An article that recently ran in the standard:

Kenya's spoilt exiles have nothing to give this country
Jerry Okungu

Lately, I have been following events of direct relevance to a host of foreigners who claim to be Kenyans but happen to live abroad, notably in Western Europe and North America.
The other day there was a summit in Nairobi, organized by a group known as the Kenya Community Abroad, in conjunction with the Kenya government.
As high profile as the gathering to discuss the brain drain was – and it included Ali Mazrui, all the way from New York – it never received the prepublicity that would have allowed the diaspora's prodigal sons to meaningfully engage with their cousins back home.
I am told the organizers, functionaries of the Ministry of Planning and National Development, wanted to avoid involving locals because some chapas were involved!
When one was afterwards challenged at a local pub to explain why he had declined to invite home grown intellectuals who had braved poverty and torture during the dehumanizing Kanu years without bolting like the cousins being feted by the Narc government, the official hurriedly swallowed his beer and departed.
Let me spell out some basic facts about the so-called Kenya Community Abroad.
This body was formed with the good intentions you would expect to find in any group which has alienated itself from its roots and is haunted by guilt, nostalgia and sentimentalism.
Right now, there are three types of Kenyans living abroad.
The first consists of those who left Kenya between 1960s and 1990s to pursue further studies.
At the expense of poor parents and villagers who sacrificed chickens and goats to raise the money to buy them tickets and fees, they left for colleges in Canada, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Landing in hostile lands, they suffered culture shock and economic hardship.
A number dropped out of college, others found odd jobs to survive.
As years turned into decades, with no papers or savings to speak of, their chances of returning home empty-handed to face poor villagers became ever more remote.
Faced with possible repatriation as illegal immigrants, some found partners of convenience to marry to legitimize their stay.
In all fairness, how could we expect this group, which left our shores at the tender age of 19 or 20 and is now in its 40s, 50s and 60s, to adapt to turbulent, jobless Kenya?
This group has nothing to offer Kenya and Kenya has nothing to give them.
The best way of dealing with them is to treat them as distant relatives.
They stopped being Kenyans a long time ago.
The second group consists of those Kenyans who, having been educated locally and abroad at the tax payer’s expense, found it difficult to realize their lifetime dreams of creating wealth.
They looked at the Kenyan economy and salary structures in the civil service. They compared their earnings with those of counterparts in the West.
They decided society was shortchanging them after their long sacrifices in the education system and bolted for greener pastures, moving their families to the first world.
T
his lot belongs to the category of economic refugees that left the country voluntarily when Kenya needed them most. In their own words, they had to choose between country and cash.
They chose cash.
Among this group, a number have retired in their countries of adoption and have no intention of returning because their young families know no other home than New York, Geneva and London.
The only time some of them return, as Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Njeri did recently, is when someone invites them to pontificate on the international seminar and conference circuit.
They come back because someone else is footing the bill for their first class tickets, five star accommodation and an irresistible daily allowance.
The last group consists of those Kenyans who fled political persecution, intimidation, torture and general frustration. These are the people one must accord the prestigious title of "political exiles".
But there is something curious about this group.
When they fled, they didn’t move to neighboring Uganda, Ethiopia or Tanzania.
They chose New York, London, Stockholm and Toronto.
The reason was simple.
These were the cities with the economic and political resources to allow them to reassert themselves, offering a flow of support funds for their continued activism.
They did this with a certain success, not for the rest of Kenyans, but for themselves and their immediate families.
As the struggle for reform gained momentum back home, they remained conspicuously indifferent, claiming -- rightly or wrongly --that the regime still targeted them for persecution. Ten years after the first multiparty elections and with Moi and Kanu, their preferred persecutors, out of power, some have yet to find reasons to relocate to Kenya.
Let’s face it, the Mazruis and Ngugis of this world have been out of this country for more than three decades. If they were in their thirties when they left, now they are in their sixties. Some of their students, like Prof Chris Wanjala, have retired. Very soon, the Ngugis and Mazruis of this world will be asked to hang up their boots.
How then, can we look to them to influence the world on our behalf when in their prime, thirty years ago, they never managed it?
With all due respect for the founders of Kenya Community Abroad, there is not much you can do to help Kenya as Kenyans, because you are not Kenyans.
But we are ready to welcome you home as our distant cousins and foreign benefactors for our poor villages, just like any missionary white American from Nebraska or Colorado.
Welcome home!