Kenya: As COVID-19 Wreaks Havoc, Lake Victoria Breathes a Sigh of Relief

It is impossible to imagine that anyone is doing well out of this. Well, no one is, except if you are in pharmaceuticals, selling hand sanitiser, face masks, or batons and tear gas to curfew-enforcing police; but something is.

The biggest beneficiary in East Africa from the Covid-19 pandemic will definitely be Lake Victoria.

At the start of this year, fellow columnist on The EastAfrican Joachim Buwembo, painted one of the bleakest pictures of Lake Nalubaale/Nyanza or Nam Lolwe, to use its original African names.

From the Ugandan side alone, a report had estimated that most cars in the country are older than its human median age of 15.7 years at the time they’re imported, which had turned Kampala into East Africa’s leading polluter of Nalubaale. Up to 20 million litres of after-service-oil from these old vehicles ends up in the lake every year.

From Kenya and Tanzania, large amounts of effluents from industries, garbage and sewage from cities all flow into the lake. Combined with the long torment of the water hyacinth, at the time of the Covid-19 outbreak, Nalubaale needed a respirator to breathe.

With the lockdowns and curfews, the flow of the filth in the lake is down, and with fewer fisher people going out, the overfished waters are catching a break and stocks might see a recovery — especially if coronavirus hangs around longer than three months.

There is also a risk though, that the water hyacinth will finally establish itself as the undisputed master of Nalubaale in this period. Besides that, Nalubaale has probably never been happier in 100 years.

The author is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”.