A tree in Nairobi has been in the headlines recently. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. This is the land of Shujaa Wangari Maathai, si ndio? But Kenya is also a strange place, where a politician once told people trees don’t bring rain; it’s rain that brings trees, or something like that.
The iconic mugumo tree in Westlands was going to be felled to pave way for the Nairobi Expressway. Trees are not development. Maendeleo ni barabara. But the ancestors were not impressed.
See, the mugumo is sacred not just to the Agikuyu but to many other communities in Kenya. It is the abode of spirits. Mzee Mwai Kibaki had that in mind when he once said removing Kanu from power was like trying to cut down a mugumo tree with a razor blade.
Jenerali Mohammed Badi visited the sacred tree and announced it would not be felled. The expressway builders must find a way around it. That means the ancestors won.
Local media reports about the mugumo focused on the controversy, especially resistance by the activists. But the best report was by our very own New York Times Nairobi bureau chief Abdi Latif Dahir.
Peter Kiarie Njoroge, a Gikuyu elder told Abdi the community regards fig trees as the “house of God” and the abode of the ancestors.
“Government authorities say they will take it down — and though they have promised to relocate and transplant it, experts say that may be impossible for such a hulking specimen,” Abdi reported.
His story went beyond the mugumo tree to the resistance to the expressway by environmentalists, its contested economic value, to Nairobi’s shrinking green spaces and Kenya’s bulging Chinese debts.
That is great storytelling. A good scribe doesn’t just see a big mugumo tree threatened by a new road. You look at the many issues surrounding it.
Another international news story sent Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai’s “mboys” running helter-skelter – an expression all Kenyans wrote in their primary school compositions.
Mutyambai himuselufu needs to gather all Nairobi afandes under a mugumo tree, the house of God, and ask them frank questions in the presence of the ancestors.
The BBC published its year-long investigation of the baby trade in Nairobi. Our finest Kiswahili TV reporters say unyama umewatoka wanyama ukawaingia binadamu.
You could buy a bouncing baby boy – reporters’ cliché – at 10k. That means you paid about a G a month throughout the pregnancy.
Mutyambai’s “mboys” swung into action once the story was published and arrested some suspects. Children are stolen and sold in Nairobi shamba la mawe and police have no idea? They are busy chasing walevi pale Grogon.
And what about our scribes? BBI. MCA said this. Late Matungu MP’s mpango wa kando has sued. It has emerged that Mike Bling Sonko hates Jenerali. Atwoli said hapa Kenya kuna maneno…
Come on scribes, let’s meet at the house of God and discuss.
