Mijikenda leaders have formed a movement to unite Coastal residents and rally people behind one strong regional political party.
The Umoja Summit will educate grassroots women and youth on the Coast party agenda, spokesperson Masai Mwawira told the Star on Thursday.
About 62 Mijikenda leaders met for their first general assembly at the Pwani University on Saturday, where they agreed to include all other Coastal communities. It is the latest in a series of moves to build a political machine.
“This movement will be all inclusive,” Mwawira said. “It will involve all people living and working at the Coast, including the Luo, Gikuyu, Kamba, Bajuni and the other communities. It is not about the natives.”
Political activist Naomi Cidi and Umoja Summit convener Katana Ndurya said the movement will help the Coast attain unity, which will in turn help the region gain bargaining power.
“The bane of the Coast has always been its inability to speak with one voice. We want to change that,” Ndurya said.
Cidi said the movement will be led by the Coastal elite in academics, business and civil society, not by politicians.
They said politicians have always failed them and now they want to try a different route to achieve their goal.
“We have politicians in the movement but they will not be taking leading roles. We want a new approach,” Cidi said.
Coastal MPs have also been agitating for one party to gain political mileage for the region.
Coast Parliamentary Group chairman Gunga Mwinga is fronting his Kadu-Asili party as the ideal political unit for the solidarity the Umoja Summit wants to achieve.
Mwawira said they are yet to decide which political party to use. “We felt it is too late to register a new party, so we will shop around for the ideal Coastal political party,” he said.
The Umoja Summit has formed a 15-member committee to oversee the movement’s activities.
“We are first looking for legal recognition. We want to register the movement in a week’s time, but we are yet to decide what to register it as,” Mwawira said.
The outfit has about 1,600 members, with each of the six counties having 260 members. Kwale county has the most members.
The movement’s second general assembly will be held at the Kwale School of Government in Matuga on May 28.
Naomi said this will help the Coast have more significance next year, as they plan to use their numbers to gain political might to negotiate for a greater say in national politics.
The Mijikenda are nine Bantu ethnic groups inhabiting the Coast, between the Sabaki and the Umba rivers.