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Hunger is political and political class isn’t ashamed of it, By Tee Ngugi

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The 2022 version of the Global Hunger Index is out. It is a publication of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe. Not surprisingly, African countries continue to rank poorly. For instance, the report shows that a significant section of Kenya’s population remains vulnerable to hunger and undernourishment. Stunted growth and malnutrition affect significant numbers of children in different counties.

The report is helpful because it looks at areas that need to be improved to achieve sustainable food security. It analyses various factors and players in the food value chain that influence food security: Governance, farmers, production, culture, transportation, access to land, marketing, population growth, and climate change.

Policymakers, therefore, have in their hands a detailed, non-partisan, objective analysis of hunger and food security, and recommendations on how to achieve food security. I make this observation because, if there are something officials, particularly in Africa, are experts in, it is the art of making excuses. So, when a river floods and drowns people, officials blame people for building near river banks. A few years ago, when a train crashed into a matatu killing several people in Umoja, Nairobi, the authorities blamed hawkers who had encroached on the railway track, thus blocking motorists from having a clear view of the tracks.

Who is responsible

When buildings collapse and people are buried alive, authorities blame unscrupulous owners of the buildings. After these tragedies, the questions left soaking in our grieving hearts are: Who is responsible for resettling people away from river banks? Who is responsible for clearing encroachment on railway tracks and highways? Whose job is it to enforce the building code?

For decades, food insecurity, drought, and hunger have been part of Kenyan life. Yet we have never been able to manage these occurrences. In fact, even when scientists warn of an impending drought, the government, no matter the ruling administration, is always caught flatfooted. Even when the media begin reporting deaths of livestock and people, there seems to be no mechanism for urgent response. A few years ago, the clergy had to plead with the government to temporarily stop campaigning and address the hunger crisis.

But what I find incomprehensible is the pomp and ceremony with which officials flag off trucks carrying relief food for victims of hunger. They stand on a red carpet and, with bubbling pride, energetically flag off the relief trucks. Some even have banners on the side of the trucks bearing their names, rank, and the date of the flag-off in bright, cheerful colours. An event that should be of great shame becomes an opportunity for self-aggrandizement.

By contrast, officials in China try to hide the extent of Covid-19 spread because they are ashamed of what the world will think of their management of the disease.

 So there is a more fundamental factor that underpins hunger and food insecurity: Officialdom’s warped concept of power within a democracy.

Strictly Personal

Road deaths are symbolic of our national failure, By Tee Ngugi

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“Killer roads claim 25 lives,” screamed the headline of the Daily Nation on March 18. Among this number were 11 Kenyatta University students, who died in a grisly road accident on the Nairobi- Mombasa highway.

The report gave chilling statistics on the ever-worsening road carnage. The 25 died in a span of three days. Between January and February 20, a staggering 649 people lost their lives on our roads.

What these statistics show is that we are well on our way to breaking the annual record of deaths on our roads.

Roads are deadlier

In a column in 2022, Kenyan roads are deadlier than some of the battlefields, I gave some comparative statistics to illustrate just how deadly our roads are.

I stated: “In 2021, more than 4,000 people lost their lives (in Kenya). By contrast, the UK, with a population of 65 million people and 32 million cars, recorded 1,400 deaths on the roads in 2021.

“In Germany, within a comparable period, about 2,500 people died on the roads in a population of 85 million people and 48 million cars.
“Thus, Kenya, with a population of 50 million people and only two million cars, registered more deaths on the roads.”

I went on to show that the deaths on our roads in 2021 were twice the number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan in a 20-year period.

If these statistics are not enough to wake up our somnolent officials, then nothing ever will.

Not the avoidable deaths during droughts. Not the deaths caused by collapsing buildings. Not the sky-high cases of femicide.

Not the cry of millions who sleep hungry every day as officials fly around in helicopters. Not the alarming numbers of street families.
Not the despair of millions of unemployed youth. Not the squalor in our unplanned towns and cities.

Nothing will wake these officials. In any case, as the Daily Nation of March 19 on globe-trotting officials showed, when awake, our officials are travelling to the next European destination or, as the countless cases of theft being reported almost daily in all media show, they are busy lining their already saturated pockets.

Now, Kenya wants to send its police to Haiti to rein in marauding gangs that control most of the capital. Do our officials, or citizens, ever ask themselves how Haiti became what it is?

Cursed by God

Haiti is not cursed by God. It got that way because of systematic plunder by officials over the years.

It became what it is because of officials not performing their duties to required standards, and not being sanctioned for it.

It became that way because its officials love nothing more than to cavort in Paris or Miami, rather than think about how to transform the lives of their people.

Every day in our papers, we read about the conduct of our officials that mirrors the behaviour that led to Haiti becoming the broken country it is today.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator

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Strictly Personal

How patriarchy underpins gender violence today, By Tee Ngugi

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On January 27, Kenyan women flooded city streets to protest rising cases of femicide. These were the largest protests ever held against gender-based violence in the country.

The killings that triggered the outrage were especially horrific. In one instance, a woman was raped, beaten and forced to swallow acid. Another young woman was beheaded in airbnb establishment. In January alone, 14 women were killed in the country. Between 2016 –2024, 500 women were killed. The figures, horrendous as they are, are thought to be higher.

Statistics on gender-based violence paint a very sick society. Almost half of women in the country experience gender-based violence in their lifetime. Then countless others face daily sexual harassment in schools, public transportation, universities and workplaces.

Boda boda riders are notorious for harassing women drivers. In an incident that caused national shame, boda bodas descended on a hapless woman driver they accused of ramming one of them and physically and sexually assaulted her.

A few years ago, some self-appointed moral police would beat and undress women they deemed indecently dressed, as if in a country in which billions are stolen every year, and in which so many sleep hungry, the most egregious crime is a woman’s short skirt.

To be sure, femicide and physical and sexual violence against women is not a uniquely Kenyan problem. In South Africa, rape has reached crisis proportions. In eastern Congo and other war-ravaged regions in Africa, rape is a weapon of war.

The problem of rape also transcends race, culture and religion. In the United States and, surprisingly, liberal Sweden, rape is endemic. And in the so-called traditional societies of Lesotho and Swaziland, rape is a serious problem. In pious India, rape had become so rampant that it even happened in buses. The government, unlike other regions, moved with ferocity to stem the problem.

The Kenyan protesters called for tough legislation against gender-based violence as well as quick police action in response to cases of sexual harassment. These measures will go a long way in curbing the impunity that exists in the country about violence against women.

But, at the same time, we must seek to change deeply ingrained cultural attitudes. Even though we no longer live in the traditional society, residual traditional attitudes still stain our views of women. Therefore, we must explore ways of overcoming these cultural attitudes and making them a liability in society.

At the same time, we must rid our society of erroneous views such as there is a head of a family who lords it over the household and, instead, advocates a respectful partnership. Other erroneous beliefs consider domestic violence as not quite violence and rape within marriage as not quite rape.

Police stations also need to be sensitive to rape victims. Eradicating gender-based violence will, therefore, require uncompromising action at the levels of legislation, policing and culture.

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