to the goons,” Orengo said.

He described what was happening as unacceptable and accused unnamed individuals of organising groups to interfere with the Linda Mwananchi convoy.

“The actions and conduct we are witnessing here in Homa Bay are unacceptable. The people are with us. Everywhere we have passed since we entered Homa Bay, it has been Wantam. But these goons who have been organised to attack our vehicles are interfering with our convoy. This is not Kenya. This is not the Kenya we want. But we are determined. We will have all the meetings, all the three meetings,” he said.

At another point, Orengo accused the police of allowing anarchy to take hold.

“This is very bad because you know anarchy is what is prevailing. At a centre like Ndhiwa, the police should have been there, but you can see the police have totally given up and surrendered their authority to the goons. But we shall overcome,” he said.

Orengo has since indicated that the confrontation with the security agencies will not end on the streets. He said he intends to take the police leadership to court over what he described as security failures and the failure to protect citizens exercising their constitutional rights.

The threat of legal action now puts additional pressure on the National Police Service to explain its handling of the day’s events, particularly whether adequate security was deployed along the routes used by the convoy and whether officers acted promptly enough to prevent the attacks.

Journalists caught in the violence

The violence spread beyond political leaders and supporters, with journalists covering the events also becoming victims.

AFP correspondent Fred Ooko was assaulted and robbed of his camera and driving licence while covering the disturbances in Homa Bay Town. Another AFP journalist, Brian Ongoro, was also reportedly injured, with journalists losing equipment and personal documents during the attacks.

A hotel in Homa Bay was also reportedly raided by armed youths allegedly searching for supporters of the Linda Mwananchi movement. The incidents added to growing concerns about the ability of authorities to protect people and property as political temperatures rise.

The attacks prompted Amnesty International Kenya to call for prompt, independent and transparent investigations into the violence, including attacks on journalists, destruction of property, intimidation, road blockades and the conduct of security agencies.

The organisation also called for protection of freedom of expression, assembly, movement and media rights, urging police to act professionally and impartially.

The National Police Service, for its part, had directed officers deployed to political gatherings in Homa Bay to remain professional, impartial and restrained while facilitating the constitutional right to peaceful assembly.

“All officers deployed to political events or public gatherings are directed to uphold the highest standards of professionalism, impartiality, and restraint,” police spokesperson Muchiri Nyaga said.

Nyaga also warned politicians, organisers and members of the public against conduct likely to trigger violence.

“The National Police Service warns politicians, organisers, and all other individuals against incitement, provocation, or any conduct likely to breach the peace. Offenders will face the full force of the law,” he said.

Faith Odhiambo: Stop turning youths into weapons of politics

Former Law Society of Kenya President Faith Odhiambo offered one of the strongest condemnations of the violence, warning that Kenyan politics must not continue using young people as instruments of confrontation.

Speaking during the Linda Mwananchi tour, Odhiambo questioned why young people were being encouraged to arm themselves with pangas and rungus instead of being offered opportunities and support.

“We cannot allow our blood to be the one that is poured. Today you are being told to take rungus and pangas and kill one another. That must come to an end,” she said.

Odhiambo contrasted the use of violence during political mobilisation with the material incentives used in other campaigns, questioning why some voters are given assistance while others are allegedly encouraged to fight.

“Our people, I want to tell you that other people are gifted blankets and money even boats to get their votes, and what of us: We are told to sharpen our knives and panga and take rungus and fight. Ol Kalou walipewa gas, mattress mpaka pesa. Mbona hao wanapewa panga na rungu?” she asked.

Her remarks placed the Homa Bay violence within a broader debate about political goonism and the exploitation of unemployed and vulnerable young people during political contests.

Odhiambo has previously argued that political goonism is not a new phenomenon in Kenya, saying young people have repeatedly been recruited into violence by political actors.

“If we go even to the 90s, this element of goonism has always been there. Using the youth wing, revolution wing… it’s just rebranded into different forms or different names. But it’s just using young people as a commodity to perpetrate impunity as the currency. And the political actors are the buyers,” she said in an earlier interview.

The events in Homa Bay therefore ended up becoming much bigger than a single political rally.

What began with warnings over possible disruption and the arrest of suspects carrying crude weapons escalated into road blockades, confrontations, the use of tear gas, attacks on political leaders, assaults on journalists and a bitter confrontation between Orengo and the security establishment.

Yet despite the disruption, the Linda Mwananchi convoy eventually entered Homa Bay Town and proceeded with its planned mobilisation activities in Nyandiwa, Sindo and Homa Bay Town, drawing significant crowds along the way.

The day’s events have now placed Homa Bay at the centre of a fresh national debate over political intolerance, the role of security agencies and the growing use of youths in political confrontation.

With the 2027 General Election approaching, Sunday’s violence has also raised a more troubling question: whether Kenya’s next political contest will be fought primarily through ideas and votes, or whether old tactics of intimidation, mobilisation of goons and street confrontation are beginning to return.

By Valentine Omondi

The irony was difficult to miss on Sunday.

As the Linda Mwananchi convoy entered Homa Bay for a major political mobilisation, it was not the shiny development projects often highlighted by leaders that became the defining image of the day.

It was dust.

With several major roads blocked by stones, logs, burning tyres, and other barricades, the convoy was forced to abandon some of its planned routes and navigate alternative roads across the county. The detours exposed rough and dusty roads, producing images that quickly spread across social media and reignited a much bigger question about Homa Bay’s development record.

For Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, the dusty journey offered an opportunity to mock what he described as the county’s “shiny” development narrative.

After travelling through the alternative routes, Sifuna posted a photograph of himself covered in dust and wrote on X:

“They said Homa Bay is where the shiny things are, but it turns out it is all conmanship. The dust is constant.”

He later took the criticism further, saying the convoy had been told that being part of the broad-based government meant Homa Bay had undergone widespread transformation.

“They told us that here in Homa Bay, because you are in the broad-based government, all the roads have been tarmacked. We have eaten dust today; we have eaten plenty of dust,” Sifuna said.

His remarks turned what had initially been a logistical problem caused by road blockades into a political attack on the development credentials of the ODM and Kenya Kwanza partnership.

The contradiction in Wanga’s own praise

The criticism is particularly uncomfortable for Governor Gladys Wanga because she has herself been one of the strongest voices praising the development partnership between Homa Bay County and President William Ruto’s administration.

In August 2025, Wanga openly credited the Kenya Kwanza government with transforming the county, telling Ruto during the Devolution Conference in Homa Bay that three quarters of the development visible in the county had not existed when he first visited in January 2023.

“I want to thank you for your partnership in transforming Homa Bay to make it worthy of hosting this conference. When you last visited Homa Bay in January 2023, three quarters of the development seen here was not there,” Wanga said.

She went on to emphasise that she had been an opposition governor at the time and that there was no broad-based government or partnership between the county and the national government.

“But you had no intention of leaving us behind simply because of how we voted in the election in which you were voted as the President,” she told Ruto.

Wanga has also previously said that Homa Bay had never seen a president do what Ruto had done for the county, presenting his administration’s frequent visits and development projects as evidence that the region was finally receiving national government attention.

Among the projects she has highlighted are the dual carriageway in Homa Bay Town, the Lake Victoria pier, and other infrastructure investments.

It is against that backdrop that Sunday’s dusty roads have become politically significant.

If three quarters of the development seen in Homa Bay was absent before Ruto’s administration, as Wanga herself said, the condition of roads encountered by the Linda Mwananchi convoy provides an uncomfortable visual counterpoint to that success story.

But Wanga has rejected the suggestion that the images prove Homa Bay has been abandoned.

Wanga: “They do not understand our pain”

Responding to the criticism at Wikondiek SDA Church in Karachuonyo, Wanga accused those mocking Homa Bay’s roads of failing to understand the county’s historical experience of marginalisation.

“They are laughing at us saying Homa Bay looks like Yemen because of bad roads. They don’t understand our pain because all these years we have been voting but no development has come to this region because we decided to fight for the country, to bring a new Constitution, devolution, and human rights,” Wanga said.

She argued that the county’s infrastructure challenges should be understood in the context of years of political and economic marginalisation rather than being used to dismiss the development taking place under the current administration.

More importantly, Wanga pointed to the very political arrangement Sifuna was attacking as the vehicle through which the roads would eventually be improved.

“But because we’re in the broad-based government, that road they are talking about is under the Lake Victoria Ring Road and will be tarmac,” she said.

The governor has also cited her administration’s own road programme, reporting that Homa Bay had opened 736 kilometres of new roads, maintained 538 kilometres, and rehabilitated 116 kilometres of access roads.

The national government, meanwhile, has major road projects either completed, ongoing, or planned in the county, including the Rusinga Island Ring Road and sections of the wider Lake Victoria Ring Road.

Millie: “Let us stop cheating people”

But Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo has rejected attempts to explain away the roads used by the convoy as insignificant feeder roads.

Her intervention was particularly pointed because she represents an area where residents continue to depend heavily on roads that remain in poor condition.

“Most of our roads are bad in Suba South and North. Let us stop cheating people by saying those are feeder roads and that the main roads were barricaded,” Odhiambo said.

She argued that many of the roads seen during the convoy’s detours are actually important routes.

“What you see, other than Homa Bay to Mbita and Rusinga Ring Road, are the main roads,” she said.

Odhiambo acknowledged infrastructure delivered by previous administrations, noting that former President Mwai Kibaki and retired Prime Minister Raila Odinga oversaw the tarmacking of the Homa Bay Town to Mbita road, while former President Uhuru Kenyatta built the Mbita Bridge.

She also acknowledged projects delivered under Ruto.

“President Ruto has tarmacked the Rusinga Ring Road. He has opened the Mfangano Ring Road and tarmacking is commencing,” she said.

But she warned that describing poor roads as feeder roads could allow the government to ignore communities that still need better infrastructure.

“We have been marginalised for years. Sugar-coating it by calling the bad roads feeder roads will stop the government from prioritising these roads,” Odhiambo said.

She also lamented the international ridicule generated by the images, saying the situation had reached a point where Homa Bay residents needed accelerated development rather than excuses.

“The world has made enough mockery of us today, calling us Afghanistan and all. It is time this ended,” she said.

When politics exposes the roads

The circumstances surrounding Sunday’s road drama matter.

The poor roads were not initially the reason the convoy ended up using them. Several routes had been blocked as political tensions escalated, with stones, logs, bonfires, and burning tyres reported at different points. Police were deployed, and the convoy had to find alternative ways to reach its destinations.

But once the convoy entered those alternative routes, Homa Bay’s infrastructure became impossible to ignore.

The dust that settled on Sifuna’s clothes became a political symbol.

To Sifuna and the Linda Mwananchi camp, it demonstrated the gap between what residents have been told about the benefits of the broad-based government and what some communities continue to experience.

To Wanga, it is evidence of a historical infrastructure deficit that is now being addressed through the same broad-based partnership she has repeatedly praised.

And to Millie, it is a reminder that residents should not be asked to celebrate development on paper while travelling on roads that remain impassable or dusty.

There is, in fact, evidence of significant road investment in Homa Bay. National government investments between 2023 and 2026 have been estimated at about KSh27.9 billion, covering roughly 515 kilometres, with several major projects either under construction or completed.

The dispute, therefore, is not whether Homa Bay has received development.

It is how much of that development has reached the roads used by ordinary residents, how quickly unfinished projects will be completed, and whether the political promises match the reality on the ground.

On Sunday, the Linda Mwananchi convoy did not set out to conduct an audit of Homa Bay’s roads.

But after the barricades forced it onto alternative routes, the roads conducted one themselves.

And for a county whose governor has said three quarters of its visible development emerged during the Ruto era, the dust left behind a question that political speeches alone cannot answer.

Has Homa Bay truly been transformed, or are some of its roads still waiting for the transformation to arrive?