By Kepher Otieno - Reporter
Kenya, 7 December 2025 - The upcoming four-day project verification tour by Deputy Chief of Staff Eliud Owalo across the Nyanza region is emerging as one of the most politically consequential government activity cycles in recent months.
Scheduled between 8 December and 11 December 2025, the tour, which covers Migori, Homa Bay, Kisumu, and Siaya, carries layered significance.
It is administrative, symbolic, and unmistakably political.
At its surface, it is a routine project-tracking mission under the government’s Delivery and Efficiency mandate.
Beneath that, however, lie deeper ambitions as it looks to consolidate government visibility in an opposition-leaning region, reinforcing the administration’s development credentials, and recalibrating political alliances ahead of shifting 2026–2027 political currents.
For the government, the visit represents an opportunity to counter longstanding narratives that national projects in Nyanza either stagnate or arrive as political afterthoughts.
In deploying a senior figure with deep ties to the region, the administration positions itself to reclaim political ground and demonstrate bureaucratic attentiveness.
Owalo’s presence is therefore strategic.
His roots in the area allow him to function as both a government emissary and a familiar political actor who is able to walk the tightrope between state function and regional sensibilities.
Yet the political stakes are heightened by the mixed performance of the projects he will be inspecting.
In Migori, for instance, several signature undertakings are behind schedule.
Roads such as Ngege–Mapera–Rabuor–Kawa–Osingo–Nyaduong are severely delayed, offering critics ammunition on government sluggishness, but also giving Owalo the stage to issue firm directives and demonstrate resolve.
The Migori Stadium, progressing visibly but hampered by basic issues such as water scarcity, symbolises both potential and dysfunction. It will likely become a talking point on the need for better coordination between national and county administrations.
Homa Bay presents a contrasting narrative—one the government may find more politically useful. With the Rusinga Loop Ring Road nearing completion and Kabunde Airstrip’s rehabilitation advancing steadily, Owalo can credibly frame Homabay as a beneficiary of national commitment.
The County Aggregation and Industrial Park, meanwhile, aligns with the administration’s broader message of agro-industrial transformation—an appealing theme for a region where agricultural frustration often translates into political agitation.
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Kisumu, however, is the true test case. The stalled Koru–Soin Dam has long been a politically sensitive symbol—frequently invoked during campaigns but rarely progressing meaningfully.
Its current 7% progress will force Owalo into tight political manoeuvring: acknowledging delays without conceding failure, promising acceleration without overstepping budgetary realities.
The blue economy projects in Kabonyo similarly expose the tension between ambition and implementation, particularly given the payment delays and accessibility challenges constraining progress. Still, the near-complete Kisumu Airport Control Tower offers the administration a ready-made success story—an opportunity to highlight efficiency in contrast to legacy stagnation.
Siaya, the final county, presents a politically nuanced mix. The Alego Usonga Affordable Housing Project, halted temporarily over safety concerns, and the long-delayed JOOUST library project (now 94% complete after over a decade) will require careful messaging to avoid reinforcing perceptions of bureaucratic inertia.
Yet Siaya also provides the government with immediate wins: the almost-complete RIAT Kolemo Market and active ICT and market infrastructure projects in Rarieda offer a narrative of grassroots economic empowerment—an increasingly central plank of national political messaging.
Taken together, the tour is less about mere inspection and more about political signalling.
It allows the government to project visibility in a region where perceptions of marginalisation have historically shaped political identity.
It equips Owalo—one of the administration’s key regional political operators—with the platform to articulate development commitments in ways that resonate at the village, constituency, and county levels.
It also allows the government to engage governors, commissioners, and project contractors in a coordinated display of presence and authority.
More significantly, the visit arrives at a moment when national political alignments are fluid and the incumbent administration is seeking to demonstrate delivery momentum heading into the mid-term window.
With economic pressures mounting and opposition rhetoric sharpening, high-profile development oversight tours in politically competitive regions are becoming essential tools for narrative control.
Owalo’s Nyanza tour is therefore best read not merely as a technical assessment of project progress but as a calculated political choreography.
It attempts to reclaim agency over contested developmental narratives, deepen the government’s footprint in historically resistant geographies, and shore up regional alliances ahead of the next electoral cycle.
What emerges in the four days will shape not just project trajectories but also the evolving political map of the region.
