Kenya is not a nation! To me 'nations' are groups of people... the Kikuyu Nation, the Luo Nation e.t.c. that is clear. if an ethnic group has a distingusishable culture - you are a nation. not all nations have states and so perhaps what you meant to as is what is a 'state' or a 'nation state'. a 'nation state' is where you have something like Lesotho - a country of the Basotho people. an ethnically distinct country. Sometimes this results from multiethnic state i.e. a big country that has everyone mixed in there and a certain group decide "wameTosha" and break-off to make their own. sometimes the process is peaceful (i can only remember czechoslovakia) but mostly it's bloody! The catalans want out to create their own 'nation state'.
I had an interesting discussion over the same matter yesterday over lunch with some of my colleagues - one is from Kosovo and another from Georgia. We discussed why Kosovo left Serbia and really why Yugoslavia collapsed in the first place and what life was like before that. We also discussed Georgia under USSR, the collapse of the USSR and even the struggle in Chechnya! It downed on me that states are not really permanent things. Ethnicities are... not states! What we have is work in progress, Let's face it - what we are seeing is not the complete thing. The pen that is writing history has not run out of ink
in my life time USSR broke, Yugoslavia broke, czechoslovakia broke, Namibia broke off SA, sudan broke, Ukraine broke, Eriteria broke off Ethiopia. The Québécois want their own country. Donesk? Texas? Mwambao? Puntland? Will the Kurds ever get their own country? Biafra?
What is Kenya really? the only thing that makes me think 'Kenya' is what unites us. Our products... that everyone takes pride in e.g. Sports? nothing else. during my discussion with the Georgian and Kosovo Albanian i realized that during the USSR times and Yugoslavia - these countries had a car! a car made in like 15 places! each state contributed to the 'national' car and everyone was proud of it! For awhile under the iron curtain and lack of information of what others are having out there - life moved on well. When information flows as I illustrated in the
Social inequity aversion In the face of unfairness - people are no longer willing to put up with 'good enough' when they see unfairness.
Perhaps what we need to do is ask - kinda like in marriage, how do we make the people who want to leave - feel like staying? How do we make it worth their while! After all - like marriage... lines that distinguish states exist in our collective imaginations and on paper! I say - they need to feel part of the bigger state! What would make the Homabay county people fend off secession? interests!!! it's a question of 'shareholding'... one which every big business founder faces at one point in their lives 100% of a small business or a fraction of a big business - Make them see having 10% of a large cake is better than 100% of a really small cake! the Yugo used to be the car of the Yugoslavia... what is our collective product? Secondly, how do you vent out ethnic tensions? The Romans and Greeks did it very well... they had sports! Sports are great for scratching ethnic egos and less harmful than wars. Think about it.. what would happen if Kikuyus had a proper football team and they played against Sirkal and lost? or sometimes won? do you remember the AFC vs Gor matches of prior times? Do you see tension between "mashemeji"?
I wrote some of my thoughts on the
Why i think Uhuru should lose and possibly will lose!! thread sometime back. From my perspective - the Kikuyus are squandering the time in the sun. Squandering uthamaki! I think my people are too utilitarian to realize that

All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!