IMAGINE YOU ARE TURKANA

Imagine if you could not afford to raise Sh1,562 per month. Now imagine if almost all your neighbors and village was in the same predicament. Still inside yourself, imagine you had a gun and several rounds of ammunition. Imagine that all your neighbors had the same.

Now in the same state of imagination, I will tell you your story. Since independence your village, your county and the whole of your region has been neglected by the government. It didn’t start with the post independent government, even colonialists saw little to colonize in your area. Your people have suffered marginalization for over 60 years.

Instead of investing in your area, every government has chose to ignore you. People in your area are 7 times less likely to access formal education than any other area in the country. Education is a luxury. Security is the problem. You own guns, the government ignores that too. Since they cant protect you, they let you cattle rustle each other to absolute poverty. On a 20 km trek in search for water or pasture, you risk attacks by poor fellow regioners and you will defy death to protect your three malnourished cows.
Even the weather hates you. Climate change denys you rain and destroys your livelihood. Frequent prolonged droughts have killed your livestock in thousands. You don’t have access to femiplan (Am sad for you)

Now, for the last five years, things have started to look better. Oil was discovered in your doorsteps. You found enough water to quench the whole country under your house, hidden by some aquifer – you hate that aquifer. Even an eclipse just randomly decides to pass by your neighborhood bringing lots of visitors with money (you are not tempted to use your gun though).

Your fortune and that of your region is turning around. Oil will bring large scale development to your region. Large investments,modern infrastructure, improoved security, education and diverse sources of livelihood start feeling like a reality.

Then, something threaten this reality. You see, you thought that since the oil is in your region you will be the first beneficiaries. But then exploration work continues and your people are denied jobs. Tenders are out and you suspect the process is discriminatory. ‘Your leaders have accused local officials of illegally acquiring title deeds, misappropriating community-owned land and using intimidation and violence to displace your people within your region’s oil-rich localities.’

The company that is running the exploration is paying insufficient compensation your communities and bribing your leaders as a means of securing control of resource-rich land.

Now snap out of it…. No, it was not a dream, you were reading my blog. The media is really excited that we might be slowly brewing our own niger delta. They cant contain their saliva imagining the People have started demonstrating against the exploration process. The government has started charging leaders with crimes like robery with violence further infuriating a community that owns over 50,000 small arms.

Fate has granted Turkana some justice. A region that has been ignored for a long time is now the future of Kenya and treating it any less will be adding insult to injuries. Wounds that have remained fresh since independence.
With a history that can piss off even mother Teresa, the government should be really careful how they handle the Turkana oil issue.
If they have risked their lives over malnourished livestock, imagine what they would do for oil riches.