Laikipia leaders call for transparency on quarantine plans

Information reaching Kenyans in fragments about plans to establish an Ebola quarantine centre inside Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki has triggered alarm and panic over the potential risks Ebola talk poses to life, rural incomes and the tourism sector in Laikipia.

Laikipia Air Base sits within Nanyuki Municipality and also hosts Nyati Barracks, home to the British Army Training Unit Kenya.

Nanyuki town is a site of intense interaction between civilians and military personnel, including those at Laikipia Air Base, the 10 Engineers KDF Barracks and British soldiers who conduct annual training exercises in Laikipia.

Secrecy around a proposed Ebola quarantine centre for foreigners within the area has fuelled concern, with residents expressing fears that the government has not clearly communicated what precautions are in place, what to expect or whether there are safeguards to prevent any possible spread of the virus from the military facility into the civilian population.

Nanyuki town and Laikipia County are deeply integrated into the tourism economy of the Mt Kenya–Laikipia circuit, and references to pandemic-related pathogens such as Ebola quickly heighten anxiety. This is shaped by recent experience with avian influenza and the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted tourism businesses, reduced rural incomes for food suppliers and weakened curio enterprises, some of which have yet to recover.

The avian flu outbreak in Asia in the late 1990s affected demand from key source markets, triggering mass booking cancellations and causing business shocks in Kenya. The COVID-19 lockdowns hit both the demand and supply sides of the market. There are now fears that Ebola-related talk could trigger similar disruptions.

The tourism sector is a major employer, earning nearly Sh500 billion in 2025 and contributing about eight per cent to GDP. Dwindling government tax revenues could suffer further if tourism is hit by negative media publicity linking Kenya to Ebola. Kenyans first learnt of the reported Ebola quarantine facility plans through American media, with Kenyan authorities yet to issue a comprehensive clarification. Parliament has since summoned Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale to shed light on the matter.

On Sunday, Democracy for Citizens Party leader Rigathi Gachagua told a church audience in Nairobi that the united opposition will organise a public rally in Nanyuki this week to give residents an opportunity for public participation and to air concerns over the Ebola issue.

The four Members of Parliament in Laikipia also issued a joint press statement yesterday, demanding greater transparency from the national government on the Ebola matter. The statement was signed by Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri, Laikipia North MP Sarah Korere, Laikipia West MP Wachira Karani and Woman Rep Jane Kagiri.

Laikipia is a county of about 580,000 people according to the 2019 National Population census, with Nanyuki town being the biggest commercial centre along the Nairobi- Isiolo-Moyale-Addis highway, followed by Nyahururu town on the Nyeri-Nakuru route.

The majority of inhabitants are migrants from neighbouring Nyeri, Meru, Samburu, Isiolo, Nyandarua and Nakuru counties, small-scale peasant farmers who bought out former colonial settler wheat and beef commercial ranches since early post-Independence days.

Laikipia also neighbours Isiolo and Samburu counties, which are home to several military training facilities and installations like the 78-tank battalion, school, armoury, school of infantry, not to mention several training ranges for British armed forces.

Besides livestock and food crop farming by the majority of inhabitants, Laikipia is a central hub of the high-end tourism value chain in Kenya and the region.

It is a dynamic economic web interlinking major league players of international and local investors, their high-end clientele, and numerous local service suppliers ranging from farmers, curio sellers, transport operators, security services and government tax collectors, among others.

Nationally, official numbers show 47.8 per cent of the 2.5 million foreign visitors to Kenya in 2005 were tourists.

Unlike the coastal and Maasai Mara mass circuit segment, the Mt Kenya and Laikipia circuit tends to the high-end segment of the tourism market clientele flying in private jets at the newly refurbished Mt Kenya Safari Club private airstrip, the Nanyuki airstrip and numerous other private charter lodge airstrips on private conservancies, flying in visitors directly from JKIA, Mombasa and Wilson airports.

In recent years, the Avian flu and Covid-19 pandemics gutted tourist numbers overnight, leading to colossal losses of businesses, jobs and decimating rural household incomes and livelihoods of local farmers who supply the tourism facilities.

The robust curios enterprises sub-sector has never recovered to the pre-COVID-19 years and its former outlets have since become jaded and rusty wood rots, an economic scar of the pandemic’s legacy.

The 2024 Laikipia County Statistical Abstract reported high end tourist arrivals to the Laikipia circuit had surged to 9,841 visitors, which was four times the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lows, a significant rebound.

The report also captured rising investments in bed capacity, numbering 2,377, and the number of classified and unclassified lodge facilities growing from 103 in 2019 to 110 in 2023.

Historically, state agencies and state mandarins always seemed to fall short in upholding and defending the dignity of the people of Laikipia when their interests conflicted with the interests of foreign entities.

For the longest time, when local communities began agitating against British armed forces killing and maiming locals by abandoning unexploded ordinances in communal grazing lands in Laikipia, on top of soldiers abandoning children they had sired with local women, then Internal Security minister, Mr Julius Sunkuli, and then Attorney General, Mr Amos Wako, denied knowledge of the atrocities.

They also blocked victims from accessing police reports in government custody for their court actions against the British army.

This was despite mixed-race children found around training ranges, reflecting the racial profile of British Army troops who comprise Caucasian European features and oriental features of Gurka soldiers from Asia.

A civil society group called Osiligi organised victims and survivors to pursue the British armed forces in foreign courts on their own.

The state would not render support to its own citizens seeking justice from a foreign military entity it had authorised to operate in Kenya through official treaties to conduct war games with live munitions in privately registered communal group ranches.

Laikipia is home to numerous research projects and research activities by individual scholars and research institutions.

 Among these include the American Smithsonian Institute, which runs a multi-million-dollar Mpala research centre at Mpala ranch.

In line with the new legal regime of Access and Benefits Sharing (ABS) laws passed in 2016, research entities are required to disclose their interests and share the benefits of their activities with local communities, in addition to compliance with Prior Informed Consent (PIC) regulations from local communities.

However, in collusion with the research entities and their financiers, county and national government agencies have since stalled a directive by former governor for Laikipia, Mr Ndiritu Muriithi, to all research entities to show proof of legal permits for their activities, including compliance with prior informed consent from local communities.

The failure to enforce ABS laws not only results in continued loss of benefits due to the local communities but also perpetuates the impunity notions that compliance with Kenyan laws by foreign entities is optional.