Kenya at Crossroads!

It is an open secret that the many years of destroying the Mau Complex have finally caught up with Kenya. Primed as the largest water tower in East Africa, the complex is seriuosly under seige and threatened with extinction. Several rivers flowing to Lake Victoria are drying up. Lake Nakuru is drying up and the saltiness of its waters is increasing at a sickening pace. The breeding of flamingoes in this beautiful lake is slowly dying out.

River Mara is drying up and the famous wildebeest migration is gradually becoming less spectactular. Power stations are closing up. Water is now a luxury to both rural and urban dwellers. Farmers neighbouring the Mau forest are now witnessing unprecedented drought conditions. Farmers expect hardly any maize and wheat harvests in our traditional food baskets in Rift valley. An understated 10 million kenyans are starving for lack of at least one meal a day. The list is endless.

Yet, after these warning signals, some leaders are sounding petty, selfish, irresponsible, and nothing but tribal warlords. They are advocating ethnicity under the veil of protecting the interests of their people; the very cause of last year's post-election violence. They are pretending to defend the people who elected them to positions of power and threatening to plunge this country to chaos by issuing inflammatory statements. Such is the height of our selflish, visionless, and myopic leadership.

The bottom line is that, we will forgive and forget the ills meted against innocent Kenyans during the 2007 post-election violence. However, the present and the future generations will never forgive those who militate against environmental conservation. The environment and human life are completely intertwined. The restoration of Mau forest is a matter of urgency and necessity.

When our rivers and lakes dry up and subsequently rains fail, will bad leadership import water and food for over 30 million Kenyans? The times are serious for such irresponsible and unbecoming leadership. We will be judged harshly by the many things we destroyed but fairly by the many lives we helped to preserve.

Christopher Mutisya,
Chairperson,
Mombuni Youth for Change