I have been following the Kenyan civil society keenly ever since the post election violence that rocked our beloved republic after the current president, His Exellency.Hon Mwai Kibaki (Chief of the Golden Heart,Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Kenya,Phd, Supreme leader of Gikuyu Embu Meru Association) won the 2007 Presidential elections fair and square.The current crop of civil society activists/journalists are a pity if not a shame to the republic.I read somewhere with utter dismay, that a group of "activists" marched to the Zimbabwean consulate in Nairobi and made a petition that it closes shop in protest of President Mugabe's leadership (God save Africa... for too many brainwashed idiots roam the land). The other day, there was a procession in the city centre in solidarity with the media houses against what the Media calls "draconian law" signed by the president, which in actual sense is a self-regulating law to stop newspaper vendors from selling porn to kids in broad daylight or better still aimed at stopping KTN and its affiliate Kass FM from polarizing and dividing the country along tribal lines.Surprisingly, the same laws apply even in the most democratic country in the universe....USA.
A lot of noise was made and has been made about the media bill,Mugabe,Unga,free primary education,Electral commission of Kenya, Chief Secretary Francis Mutahaura et cetera...but little have we heard about the invasion of paradise on earth, that is, the Tana delta and the proposed building of a port in a UNESCO world heritage site, that is, Lamu isles.
Just to bring all of you ignorant souls up to speed with what iam talking about,Tana delta is a geographical area spanning 130,000 hectares/320,000 acres.The Tana River Delta is amongst the top three of Kenya's largest and most important freshwater wetland systems that comprises of a diverse range of habitats that support in particular many thousands wetland birds.It is internationally important for the survival of no less than 22 species of birds making the delta one of the key sites in the country for waterbird conservation. It also holds a diversity of other wildlife including hippo, lion, elephant, buffalo, many breeding fish and amphibians(I have plagiarized this paragraph....don't bother googling).
As we speak, Abu dhabi brothers are on-site alongside a local company known as Mumias Sugar.They have invaded the delta and already the effects are being felt.An example is the malachite kingfisher (see below) which is on the verge of extinction.
The most disappointing thing is that the civil society is entangled in the politics of the day.One cannot help but notice that they are wannabes....they all want to be Raila Odinga..Instead of focusing on real issues like the inability of NEMA to make independent decisions, they are wasting time conning donors and government agencies of their money pretending to be champions of the people but in the real sense champions of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).Brothers and Sisters in the civil society ODM is in Government.They sat together with their PNU counterparts and sold the Tana Delta to the Qatari's.
So take your Placards and lets see you on TV engaging the govermnent (ODM, PNU government) machinery (read police).Lets see you engaging the police in cat and mouse races in the streets for worthy causes such as Mau Forest, Tana Delta, the Girl child, The Boy Child, Free water for all, Education for all...et cetera....who knows you might bag 100 million USD in the form of a Nobel price.... blo
References
1.http://tanariverdelta.org/tana/1115-DSY/version/default/part/AttachmentData/data/Rare%20and%20Endangered%20Taxa%20found%20in%20TRD%20-%20by%20NK.pdf
2. http://tanariverdelta.org/tana/about.html#dsy1066-DSY_diversity
3.http://www.wildlifeextra.com
4.http://thewaterhole.wildlifedirect.org/category/tana-delta
5.http://thewaterhole.wildlifedirect.org/2008/06/25/nema-blunders-on-tana-delta
6.https://candobetter.org/taxonomy/term/565
