Honia-Heal Afrika Initiative (HAI)

By the pen of Gítaú wa Kúng’ú (profgitauwakungu@gmail.com).

“Arise. Go to the Mission place. Learn all the wisdom and all the secrets of the white man. But do not follow his vices. Be true to your people, and the ancient rites…A man must rise and save the people in their hour of need…” Chege to his son Kamau in Ngúgí wa Thiong’os: The River Between.

“The first danger facing Mt. Kenya region is falling demographics. Fewer and fewer children are being born… The population pyramid is inverted. Between 2009-2019, Murang’a had insignificant population growth. This stagnation applies in all Mt Kenya counties,” Governor kang’ata, Sunday Nation column: Dangers Lying Ahead of Mount Kenya’s Path.
Any insightful inhabitant of the Mountain region can agree no less with Dr. Kang’ata’s point of view.

Population growth is essential for any society’s, community’s, regional or national socio-economic development. It is the high population density in the mountain that has kept the region savouring the greatest piece of the national sociopolitical cake and the government for the last six decades.

Now, nursery/preparatory schools that up to two decades ago, regurgitated with eager, bouncing children of the mountain are admitting less than twenty per annum.

Most of the young people cry high cost of living has been discouraging marriages and birthing of more than three children.
Meanwhile, young men and women drinking poisonous alcohol as they sing the popular Benga hit ‘Maisha no maya aeeeeh- this is the life I want forever!’

Who wants to babysit troublesome toddlers anymore when peers are merrymaking in “party-after-party?”  drunken ‘philo-idiocy.’ “No one will die and leave with money,” they mimic with staggering braggadocio.
Where’s our future, Kenya? Where is our future?

Read also: https://honiafrikainitiativehai.business.blog/2024/01/14/sustainable-development-plans-muranga-county-government-must-implement-to-re-engineer-her-agri-economic-prosperity/
Dr. Kang’ata, whom I baptise Doctor Governor, also cited youthful population retrogradation as consanguineous to labour importation. Well, the youthful generation of the mountain has been engaged in a hasslesome ‘hustling’ in the hustle and bustle of the neighbouring Nairobi city and its Kiambu suburbs.
“There are no jobs,” youths lazily wipe their crocodile tears. They want nothing to do with farming or coffee anymore. I salute deputy president HE Rigathi Gachagua’s ambition to eviscerate alcohol “poison” business.
Meanwhile, Burundians, Ugandans have joined the growing numbers of other Kenyan ethnic communities providing labour in Mt. Kenya farms like our youthful friends from Masailand, Kisii, Western and Nyanza.
On the other side, hospitals are creating boda boda casualty wards. More youths are becoming handicapped if not dying daily from the increasing boda boda accidents mostly caused by careless riding motivated by drugs, and substance abuse. Ooh, children of the Mountain!
The senate must come together and support amendments I have drafted to improve the Boda Boda Regulations Bill. One of the proposals include that all the motorbikes are fitted with speed governors, limiting speeds to utmost 50 Km/hr.
Lastly but not least, Doctor Governor was concerned with decline in the use of the Gíkúyú language. Did you know?
Using the name ‘Kikuyu’ to describe a Múgíkúyú is akin to using the name ‘nigger’ to refer to a black person, or ‘ching chong’ to the people of Chinese/Asian origin? ‘Kikuyu’ was a derogatory imperialist’s name for the tribe whose wisdom, insight, rich cultural heritage that propagated high moral and ethical standards, promised hell to the imperialist’s exploitative vision.

Well, Dr. Kang’ata opines that learning resources like text books get translated to Gíkúyú (read-local languages). But how shall this happen when even most digital parents give their children up to four English names and only one if no African name?
Currently, inspired by the dream that one day Gíkúyú language shall rise to become a universal language, I have delved into studying the Gíkúyú  morphology, phonology, semantics and sociolinguistics. In the steps of Prof Ngúgí wa Thiong’o, I am writing my first novel in Gíkúyú language.

I make a clarion call to both the August, the Senate the East Africa Parliament and the African Union and relevant committees. It is to recommend the support of a draft bill envisioned to not only to establish an authentic Kenyan (African) systems of public service. We have a luminous future. But our golden, brilliant future is blocked. Blockaded by our unity in persevering exploitation and disunity in reclaiming our rights.
For the sake of our African posterity, we must claim back the right of the African child to learn the science, technology and mathematics in their own mother tongue. It’s a denial of rights for the African child to be taught in an Anglo-Saxon or French language in a Africa with it’s diverse language groups.We must exenterate imperialist’s shadow over our indigenous languages, the caucus of (Mount) Kenya Council of Governors, to create county publishing presses specifically to publish content in local languages.

The ministries of education must consider a sustainable transition strategy to integrate local languages into the African education systems. Why won’t the African posterity still suffer inferiority complex when we still use the colonialist languages in our schools?