TURKANA BELONGS TO ALL OF US, LETS SAVE IT
It was a harrowing experience to watch and read in sections of the media, that Turkana was facing severe drought spell. Definitely when you take time to ponder over this national catastrophe, you remain to wonder if truly the inhabitants of this area are a part of the Kenyan census statistics which currently stands at about 40-million people. Images of emaciated and wrinkled people huddled in the shades with blank facial expressions belie all this wonderment.
Turkana is an area with parched landscape and shimmering mirage which opens up to clear blue skies, which attests to the fact that indeed Turkana has remained a hardship area since Kenya attained its independence. The truth is that Turkana is in dire need of being rediscovered, remapped and most significantly to be developed.
Kenya may have acquired its hard earned constitution and some reforms have started to take shape in most institutions, but truth be told all this sounds like a fairy tale in a far away land. Common knowledge dictates that the immediate basic needs in this drought infested area are food, water and pasture for their emaciated livestock.
Turkana faces a variety of problems that definitely requires urgent attention and support so as to break the shackles of poverty in this area. Recently the Merrile militias from the neighboring Ethiopia and attacked a village in Turkana. In an instant more than 40 men, women and children of the Turkana community lay dead, with part of their livestock missing. To add insult to injury the Merrile tribesmen occupy a section 17 kilometers inside the Kenyan boarder.
The only “Government” that the Turkana people have ever rubbed shoulders with are said to be the international aid agencies that have set camp in the area. The NGOs here include Oxfam, World Vision and the Catholic missionaries, that basically clean the mess left by the successive Central governments.
Initially there were plans by the Government to help dig up water pans and dam to harvest rain water after rogue flooding was witnessed in the area late last year. Unfortunately so far nothing has been done to make the lives of the Turkana people more conducive and bearable. Probably the documents of this grand plan are somewhere gathering dust.
Rift valley Province, under which Turkana is part of, is an expansive area that requires more administrative systems to steer regional development and growth. Am not letting the Provincial Administration off the hook, that’s why I would like to accuse the local administration of neglecting the people to the extent of treating them as second class citizens, by not giving the much needed services and help.
The buck stops with the Kenyan government to reclaim this lost land and help open up opportunities and stir up economic growth in the area, which will improve the standards of living in the area. It is when all this is done, that all shall be proud to be Kenyans.
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