By Our Correspondent, KISUMU Kenya
President of Kenya, William Ruto, Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, Vice President of South Sudan Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior and the former Kenya Prime Minister, Raila Odinga have converged at the Got Ramogi shrine in Bondo for the annual Piny Luo Cultural Festival in Siaya County.
Museveni who was the chief guest was earlier received at the Kenya Uganda border in Busia by Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi.
The leaders spent an enlightening afternoon at Got Ramogi addressed by Luo luminaries from Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda.
The Luo leader 'Ker' Odungi Randa used the occasion to install the two presidents; Museveni and Ruto as Luo elders.
The event will also feature a friendly match between Kenya Premier League champions Gor Mahia and Uganda’s Kitara FC.
The event is the culmination of “Piny Luo Festival”, which has been running in Migwena in Bondo.
The Luo are several ethnically and linguistically related Nilotic ethnic groups that inhabit an area ranging from Egypt and Sudan to South Sudan and Ethiopia, through Northern Uganda and eastern Congo (DRC), into western Kenya, and the Mara Region of Tanzania.
The level of historical separation between these groups is estimated at about eight centuries.
Dispersion from the Nilotic homeland in South Sudan was presumably triggered by the turmoil of the Muslim conquest of Sudan.
Their migration of individual groups over the last few centuries can to some extent be traced in the respective group's oral history.
Their Luo languages (Dholuo) belong to the western branch of the Nilotic language family.
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