My journey began with an unexpected call on Thursday, August 7, 2025: I’d been selected to cover Kenya’s Devolution Conference (DevCon2025) in Homa Bay County – a lakeside region hosting the prestigious event for the first time.
Homa Bay, one of Kenya’s 47 counties, lies along Lake Victoria’s southern shores in the country’s west. This biennial gathering, last held in Uasin Gishu in August 2024, is Kenya’s premier platform for sub-national policy dialogue, innovation showcases, and strategic partnerships, constitutionally designed to bring government closer to citizens.
The 2025 theme, “For the People; For Prosperity: Devolution as a Catalyst for Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice”, with its sub-theme “Reengineering County Governments to Accelerate Development and Close the Socio-Economic Divide”, promised rich discourse.
My initial response to the invitation was a simple “okay.” But just 30 minutes later, I was asked to urgently submit my passport photo, media house name, and designation. Little did I know my flight ticket would materialise by 6:30 p.m. that same day – for a 10:10 a.m. departure from Kotoka International Airport (KIA) the next morning (August 8), returning August 16.
Stunned, I received the e-ticket via WhatsApp. This unplanned trip couldn’t have come at a more demanding time: I’d just completed a grueling 10-day monitoring exercise across Ghana’s Eastern, Ashanti, Ahafo, Western, and Western North Regions and was utterly exhausted. At 7:05 p.m., I scrambled to wash my dirty shirts, trousers, and singlets. The real challenge? Drying them overnight. I deployed strategic desperation: blasting them with my outdoor AC unit’s fan and the living room ceiling fan.
By 3:00 a.m., on August 8, I was packing the miraculously dry clothes. Our three-person media team needed to be at Kotoka International Airport (KIA) by 6:00 a.m., sharp. At 4:20 a.m., I kissed my wife goodbye and boarded a “tro-tro” (public minibus) to Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Dawn’s empty streets meant I arrived at Kotoka by 5:45 a.m. – the first of our group.
My colleagues joined around 6:45 a.m., and we filled the wait with conversations about the conference, politics, and socio-economic issues. By 8:05 a.m., our full delegation assembled. We checked in, tagged luggage, cleared electronic security, and waited at the departure lounge for boarding passes. Finally, we boarded Asky Airlines, transiting through Lomé, Togo en route to Nairobi, Kenya.
Though scheduled for 5 hours 40 minutes, a 3-hour delay in Lomé left me bone-tired. We reached Nairobi around 9:45 p.m., exiting the airport after 10:00 p.m. for an accommodation hunt. The decent lodge we found felt like an oasis – I wished we’d stayed there throughout.
Unbeknownst to us, Homa Bay lay another three hours away. Pre-arranged travel plans required flying to Kisumu County Airport the next day, then driving to Homa Bay. In Kisumu, delegation meetings caused further delays. We finally arrived in Homa Bay around 8:00 p.m. – utterly spent. After combing the county, we secured a hotel to collapse in.
The DevCon2025, organised by Kenya’s Council of Governors, was officially opened by H.E. President William Samoei Ruto. Notably, Ghana’s Jospong Group of Companies (JGC) participated as a Platinum Sponsor for the first time.
The four-day conference gathered over 10,000 delegates – including national and county officials, all 47 governors and deputies, development partners, private sector leaders, civil society, media and international stakeholders – to dissect devolution’s role in driving equity, inclusion, and social justice while accelerating inclusive development.
Article By: Dennis Ato Keelson, Editor-in-Chief of Ghanaian RADAR newspaper & Ghanaian RADAR Online news portal. The writer is also an Editor-at-Large with DAILY Analyst newspaper. He had the privilege to participate in the 2025 Devolution Conference in Kenya hosted by Homa Bay County.
