ALAL: Beyond slogans: Lake region needs factories, not chants

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Luo leaders must move beyond chanting for President William Ruto’s two terms and start asking for tangible economic wins. Politics that thrives on slogans but avoids hard economic demands does little for a region battling deep unemployment and stalled growth.

What the lake region needs is not applause lines, but factories, farms, value addition, and access to markets. Today, fish harvested from counties around Lake Victoria is transported all the way to Thika—hundreds of kilometres from Kisumu—for processing.

This is a painful contradiction for a region sitting on one of Africa’s richest freshwater resources. Reviving Kicomi and building a modern fish-processing plant in Kisumu would immediately reverse this injustice.

Such investments would create direct factory jobs and indirect employment across fishing, cold storage, transport, packaging, boat building, and small-scale trade. Value addition at the source would keep money circulating within the lake economy instead of exporting jobs elsewhere.

The same logic applies to Kicomi, once the backbone of the cotton industry in the region. Reviving the cotton ginnery and aggressively championing cotton farming would reawaken a dormant value chain involving farmers, transporters, textile manufacturers, and traders.

Cotton is not just a crop—it is an ecosystem of livelihoods that can absorb thousands of young people if supported with policy, markets, and processing infrastructure.

Sugar factories that once anchored local economies should also be revived and modernised. Sugarcane farming has historically sustained households, funded education, and supported rural economies.

Their collapse left a vacuum that politics has failed to fill. Revival would restore dignity to farmers and stimulate regional commerce.

Equally important is the expansion of rice farming and processing, especially in flood-prone and irrigation-friendly areas.

Rice is both a food security and income opportunity, yet the region continues to underinvest in processing capacity that would empower farmers and reduce reliance on imports.

Expanding rice plants and farming would strengthen agribusiness and create year-round employment.

Industrial expansion must also include existing players. The expansion of Kenya Breweries in the region would create jobs, grow the sorghum and barley value chains, and boost local revenue.Supporting industries that already have proven markets is smart economics, not political charity.

All these production efforts, however, require access to markets. That is why the expansion of Kisumu International Airport into a true international cargo and passenger hub is critical. With proper infrastructure, Kisumu can export fish, chillies, rice, and other high-value agricultural products directly to regional and global markets. An expanded airport would position the city as a logistics and trade hub for western Kenya and the greater Lake Victoria basin.

Political loyalty without bold economic demands is empty noise. Chanting for two terms does not employ graduates, feed families, or revive dying towns.

If Luo leaders truly care about the people they represent, they must woo Ruto with clear, unapologetic asks that prioritise factories, farming, value addition, and export infrastructure. Development is negotiated, not begged for—and certainly not sung into existence.

The future of the lake region depends on leaders who demand more than slogans and deliver real economic transformation.

The writer is an experienced journalist and media consultant