Oil Revenue Sharing Bill Hides the Truth

@ Dennis Morton 2016.

Nothing is much easier for a politician than to capitalize on an enthusiastic public by painting an image of a rosy future even when context and hard facts dictate otherwise.

A cursory look at the so-called resource-rich countries gives us a rather tasteless hope built on politically-powered rhetoric. In this talking game, there is a well-built belief that there is instant wealth in natural resources, and that populations in regions with mineral deposits need not move past “asking for their share of resource dollars from companies and national governments.”

The message hidden in such loaded statements is that opportunities, business ventures, knowledge transfer programs et al that often accompany natural resources exploration and exploitation activities are none of (local) communities’ business. In short, community members should just ‘sleep’ because resource dollars will flow to them.

Unfortunately, this shaky thinking has taken control of Kenyans, and in particular, people in Turkana County.

The other day the National Assembly rubber-stamped an oil revenue sharing bill outlining the percentages that local communities, county governments and the national treasury shall pocket should oil revenues start flowing. While the import of the proposed law seems to be clear, the message reaching people in the hamlets of Turkana is vague and escapist. Its proponents have only been bandying about percentages as though oil cash would be splashed to people on the basis of their closeness to oil wells.

I'm afraid these leaders are blind to the fact that the foundation of collective development is hinged on outlining what touches all and how that can be turned around to create wealth for all. They seem to cling on the gullibility of the people to reason beyond those percentages to mask their own inability to think beyond this distributionist mentality.

It is a dangerous move. Dangerous because it shifts away the cause of entrenched poverty in places like Turkana from leaders’ inefficiencies to resource scarcity.

Coming a few months to national elections, this oil law is a clever gimmick meant to hoodwink pastoralists that there is future in extractives even when a whooping eighty percent of them can neither read nor write!

This oil thing is likely to push the focus away from the need to examine the impact on social development brought by the sedentarization – forced and voluntary – of nomads.

That many towns neighboring oil blocks have grown both in size and in population is a fact. The often ignored question is; where did these new entrants fuelling growth in those oil towns come from?

A majority of these new urbanites are former nomads who trooped to towns either, as a result of that useless belief that oil money is found there, or because nomadism is no longer a viable mode of subsistence.

The suppressed truth, however, is that these former nomads are ill prepared for town life. They simply have no skills to enable them pick new means of subsistence. As a result, they end up swimming in an already overflowing sea of poor urbanites.

Instead of telling the world how this issue will be straightened, all we hear from crusaders of oil dollars’ sharing formula is an indifferent appeal that only serves to introduce a social order split along class lines.

No one is talking about how skills can be drilled into the heads of these new town entrants. No one is ready to move away from the comfort of “dialogues and negotiations” to meeting the people that form the bedrock of the existence of such forums. No politico is willing to lead a crusade of public enlightenment. 

Now that this oil thing has become a national element and virtually everybody is talking about “modernizing” pastoralists neighboring oil wells, it is still largely ignored that modern practices do not just attach themselves on the skins of the people. They must be built into their systems by first respecting the people (in this case, pastoralists), and then ensuring that that respect is translated into tangible enlightenment initiatives. Not simplistic futurism.

A chain of training/skills centers targeting the majority illiterate would definitely have taken the lead if this yet-to-be-adopted enlightenment campaign had materialized.

That is what I expected the oil dollars’ preachers to say – not bellowing vague percentages to a desperate population.

Twitter: @mlemukol.

Yes, Sack All Except Hon. Joyce A. Emanikor!

Turkana County MPs

It is not part of me to write about personalities – especially those donning political colours. Whenever I shout out their names, it is for a reason. Either they have slipped off the way, and their action, whether collectively or individually, is likely to, or has actually caused pain to the public, or they have danced in such a manner that rhymes with public demands – of course, coupled with the exigencies of law and conscience.  

For we are reminded that democracy is neutered the moment we reduce it to an event – elections. In other words, it takes a continuous evaluation (and sometimes stoning, quite literally) of (elected) leaders by the public for democracy to take root. It is under this banner that I place my mission vis-à-vis the political decisions that are likely to come out of next year’s general elections.

Above this, there is a fundamental development happening in our midst that must be brought to light. It touches on what some people call “forced resocialisation”. Meaning, the general socio-political re-conditioning of a society so as it reconsiders its hitherto one-sided “cultural” links.

Of great concern here is an evaluation of the successes, challenges and failures of Kenya’s womenfolk in politics. It is about how Kenya’s 2010 Constitution has reconfigured thoughts of those communities that – for eons – considered man an unchallenged ‘king’ with an ever flowing reservoir of wisdom and goodwill.

And this is where the people of Turkana come in. All physical symbols of progress aside, in this land man calls the shots. It is a historical undertaking that goes beyond the homestead. Until 2013, this thinking colonized even the political sphere. Prior to that, it would take a heart of a superhuman to convince the general populace – the literate and illiterate – that demolishing this gender barrier would actually yield fruitful returns for all.

But as they say, good news must go beyond its source for its “goodness” to be tasted by all. Anything to the contrary negates the very “goodness” of good news. In short, in this exercise of “resocialising” a people, information is the only armor you can lean on.

Well, this is the good news. Out of the eight men and woman representing Turkana County in Parliament – both at the Senate and the National Assembly – only (and I seriously mean it) Turkana Women Representative Hon. Joyce Akai Emanikor has proven her worth. The rest, despite having that pseudo-cultural backing on their side, must take time off and explain to their respective electorate why they should not be sacked next year.

It is simple. They have failed.

A good number of them seem to be on a mission to thicken their personal pockets. No, not to stand with the average voter in Turkana.

A look into their philosophical leanings tells me that they dance when hollowness rules. This is what I mean. Hollowness attracts desperation. Desperation weakens democracy. And a weakened democratic process does one thing: it rewards rulers. It protects not the citizenry.

For a leadership that went into comatose for four good years despite having a huge demand list from the public must be called by its real name: An enemy of the people.

This explains why critical pillars of people’s progress are down and no one bothers to raise a finger. It looks like this heavy lifting is the exclusive mandate of Hon Joyce.

Look, I have listened to Hon. Joyce’s contributions during parliamentary debates. She is smart. Her male colleagues have mountains to scale to reach her. That is, after they have overcome the curse of absenteeism.

Back to Turkana. What does Hon. Joyce’s performance have to do with the rest of us out there? Now unlike before, that average pastoralist woman in Turkana has a bearing to look up to in her exploits to free herself from the yoke of patriarchal bondage.

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AN OPEN note to Hon Joyce Emanikor: I’m sure you are aware that nomadism isn’t a crime in Kenya. With that in mind, I want to believe that any utterances characterizing some leaders as “outsiders”, hence “not qualified” to stand for any political seat in Turkana County amount to negating your very own roots. Let not demagoguery get hold of your brains. Respect and respect will flow back to you.

Twitter: @mlemukol

No Kitale-Lodwar Road, No Oil: Even 'Small People' Must 'Eat'

A section of Kitale-Lodwar Road.

The rain pouring on many corners of Kenya has brought to the surface the pain experienced by many hardworking Kenyans, who despite their generous contribution to our national development, have remained at the peripheries of public engagement and thinking. Anyway, not voluntarily but as a result of our governance design and practice.

It is an experience that catapults the often-ignored unwritten edict that Kenya is not divided along ethnic lines but on the basis of whose pocket is heavy, and by extension, whose noises can attract the attention of Kenya's big men and women. It is a classic situation of who determines who gets what and when. Again, it is a case in point of how the so called small people navigate against these man-made currents and still succeed to lead their lives – at least for one extra day.

Take the case of Lodwar, the headquarters of and the largest (some people say, the most urbanized) town in Turkana County.

From the standpoint of a person who has always advocated for inclusivity (especially when it has to do with the poor and the unsupported), this place embodies what can be described as a ‘two-in-one’ syndrome. That is, a community seen from the outside as a victim of historical marginalization (allegedly) sponsored by national authorities but internally built on social cracks flowing from how (local) resource control and/or distribution is done. It is an image that has refused to disappear – even with the advent of devolution plus its billions.

I will demonstrate it here. Let no person mislead you about ‘unproductiveness’ of pastoralist women. Lodwar town, in particular, and Turkana County in general exist because there is something special. These places are built by the ingenuity, sacrifice and resilience of Turkana women. Women make it rain there. Lodwar's handicraft sector, for instance, is wholly under the belt of women. They make up about 85% of the town's petty traders. Though unrecognized, they are their families’ pillars. Yet with all these fruits women still patronize the ugly, dark rooms of our socio-economic edifice. The local powers-that-be seem to have their mission elsewhere.

And this is why I find it wise to remind them that they are off the tarmac. The sooner they take note of this the better.

These mamas want results. Results founded on the realization that for such a people to succeed, they need to be armed with information, skills, financial backing, infrastructure like markets, roads, water points, public toilets etc. 

Lodwar town is yet to get this largess. Remember this is where the fountains of power are located. Which provokes the question: what happens in the remotest of all places in Turkana? (Lodwar officialdom must provide answers through actions, not words).

Another level. There is this road connecting Turkana and the rest of Kenya. It runs from Kitale to Lokichoggio through Lodwar. Lately, it has attracted the eye of Nairobi’s power men. Of course, this change of heart has something to do with the discovery of oil at Lokichar basin in Turkana South Constituency.

What disturbs me vis-a-vis this road thing is the loud silence coming from Turkana’s political class. See this: the other day Energy Minister Mr Charles Keter was quoted by a reporter from one of Kenya’s major newspapers asserting that this road has been built and is ready for use (read ferrying oil). The truth of the matter is: the road to Hell is better than the said Turkana road. The Minister shamelessly and openly put on the table the economic discrimination that the people of Turkana have shouldered since independence.

There is a reason why such hollow ministerial (or high-level) utterances keep popping up. No politico from Turkana rose up to challenge these lies. The local leadership’s indifference tells everybody that the small people of Turkana, including its farsighted women who depend on this crucial road have no leader to stand with them. They are on their own!

That this road is important is not in doubt. It is what demonstrates whether Kenya remains true to her declarations on empowerment of women and the marginalized. By extension, it shows that our leaders are yet to pin together points that make a direct impact on women – and the society in general. That they still swim in that ideal world that dictates that empowering women is all about giving them soft loans and organizing expensive jigs.

No, I refuse. There is no real empowerment when these women have to spread their wares on dusty or flooded streets because they have no market stalls. There is no progress when these women have to risk their lives on bumpy, pot-holed roads!

To ensure that these women of Turkana get a slice of the national cake, Kitale-Lodwar-Lokichoggio road must be built before oil production commences. Else, a catastrophic meltdown will ensue.

This is not a war cry. It is a socio-economic declaration of a forsaken Kenyan population.

Twitter: @mlemukol