Not all foreign trips will benefit Kenyans

Once upon a time, there was a Kamba ruler known by the name Kilundu. On December 7, 1891, while far away from home in the District of Victoria East, in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), he put his thumb print mark against his name in an agreement with a Scot known as James Stewart.

Presumably, he put his mark because the agreement was in English, and he was illiterate. Most likely, he didn’t understand the contents of the agreement.

Kilundu benefited from the agreement. He asked for and was paid the price of 40 dotis of brass wire and calico. Calico is a cheap cotton fabric originally exported from India. In exchange, Kilundu signed away at least 20,000 hectares of land to a foreigner.

In exchange for the 20,000 hectares of land, Kilundu received for his personal benefit, the equivalent of 146 meters of brass wire, and 146 meters of cloth. For wire and cloth, and for time immemorial, he gave up all rights, title and interest in 20,000 hectares of land.

Kilundu signed the agreement as the ruler of his people. In the same agreement James Stewart, the Scottish foreigner, graciously offered a ‘present’ of a total of 146 metres of brass wire and 146 meters of cloth for all the Kambas that Kilundu ruled to share among themselves.

There may have been song and dance by Kilundu and his people, coupled with exciting tales of the rare travel overseas, but only Kilundu benefited. His people, generations removed, have paid, and will continue to pay the price for that exchange. One century later, his Kamba people in Kibwezi are casual labourers in the 20,000 hectares land. They have no land to call their own. They are poor and live in squalor as squatters.

Kilundu is not the only Kenyan who after being paid a penny for a song, sold Kenyans’ birthright. Since the first foreigner stepped into Kenya until today, many rulers and elected leaders have cheaply sold or expensively mortgage our country and its resources.

There may be song and dance in Kenya today because of 43 foreign trips by the President that have resulted in what we are told are many multi-lateral and bilateral agreements. The question Kenyans must ask, not for their own sake only, but also for the sake of generations to come, is whether these agreements with foreigners are ‘Kilundu’ agreements.

Foreigners that enter into agreements with Kenya do so for their own short term and long term benefit. A fitting example is the Republic of China. Between 1978 and 1980, China introduced a policy limiting citizens’ families to one child each. Known as the one-child policy, it was meant to control the demands for water and resources that could not be met by the State, and to deal with social, economic and environmental problems that were being experienced in China. On October 29, 2015 China’s Communist Party announced that they had reviewed the policy from one-child to two-children per family. This policy will take effect from March 2016. The change in its population policy coincides with an aggressive exploration and extraction by China within the geographical boundaries of Africa.

Africa has opened the door to financing and multi-billion shilling projects from China. At the same time, Africa has opened a window of opportunity for China to extract natural resources, and at the same time to allow Chinese companies and its citizens access to business opportunities in Africa and resettlement.

With Africa’s borders and hands wide open, China can afford for its population to grow without having to expand its own geographical boundaries to accommodate them.

China and its people will benefit for years and generations to come from its expansion programs. Will Africa benefit as much or at all? Will Kenya?