The cardinal duty of officials is to secure livelihoods, not votes

By TEE NGUGI

Once again, northeastern Kenya and parts of the Coast are suffering severe drought.

In Marsabit and Wajir counties, things are particularly dire. In these semi-arid counties, pastoralists have lost their only source of livelihood — livestock. A recent TV report showed pastoralists surveying piles of animal skeletons and carcasses.

Overwhelmed by thoughts of a bleak future, they wore vacant expressions. The camera followed lone figures trekking for miles to look for water. In the expanse of barren land, the trekkers looked like survivors of a catastrophe that had wiped out all signs of civilisation. One woman squinted into the camera and said, pointing at a pile of animal carcasses outside her makeshift hut: “Next, it will be us.”

In previous cycles of severe drought, human lives have been lost. Death from hunger is painful, and profoundly tragic because it is preventable. Why don’t we see large scale death of livestock in much drier parts of the world? We never see images of animal carcasses and emaciated nomads being broadcast from the desserts of Saudi Arabia, Australia or Israel. Droughts will always be here and will likely get worse due to climate change. Therefore, a central part of the government’s food security strategy should be to ensure that when droughts occur, pastoralists do not lose their livestock, much less their own lives.

Part of the solution is to sink wells and create water points in as many strategic locations as possible. Some county governments in these areas have dug wells, but these are not nearly enough. If county officials had used the millions they steal to make their areas water secure, the catastrophe we see during each drought cycle would not occur. Another way is harnessing water when it rains by building huge dams. The last drought in north eastern Kenya was followed by massive floods, yet all this water went to waste.

Another solution is to encourage the pastoralists to diversify to agriculture. There is a women’s cooperative in Marsabit that has been making a livelihood from growing all kinds of food by using piped water. So both the county and national governments could help people to shift to irrigated agriculture. The other option is to market these areas as tourist destinations by building resorts, and expanding and upgrading national parks and nature reserves.

Finally, both county and national governments could expand the road infrastructure, increase connection to the power grid, and of course provide water in order to attract investment in manufacturing and value addition and thus create an alternative source of livelihood for locals.

The last severe drought occurred during the 2017 campaign season. Helicopters carrying aspirants would fly over devastated villages on their way to the next campaign rally. It took Catholic bishops to remind government officials that their primary duty was to secure lives of people, not votes. Let’s hope that during this campaign season, officials will not have to be reminded of their cardinal duty.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator