Ajabu Africa News

PHOTO:

Michael Mundia Kamau,a Kenyan based freelance journalist

By:

MUNDIA KAMAU

Posted:

Oct,05-2015 18:38:08

NAIROBI, Kenya--A Kenyan freelance journalist has penned an open letter to US President Barack Obama criticizing his recent 3 day visit to Kenya. In the letter seen by Ajabu Africa News, Michael Mundia Kamau claims the visit was a failure, failed to address the most pressing needs of the country as they really are, was insensitive, and therefore, a bad distraction.READ FULL LETTER below.

Dear President Obama,

Your insensitive visit to Kenya of 24th to 26th July 2015, your insensitive remarks and your insensitive actions, shall rank darkly and disgracefully in Kenya's history, now and in years to come. You and your entourage shut down large parts of Kenya for the duration of your visit, bringing social and economic activities to a standstill, as you purported to have come into the country with a so called Global and Entrepreneurship Summit (GES).

President Obama, it appears to have escaped your attention that the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi, is a hub not just for Kenya, but a regional hub for the East and Central Africa region, a nerve centre that is, for Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Mombasa-Nairobi-Kisumu highway is still the main access route for goods from the port of Mombasa to neighbouring countries such as, as mentioned, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Your entourage President Obama, blockaded the city of Nairobi, and by extension, the Mombas-Nairobi-Kisumu highway, so traders with a stake on the Mombasa-Nairobi-Kisumu highway and beyond, and they are not small in number, had to timidly wait for your entourage to leave town, for things to return back to normal. In other words President Obama, your three day visit to Kenya of 24th to 26th July 2015, was a logistical and financial nightmare to the entire East and Central African region, including Tanzania, because quite a number of Tanzanians still travel to Nairobi for business.

President Obama this is not to mention the fact that you and your entourage greatly disrupted general commerce & agriculture across Kenya, because of key installations in the heart of Nairobi, such as Nairobi's Wakulima Market and Nairobi's City Market, where fresh agricultural produce, fresh livestock produce and fresh fish is merchandised on a daily basis from different corners of Kenya. Everyone in Kenya right now is operating on tight margins, and the disruption caused by you and your entourage, is an agonising set back for a vast intricate food chain.

Nairobi's Central Business District, Nairobi's Upper Hill Business District and Nairobi’s Westlands Business District are closely interlinked and are key nerve centres, in the vast metropolis that Nairobi has evolved into, where several ventures, enterprises and businesses operate, ventures, enterprises and businesses that quite literally shut down during the duration of your three day July 2015 visit. President Obama, it is ironic that you purported to come into town with a Global and Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), when what you and your entourage actually did, was deal a severe blow to Kenyan commerce and Kenyan entrepreneurship. The vast number of Kenyans who incurred losses and setbacks, courtesy of your three day visit, have nowhere and no one to turn, and will have to sort themselves out. What you and your entourage helped to entrench, foster and confirm President Obama, is that Kenyans still have nowhere to turn to in our continued oppression and mistreatment from our Government, from foreigners and from visiting dignitaries like yourself.

And herein lies another stark tragedy of your three day visit to Kenya of 24th to 26th July 2015. President Obama, you made no effort at all to take one step out of Kenya's capital city of Nairobi, reinforcing long held stereotypes that a Kenyan can only make it big in Nairobi or overseas, nowhere else. Even colonial Governors in colonial Kenya, used to travel the length and breadth of colonial Kenya, rubbing shoulders with the "natives", the likes of your father and the likes of myself, yet a purported son of this country, President Barack Obama, spent three days of his "iconic" and "historic" visit in not just the greater Nairobi, but uptown Nairobi, because President Obama, you made no effort whatsoever to visit, say for instance, areas in downtown Nairobi, such as, as mentioned, Wakulima Market, or the famed Kamukunji sheds.

President Obama, one would have expected you to spare a moment or two for the Kamukunji sheds, regarded by some quarters, as the cradle of Kenya's skilled and thriving informal sector, because President Obama, you and your sister Auma, mention how your first visit to Kenya as Citizen Obama in 1987, was characterised by frequent breakdowns of your sister's Volkswagen Beetle, and the equally frequent emergence "out of the blue" of skilled mechanics, who fixed the problem with your sister's motor vehicle. Those skilled mechanics were and continue to be nurtured in informal settings all over Kenya, informal settings such as Nairobi's downtown Kamukunji sheds , informal settings that are the real face of Kenya, and for you President Obama to have given Kenya's informal settings a cold shoulder, is to have turned your back on the entire populace of the Republic of Kenya, begging the question as to what really brought you here, begging the question as to whether you are truly a son of Kenya, and begging the question as to whether you are truly a son of Africa.

The biggest employer in Kenya President Obama is not the Kenyan civil service, the biggest employer in Kenya President Obama is not the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), the biggest employer in Kenya is not telecommunications giant Safaricom, the biggest corporation in East and Central Africa, and the horn of Africa, the biggest employer in Kenya is the informal sector, what we refer to as "Jua Kali" here. Remove "Jua Kali" President Obama, and Kenya is finished.

There is a construction boom in this country right now President Obama, and the skills driving and propping up the current boom in construction are the skills of Kenyan men and Kenyan women horned in the informal sector ("Jua Kali"). What you effectively succeeded in doing President Obama, was not to kill two birds with one stone, but to murder two birds with one stone. You and your entourage greatly disrupted and shutdown the Kenyan informal sector during your three day visit to Kenya of July 2015, and further went on to shut out Kenya's informal sector from the stately air conditioned banquets in uptown Nairobi held over your three day visit, effectively shutting out the heartbeat of Kenya.

President Obama, in the interview you granted to Jon Sopel and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), immediately prior to your visit to Kenya of July 2015, you had mentioned to Mr. Sopel how the US President could not be deterred from visiting areas that were regarded as being "unsafe", such as Kenya, yet what you effectively did President Obama, was not to visit Kenya, but to visit Nairobi.

President Obama, there is a stark irony and stark contradiction with remarks made to Mr. Sopel and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and how you lectured us during the duration of your three day visit to Kenya of July 2015. For instance President Obama, in your lecture to us of Sunday, 26th July 2015 at the very well air-conditioned Kasarani Stadium Auditorium, you mentioned how individuals in Kenya's Nyanza Province, the roots of your father, had less of a chance of succeeding in life than individuals from Kenya's Central Province, the roots of President Uhuru Kenyatta, his father President Jomo Kenyatta, and of Independent Kenya's third President, President Mwai Kibaki. President Obama, why didn't you therefore deem it necessary to visit Kenya's Nyanza Province, to show solidarity with the people of Nyanza Kenya, and to keep hope alive? In the same auditorium and in the same breath President Obama, you mentioned how a girl from Kenya's vast Rift Valley Province, the roots of President Daniel T. arap Moi, Independent Kenya's second President, was less likely to succeed in life, than a girl from Nairobi. President Obama, why didn't you therefore find it within yourself, to leave the confines of the city of Nairobi, to visit Kenya's vast Rift Valley to show solidarity with it's locals, and to keep hope alive?

President Obama, the lingering question will remain as what exactly you came to do in Kenya during your three day visit of July 2015, because none of your actions reflected your utterances, nor the reality on the ground in our beloved Kenya.

On the same Sunday, 26th July 2015, you launched a tirade into Kenyan men, implying that we were archaic and chauvinistic in our treatment of Kenyan women, in a country where the first woman Assistant Minister, Dr. Julia Ojiambo, was appointed in 1974, in a country where the first woman Permanent Secretary (Chief Accounting Officers, in Kenya Government Ministries), Margaret Githinji, was appointed in 1991, in a country where the first woman full Cabinet Minister, Winifred Nyiva Mwendwa, was appointed in 1995, and in a country where the first woman Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet, Dr. Sally Kosgei, was appointed in 2002. President Obama, women are not allowed to drive cars in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), yet here they drive rally cars, drive heavy duty trucks, and are pilots. President Obama, you may recall the gruelling East African Safari Rally/Kenyan Safari Rally/Marlboro Safari Rally, the toughest rally in the world when it reigned as the lead World Rally Championship event circa the years 1972 to 2000. Well President Obama whereas, women in the the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are not allowed to drive cars, the first female African crew of Orie Rogo-Manduli (then Mary Ondieki), and Sylvia Omino, famously competed in the 1974 East African Safari Rally. Incidentally President Obama, you Orie and Sylvia are from the same Kenyan tribe, and you clearly know much less about your native Kenya and your native Luo tribe than you think you do.

President Obama, when chastising we Kenyan men about our mistreatment of Kenyan women, you omitted mentioning indigenous Kenyan women who played a lead and illustrious role in the liberation struggle in this country and in fostering the Kenya of today, such as Prophetess Syokimau, after whom Syokimau in Kenya's Eastern Province is named, Giriama heroine Kitilili wa Menza, who led the illustrious Giriama uprising against the British, before her capture in 1919, and Mary Nyanjiru, who in 1922, famously lifted her skirt high into the sky outside Nairobi's Central Police Station, to spite her fellow Kikuyu men for their inaction, following the arrest of Kenyan liberation hero, Harry Thuku. Kenyan women are no pushovers, so it's difficult to see who you were holding brief for.

In any case President Obama, there is a giant women's organisation here known as "Maendeleo ya Wanawake" (Movement for the Progression of Kenyan women), which was registered in 1952, there are 47 Women's Representatives elected under the new Kenya Constitution of 2010, a new Kenya Constitution you praised for being "functional" & "productive", despite five Kenyan Cabinet Ministers being currently on suspension, there is what is known as the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA), and there is what is known as the Kenya Women's Finance Trust Bank (KWFT). There are multiple statutory bodies catering for the "welfare" of women, run by women, yet here you are chastising Kenyan men for mistreating Kenyan women, when your venom should actually have been directed at the multiplicity of statutory women organizations meant to cater for the welfare of Kenyan women, and which are run and managed by Kenyan women.

The sad thing President Obama, is that you chose not to visit downtown Nairobi, and the wider Kenya, where you would have witnessed for yourself, Kenyan women balancing 50 kilogram loads on their heads and the sad thing President Obama is that you chose not to visit a sample of construction sites across Kenya, where you would have witnessed women carrying 50 kilogram bags of cement on their backs. President Obama, were you championing the cause of the Kenyan ladies who cheered you on in the very well air-conditioned and comfy environment of the Kasarani Auditorium, when you had the audacity to use the phrase "bad traditions", or were you championing the cause of the Kenyan women who balance 50 kilogram loads on their heads and backs? President Obama, were you championing the cause of the elite Kenyan women, or were championing the cause of rural Kenyan women in less privileged and less endowed regions of Kenya? President Obama, I think you made more enemies than friends during your disastrous three day visit to Kenya of July 2015.

To top it all President Obama, no effort was made to invite as wide a cross section of Kenyans, past and present or their descendants, to your auditorium lecture to about 3,000 Kenyans of Sunday, 26th July 2015, despite you mentioning the legendary Prof. Wangari Maathai and the legendary Kipchoge Keino. Prof. Wangari Maathai and Kipchoge Keino are two great and illustrious Kenyans. There are numerous other illustrious Kenyans including Prophetess Syokimau, Kitilili wa Menza, Mary Nyanjiru, Wanje wa Mwadorikola, Otenyo Nyamaterere, Koitalel arap Samoei, Mwakenga wa Malowa, Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi and Field Marsall Muthoni wa Kirima. It's hard to see what of substance you came to do in Kenya, President Obama.

Will you be remembered as a great Kenyan President Obama. I doubt it, President Obama. I think you will be remembered as a prominent Kenyan, but not as a great Kenyan. Will you be remembered as a great American, President Obama. I doubt that too, because your second term approval ratings are even lower than those of George W. Bush, a George W. Bush who you intensely and clumsily chastised in the same manner that you intensely and clumsily chastised us here in Kenya from 24th to 26th July 2015. I think you will be remembered as a prominent American, but not as a great American. It appears that you will end up losing on two fronts, President Obama.

Michael Mundia Kamau,