As drought continues, Kajiado elders pray for rain

At least 500 elderly women and men drawn from various ethnic communities yesterday gathered at Ngong Hills, Kajiado County to pray for the ravaging drought currently being experienced in the county.

The women, mostly victims of 2007/2008 post election violence, gathered at the hill to seek for divine intervention in an issue which has seen hundreds of school going children in the county drop out of school as starvation cases keep on rising in Kajiado and the country.

“We are widows who do not have any source of income as our bread winners (husbands) died during the violence. We are facing starvation and we gathered here to seek for God’s hand in saving us from death which is staring at us in the face,” said 80 year-old Wanjiru Shupeti.

Led by Bishop Bonface Mwangi of Heritage Gospel Church International, the women and men also prayed for peace in the country amidst rising political tension as Kenya prepares for the General Elections this August.

They also sought for a solution to the health crisis that has seen doctors stay away from work for more than 75 days.

“We are a peace loving nation and we will not be divided by egotistic politicians who are only after their selfish interests. We learnt our lesson in 2007/08 violence and we will not wait for another spate of killings,” said Mwangi.

Bishop Mwangi put the rising cases of strikes in the country, rampant corruption, ethnic animosity and political bickering to lack of strong political leadership in the country blaming the President Uhuru Kenyatta of laxity to offer leadership direction as the head of both the state and the government.

“God is not happy with how the leadership of this country is, whether in the government or in the opposition. It has come to a time when our president needs to rise above political or ethnic affiliations to steer this country in the right path. A leader has to do what h has to do for his people,” said the Bishop.

Kajiado County is currently reeling under acute drought and starvation which has seen several schools in the rural parts of the county risk closure as pupils drop out or stay away from school to look for water and pasture together with their parents, mostly pastoralists or livestock keepers.

Peter Sekento, chairman board of management at Sairashe primary school in Kajaido West, indicated that about 50 percent of pupils in the school have since dropped out since the drought started.

“As we speak we only have 147 pupils down from 259 we had before this drought started. If quick actions are not taken then we fear that teachers might be staring at empty classrooms,” said Sekento.

The same situation is also being experienced at Olentooko primary where many children have stayed away from school since the food they had under the school feeding programme by the government could not support most of the pupils.

“The budget given to schools for feeding programme is not enough as we lack water and children are going without water. In fact, we are in a total humanitarian crisis that needs urgent intervention,” said Daniel Teeka, the school’s head teacher.

The government on Thursday said that it has committed another Sh7.4 billion to be spent on the second phase of the drought mitigation programme in the country between February and April when long rains are expected to arrive.

This comes after a similar intervention was done by the government in the first phase starting from September where Sh5.5 billion was spent on relief food, nutrition, water, animal feed, livestock disease management, drought tolerant seeds and re-positioning of strategic food reserve stocks in an effort to support 1.5 million at the time.

Currently, at least 2.7 million Kenyans mostly from arid and semi-arid regions are experiencing drought.