History has demonstrated times without number that if
not properly guarded, consulted and involved, the indigenous people can throw
away the pretence and launch a rebellion to the enemy that seeks to exterminate
their very existence. In The Jambi island of Sumatra, local Indonesian police
allegedly worked with the staff of a palm oil plantation, controlled by the
Singapore-based Wilmar Group to evict Suku Anak Dalam indigenous people from
their settlements and burn down their houses in August 2011. The ongoing
construction of the Ilisu dam on the Tigris River in Turkey will displace as
many as 65,000 Kurds, create environmental pollution and affect water supply to
communities in Iraq and Syria. In the Niger Delta, gross human rights
violations were committed against the indigenous population in that country and
their lives have never been the same again. One wonders whether there is any
wisdom in extinguishing the traditional way of life for the local community
while hunting for an underground mineral that might altogether happen to have a
commercial-viability of zero.
There is this fallacious notion that community land is a
free for all Toms, Dicks and Harrys and has no legally defined owner. It is
this misguided assumption that is to blame for the senseless scramble for and
partition of pastoralists’ land in Northern Kenya since Tullow Oil broke the
bad news to the world of Kenya. The ‘black-gold rush in itself is not what has
adversely contributed to the irregular and irresponsible land grabbing in the
larger Kode Kode area (Ngamia one). In blatant disregard of the law relating to
government’s conversion of private or community land to public land for a
public purpose of oil exploration, no single penny was allocated to the people
of Ngamia One by the government nor the oil company as compensation for the
disruption of their once peaceful modus
vivendi. No wonder the pastoralists see the oil thing as another underhand
tactic by the untrustworthy Kenyan government to hoodwink them into signing
agreements that would otherwise be the conduit pipe which will ferry the
infamous war-mongering Arabs to the richest county, destroying it forever.
Having worked with Tullow oil and its associates in the
initial oil and gas exploratory stages, my people constantly staged protests to
frustrate our urge to destroy pasture and huge trees some of which the
ancestors ensured withstood the vagaries of nature in order to serve the people
of their soil. At one point, a truck belonging to the oil company ran over a
herdsboy along the Lokichar-Lokori highway in Nakukulas area of Turkana South
extinguishing him instantly. As expected, the criminal offence never went
beyond the driver of the vehicle and his employer and despite numerous
follow-ups by human rights activists; there is nothing tangible that has so far
been reported on this serious issue of national concern. Was the boy a third
class low profile citizen and a child of a lesser God? Let the oil-drinking
Irish mboys managing Tullow Oil Plc
answer this on the judgment day.
While the debate as to whether or not the oil is
commercially viable continues to elicit mixed reactions, not a single analyst
has delved into dissecting the disastrous side-effects the oil-rush has had on
unsuspecting true kanas. Ranging from
sometimes forceful evictions to destruction of pastoral land, it is incumbent
on right thinking members of the Kenyan society to put pretence aside and
answer hard-hitting questions. After all, this is Kenya’s both natural and
national resource. However, the people ‘sitting on top of the oil’ are also
Kenyan and the manner in which we treat our vulnerable brothers through our
silence and refusal to put the oil company to task will show whether or not the
Kenyan people shall benefit from the oil discovery. Methinks rolling our
sleeves and questioning Tullow’s omissions and commissions occasioning grave
human rights abuses in Turkana County is the better option. Sitting on the
fence and spectating will not do much.
It is indeed the defined duty of government and the oil
company to thoroughly examine the resultant effects of the oil exploratory
process especially on the locals. There can never be a greater irresponsibility
on the part of government other than that of watching while its helpless
citizens are butchered, arbitrarily evacuated from their aboriginal domiciles
without consultations and the due process of compensation. The compensation to
be determined by the secretary in charge of Energy, the host community and the
government as stipulated in the draft Community Land Bill 2013. But we cannot
be surprised if the government conspires with the oil company to literally
exterminate a whole generation of young productive men and women. Weird things
have so far happened in Kenya.
Given the emotive manner in which Kenyans have handled
the land question, given historical land injustices meted by government
officials on Kenyans, the Turkana-Tullow issue might be a bomb in the making
and will explode in the very near future. Large tracts of land in Ngamia One
have been allocated to the oil company, totally jeopardizing the lives of over
10,000 Kenyans. The turkana consider the land God-given or at least an
inheritance from ancestors regardless of how you look at it and whether it is a
legally registered community land is another long story and a subject of
another article. My good friend Lemukol Moses Ngasike rightly warns the land
grabbers- invade pastoralist’s land at
your own risk, lest you regret. The punishment of our ancestors will befall
Tullow-the latter day land lords of our land which we have undisputedly
occupied for more than two hundred years. We cannot be tenants of an Irish
crown. Watch out while you rush to get a “share” of your plot with some letters
from your land offices in Nairobi.
Ekai Nabenyo is a law student at the University of
Nairobi and blogs at
INFORMING KENYANS- www.ekainabenyo.blogspot.com
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