Daggers are drawn over the Nile waters

MZEE Joel Newton Were Nyakoyo may not be a known figure in the Kenyan history. But Mzee Nyakoyo has a strong message for Kenyans, East Africans and citizens of other upper riparian countries on the the Nile that they should listen to.
He says the 1929 and 1959 Nile River treaty giving Egypt and Sudan express authority and powers to control the water of River Nile and by extension a say in the utilization of the Lake Victoria should be renegotiated and repealed.
The 78 years-old elder from Nyakach Location in Kenya’s Nyanza Province wants the treaties signed between the British Colonial government and Egypt on the use of the Nile waters reviewed and the interest of all riparian countries, both upper and lower be catered for.
For Mzee Nyakoyo invokes the Luo adage: “Ludhi ema goyo ni tho! “ (which literally, means it’s your stick that paves way for you). The octegerian, who lives at the shores of Lake Victoria near Sango Rota recounts to an elders’ forum organised by Uhai Lake Forum that in the 1960s during the cold war period between the Western and Eastern bloc, former Soviet Union Prime Minister Nikita Krushchev advised the Arab countries to use their oil as a weapon.
The Arabs, he said, heeded the call from the Russian leader and have since then used oil as a weapon in the fifght for their economic and political destiny.
He then posed: “Why can’t Kenya, Uganda ,Tanzania other upper riparian states use water from Lake Victoria to bail them out of their economic quagmire?”
Mzee Nyakoyo recalled the stand taken by two eminent East Africans, Joseph Nyerere, a brother to the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, former President of Tanzania and Mzee Orinda Sibuor, a former member of the Kenyan Senate when they coined a slogan of; “ a barrel of oil for a barrel of water” immediately after the independence of the two states. The two were totally opposed to the Nile River Treaty.
Mzee Nyakoyo is not alone. All is not well with the riparian states as discontent is brewing over the utilization of the Nile waters. There is a growing feeling in especially the East African the treaty needs to reviewed because it is skewed in favour of Egypt and Sudan to the detriment of any meaningful and sustainable development to be undertaken around the lake basin, the source of the Nile River.
A Ugandan Senior Lecturer in International Law and Environment Law, Dr John Ntambirweki says there is no treaty as far as he knows barring the other riparian states from using the Lake Victoria and Nile river waters.
“Our people should not face water scarcity because some countries deny them the use of their resources. The East Africans should harvest the waters for any purpose as they wish and wait and to see who will stop them,” Ntimbirweki told the East Africa legislative Assembly meeting in Kisumu City recently.
The 1929 Nile Treaty between Britain and Egypt government gave Egypt the right to 48 billion cubic metres of water a year. In 1959,a new agreement upped Egypt’s share to 55.5 bcn per year and Sudan 18.5 bcn. The agreement gave the two countries full powers to use the Nile waters in the agreemen which came into force on December 12, 1959.
However, the other riparaian were ignored, leading to the current uproar.
During a forum of the EALA members in Kisumu, Kenya’s Minister of Water Resources,Ms Martha Karua said she believed the 1929 treaty which was revised in 1959 was “just a note” the Queen of England exchanged with the then Egyptian administration allowing the later to freely use the Nile River waters which originate from Lake Victoria.
Said Ms Karua: “I have done thorough research and found that the Queen just wrote a note to the Egyptian administration on May 7. 1929 and there was nothing barring the East Africans from making use of the Lake Victoria waters”.
The EALA members felt that the pact should be looked into expeditiously and an agreement reached with Egypt over the utilisation of Lake Victoria and Nile waters.
Some members felt that the East African region is not bound by the agreement which they were never party to in the first place.
Prof Charles Okidi of University of Nairobi says the agreements were not binding because the East Africans can only talk of ignoring the pact if they were party to it.
“How do we want to come out from what we were not in the first place?”, he posed.
However, Egypt and Sudan have since insisted that before any negotiations on the use of River Nile waters can be initiated, the earlier treaties of 1929 and 1959 must first be recognised by all the riparian states.
Mzee Nyakoyo says it is a known fact that Kenya has the biggest catchment area of Lake Victoria but it’s shameful that despite what the Kenya Government does to save the lake, Kenyans live in abject poverty especially those in the lake basin.
Said he: “ Lake Victoria waters form the source of river Nile, which is the lifeline of the Sudanese and Egyptians. This water is our God given natural resource which should be our oil in the eyes of the Arabs”.
However, Egypt evokes its age-old use of the river’s waters as proof that Almighty ordained River Nile to it. For Sudan, it is the same old claim on historical association with Egypt that was put in place in 1959 by British colonial agreement.
A Cross section of the elders from the lake basin felt that Lake Victoria waters should be apportioned to save the people living along the lake who have to sacrifice a lot to ensure the lake survives. “Kenya and other upper riparian states should use the lake as a resource because it takes a lot from their the region governments and the people to sustain the lake,” the elders stated.
There is a strong case put forward in involving the Egyptian and Sudanese governments towards the conservation of the lake and assist organisations like Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP) to clean it up.
Nile River, Mzee Nyakoyo says, is 6,700 kilometers long and its life depends on the river waters draining into the lake of which Kenya contributes majority.
Former Director of Water Department, Mr Omwenga once informed World Bank visiting team to Lake Victoria Project that conferences and meetings have been going on over Nile water resources equitable sharing among the ten riparian states. He says time has come for treaties signed in 1929, and 1959 to be abrogated.
Mr Omwenga said the British colonial Government signed treaties with Egypt and Sudan on behalf of the some East African countries before independence to share resources of River Nile without involving them. “There is a consensus now that these treaties should be re-examined and the dynamics be reviewed,” he told the visiting World Bank Mission on LVEMP Project.