We may feel obliged to do census but who really counts in Kenya

Yesterday was the last opportunity to be included in this year’s census. Not sure if that matters to most citizens because the majority took part out of a sense of duty, maybe even fear, rather than conviction that this is an important exercise that adds value to their lives or one that will improve service delivery. Yet, censuses have been on record ever since Joseph and Mary had to leave Galilee and join the headcount in Bethlehem (Luke 2:1). Then each had to return to their home district for the count, so at least Kenyans were spared that inconvenience and expense last weekend.

But globally, censuses have been shown to be as much about politics, race and ethnicity as about national planning and values. America for decades had been recording the colour skin of its citizens and when that was deemed politically incorrect Donald Trump attempted unsuccessfully to have a question inserted in next year’s census about nationality. South Africa in the Apartheid years used the regular census as a means to pigeon-hole its citizens into race and colour boxes. Statistics and data revealed should always be used positively but more often than not have been used as a means of control and manipulation of certain sections of society.

As Kenya comes to grips with the toxic ethnic factor in politics, inheritance, wealth and job distribution, does it make moral sense to ask its citizens to reveal their ethnic identity. Why would that question be of importance in an exercise that claims to be about enhancing national identity? Who could possibly justify or benefit from compiling figures and percentages of the nation’s forty something ethnic communities?

Questions on access to computer services or online shopping are mere insults to the nation’s 40 per cent living in poverty not to mention the 2.5 million reported this week at risk of starvation. This year’s census will cost the nation $180 million or Sh18 billion. Surely that amount could have been put to better use to feed the hungry or educate the poor. Yet, we are supposed to applaud when told that we have participated in another first as a paperless census.

The country spent another Sh8 billion just a few months ago on a fairly similar futile exercise called biometric registration. The new generation Huduma Cards were to be distributed by July but two months later there is not a sign of them on the horizon. The combined cost of the census and biometric registration is $260 million or the equivalent of another wasted Eurobond. To add to the waste and pointlessness we are due to surrender another Sh8 billion to the disgraced and corrupted IEBC to conduct a constituency boundaries review. God help us!

We may well discover in a year’s time that all three exercises were flawed, manipulated, overpriced and just added to the ethnic political conflicts that have bedevilled the country for half a century. There is no need to spend billions to discover that the population has reached 52 billion and that the number of poor Kenyans continues to grow even if the percentage in destitution has dropped. Recently retired Auditor General Edward Ooko has all the information required to prove that up to 40 per cent of the annual budget is looted. He could also provide information free of charge to the DPP on whom to investigate and take to Kamiti.

Yes, before I forget there is the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) that plans to spend more billions on a referendum that no one has requested. The dynasties and elites want to castrate the Constitution before its 20th birthday. The Turkana oil is shipped off to Malaysia of all places to be refined yet a fraction of the money spent on these dubious projects would have built an oil refinery on home soil.

Kenya may feel obliged to do an annual census in line with international standards. You may be counted but the larger question is do you count at all? Put another way, who counts and who doesn’t in this country? We might be better deployed spending a few million to discuss with the marginalised and the leftovers whether they count or not and if they have a genuine sense of belonging or ownership in this potentially great nation. Their answers might produce more guidance and wisdom than any census might ever contribute. But would that interest the powerful who only need the services of the powerless to wash their clothes, guard their homes and show up on election day?

- [email protected] @GabrielDolan1