Why Kenya is sweet and sour

The last few days have been a madhouse in the Immigration hall at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA). The place just fills up with a crash of arriving passengers, and typically, it’s not long before those “Kenyans” and “East African/COMESA” queues are ignored.

When we arrived on a late flight on Monday, there were over 1,000 passengers in the sweltering hall – they need to put in new industrial-grade air-conditioning.

The first instinct would be to blame the stereotypical “usual African incompetence”, but no. All the Immigration booths were staffed, and the officers were working quite frantically. The lines were the result of too much of a good thing. In fact, at the baggage claim is when you begin to get what is going on. The bags are everywhere, as the baggage carousels work overtime.

It seems Kenya is catching some of the big post-Covid travel booms that a few lucky countries in the world are enjoying. Additionally, there has been a spike in conferences and events. In the days before and during the WRC 2022 Safari Rally that took place between June 23 and June 26, it was almost impossible to get a decent hotel room in Nairobi and the Naivasha area.

At the same time outside JKIA, for departure, there have been queues like never before. On some recent days, cars waiting to drop off departing passengers have snaked a long way back, and you can spend enough time in the check-in line to get pregnant and deliver a baby.

These large numbers are people who visited returning home, but a bigger chunk of it, according to speculation, is of Kenyans leaving early to escape possible election violence in August. The old Ugandan industrial town of Jinja during polls is taken over by Kenyan election refugees, especially Kenyan-Asians, so much so that in 2013 it seemed there were as many of them as the regular residents.

My cab driver was puzzled. He asked how come as many people were coming to Kenya during an uncertain election period, as were leaving.

One of the reasons is that while the August election looms large domestically, unlike in the past, outside Kenya and East Africa, it has received considerably little press attention. The two years over the drama of the split between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto, his backing of former rival and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the BBI kerfuffle, and all the political shenanigans were overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic; the craziness of the US election and Donald Trump’s theatrics; the Ethiopian War; the delayed Olympics in Tokyo; America’s flight from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban; the July 2021 South African riots; Tanzania’s President John Magufuli’s death, the emotion around his burial, and President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s ascension to office; the coups in West Africa; the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the food and energies it has sparked, to name a few.

The Kenya election was simply crowded out of the headlines. As a result, the stories about potential risks that come with it were not heard or seen much out there.

Secondly, the circumstances of the two presumed frontrunners, Ruto and Raila, have constrained them from the sometimes extreme rhetoric of the past. Although some of their lieutenants have said some quite scary things, Ruto could only go so far in attacking President Kenyatta in his alliance with Raila because he is still DP in the same government. He had to draw a line somewhere where his criticism wouldn’t turn into self-sabotage. Raila, as an opposition figure, couldn’t throw the kitchen sink at Ruto without some of the stencils flying and hitting his Azimio la Umoja partner Kenyatta.

Something else, which is quite promising, also seems to be developing. Possibly because of devolution or the way Kenya’s feisty online citizens have fashioned the image of the country, outside people are increasingly seeing Kenya as several countries in one. It’s pretty much like travellers to New York in the US will not be deterred by a mass shooting during a parade in Illinois in which 32 people are killed.

A tourist coming to visit Kisumu or to climb Mount Kenya will be unbothered or sufficiently discerning not to be discouraged by political violence in Uasin Gishu County.

The unfortunate flip side is that, as happens in India, is that it seems people are factoring violence into the electoral equation. If 50 or so people get killed, that’s “expected”. The surprise is if they are no deaths.

But, ultimately, people were running mad during the lockdowns. Plus Europe and parts of the US are witnessing the hottest summers in their history. Only another pandemic and lockdowns are going to stop them from travelling.

Geography has also handed Kenya a lottery. Those tourists who used to head to conflict-wracked Ethiopia, and a portion of those destined for South Africa, have done their calculations and figured that on balance, a trip to Kenya is less risky and better.

Other East African destinations like Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda are also catching some of the falling fruits. Someone always wins.