Cattle are a touchy subject, never tell an African that he is cowless
Tuesday February 22 2022
Cattle are not only important economically and a food source, but they confer prestige and status. PHOTO | FILE | NMG
On Monday, Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto kicked up a strange storm and diplomatic incident.
At a rally, Ruto, who is campaigning for the presidency, started on a promising footing, talking about lifting the Kenyan dairy industry higher if he came to government.
He pointed to the likely soon-to-be new East African Community member Democratic Republic of Congo as a potential lucrative export market for Kenya’s cattle. Then it went south.
“We have a market in DRC…these people who are (just) singers…There’s a population of about 90 million, but they don’t own a single cow,” he said.
As always happens with problematic statements that are received with cheers, the speaker will usually add fuel to the fire. Ruto rolled out an old trope, describing the Congolese as “high-waist trouser wearers”.
Before long, videos of his speech had gone far on social media, and many in DRC — and Kenya — were up in arms. The Congolese felt disrespected and demanded an apology.
In the DRC capital Kinshasa, Kenya’s ambassador George Masafu rode to the rescue, issuing a statement saying the Kenya government and people “share a deep and respectful, historical relationship with the government and the people of DRC”.
The incident served as a reminder that in many parts of Africa, and indeed the world, cattle are a touchy subject. You don’t speak ill of someone’s cows, you don’t steal them, and you don’t tell many a serious African that he is cattleless. Small cross-border wars have been fought on this continent over cattle.
Cattle are not only important economically and a food source, but they confer prestige and status. They represent a triumph of domestication and one of the finest things many societies have raised from the land. They are also a primordial sex symbol, with their long horns, big droopy eyes, enormous rumps, and large udders that still leave our people conflicted.
If cows confer prestige, who are EAC’s cattle kings? Uganda President Yoweri Museveni is the region’s leading cattle-owning president. Rwanda President Paul Kagame is also a cattleman. Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta is on the milk side; his family’s Brookside is one of Africa’s leading milk processors. Last year, when Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye visited Kenya, Uhuru gifted him 50 cows.
Horn for horn, however, Tanzania rules the East African kraal. With 25 million cattle (33 million, according to other data), it has Africa’s third-largest cattle stock.
The continent’s cattle emperor is Ethiopia, with over 60 million of the animals.
Next is Kenya with 21.7 million, at the last count in 2020.
The third is Uganda with 14.2 million, also as of 2020. Cattle is one area where South Sudan punches above its weight, coming in fourth with 12 million.
Rwanda’s cattle stock was decimated in the 1994 war and genocide against the Tutsi, but it had built back to 1.2 million by 2020. Burundi is sixth with 628,000.
DRC was right to feel belittled. Its cattle stock has been placed between one million and 1.2 million, which would put it above Burundi.
Ruto himself is a cowboy, so to speak. There’s no injury he caused that can’t go away with a 75-cow gift to President Felix Tshisekedi.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3