By Edward Indakwa
History, they say, repeats itself. Maasai herdsmen in Kitengela killed six lions last Wednesday. They did it in 2003. Chances are they will strike again.
Those in doubt should remember that the Maasai annihilated Amboseli’s entire black rhino population. And rhinos, for your information, are not sitting ducks.
I know game wardens, many of them my friends, are seething with rage. But this killing is an opportunity for everyone to sit down with a stiff whisky and mull over a few things.
First, we should be glad those herdsmen did not have guns. Unlike other pastoralists, the Maasai have largely steered clear of firearms and their weapons of choice remain what they were when they frightened white explorers in the 18th Century.
But the Kitengela Maasai are only pastoralist in name. They live pretty close to Nairobi and have hardly suffered the marginalisation that modern Kenya visited on their peers in the hinterland. They are also relatively well educated and their lifestyles are sedentary and pretty modern.
The herdsmen who were parading dead lions, for instance, were clad in jeans and jackets – not shukas! I have met ‘herdsmen’ in Kitengela who turned to be university graduates in disguise. I wouldn’t take them lightly.
Second, we need to ask ourselves why Nairobi Park is partially fenced along Langata Road, Mombasa Road, and the section abutting Kitengela town. Game wardens – who are armed – reside in ring-fenced housing. Yet Nairobi Park is open on the section bordering the Kitengela Maasai.
How can we – the Nairobi elite – protect ourselves from lions yet expect the Maasai to somehow ‘co-exist’ with them?
Third, we need to re-examine why fencing Nairobi Park is considered problematic. Ecologists warn the park is too small. Fencing, they argue, would cut off migration to lands yonder that are owned by the local community.
Consequently, the ‘locked in herbivores’ would graze down every bit of vegetation and turn the Park into a glorified zoo in a few years. It is a horrible picture for any African wildlife manager. But do we have a choice?
With a few exceptions, our wildlife conservation and management model hasn’t changed much since the 1940s when Nairobi Park was established. I know we all would love to see wildlife traipsing through the savannah as they have done for generations. Sadly, we could afford it in the 1940s, but we can’t anymore. Not when our population has risen from six to 40 million people.
Previously, ecologists have approached the question of fencing Nairobi Park on the basis of why it cannot work. But realties now demand that they harness and focus their intellectual power to answer the question, “How can we make this work?”
We have little choice anyway. Those guys in Kitengela are as urban as you and me and I doubt they conceive a future that includes lions sniffing in their backyards.
By not fencing this park, we burry our heads in the sand. The time to bite the bullet is now.
Come Zack, come home
Zachary Kimotho is a very brave man. A paraplegic who got disabled during a carjacking incident, Zack is wheeling himself to South Africa to raise funds to establish a spinal injury facility in Kenya.
The irony is that is he wheeling himself on our roads, which I suspect cause the highest number of spinal injuries in Kenya. The last I heard of him, he was already in Isinya, a remarkable feat for a man on a wheel chair. But I want Zack to come home. The Sh250 million that he intends to raise is peanuts. It ought to shame us that we have set a paraplegic loose on our killer roads to raise money to build a national health facility.
What is Sh250 million surely? Any Kenyan can name five distinguished citizens of this republic who could donate a fraction of the money they stole to Zack’s cause without denting the amount of ugali served in their homes. It is the sort of money that the Government loses daily, without flinching.
Presidential hopefuls will blow billions buying cheap campaign T-shirts and hooch for voters in a few months. Potential governors will spend – and lose – over Sh150 million chasing phantom votes.
Banks declare dizzying profits every year, even as major corporates fall over each other dishing out ‘free’ millions in promotions and campaigns. Meanwhile, churches... Lord, does anyone know the stupendous sums that churches rake from the seed alluded to elsewhere on this page?
Zack should come home. The Matatu Owners Association, the Traffic Police Department, owners of long distance trucks, insurance firms and the government should raise the money for that spinal injury facility. You all know why.
Meanwhile, doesn’t it bother leaders that a nation touted as a regional economic powerhouse cant fix broken spines?
