Kenya's failed dreams of setting up an 'opium empire'

Colonel Ewart Grogan was one of the pioneer colonial settlers who benefitted from the skewed government land allocation sanctioned by the Colonies Office in London. [File, Standard]

Kenyans have gone gaga that a presidential candidate has grand plans of transforming the country into a billion-dollar drug empire that could challenge the opium fields of Colombia and Afghanistan.

Since he was cleared to contest the presidency, George Wajackoyah of the Roots party has created waves with his promises of establishing commercial farming of bhangi whose final product he proposes to sell and pay off the Chinese debts.

Apparently, this is not the first time establishment of bhangi farming on a large scale is being mooted as a panacea for Kenya’s economic problems.

The original plan however to transform Kenya into one big bhangi-growing country was proposed 120 years ago by an enterprising journalist turned prospector and land dealer, Ernest Gedge.

Although Gedge was not a presidential contender when he first came to Kenya in 1902, he was quite a character.

He had worked for The Times in 1893 in Uganda and counted Captain Fredrick Lugard and Nabongo Mumia of Wanga as his friends.

He, however, made his name not in the killing fields of South Africa where the Matebele warriors battled British soldiers but as a middleman who acted for filthy rich land speculators based in London.

It was while working as an agent of an East African syndicate that he made an indecent proposal to Charles Eliot, who was the Commissioner-General of East Africa Protectorate.

While visiting the Nabongo, he penned a letter on November 13, 1902, to the East African Syndicate (EAS) board, explaining he had consulted widely on opium growing in the East African Protectorate and was encouraged by conversations with Charles Hobley, who was then in charge of Nyanza.

"I am of the opinion that it is worthwhile to follow this matter (opium) as I have reason to believe a good marketable quality is grown in this country."

He wanted the colonial government to grant the EAS the monopoly rights for sale, production and concession for a certain period.

Upon receipt of Gedge’s letter, the EAS responded on August 17, 1903, formally requesting that they be allocated 500 square miles of land on freehold title.

Ultimately, the company secured 1,300 square km or 321,236 acres of land on freehold tenure at a time government’s annual reports of 1908/1909 told of the problems provincial administrators were having in controlling the consumption of bhangi and all DCs and chiefs had already been put on high alert to stamp out the vice.

Another report in 1909 traced bhangi growing to Indian hemp to the whole of Kavirondo districts and has seen a great deal of trouble in crime.

Eliot resigned on June 21, 1904, saying, "Lord Lansdowne ordered me to refuse grants of land giving a monopoly to the East Africa Syndicate. I have refused to execute these instructions, which I consider unjust and impolitic."

The syndicate never actualised Gedge’s dreams of an opium empire.