Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga endorsed remarks similar to Auma Obama's appeal to Luo Nyanza during an investment forum in Kisumu.
The ODM party leader asked the region's communities to salvage themselves from poverty and shun whining about unfavourable political outcomes.
He stated that it is in the hands of the members of the community to turn around their living conditions given they habour numerous untapped opportunities.
He held that a time had come for the community to redeem itself from the perception that they had been marginalised and shun overdependence on the national government.
Speaking to youth on Tuesday when he made stopovers in Kisumu, Raila urged the community to invest in income-generating activities instead of engaging and complaining about political outcomes.
Mr Odinga encouraged the youth to take up fishing and grow avocado, cotton, macadamia nuts and other crops from which he believes they can earn a living.
He noted that despite suffering discrimination from past governments, Luo leaders still managed to invest and initiated projects that created employment for many people in the region.
Citing Equity bank as an example, the former PM challenged the locals to consider joining chamas through which they can access resources to facilitate start-ups.
"The vicious cycle of poverty saying goes 'we are poor, and because we are poor we cannot save, and because we cannot save we cannot invest, and because we cannot invest we are poor'. This thing can be reversed so that we move from poverty to prosperity,” affirmed Mr Odinga.
Recently, former US President Barrack Obama's sister, Auma, was criticised by some members of the community after making a similar appeal to the region.
Auma stated that the 'Gonya-Gonya' syndrome, which is loosely related to begging and crying for aid, was dragging the area into absolute poverty.
She stated that the community had all it needed to rise above the poverty line.
