When Aden Duale gets too clever by half, we should instantly smell a rat

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale during a media briefing on Kenya’s Ebola preparedness and response at Afya House in Nairobi. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, who previously said he misunderstood a court order prohibiting the construction of the Laikipia quarantine facility for Americans, suddenly sounds very clever, declaring Kenya will not serve as holding grounds for countries that have locked out their nationals for bearing Ebola.

We don’t know what has triggered this clarity of mind, after things appeared so fuzzy in the past. And coming in the thick of the El-Nino rains that inhibits our view, this nullifies the wisdom in Jimmy Cliff’s evergreen song, “I Can See Clearly Now (The Rain in Gone).

Duale made this declaration early in the week when he reported that all the patients under quarantine in Kenya had been given a clean bill of health and had been allowed to go home. He also urged Kenyans in DRC to come visiting, but bring no Ebola with them.

I think this is discriminatory; why would he say that of Kenyans but not to Americans whom the authorities allowed into the country, even when it was clear they were at risk or had been infected with the virus?

Duale hasn’t explained to Kenyans how the two individuals who succumbed to Ebola got into the country in the first place, yet our airports are presented as impregnable health fortresses. Or even what happened to Kenyans felled by police bullets in Nanyuki last June, while protesting the very quarantine built there for Americans.

For consistency, we should be able to accept any business in these hard times, even if it means hosting the sick from the rest of the world. Bure kabisa.