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Was It Oil Exploration Or Dumping of Nuclear Waste?
The east African Standard (Nairobi)

January 22, 2005 
Posted to the web January 21, 2005 

Boniface Ongeri And Victor Obure
Nairobi 

There was tremor of excitement in Kenya during the early 80s when word emerged that there would be a feasibility study on oil exploration in North Eastern Province.

The excitement reached fever pitch in 1983 when an American company sent an advance team to sample possible locations for drilling across 126,692 square kilometres of the semi-arid province.

Notable sites included Modica, Shanta Abak and Amuma in Garissa District, Gal Adow and Arbajahan in Wajir and Elwak in Mandera District.

And the belief that the prospectors would finally strike oil became a foregone conclusion when then President Moi symbolically endorsed the project by visiting Arbajahan in 1988. "At last, oil in Kenya" screamed a headline in the State newspaper the next day.

The developments elicited high expectations especially among the impoverished residents of the remote region, who believed that their new found resource would turn their fortunes around.

It meant the province, with only four kilometres of tarmacked roads and one of the highest poverty rates in the country, would be transformed into the backbone of the economy after edging out agriculture. Kenya also looked forward to claim her rightful position in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

A resident shows journalists some of the items dug out of a pit excavated by the company

According to a resident, Mudey Sambul Hassan, the locals were even contemplating negotiating with the prospecting company for a tangible share of the oil, now that it was in their ancestral land.

But all this has since turned out to be castles in the air. No oil was ever discovered in North Eastern and it is further suspected that the American company came to the country with ulterior motives.

There are widespread fears that the company was dumping toxic waste in the arid region under the guise of exploring for oil. The anguished residents are now up in arms and want the Government to dispel speculation that the company deposited nuclear waste at the sites.

A visit to the region reveals that the company excavated deep trenches and later covered them with concrete slabs.

Residents who were employed by the company as casuals during the purported exploration confided that they would be unceremoniously laid off whenever the depth of the trenches reached a certain level.

"The top company managers would herd us from the site whenever the project reached a certain stage," says Hassan, who was one of the casual labourers.

He further intimated that huge loads from trucks would be offloaded at the sites just before the labourers were laid off, fuelling speculation that the company did not wish the locals to see the contents.

Most residents living near the sites have been complaining of strange and incurable diseases, which they claim are caused by the alleged presence of radioactive material.

Mrs Nuriya Abdullai, an official with a local non-governmental organisation, Wajir Peace and Development Agency, says some of the alleged victims have been admitted to the district hospital with "very strange deformities."

"During the former regime, no one could raise a finger for fear of reprisal from brutal government forces," she says.

The company is believed to have left the unknown substances buried in the area and herdsmen have steered clear of it for fear that their animals will die.

And true to Abdullai's word, when The Standard team visited one of the affected villages, the residents adamantly refused to accompany them to the exploration site, 16 kilometres away.

During a tour by a team from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) last year, the residents claimed that hundreds of their cattle had died after drinking water from points within the precincts of the alleged dumping sites.

Nema board chairman Prof Canute Khamala said it was possible for a company to deposit nuclear waste products without the knowledge of the locals.

He said he was aware of claims that the alleged rogue company had established a separate road network for its shipment from the Indian Ocean.

The authority's director-general, Prof Retemo Michieka, said the board would petition the Radiation Board of Kenya to bring experts to the sites with radioactive detectors to authenticate the claims.

"The environment in North Eastern Province is very fragile and we cannot allow a foreign company to choke our people with waste products. We discovered similar dumping along the Somali coastline, which has adversely affected that country's marine ecosystem," said Michieka.

He said a fact-finding mission along the Kenyan coastline indicated that some species of fish and sea plants had been devastated by radio-active leakage from the said dumping site in nation.

Michieka said the mysterious substances buried in NEP would be dug up to establish their nature.

Nuclear experts are expected to sample the contents and make their findings public in February.

Nema also heard that residents in the affected areas had suffered from strange skin illnesses, throat cancer, barrenness and giving birth to children with deformities. Their livestock too gave birth to strange young ones, they claimed.

A spot check further revealed that the vegetation around the alleged dumping sites had long withered, leaving bare fields.

Wild animals are also said to have been affected and have allegedly moved to other grazing areas.

Although the Government has to-date neither dispelled nor confirmed the presence of the alleged nuclear dumping site, residents believe a senior government official gave the Canadian company the green light to carry out its dirty work.

They claimed an influential minister in the former regime allegedly received a colossal amount of money from the company to dump the waste.

But the provincial administration declined to comment, terming the matter too sensitive and one that needed experts to unravel.


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