KENYA'S CENSUS- MY OPINION

It will be worth to explain my stand after defining the word census as " the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national 'population and door to door censuses' (to be taken every 10 years according to United Nations recommendations), agriculture, and business censuses. The term itself comes from Latin: during the Roman Republic the census was a list which kept track of all adult males fit for military service.

The census can be contrasted with sampling in which information is obtained only from a subset of a population. Census data is commonly used for research, business marketing, and planning as well as a base for sampling surveys. In some countries, census data is used to apportion electoral representation (sometimes controversially). It is widely recognized that population and housing censuses are vital for the planning of any society. Traditional censuses are, however, becoming more costly. A rule of thumb for census costs in developing countries has been $1 USD (approximately Kshs. 70) per enumerated person. More realistic figures today are around $3 USD (approx. Kshs. 230). These approximations should be taken with great care since a variable number of activities are included in different countries (e.g. enumerators can either be hired or requested from civil servants). The cost in developed countries is far higher. The cost for the 2000 census in the U.S. was estimated to be $4.5 billion USD, more than $15 per enumerated person. Alternative possibilities for retrieving data are being investigated. Nordic countries Denmark, Finland and Norway have for several years used administrative registers. Partial and sample censuses are used in France and Germany. Kenya uses full census or massive one.

Now with the definition and the explanation done, I feel I should add that census is not only human but also we do that for animals, domesticated and wild. We count animals so that we know which ones need to be culled to balance the ecology or which animals in this case needs to be promoted in population to promote ecosystem or save them from extinction. You know the reasons.

What scares me is that I don't trust Kenya's political machinery. Every simple or complex national process has been an opportunity seen by the government officials and the political officials to cheat and loot the national coffers. This is when they scheme to inflate costs and expenses, hire ghosts and pay them, give contracts to kinsmen and friends all with the intent to loot, favor and steal! So when census is at hand around the corner, just like election officials they have appointed friends and kins and ghosts already. The costs of the census are already approximated to be too high or costly already and the manpower total number is enormous, almost like that needed in an Indian census process. So when you mention of the upcoming census process, shit, I am scared and worried!

Then last but not the least, we count animals according to their species and origins and to decide their number so that we may exercise control over there existence. This unfortunately is what is possibly going to be employed or has been done in the past. Our politicians cannot assure me that they will use the census data for any positive agenda as its purpose or aim dictates (see the first para of this article and the definition).

All our clashes in the past, pre-election clashes have been with a statical backing and even the just recent and fresh post-election violence and other election period (pre- and post-) have been on this statistical ground. This tribe are foreign here and there and they will tend or tend to or did tend to, vote for this party or this particular individual on poll against the supposedly hosting community's party or person of choice. So we have to disrupt them for a while or permanently reduce their numbers in the region/constituency and we will have our choice win! That is the statistics behind everything and do you expect a simple common mwananchi to calculate on this so well if not the well placed politicians and government personalities or mercenaries well placed?

So when you mention of the upcoming census, it makes me shudder. Is there a way this process as noble as it is, be done with the omission of the clause requesting for the counted or the populace's ethnicity, tribe or religion? By all means, no one can assure me that the politicians will be using the census date purely for economic reasons and life improvement. Let us all be counted as Kenyans on different regions, professions, family size and academic as well as economic power...but not on tribal lines.

Kenya is one of the countries in the developing nations' group that has an established social statistics made easier by the National ID card and birth certificates. This is a viable tool that most countries lack or lag behind in, even India and this should be used as a daily tool to collect statistics on the citizens. It is a system already established and thus now cheaper and fast rather than the census which comes once and it is costly. The amount spent on the census to count hungry Kenyans should be diverted to feeding them, improving the socioeconomic infrastructure which is in an abject and absurd situation.

Counting the population as one- Kenyans, will indeed foster the national spirit of one-ship, peace and unity. The solid census is better than creating into the people the double-edged sword of knowing where he/she belongs, how many they are in comparison to the other tribe, their distribution in the country and in the economy...

That is just my opinion. Stand up and be counted as a human being not as an animal be classified as a Kenyan not as a tribe x.