TREATING DISPLACED PEOPLE
As a medical doctor, I have had the privilege of treating people who have been displaced from their home countries by war, political instability and conflict. For me, refugees and migrants are therefore not statistics. They are people I have sat with, listened to and treated.
Over the years, one thing has become increasingly clear to me: ordinary Africans rarely start wars.
Behind many conflicts are struggles for political power, control of resources and economic interests. Africa’s extractive industries—minerals, oil and other natural resources—have historically attracted powerful interests, both internal and external. Healthcare, education and other essential institutions can similarly become instruments through which political and economic power is exercised.
But when countries descend into conflict, it is ordinary people who pay the price.
The displaced people I meet are simply trying to live
DISPLACED PERSONS AND LIVELIHOOD
Many of the displaced patients I have treated at Excella Healthcare over the past 15 years are ordinary people trying to rebuild their lives. Some are small-scale traders. Others survive through whatever legitimate work they can find. They work, raise children, pay rent, buy food and contribute to the communities in which they live.
Many have had their education disrupted by war. They never had the opportunity to acquire the qualifications that people growing up in peaceful countries sometimes take for granted.
And so they trade.
They repair things.
They provide services.
They do whatever honest work is available to them.
They are doing what human beings have done throughout history: moving away from danger and towards safety and opportunity.
When people move voluntarily in search of better opportunities, we even have a familiar expression for it: searching for greener pastures.
Africans should therefore be very careful about creating a political narrative in which foreigners—particularly fellow Africans—become convenient explanations for our economic difficulties.
Political declarations have consequences
Recent declarations by the President of Kenya concerning foreigners operating small businesses in Kenya are therefore concerning.
Even where the intention may be to protect opportunities for Kenyan citizens, political leaders must recognise the enormous weight carried by presidential words.
When a president appears to declare that foreigners should not engage in certain businesses, and suggests that executive action need not wait for Parliament, those words can easily be interpreted on the streets as permission to harass foreigners.
That is dangerous.
Kenya must learn from the experiences of other African countries where economic frustration has sometimes been redirected towards African migrants. Kenyans themselves have condemned xenophobic attacks against our citizens and other Africans elsewhere on the continent.
We cannot condemn xenophobia when Kenyans are victims and then tolerate rhetoric capable of encouraging the same behaviour when foreigners are living among us.
Already, there are worrying signs that some people may interpret political declarations as a licence to intimidate or harass foreigners conducting legitimate businesses.
Political leaders must extinguish that fire before it starts.
My recent experience with African medical leaders
I recently participated in a leadership meeting of the Coalition of African National Medical Associations (CANMA), where leaders of national medical associations from across Africa were being equipped to strengthen leadership within their associations and influence national health policy.
The objective is larger than any individual country.
We want African medical associations to learn from one another, strengthen one another and ultimately speak with a stronger collective African voice within international institutions such as the World Medical Association.
That is Pan-Africanism in practice.
Yet in these very forums, colleagues from other African countries are now asking us:
“Why is Kenya attacking foreigners?”
That is an uncomfortable question for Kenyan professionals to have to answer.
It should also concern our political leadership.
Professionals and civil society have a responsibility to speak when government pronouncements threaten the principles on which our country and continent should be built. Loyalty to one’s country does not require silence when government is wrong. Sometimes patriotism requires precisely the opposite.
What kind of Africa are we building?
Similar concerns arise when government institutions introduce barriers that appear to make it increasingly difficult for African professionals to practise across borders.
Recently, questions have arisen regarding requirements affecting foreign doctors seeking to practise in Kenya.
Of course every country has a legitimate responsibility to regulate professionals, protect patients, maintain standards and enforce immigration laws.
But regulation must be lawful, transparent, predictable and consistent with our broader African aspirations.
Africa should be moving towards greater professional mobility, mutual recognition of qualifications, regional integration and expansion of the African common market—not towards building new walls between Africans.
We cannot celebrate Pan-Africanism at continental summits while practising economic nationalism against fellow Africans at home.
Foreigners are an easy political scapegoat
When governments fail to create sufficient employment, foreigners can become politically convenient scapegoats.
But blaming a small trader from another African country does not create jobs.
It merely redirects public anger away from the real questions.
Why is the economy not generating enough employment?
Why are businesses struggling?
Why is corruption consuming resources that should be building infrastructure, hospitals, schools and industries?
Why is doing business unnecessarily expensive?
Why do politically connected individuals sometimes appear able to accumulate extraordinary wealth without corresponding productive enterprise?
Even more disturbing are allegations of politicians using their influence to force entrepreneurs to surrender interests in businesses that those entrepreneurs spent years building.
Imagine building an enterprise through years of sacrifice, employing people, paying taxes and taking enormous risks—only for someone with political power to demand a piece of what you have created.
That is not entrepreneurship.
That is not capitalism.
And it certainly does not create employment.
It destroys enterprise.
THE REAL ENEMY
The enemy of the unemployed Kenyan is therefore not automatically the African trader running a small business down the road.
Our greater enemies are corruption, poor governance, economic exclusion, unemployment, unfair competition and the abuse of political power.
Africans must never be turned against Africans
We must never reach a point where politicians succeed in turning Africans against one another.
When that temptation arises, we should look deeper.
We should examine the continuing economic structures inherited from colonialism.
We should confront corruption.
We should confront political greed.
We should question economic systems that allow extraction of African wealth without adequately improving the lives of Africans.
And, above all, in Kenya we must defend the Constitution of Kenya 2010.
Kenya is not governed by roadside declarations.
We are a constitutional democracy.
The Executive has powers. Parliament has powers. The Judiciary has powers. County governments have powers. Citizens have rights.
The Constitution deliberately distributes those powers because our history taught us the danger of concentrating authority in one individual or institution.
No matter how popular a political objective may appear, the Executive should not circumvent Parliament or the Constitution to achieve it.
If restrictions on businesses operated by foreigners are necessary, they must be developed through the law, subjected to parliamentary scrutiny, comply with constitutional protections and be implemented without encouraging xenophobia.
Kenya must choose Pan-Africanism
Kenya has historically occupied a respected place on this continent.
We host Africans fleeing conflict.
We educate African students.
Our doctors work across Africa.
Our businesses operate across Africa.
Our professionals lead continental organisations.
Our citizens live, work and invest across this continent.
Our prosperity is therefore intertwined with the prosperity of Africa.
The long-term answer to Africa’s problems cannot be 54 countries retreating behind their borders and blaming citizens of neighbouring countries for their domestic failures.
The answer must be a stronger Africa: trading together, learning together, treating each other’s patients, building businesses across borders, recognising professional skills across borders and speaking collectively on the world stage.
That is the Africa we should be building.
That is Pan-Africanism.
KENYA’S AUGUST 2027 ELECTIONS
As Kenya approaches the next general election on 10 August 2027, citizens should judge every leader against a simple standard: Do they respect the Constitution and the institutions created by it?
Political convenience must never be allowed to override constitutionalism.
Economic frustration must never become xenophobia.
And political ambition must never be allowed to turn African against African.
Our problems are not caused simply by the African who crossed a border looking for peace, safety or opportunity.
Our challenge is to build economies strong enough to provide opportunity for everyone while maintaining the rule of law.
Africa has spent too much of its history being divided by others.
We should not now volunteer to divide ourselves.
Africans must never allow politicians to turn Africans against Africans.
Dr Simon Kigondu, Gynaecologist, Human Rights Defender