We love this talk of Kenya and Tanzania infrastructure war

When you are in our business, you spend a lot of time talking to people who have some fascinating insights on public affairs to give you, and also those who are checking out the truth of rumours and conspiracy theories.

Sometimes they pay for the coffee, sometimes you pay.

Now, when President Uhuru Kenyatta commissioned a Sh30 billion container terminal at Mombasa Port a few days ago, he said; “Kenya itself discovered oil in Turkana and intends to export its first shipment in June 2017,” and that his government was in the process of improving oil-handling capacity at the port of Mombasa.

President Kenyatta said the Kipevu oil terminal in Mombasa county would be moved to a more suitable location to allow expansion.

Then the clincher. He said the new terminal and the “expansion of the pipeline capacity between Mombasa and Eldoret will enhance efficiency in the oil sector and reduce costs, both locally and in the region”, or words to that effect.

On the face of it, the idea is to truck crude from the fields in Turkana and then by train from Eldoret to Mombasa, a distance of 1,089 kilometres. Critics have said it does not make economic sense.

So recently I had coffee with people who know more about these things than the rest of us civilians.

Remember early in the year, Kenya lost the bid for the Uganda pipeline to Tanzania, a development that left some people who look after the country’s long-term regional interests miffed.

However, my coffee buddies asked me if I knew that the matter of the Uganda pipeline was not over yet. I said I did not.

Remember, President Yoweri Museveni left a window open. He suggested that Uganda potentially could export its oil through Kenya if the Tanzania pipeline did not come online in time.

He said that a wise hunter feeds all his puppies because he would never be sure which one would grow to be the best hunting dog.

They told me Kenya has “put a rush” on the expansion of the Eldoret pipeline so that it could become the unfancied puppy that grows into Museveni’s proverbial champion hunting dog.

However, I would not have accepted to pay for the coffee if that was all they told me. The real deal is what they said next about Kenya’s oil game. It was too juicy.

RADICALISED POLITICS

Remember, again, the controversy over the tiny rock that is Migingo Island in Lake Victoria?

At the height of the scuffle and noise over who owns the island, Mr Museveni said, “Migingo island is in Kenya, but the water is in Uganda”.

Depending on where you stand, it is either the most philosophical or most nonsensical statement that could have been made on the dispute.

However, the coffee group told me that Migingo is in the middle of a “very huge” oil field, and that Kenya has decided it will sink pipes in Lake Victoria and pump it out.

So when Museveni was laying claim to the water around Migingo, was he talking about water or oil? one might ask.

Whatever the case, if true, environmentalists will be horrified, and fully expect them to go to war. And, of course, devolution has radicalised resource politics in Kenya.

In this case, oil in Lake Victoria, a region that is still a stronghold of the opposition Cord, would lead to some mind-blowing contortions in Kenyan political deal-making.

You can see why, even if it is not true that there is oil in Lake Victoria, it was difficult to let that truth spoil a sensational story.

The fellows around the coffee pot painted a picture where Kenya terminates the standard gauge railway in Kisumu after Rwanda pulled out of the project, opting for a Tanzanian option just after Uganda bailed on the Kenya pipeline.

The Lake Victoria oil would be ferried from Kisumu to Eldoret, then on to Mombasa, at which point the numbers would add up. And the economies of scale, and delivery ahead of the Uganda-Tanzania pipeline, would give Kenya back the pipeline.

The long and the short of it is that we are in the middle of a race between Kenya and Tanzania to be Uganda, Rwanda, and other East African hinterland countries’ last mile infrastructure provider. Oil has become the fuel driving it.

If there is a real story in there, I am not going anywhere. It will be one hell of a tale to tell.

The author is editor of Africa data visualiser Africapedia.com and explainer site Roguechiefs.com. Twitter@cobbo3.