What I wanted to do a fortnight ago was have my say on the Tegla Lorupe Foundation race that takes place annually for/in Karamoja –Turkana. I kept on hesitating to critic the function because of ordinary fear. But today, a colleague on Karamoja Development Forum (KDF), a facebook networking group provoked me to unleash the dragon.
The race is I perceive, geared towards bringing together warriors from both the Turukana and Karamoja clusters for peace. Tegla herself is reknown for her athletic record. It is very difficult to exactly tell the way in which peace can be enhanced by letting the guys come and run a short distance within a small radius in town. I thought a cross boarder race could give a fairer accountability of this peace building claim and also demonstrate unity and the feat of peace. But, I suspect the people who matter in this arrangement believe in the long speeches that get translated to the local language listening crowd who by the time of the talking are really tired and hungry and are obviously very inattentive.
During the recent race in Moroto, am sorry to mention that the organisers were on sweat hunting for willing bodies to take part in the activity. Well, there were some chosen few known athletes and some cheap –to-maintain warrior squads from both Kenya and Uganda. They were partially facilitated mainly by way of packing them behind pickup trucks and some in the spare tyre space in the Land Cruisers, the Tegla T-shirts and then, their food (they like posho and beans...I suspect they were given) which is cheap. And what next, the question of egg-like people takes a lot of resources normally –unfortunately!
My KDF colleague thus commented, “...so called Peace race that has yielded unreasonable results so far in four races ...” I go by what he thinks although I don’t know his argument. But, basing on situations on the ground, I say peace is still indeed wanting in Karamoja and that Turukana side of Kenya. The numerous peace meetings I attended show a very bad relationship between Turukana and Tepeth people. There is a village called Naut in Katikekile parish Tapac Sub County in Moroto that can attest to this. As we communicate now, people have flown off from Naut because of constant attacks or threats of attack, animal raids and killings of humankind by suspected Kenyan warriors.
The other reason one could easily indict the Lorupe thing for merely coming to Moroto or going to Kapenguria for a bash, is the way more affluent lot are big beneficiaries of the dollars thrown in by sponsorors of the occasion. For instance during the recent race held in Moroto, I wondered how little the would have been real recipients were made to pocket. I did not properly verify the money figure, but the first in the race did not take what is more than Ush 250000/= the third took just Ush 100000/=, and really few they were.
Another bad sign was exposed when the Master of Ceremony (MC) asked participants and...’OTHERS’ to go for lunch. NB :( lunch was served at 5:00PM, so it was lunch /supper –to even reduce the cost). The MC said this:
“...all the registered participants in the race are asked to go to Moroto Municipal Primary school for their lunch, all the officiating participants to go also to Moroto Municipal Primary School... but some where different from the other participants...and the invited guests will be received at Hotel Leslona for their lunch and refreshment...” here now just think about the expenditure at Leslona and those at the primary school. Who should have been where? And who is more important or fragile in the deal for creating peace for the conflicting warriors?
Tegla Lorupe Foundation should think beyond annual lobbying for big dollars for printing cheap T-shirts, facilitating town based short distance races and throwing party for “invited guests”. Think of a more visible, tangible and result oriented project that can create lasting peace, security and improve the livelihoods of the warriors across the border forever. Otherwise, this one off race is becoming a very bad type of Christmas or Iddi!
