FAIR GRANTS INVESTIGATIONS 2009–2010 Kenya: mission to cheat Zambian mineworkers and Nigerian farmers Marijuana in Ivory Coast After Zimbabwe’s medical tsunami Black empowerment, Namibia-style Schoolgirl marriages and petrol smugglers in Benin FORUM for AFRICAN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS Contents 1. Kenya: Mission to cheat Kipchumba Some 1 2. Slave labour in Zambia Alvin Chiinga 4 3. Namibia: Black empowerment gone wrong John Grobler 7 4. Benin: Poverty perpetuates cruel traditions Christophe Assogba 11 5. Benin: Petrol smuggling funds the powerful Kokouvi Eklou 16 6. Kenya: How the African Inland Church robbed its orphans Walter Cheruiyot 19 7. Ivory Coast: The smoking rooms of Abidjan Edouard Denoua Gonto 22 8. Nigeria: Farm subsidies have been stolen, are stolen and will continue to be stolen Aniefiok Udonquak 28 9. Zimbabwe after the medical tsunami Stanley Kwenda 31 About the FAIR Grants n 2009, as in previous years, the Forum for African gladly accept donations to the governing party from petrol Investigative Reporters allocated grants to a number of smugglers whilst purporting to clamp down on them. African investigative journalists to enable them to follow Edouard Gonto, meanwhile, makes us question whether up on an investigative story which would otherwise, due the governance frameworks that send entire police brigades Ito a lack of time and resources, not have seen the light of day. to chase marijuana users in Ivory Coast – jailing children in The investigations were done, the stories were written and the process – are suitable in a country where poor farmers this is the result. This brochure contains nine articles in total, increasingly turn to the ‘herb’ as a more profitable crop than revealing hidden truths from East, West and southern Africa, cocoa or coffee. And Christophe Assogba attempts to answer exposing injustices ranging from child abuse in Benin to elite the question as to why parents in Benin continue to adhere to enrichment in Namibia and murders of policemen in Kenya. medieval traditions, by mutilating and selling off their young The articles were first published, as per the grants rules, in daughters in spite of the efforts made by a dozen NGOs. the African media that the awarded journalists work for. This All of the above is also in line with FAIR’s mission, which is in keeping with the objective of the FAIR grants, which is not seeks to increase transparency, democracy and citizen’s merely to produce a booklet, but to deliver quality journalism empowerment through quality investigative journalism. to the African public through the media that serve it. Please visit FAIR’s website www.fairreporters.org, or its In the aftermath of some of the publications in the Facebook page (Forum for African Investigative Reporters) for particular countries, strides were made by the public regular updates on new grants projects. FAIR –‘fairreporters’- and civil society to address the injustices that the FAIR can also be followed on Twitter. investigations had brought to light. In Nigeria, thanks to Aniefiok Udonquak’s persistence in following up on farm FAIR, July 2010 subsidies corruption, state reform in the administration of these subsidies is back on the agenda. The donors of the The 2009–2010 grants project was made possible by Freevoice. African Inland Church in Kenya, which robbed the orphans it pretended to care for, have been alerted to the full extent of the fraud because of Walter Cheruiyot’s work in unearthing The grants investigations were managed and peer mentored just what had happened there. The money-pilfering, state- by Charles Rukuni owned Namibia Wildlife Resources Company has folded This compilation was edited by Evelyn Groenink partly as a result of John Grobler’s meticulous checking up Typesetting and production: Compress.dsl on faulty books, and the restructuring of this part of that country’s tourism sector is imminent. More generally, policemen in Kenya have been alerted, by Kipchumba Some, to the dangers posed by a governing party that uses them as tools; unions in Zambia have been shaken by Alvin Chiinga’s exposé on how casual labourers are let down; FORUM for AFRICAN INVESTIGATIVE Kokouvi Eklou has shown up hypocritical rulers in Benin, who REPORTERS KENYan GOVErning ParTY SENT POLICEMEN TO THEir DEATHS Mission to cheat KIPCHUMBA SOME 1 ‘WE ONLY RESCUED ninE. WE DON’T knOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REST OF THEM’ Article first published inThe Standard on Saturday, Kenya, 10 April 2010 In the run-up to the 2007 general election, thou- Nyanza. The events on 25 December, Boxing Day, sands of Kenya’s Administration Police officers were described as an ‘ordeal in which the hapless were summoned to their training college in Nairobi AP officers were chased through Nyanza ‘like wild for an undisclosed assignment. It turned out that animals’ by irate opposition ODM supporters, who they were to act as agents of President Kibaki’s Party had somehow become aware of the ‘mission to cheat’. of National Unity, and that they would be sent to Finding out who exactly was attacked and where, ‘work for the party’ in the upcoming elections, is difficult. Every village, every voting station seems planned for 27 December 2007. Their mission: to go to have a story to tell. Out of 22 AP officers, who were to Nyanza, an opposition stronghold, and ensure dropped from a ‘City Hoppa’ bus at Homa Bay police that on the day of the elections ballot boxes would station in Nyanza, only nine made it to the safety be stuffed with pro-government votes. They went of the guarded station. Opposition mobs, who had to Nyanza to prepare to do just that. It is not known been waiting for them, chased and perhaps killed how many exactly ended up dead as a result. the others. ‘We only rescued nine. We do not know On 21 December 2007, a week before the elections, what happened to the rest of them,’ an officer at a government order was sent out to the Administration Homa Bay said. Police (AP) authority in Nairobi. It summoned 3 000 AP The survivors’ tales are equally sketchy. Constable officers to go for training at the ECK training college. Charles Kibet* sustained head wounds when he was They were told to take their civilian clothes. attacked in the village of Nyandhiwa. ‘It was horrible. Upon arrival at the college, a Police It was like a horror movie. Everybody was shouting Commissioner whose name was not disclosed, and and chasing us. We did not have anything to protect equally anonymous college trainers, lectured them ourselves with. We were at the mercy of the angry on politics. They were agents of this government, villagers.’ Constable Kibet, pleading with his attackers they said, and they were expected to now also be that he was also originally from the same ethnic agents of the governing Party of National Unity of background as they, survived the ordeal with ‘only’ a President Mwai Kibaki. machete cut to his head. ‘I told them I was a Kalenjin, After the lectures, specific instructions followed. and thus could not be their enemy,’ he says. At the time, They were told that they would be taken to Nyanza, the Kalenjin and Luo tribes were solidly united behind an opposition stronghold. They had to hand in their the ODM’s presidential candidate, Raila Odinga. IDs and instead carry PNU letters, with president Odinga would eventually become Prime Minister Kibaki’s signature. They were also given envelopes after the 28 February 2008 power sharing deal. with money in it (it is not known how much, Ed.). Constable Richard Momanyi* was also lucky Not everybody received the same instructions, or to survive. He was attacked while looking for ‘his’ the money, however. As the contingent that was to voting station at the Uriri trading centre in Nyanza. go to Nyanza took an oath to ‘serve’, it saw a group ‘They beat me up, held me down and threatened to of other ‘trainees’ leaving the camp. Some in the castrate me. I pleaded with them that I was not their contingent knew some of the men who left: these enemy. I gave them all the money I had. A highway colleagues were originally from Nyanza. It seemed traffic patrol officer who found me escorted me to probable that they were removed from the group Kisili and gave me money to go home.’ because they could be opposition supporters. At the Sori trading centre, where another voting The Standard on Saturday has obtained some station was installed, some locals described how and accounts from eyewitnesses on what happened why they killed an AP inspector on the afternoon of that day, two days before the elections in South Christmas Day. ‘He alighted from a bus and started 2 ‘THE man ON THE OTHER END SaiD THEY WERE GOing TO kiLL Him’ acting suspiciously. When we asked him who he learnt that a number of them had been sent to the was, he reached into his breast pocket. We thought region to cheat in the elections. he was removing a gun and that is when we lynched On 25 December, Jane Wambui received a call him,’ said a local. from the mobile phone that belonged to her husband, Several female officers were also deployed for the George Githuati. ‘A strange voice asked whether we operation. A senior source within the AP disclosed knew the owner of the phone. We said yes. The man that some of them, including the daughter of a on the other end said they were going to kill him.’ senior AP adjutant, were raped. The female officers George Githuati, who hailed from Watuka village, refused to talk about their ordeal.