YALA KIJI EXPERIMENT

Mr. Ragem,

Thank you. You don't need to google my name because I am a very useless character; not even an economist. But I share in your doubts about the attempt to involve the whole of Luoland in the Yala Project, and for a different reason.

My fear arises from any scheme to urbanize a community by way of land consolidation in which the morgage is one's ancestral land.

Agriculture in subclimate zones is one unreliable source of regular income, and can only be viable if government subsidies are in place. What can the poor owners do if for a couple of years there is kungu, then locusts, then aphids, then floods, then a drought that killed poor River Yala? Now, the urbanized folks in their Yala Kijiji find themselves unable to finance their land-based morgages. It has happened before: they will be evicted from their urban huts; then the Banks take thier land and gives it to Dominion Farrms (and its Luo Diaspora Investors) which will be very willing to buy it. It happened in the American Midwest during the Great Depression. Read the American Classic, "Grapes of Wrath." (The American Farmer has since been subsidized).

To those who doubt my argument, go back to the more recent Tanzanian Ujamaa Experiment. It failed in subclimate regions for very simple reasons: There was land consolidation, then folks were put in VIJIJIS with no proper health, water and sanitary amenities. The weather was not on their side either. The Wise Man from Zanake abandoned it with the claim that there was no goodwill from the World for Socialism (Hold your breaths my Sociolist friends). A kijiji like the one Dominion proposes needs a functioning professional body to take care of and guarantee Health, Education, Police, Water and Sanitation. Otherwise, as Tanzania realized, Smallpox is going to raise its ugly head again.

To the potential Diaspora Investors: I am not an economist to wonder about what will happen to the many investors when an Osodo or a Nyangweso Locust Plague has digested their investments: perhaps they will be asked to purchase an Agricultural Disaster Insurance.

To that Villager in Kuja or Yala: If you asked me, I cannot pool that land my ancestors bled for into a risky land consolidation scheme whose boss is somewhere in the virtual space. I would not morgage my land for a town hut.

In the early 1970s, a lot of Luos ran away from Nyerere's Kijiji. They are still alive, and should advice you against the misguided experiment, unless the Kenyan Governmemt is willing to quarantee some substantial nature/weather related subsidy.

Joseph R. Alila
(Author: Sunset on Polygamy; The Wise One of Ramogiland (coming soon).