Slightly more than one year ago, Kenya got tangled in the global pandemic, when the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed. Thereafter, cases started springing up all over the place. The government eventually declared that the virus was in the community. Whatever they meant by that statement is not really important. Next was the declaration by the president and the cabinet Secretary in charge of health services, who put a halt to the old rhythm of life. Ever since, many nocturnal businesses and recreation have taken a beating. Needless to say the new normal has come with manifold economic tribulations, and the nut processor has not escaped.
We have previously entertained discourse on how the nut processing sub sector has been heaving under the heavy burden of COVID-19. From the look of things, I share this helpless whining position with the majority in my country. The government already went on a break. From the first case, then the announcement locating the virus in the community (one wonders where the first case was domiciled if not the community), to the first set of restrictions on businesses and movement, to the various individual driven anti COVID-19 initiatives that were highlighted, the government abandoned us to fate.
The Wuhan Virus
COVID-19 called home when there was no preparation whatsoever. First it was thought of as the Chinese virus. There wasn’t enough motivation to worry much, for China is so far away in the East. We could allow planes from that land to land on our land without any control because Kenya is such a safe country and there is this widespread belief that it is a land that enjoys special favour in God’s eyes, and since we are a God fearing country, all would be well. God would help us, because unlike the atheist and idol worshipping China, we pray to God daily. This is contrary to the consideration for the fact that China hosts Christians whose number is just shy of the total Kenyan population which consists of all sorts of religious faiths. Prayerful and God fearing, Kenya has always risen above its challenges; so we believe. Even when we do absolutely nothing about our problems, there is always a solution from heaven.
Prepared For Mass Burials
Watching as the news streamed in about the apocalypse that had descended in places such as Italy and Spain, the government declared the first set of social and economic restrictions: dawn-to dusk curfew, physical distancing in social spaces, mandatory sanitization… All our gods were grappling with their own problems as we entered this dark spot. There was no hope of receiving any handout from our traditional sources. I thought this was our opportunity. When you are abandoned against an adversary, you could unleash the hidden potential in you and triumph. During this time, we heard reports, both encouraging, and not so. Our rulers had already prepared themselves isolation rooms in their houses, complete with ICU beds, oxygen kits and all manner of gadgets that reminded us of how crude our public hospitals are. Media reports told of how ICU beds had been booked in anticipation, and the only option remaining to the ordinary Kenyan was to either die at home, or at a public hospital. The governor of Kakamega County was wise enough to prepare himself the best way he knew. He purchased a parcel of land for a cemetery, since he had decided to play owl. In some of our traditions, the owl is the harbinger of death and news about bereavement. Kakamega is a rural county, and many of its people live on their own land, where the tradition is to bury their dead in the bowels of their own ancestral land. It was not clear how this had changed with COVID-19 but that is the solution that was seen by this man, who happens to be ranked as one of the best performing governors in the land. He doubles up as the deputy party leader of one the parties that support the government, and has expressed his ambition to run for the presidency in the 2022 elections.
Something Exciting Up Our Researchers’ Sleeves
The Missing Link (Image By Morguefile.com)On a very positive note, we received reports that the Kenya Medical Research Foundation, which has been at the center of HIV/AIDS research in Kenya, had just made a very important discovery. These scientists could use the HIV testing kits to test COVID-19. That switched on some light at the end of the tunnel. At a time when the world was scuffling with a shortage COVID-19 testing kits, here we were with an old system that we could tweak a little and it could give us reliable results in good time. The next big thing we heard was that the head of research at Kemri was being sacked. Next was silence around the Kenyan testing kits. We waited for the kits from our gods. Then came the interminate warble about shortage of reagents.
Lots of Good Things
Face Masks At Home (Image By Morguefile.com)More good news came in. Kitui County government came up with a project to manufacture local face masks which would be distributed and sold at a lower price than was being offered on the local market. Moi University Eldoret through the Rivatex Company also promised to ensure that they produced and supplied face masks to Kenyans. To add to that, some youth emerged with an assemblage that did a wonderful job as a ventilator. All they wanted was a little investment and they would supply Kenyans with relatively cheap ventilators. We went wild on social media and praised our country Kenya for being home to so wonderful technologists. At the same time, one of our leading universities also announced that they had also come up with a ventilator. Besides, it would cost far less than what was quoted from across the oceans. This university is named after the ruler in whose hands the British left the country when they lowered their Union Jack in 1963 – Kenyatta. He is also the father to the current ruler, and the ordinary you and I would have been excited to have the university bearing our surname do such a fabulous thing. Well; where I come from, more important things matter. Just like the other initiatives, locally manufactured ventilators never saw the light of day. We were waiting for god’s salvation.
Enter The Red Dragon
Here Comes Aid (Image By Morguefile.com)
Our gods appeared in various shapes and forms. One had a Chinese identity. He called himself Jack Ma; the father of Alibaba. He didn’t invade our country with his crew of forty thieves as is the case in that Alibaba story. Instead, he sent us a philanthropic package as we had long anticipated. We heard that the Jack Ma parcel, big as it was, never really entered the country from the airport where it landed. The grapevine had it that the cargo ended up on the market in neighbouring Tanzania. What had been given free by the big hearted man from China was now filling the pockets of a few wise men and women in political and socially high places in Kenya. Then came the clincher of all: the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency went on a Kenya styled procurement mission. They accepted offers from the highest priced suppliers, with some prices so inflated that the COVID-19 basic supplies such as the face mask would end up costing much more than what was procured independently by individual business people. In the ensuing expose of the scandal, big names were mentioned, including the vice chairman of the ruling party, and a close ally of the ruler at the helm.
The Language of Money
You Should Know The Vocabulary! (Image By Morguefile.com)
Thanks to the government, we were kept in the know about the coming of the first wave, which the cabinet secretary for health announced with so much relish “you can gerrit!” he proclaimed. Meanwhile, the government had only one familiar intervention – it poured the armed forces into the communities, towns and streets to ensure that none of us broke the curfew regulations. The Kenyan press gave a fresh meaning to the concept of flattening the COVID-19 infection curve. It came to mean the bludgeoning of helpless Kenyans who found themselves caught up perhaps in traffic or on transit for those who have to use their feet as a means of transport. Nairobi and Mombasa counties were put under lockdown, but it was not really so. There was free movement in and out of these counties for those who had money for the police. Liquor dens were also subjected to the same selective treatment for those with the power and willingness to purchase police protection. Physical distancing in public transport vehicles was also just something that was advertised on the posters that got pasted on the vehicles and in all other manner of places. It was never practiced to the letter.
You Can Gerrit From The Government
Government Taking An Aerial View (Image By Morguefile.com)
Around July 2020, ‘Mr. Gerrit’ -as the government heavyweight had come to be known – told us of the second wave. What did the government do? Lockdown and as an intervention, the cabinet secretary earned himself a torrent of trips around the country. The government spent huge sums daily to have the big man deliver the statistics on deaths and new cases. Meanwhile, there was this unremitting talk of lack of reagents for testing the virus. Again, the government was scoring an interesting mark in priority setting. Whereas travelling was supposedly restricted, and many activities gone virtual, the government wanted someone to gallivant around the country giving a report that could easily be transmitted from the bigwig’s study to all newsrooms and media outlets. People adopted Zoom and other conferencing means as the methodologies of choice for their meetings, but for this particular person who was the chief promoter of minimal travel and convocation, he had to physically go and address the nation from a different county every single day. During this period, government allied politicians, right from the president, held political rallies all over the country. Such meetings were only broken up by the police (on COVID-19 grounds) if the participants or organizers were government critics. Ours was an unusual virus that only traveled at night and school children could only get it at school. At home, they could gather in droves in the neighbourhood and play freely. The teenagers and young adults like college and university students used the time to hold house parties with no regard to distancing, sanitizing and the rest of them.
Calling The Waves
A third wave was expected some time last year. The government promised to have every county ready to handle the anticipated large numbers of patients that would ‘gerrit.’ County governors had acquired a coveted space on the gravy train. I remember the announcement coming in that the local artisans would be given priority to make hospital beds to be supplied to our counties so as to attend to the shortage of beds that would be exacerbated by the surge in infections. Hardly a week later, was the president busy trying out some roadside beds as some among those that had already been procured. This speed in government procurement was questioned by some ‘disgruntled elements’ but that was like a frog croaking to a cow that was determined to drink water. Since schools were closed, some governors only went to local boarding schools and appropriated some of the beds there so as to show the cabinet secretary how ready they were now that they had “purchased” more beds. No need to mention that some of these were double decker beds which don’t work very well in places where isolation is of the essence. The cabinet secretary in charge of health earned himself another round of countrywide tours to inspect the county referral hospitals to ascertain that all counties were prepared. Luckily, the third wave did not bring about the cataclysm the government had predicted and awaited. Infection cases went down and the government started crediting itself for their wise intercession. As the restrictions got eased, infections started shooting up again. The government again frenetically locked down the capital and its environs. We then discovered that we did not have enough oxygen in the hospitals. All the while, the government had been planning very seriously about how to counter the third wave.
Vaccine At Last!
Now we are in a new era. Vaccines have been developed by our benefactors and as expected by the government, we have received quite a few donations from our gods. What you don’t see is a clear program on vaccination. On Fools’ Day this year, Food Manufacturing (Link) published a report that pointed out that farmers in Florida USA had made plans for their labourers to get the jab. The United States government has rolled out an elaborate plan to have massive inoculation in a bid to open up the economy. One would expect a country in the so called South to make more effort in vaccination given the kind of beating these weak economies have received from one year in the vice of the pandemic. As such, the food manufacturing fraternity in Kenya would be having a blueprint to sell to the government as an intervention to make them go back to full production soon. No surprises; we have none. Unfortunately Kenya’s food processors still have a lot of faith in the government, even when it is crystal clear that the government excels at doing nothing and leaving everything to foreign interposition. One year on and apart from reports about the shortage of reagents or testing kits, no one is talking about how far the country is in the development of our own vaccine. There is equally nothing to say about the various products of synthetic imagination, which were displayed by individuals and institutions in the country at the beginning of the pandemic. Our surgical masks, testing kits, reagents and all manner of needs still come from abroad. You hear of one foreign government or the other donating this or the other to the country. You don’t hear of this Kenyan supporting the two youth to develop their local ventilator. You have not heard of an investor or industrialist who has teamed up with Kenyatta University to mass produce their gadgets for possible sale to fellow third world countries. Still, the food processor is waiting for the government to do something, yet unwilling to guide the government in understanding what to do.
Written By Amadi Kwaa Atsiaya.
