Hunger enjoying the same VIP treatment locusts got

Kenyans woke up this week to the news that more than two million people in 12 counties have reported to the police that hunger has been knocking on their doors, saying it will break in if the government doesn’t send a rescue team to kick it out of their compounds.

When interrogated further on why it was trespassing on people’s homesteads, hunger said it received a report from the locusts that the government treated them well the last time they flew across the country chewing food crops of helpless farmers, and they have no choice but to come and see for themselves.

Those who went to school to study weather patterns are now warning that should we fail to receive enough rainfall in the next few weeks, Kenya risks having photos of her starving people shown in international media for the world to categorise us as a failed state, and the guy sitting on our United Nations Security Council seat surrounded by his colleagues who wouldn’t want to see him starve while conducting UNSC duties.

We wouldn’t be in this situation had the Galana-Kulalu irrigation project not been murdered by cartels whose maize importation businesses were threatened by crops that have never even hurt fall armyworms.

Bad seeds and fake fertilisers 

These maize barons are the same ones who collude with unscrupulous traders to sell bad seeds and fake fertilisers to farmers, out of jealousy over happy harvest and greed for sad money.

Instead of taking medicine for their insatiable greed and starting a new walk to Damascus, those bad people have gone to mega dams and left with all the construction materials resting in their stomach.

Governors aren’t spared either. Every year, they are allocated an emergency kitty with the warning that it be used only in critical emergency times, only for them to pluck the fund every time they want to visit the birds in the sky and check how the clouds woke up that morning.

Multinational agencies have been warning us since the discovery of the alarm bell that locusts would eat up small holder farms and leave their owners with premium tears; only for the government to seriously take the advice of health experts and choose sound sleep over staying awake all night and day.

While Kenyans wouldn’t want to see their government suffer burnout, or sleep on the job and blame the dog for eating its homework. There are many countries where rainfall is only seen on TV but their citizens have never been spotted waving placards at the gates of grain stores asking the government to stop hiding food and let it come out and address them.

Plight of suffering Kenyans

Every year, government officials use public cash on food-security benchmarking trips. They travel first-class, are accorded VIP accommodation and paid comfort allowances that are enough to construct a village water pan, only to spend more time sampling cologne inside duty-free shops than with their notebooks at project sites.

A first-time visitor will tell you Kenya has immense potential but is hampered down by a worrying drought of visionary leaders. The silly political season is on and the politicians are busy confirming to Kenyans that water is wet and the Pope is Catholic. 

We can’t be running to international donors all the time when hunger and starvation visit our home. Or reminding foreign powers how we are a sovereign nation when we cannot even provide food to the most vulnerable when they need it.

We write these things every week, but the money our leaders should’ve used to pay attention to the plight of suffering Kenyans is being used to spread Covid-19 at political rallies where they promise voters heaven as if any of them would even qualify to go there.

The writer comments on topical issues; [email protected]