Turkana Oil got to be a blessing, Come what may!

Creativity at its best; demonstrating the excitement in Turkana Oil discovery

“At least now Turkana County will refund the Kenya 4 Kenyans money,”

“Now I’m sure we shall achieve vision 2030,”

…These are just some of the numerous optimistic opinions that Kenyans has on the news about Turkana Oil discovery. Such opinions have chromed the social network with some creative Kenyans going ahead and designing edited photos that communicate their optimism better.

Yesterday’s announcement of Oil findings in Turkana County by the President has aroused discussions prospecting future benefits this country is about to bag. As a matter of fact, Kenyans with eye for business opportunities have all over sudden rechanneled their ambitions from the upcoming Konza city to Turkana County. Yes, even some have suggested creation of another city in the Northern region.

However, there is something economists call Natural Resource Curse that mainly affect countries with deposits of Oil or immense natural resources. Such countries are posed with political instability threats and often end up in the hands of dictators and autocrats. And with the recent oil discovery in Turkana Kenya has no choice but to avoid this curse that many developing and developed countries have been unable to avoid.

The Turkana Oil will be drilled by two companies, Tullow oil Plc and Africa Oil, who are expected to make Kenya an Oil producer in probably the next three years. Report has it that despite the oil having similar properties to that of Uganda, the Kenyan deposits seem to have deeper potential. In addition to this awesome story is the fact that Kenya already has a refinery and with the LAPSSET pipeline passing through those areas, the process might be much faster than we think. Definitely, these optimists have a reason to post all those positive messages.

To reap maximum benefits from this project, Kenyans have a duty to elect responsible leaders in the next general elections who will turn this fortune into a blessing and not a curse. These leaders should learn from countries who have avoided the curse, a good example of such a country is Norway.

Some of the tactics employed by Norway to avoid the curse was to hand out just a couple drilling permits a year. In an even more stunning act of self-restraint, the Norwegians decided not to spend most of the oil money. Instead, they put it in an oil trust fund that's now worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The Norwegian government only spends the interest that the fund generates.  

In my opinion, this seems to be a wise move that the government can employ, restraint itself from falling into traps of capitalist-greedy-opportunistic West ready to leap where they never sowed. How I wish our politicians could for once put Kenya’s interest first and set guidelines that would make Turkana Oil a blessing.

Since we were discovered or rather since Kenya was structured I’m very sure we’ve been supplying the Northern Kenya with resources. And despite feeding its people year in year out we’ve managed to get where we are as compared to where we were 50 years ago. Now kindly picture where we are set get once Kenya starts pocketing resources from the Northern Kenya. A positive mind will definitely tell you that the future is bright.

I need not to say more.