The Big Somalian Blunder Moi's Kanu Made, Paid For By Kenyan Blood

It is said that in Kenya, money can buy you anything. That is why the people in Kenyan jails are mostly the innocent, fools and those who were a little short of cash to buy their freedom.

The situation in Nairobi's Eastleigh estate seems to confirm this popular belief. For all intents and purposes the sprawling estate, not far from Nairobi City Centre is a part of Somalia on Kenyan soil. To start with a vast number of the Somalian nationals living there are in the country illegally. Yet they engage in business (mostly the matatu business and trading in smuggled clothes and electronics) and enjoy the privileges that any Kenyan national would enjoy.

You can purchase an automatic weapon easily here and even obtain an American or British passport that will get you through most immigration departments in the world. It is instructive that policemen fear to tread in Eastleigh and when they have to will usually turn up in large groups and while very heavily armed (even when they are in plain clothes.)

Eastleigh-Somalia, as I would call it, happened because the Somalians have cash and they simply bribed their way into the heart of Kenya. There are those who argue that Somalians have greatly benefited the Kenyan economy. I disagree. They have actually caused more harm than good. To start with they do not pay taxes, not even VAT. Then they have caused serious new problems. For instance Eastleigh alone has cost Telekom Kenya huge losses over the years. A couple of years back, a popular business carried out by Somalians in Eastliegh was to apply for numerous Telkom land lines. The usual deposits would be paid and immediately the line was installed, it would get terribly busy making international calls worldwide. Owners of the lines would charge their clients a fraction of what Telkom Kenya charges. So how would they make a profit, I hear you ask? Simple. They would abandon the line with its' colossal pending bill the minute it was disconnected and apply for fresh new lines under different names. Naturally palms at Telkom would remain "well oiled" so that by the time the scum came into light the local telephone company had lost millions of shillings. That is just one example.

Because the Moi administration was not able to deal with the problem as it commenced, today, "cleaning up" Eastleigh would be a mammoth operation that is probably no longer viable. So Kenyans are forced to learn to live with this deadly menace. Guns from Eastliegh continue to claim Kenyan lives and maim others for life every day and now with the worsening crisis in Somalia we are actually sitting on a time bomb right in our own backyard. The recent case where policemen were stopped from entering a hotel in Eastliegh to carry out a search is a case in point and very worrying indeed.