There's more to JKIA-Adani saga than the money

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. [File, Standard]

Kenya is like a lamp that attracts moths without them dying from the heat. The country has always been a magnet for foreigners and their interests. 

The attraction could be the weather, our kindness, the opportunity for adventures or even mischief. Remember the Happy Valley lot? Lately, it’s opportunities to make money. 

The Arabs came more than 1,000 years ago. The Persians followed the Chinese just before the Portuguese, but our history mentions Vasco da Gama, not Zheng He.

Then came Britons and Australians, South Africans, Jews and many other nationalities.

Have we forgotten that Nilotes, Cushites and Bantus had made their way into this beautiful country long before it got borders? One question no one has addressed conclusively is who are the indigenous Kenyans, like native Americans in the US or the Māori in Australia?  

After independence, many foreigners left, but a few stayed to focus on business, humanitarian work or retirement. They have small communities scattered all over the country from the coast to the highlands.  

They left live wires through business networks but curiously no genetic imprints. Why didn’t Kenya get it coloureds like South Africa?

Have you noted a new generation of such children is growing up in mostly affluent suburbs? I am told it’s the new status symbol-very hard to copy like cars or houses. 

After independence, Britons dominated our economic landscape. They had been here longer and shaped the economy to their laws and regulations. Noted how uhuru park mimics Hyde Park but smaller?  

It’s not clear why their influence declined with Bedford, Anglia, Morris and Land Rover models leaving the Kenyan market. 

Many other British brands left too. Made in England became rare. Even churches like the Anglican Church have competitors. Who replaced them?  

The economy and politics were liberalised in the early 1990s. You can get products and services from anywhere. 

But the West (read Americans and Europeans) dominated our trade, and we must add foreign aid, loans and even our thought process.

We rarely quote Chinese or Japanese philosophers or writers the same way we do Shakespeare or Toni Morrison, except Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  

Until Mwai Kibaki came to power, Kenya largely faced the West. Then came China and its prowess in manufacturing and investment in infrastructure.

You could add loans and debt. There was a feeling we were “handed over” from the West to China. It was a big issue in the run to 2022 polls.  But China is still with us. Remember the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) meeting recently in Beijing?  

After China, the conventional wisdom seems to be that Kenya is being “handed over to India” and some Middle Eastern countries by the Persian Gulf, according to media reports.

Someone asked a few years ago why a certain Middle Eastern bank was advertising its financial report in Kenya without a foothold in Kenya. The jigsaw puzzle is fitting slowly. 

The “current handover”  is unique. We may have inadvertently contributed to it. Without the proposed taxes in Finance Bill, 2024, the government had to look for funds. Talk of unintended consequences. Could the Indian and Middle Eastern connection be about that?

We did not want debts too. Is that how Adani, et.al are coming in?  The other option to avoid more taxes and debt is through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Remember the Bill in Parliament giving the National Treasury a free hand in selling off State enterprises?

Things are not as random as they seem. Did anyone follow privatisation in Russia after the end of the Soviet Union and the political realignment thereof?   I hope I am not overthinking. 

Where do we go from here? Having “outsiders” run the country is not just about money; we suffer from learned helplessness. 

From our names to where we would aspire to immigrate, there is a widely held belief that other people are better than us and have superior managerial skills.

Think of it, running an airport or heath system is not rocket science. Have we not expanded our higher education to produce needed manpower for 60 years?   

Building roads is easy; we use local materials, and raising funds is easy too through bonds or the lottery.

What if all the money we gamble goes to noble projects like more schools or recreational parks? Why aren’t there other public parks like Uhuru Park?