I have had to discard my Easter column and write a replacement after a friend accused me of turning into a grumpy old man and the chairman of the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity WhatsApp group.
I had written about my being a complete nincompoop as a farmer (I left the farm basically as a child, before learning the full wisdom, so I am having to learn the basics in maturity—not the best of times).
For example, I went to the cattle market during the last drought and bought four snow-white cows for breeding; they looked like a good breed but could barely walk. They appeared to have been driven from Addis Ababa to Isiolo. When they got to the farm, they had to be carried out of the truck.
I had also bought a ‘Boran breeding bull’; in actual fact, it was just a bag of bones, a brown-and-white coat and pair of large testes. It had to be trained to eat, starting with supplements, salt, sips of water and mash. He is short and packs weight slowly; though, in fairness, once he gains, he keeps.
Being short for beef cattle is a disaster because short animals pack less beef. And slow-fattening animals eat all the profits before they are ready for slaughter. He has spent more than a year aloft four cows without any effect at all—no pregnancy, no evidence of bull semen.
At Christmas, I sold the lot to be feasted on—except two of my most beautiful females and two bulls, our ineffective champion included. Two weeks ago, the workers asked the vet what the problem was.
He smiled and told them: “Ask me in two weeks.” I had already organised for the four to be brought over to Nairobi to be ‘promoted to glory’ and converted to premium beef but I have been forgetting to have them loaded on the truck. But what do you know? The udders of the females have dropped; they are pregnant and should calve in under two months.
But what kind of Sudan-Ethiopian short, slow-growing, crap-breeding stock is this? The only thing going for them is that they produce the sweetest, most good-looking beef. Butchers want their carcass just to hung in the butchery to attract buyers. But Kenyans will never come to your butchery and say: “Give me sweet beef.” They ask: “How much is a kilo?” If it is one cent higher, they will not buy.
Anyway, my friend called me a nattering nabob of negativity because, in his view, I find nothing positive in anything the government has done. It is fair criticism and I promised to write about what I consider to be positive progress.
The best thing President William Ruto has done so far was to appoint Prof Kithure Kindiki his national security minister. Because he is quiet, hardworking and human. In my eyes, he rises to the pantheon of great security ministers: John Michuki, Fred Matiang’i, George Saitoti. Why? Because of Shakahola. I am obsessed with Shakahola, especially the fate of 182 children who were killed through starvation, strangulation or being bludgeoned.
Interior CS Kithure Kindiki addresses the press at Shakahola Command Cente in Kilifi County on June 6, 2023. He expressed worry that the number of those rescued or those found alive in the forest could be diminishing.
Photo credit: Wachira Mwangi I Nation Media Group
When desperate villagers called for help, he returned their call and brought out the cavalry. That act saved hundreds of lives. And he has been with them since. In my books, he can do no wrong.
Strike number two is the exchange rate. The shilling has gained against most currencies, the foreign counter at the stock market is stirring to life, the Nairobi Stock Exchange, once the world’s worst performer, is slowly starting to rise. That means my pension, which has been evaporating due to the stock market crash and which I have been mumunya-ing ‘small-small’, is going to get some air in its lungs.
A strengthening shilling does miracles to debt. If you owed some foreign guy Sh50 million when the shilling was Sh160 to the dollar, when the shilling gets to Sh134, you owe him Sh32.32 million. In my books, a weakening currency should be categorised as a crime against humanity and a government that presides over a weakening shilling should never be re-elected, no matter how much English it speaks.
Three, we have food. After the harvest last year, a 90kg bag of maize was selling at Sh4,500 at the farm gate; there was incredible pressure on food prices. Today, it is less than Sh3,000. What we need is to stop all of our maize being shipped to Southern Africa and that can happen only if millers and the National Cereals and Produce Board are encouraged to buy for their stores. With so much maize in the country, we should stop duty-free import of food, such as rice and beans, immediately.
Strike four, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has apologised to founding First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta and seems to have realised that he can’t go around abusing our mothers. One of the things that made some of these Kenya Kwanza politicians disgusting is that they respected no one and nothing. This is a good start.
Five, the cost of fuel is steadily going down—meaning the cost of living will begin to ease, which is good news for the average family.
I have run out of space but, yes, some things are working and we can go back to our cows.
- Mr Mathiu, a media consultant at Steward-Africa, is a former Editor-in-Chief of Nation Media Group. [email protected] .
