Members of the Terik Community from Vihiga have moved to a Kisumu court protesting what they term as exclusion from the composition of the current County government cabinet.
Through their Lawyer Aggrey Busioga, the community wants the court to declare the processes of constituting the 10 cabinet members whose names were forwarded to the county assembly and a section of them approved to have been unconstitutional.
The community wants the court to also declare the cabinet as currently constituted as unconstitutional.
Busioga told the court that the appointments breached articles 10(2), 27(4) (5) and 197 of the constitution.
In the petition, Vihiga County Governor Dr. Wilbur Ottichillo has been listed as the first Respondent; the Vihiga County Assembly is the second respondent and 10 others.
The Terik community members claim that they have been victims of continuous historical injustices despite being the only indigenous residents of Vihiga County.
Among the injustices the community claims to have suffered and is documented in their petition is the dislocation from their land leaving them with only 20% of it.
Vihiga County is the home of four Luhya communities namely Banyore, Maragoli, Tiriki and Terik who total to about 600,000 people. The Terik community accounts for slightly above 20,000 of the total population.
The Community has also come out and stated that during the tenure of the 2013-2017 Vihiga County Assembly, only one Terik member; Sila Chepkemboi, was represented in the county cabinet while the Maragoli & Banyore secured four representatives each and the Tiriki two.
Justice Nduma Nderi noted that a ruling on the matter will be delivered on July 19 this year