WHEN KEBWATO GAVE EKWEE ETHURO THE EKICHOLONG OF KENYAS PRESIDENCY. If academic education were a religion, David Ekwe Ethuro could be its temple. A symbol of absolute struggle through the perils of socioeconomic deprivation, the Speaker of the Kenyan Senate was born and brought up in desolate Karokol outback in Turkana County. Indeed, he was the fourth person from the nomadic Turkana community to ever get a university degree. Twenty-eight years ago, the Hon. Speaker received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nairobi. Ekwe grew up in an environment boiling in the blood of poverty. We hardly had a meal and we went to school half naked. Most of the cloths we put on left our backs naked, sometimes we wore no shirts at all, he would say in a 2002 interview. In other words, his formative years were littered with anything but life in ivory towers. Many were the times he slept on an empty stomach; went to school bare-backed, barefoot. The light of hope on his future was shed by his Christian parents. Ethuro’s father and mother were among the first Christian converts in Turkana. In spite of not having gone to school, the Christian neophytes impressed upon their son the importance of the “white man’s education” and how it could mean a better future. In the years that lay ahead of his career, Ethuro would make education his life’s foremost priority. In 1981 he did his O Level exams and passed Summa Cum Laude and proceeded to Alliance Boys High School to pursue his A Level education. After Alliance he attended the University of Nairobi for a Bachelor of Science degree. Endowed with another Summa Cum Laude, Ethuro won a USAid scholarship to read for a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Economics at Clemson University, South Carolina. After his stint at Clemson University, Ethuro returned to Kenya in 1992. He re-joined Kari as a policy analyst on livestock issues. In the following year, he moved to Oxfam as the Deputy Country Director. It’s rare that I give credit to a Kenyan politician. Nonetheless, let me attempt this increasingly difficult task by handling the Hon. Speaker’s profile with a grain of salt. On becoming an MP, he with others, established the Turkana Central Constituency Bursary Fund. In spite of being a drop in the ocean of Turkana’s need for education, hundreds of Turkana children have completed secondary education through the help of this fund. Mr. Ethuro has also organized with NGOs and World Vision to get more funding for his constituents’ education. On the same note, he has tirelessly lobbied the corrupt Kenya Government to allocate funds in form of bursary schemes so that more Turkana children can get access to education. To bring education closer to his the people of Turkana, he has helped build two high schools: Lokichoggio, and Karokol secondary schools. The two schools went into full operation in 2003. On this note, I give credit to the Hon. Speaker. Now you know Kenya has at least one politician who works for his electorate. So from Karokol to Clemson and among his people in Turkana County, Ethuro has been a man of socioeconomic concern and unmitigated achievements. Whether his achievements are seen as personal or as a function of his community, it’d be difficult to enfold Speaker Ethuro in the entirety of Kenya’s schizophrenic leadership. The memoirs of the Hon. Speaker’s early life in Karokol and Lodwar were a kaleidoscopic lens through which I glassed miles and miles of Kenya’s policy-driven suffering. This, perhaps, is why a self-styled journalist called Kebwato, declared, “Mr. Speaker, you are fit to be Kenya’s President.” As Kebwato regurgitated a paroxysm of sycophantic rigmaroles in praise of Ethuro, the aura of silence in the packed hall seemed to vindicate his outbursts. One point needs to be noted. Kebwato, who also introduced himself as the Executive Director of Kenyans in the Diaspora had spoken most despicably to Lamu County Senator, Abu Mohamed Abu Chiaba. On that evening, Kebwato addressed the Lamu Senator the way one could address is five-year-old child. “…And you are laughing when I am speaking,” Kebwato snared at the Hon. Senator. Indeed, it seemed the self-acclaimed journalist didn’t have the decency to refuse living in a sociolinguistic pigsty. Back to Kenya’s prospective President, Ekwe Ethuro, now Speaker of the Kenyan Senate! Lest we forget, the Clemson-trained agriculturalist’s path must not be seen as graced by bouquets per se. Barbs, barbs, barbs…unwind in his leadership. In 1997 he was elected MP for Turkana Central and then served under the tutelage of Toroitich araap Moi in various portfolios. Unto this day I have never reconciled reason with the fact that a human being with a conscience could faithfully serve under strongman Toroitich araap Moi. The other day, I was appalled by the fact that the Speaker presided over the institutionalization of polygyny; a draconian law that robbed our mothers, sisters, and daughters their right to constitutional and legal equality. Mr. Speaker, a law that allows a man to marry more than one wife is a bad law. This cannot be tethered to the peg of debate. In the background of the Speaker’s struggle to help his people, Kenya’s government has paid little or no attention to the nomadic Turkana. Since independence, the Turkana have received little or no attention beyond sporadic interest from missionaries and anthropologists. In fact, it was only the horrors of war in Sudan that brought outside awareness to their torment. Now, with newly emerging hostilities in South Sudan and a bigger stream of Sudanese refugees flowing into Kakuma and the rest of Turkana country, the heart of Turkana resources might be in dire straits. On the eastern frontiers of Turkana County, the Somalia-based Islamist militant group, Al-Shabaab, is further poisoning the peace of Northern and Northeastern Kenya. At this moment, the latent heat of Turkana’s turmoil is more a matter of governmental and intergovernmental magnitude. It’s beyond the Speaker’s ability to adequately address the changes brought by the war in the Sudan, and the insecurity caused by Al-Shabaab. Among the Turkana life is centered on livestock; virtually all their wealth is tied up in goats, cows, camels, donkeys, and sheep. It is here they would need governmental and other help to reduce vulnerability to environmental stress, disease outbreaks among livestock, and banditry. It is here that Ethuro’s training university education, and experience could be vastly utilized. The Turkana live on the brink of starvation. In the last decade, they have experienced a few dry seasons that have destroyed their sole source of wealth and nutrition, leaving children with bellies swollen from malnutrition, and the elderly and infirm withering away. It would be unrealistic to believe these people belong to a functional government. Let me remind you that Speaker Ethuro has been part of the highly corrupt and bureaucratic Kenya Government for almost two decades. Yet the Turkana are a proud people. Recalcitrant and most unwilling to give up their way of life. The harsh conditions of their environment have built in them the ability to take happiness and sorrow with equal composure. This nomadic group could do better if Ethuro’s Senate helped them build a base in modern agriculture in the backdrop of the knowledge that Turkana country has too little rainfall to support most food crops. When rains do come, they can wreak havoc, causing rivers to overflow their banks, and wiping out fields, roads, and even unprepared communities. I suggest that the government needs to help the Turkana harvest and store this water for use in the dry season, mainly for livestock and for irrigation. Because of water scarcity, farming is not viable in much of Turkana County. It’s, however, possible to expand the growing of jatropha—the oil from which is increasingly used as a feedstock for biodiesel production. It’s an option the Clemson University agricultural economist could consider as a springboard to bringing agriculture to a land Kenya’s government has long relegated to the unconscious. As a matter of urgency, Mr. Ethuro needs to do more in Turkana. Impress upon Kenya’s government that since the beginning of organized leadership Turkana land and its people have been neglected. From Jomo Kenyatta to Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s successive governments have failed in providing roads, hospitals, schools, or security for the Turkana people. However, not everything is lost. There is optimism that cultural tourism could eventually draw visitors to the region, providing employment opportunities for locals as translators, guides, security guards, and staff in hotels. Well, the prospects of the discovery of oil in Turkana, if well managed, could be a ray of hope for the nomadic people of the Turkana County. Away in the midst of the unforgiving aridity of Lokichoggio, local leaders have established a tourism project with the nomadic Turkana of Nanam and Songot Mountain. The leaders believe that highlighting the culture of the Turkana and offering comfortable accommodations for travelers, the project could bring stable income to the community. In order for this project to do well, government support in terms of finances, expertise and training could be most helpful. The buck stops at the Speaker’s feet. Political rhetoric and value judgment aside, little development has trickled down to the Turkana. Schooling and training have benefited a negligent number of the Turkana. Evidently, there are very few Ethuros in Turkana County. Most Turkanas continue to live as they did during creation. I don’t wish to lance the boil of hyperbole by speculating on the prospects of hope (for the Turkana) enshrouded in the discovery of oil in Turkana County. That’s a topic for another day. I would only speculate that with climate change expected to cause further drying and desertification in Turkana County, the deprivation of these notoriously nomadic people hasn’t been rendered with a definitive structure.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 07:01:58 +0000
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