While Ruto splashes millions, Kenyans stare at death

As the residents of the drought-stricken Northern Kenya pluck leaves from wild trees to cook and feed, President William Ruto continues to dish out millions of money and sumptuous lunches to thousands of well-fed UDA party followers at State House in Nairobi.

Since last year, the President has hosted religious leaders, grassroots leaders, women's associations, and political delegations from across the country at State House.

During the meetings, the president reportedly dishes out between Sh5000 to Sh10, 000 to the different groups that visit either the State House or State lodges, yet millions continue to coil under pangs of hunger.

Recently, Ruto led the UDA aspirants’ forum at State House, where all the attendees went home with cash, as hunger continues to bite and animals from the arid and semi-arid areas continue to die as a result of water scarcity and feeds.

At the beginning of last week, President Ruto met some 12,354 UDA aspirants in state house, where each took home Sh10,000 in allowance, translating to Sh123.5 million spent on a single day.

Before that, Ruto had met another 14,000 UDA grassroot mobilers and each was given Sh5,000, spending about Sh70million on the event.

For the rest of last week, Ruto camped in the coast region, where over the weekend in Kwale, he launched student hostels, affordable housing, and modern markets at a cost of Sh13 billion.

A day before that, Ruto dished out Sh147 million to some 5,880 youth in Mombasa, Kwale and Taita Taveta counties. In Lamu, Kilifi and Tana Rovers, the president disbursed Sh 126 million to some 5040 young business people.

Today, Ruto begins a two-day tour of Garissa and Mandera counties, already flagged as hunger hot spots, to launch the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) Project, splashing millions while an emergency of national shame unfolds just kilometres away from his motorcade's route.

Yet, for the past several months, a devastating drought has ravaged several parts of the country with livestock dying and biting hunger affecting residents.

Deputy President Kithure Kindiki said thisweek that 10 counties have been classified as being in crisis, with four Mandera, Wajir, Kwale, and Kilifi particularly hard hit.

Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) have listed at least nine counties, with Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Marsabit, Turkana and Tana River among the hardest hit, with between 2.1 and 2.5 million people already facing hunger.

In Mandera, the drought situation continues to worsen, severely affecting thousands of residents, with malnutrition now emerging as the most feared humanitarian threat, especially among children under five and the elderly.

According to the health department in Mandera, the malnutrition burden has reached critical levels, with over 69,325 children under the age of five affected across the county.

In Wajir, some schools have been closed as a group of Somali nationals fleeing the severe effects of drought crossed into Kenya in search of scarce water and pasture, further straining meagre resources.

In Garissa County, the Kenya Red Cross confirmed mass migration of people fleeing from the dry spell and looking for greener pastures.

“We are closely monitoring the situation, doing rapid assessment through our teams on the ground. The situation is not good, boreholes are breaking as a result of pressure and livestock have become weak as a result of going for longer distances,” said the Red Cross county boss.

Families from the drought-stricken North Eastern region have now resorted to eating wild fruits and tree barks to survive, as children who have abandoned school risk their lives to pick leaves from tall trees for their family's survival.

So dire is the situation that the humanitarian groups are asking the government to declare drought in those parts of the country a national disaster.

Against this backdrop of scarcity, the presidential entourage will be welcomed with feasts, while millions will be expended on logistics and allowances.

During President Ruto’s two-day tour of Garissa and Mandera counties, he is again expected to launch the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) Project, while the biting drought emergency has become a national shame.

Approximately 50,000 youth are expected to receive a Sh22,000 business grant into a digital "Pochi la Biashara" wallet, with an additional Sh3,000 allocated to a savings scheme.

 “The people in these counties do not need a digital wallet handout today. They need water and food. They need the government's most urgent intervention to be aligned with their most immediate crisis, which is how to survive,” says lawyer Chaka Sichangi.

The Standard’s visit to Isiolo, Marsabit, and Samburu revealed a landscape that has been pushed past its breaking point-a region where the climate crisis has stripped away everything but the people’s raw will to live.

The ravaging drought, described as the worst in decades, has reduced the communities’ livestock to scattered carcasses and sparked human-wildlife conflicts and fuelled inter-communal wars over scarce resources such as pasture and water.

Pastoralists who rely on animals for their daily sustenance are suffering massive losses. Their cattle and goats are dying, and for those that remain, their market value has plummeted. Goats that could have previously fetched the herders around Sh15,000 each are now selling for a mere Sh5,000.