On national security and food security and 2013

Public Watchdog, also known as Watchie, is at it again, equating a poor food security situation to poor national security (When majority of citizens go hungry, national security by State is a mirage, Standard, 31st May, 2011). National security simply means the survival of the state using military, economic and political power. Food security, on the other hand, is simply the availability of food and ones access to it. Now Kenya has suffered almost a decade of poor rain seasons, with dramatic and terrible rounds of drought brought about by the El Nino and La Nina weather phenomena. In the past two years, the territorial integrity of this country has been tested by Ugandans, Ethiopians, Southern Sudanese and Somalis, in addition to sundry drugs'-smugglers and human-traffickers.

What Watchie fails to appreciate is that in a developing country like Kenya, there will be no absolute security over anything. At this point in our evolution, the nation is in the middle of a difficult transition, a transition that is threatened by entrenched interests and foreign powers to suit their ends. At the same time, the long-term effects of the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the late-eighties and early nineties are now being exorcised, and this too in the midst of a slowing global economy. The national security neighbourhood is not as rosy as Watchie would have you believe: unstable nations to the North (South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt), and autocratic quasi-democracies (Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi), and jealous donor-dependent ones (Tanzania). Neither is the political landscape calm - political and constitutional transition, a fractious coalition government, and a disintegrating National Assembly. So when exactly would the government have had time to set about crafting a coherent food security-cum-national security framework?

Let us examine a few facts, regardless of the challenges we face. Despite the fact that pockets of the country are undergoing severe food and water shortages, a majority of the country has access to food in adequate quantities, though not necessarily at affordable prices. Despite the deteriorating internal security situation, and discounting the Ugandan land-grab in the Lake Victoria, Kenya is generally at peace with its neighbours, which is remarkable considering all of them in the past 40 years have either been at war with each other or with themselves. Despite decades of KANU hegemony during which Kenya's economy slid from one of promise to one of ridicule, Kenyan entrepreneurs did not lose sight of their skills or talents and as soon as the markets re-opened to them, they took the world by storm. The innovations, especially in telecommunications, pioneered in Kenya are proof that with the correct incentives, the sky is the lower limit of our ambition and potential.

But, our success or failure has hinged to an unhealthy degree on what the political class will or will not do. This is set to undergo a paradigm shift in 2011. While eliminating the political class almost entirely from the Executive, the Constitution has expanded the National Assembly, created a Senate and devolved Executive and, to some extent, Legislative power to 47 County Governments. The power of the Executive has also been circumscribes with many layers of checks and balances; its freedom to do as it pleases no longer exists. The power of the Legislature to award itself pay-rises not commensurate with its functions is also completely eliminated. 

Therefore, the political horse-trading that usually accompanies national crises should be a thing of the past once a professionalised Cabinet is appointed and the new Government gets down to work. With the active participation of a vigilant and enlightened citizenry, then things like hunger or cross-border banditry should come to an end. If we sit and whinge, as is our wont, not even a new Executive, judiciary or Legislature, or indeed, a County Government, will save us from hunger or foreign invasions.