By TEE NGUGI

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Kenyan children finished writing the Kenya Certificate for Primary Education (KCPE) exams last week even as various counties were under security and humanitarian distress.

In Baringo, we were first told insecurity was caused by cattle rustling, which would immediately be brought to a halt. However, what we saw on TV indicates a much graver situation. We saw images of women and children running helter-skelter from their homes, carrying whatever possessions they could.

These children fleeing for their lives were also expected to sit the exams. Even if the authorities were able to get them alternative exam centres, were they in the right frame of mind to take the tests?

In the northeastern counties, drought has forced people to move from place to place looking for water and pasture. This movement has disrupted children’s learning. Even if the children were able to write the exams, it is improbable that they had learned enough or were in the right frame of mind to perform well.

In some places in Kwale and other coastal counties, children study under trees with minimal learning materials and without chairs or desks.

In the sprawling slums of Nairobi, children go to bed hungry, and yet they, too, have to sit the same exams. To all these cases, factor in further vulnerability due to gender discrimination and disability, and you begin to get a picture of the impossible distance some children have to travel to escape the cycle of extreme poverty.

Kenya has the dubious distinction of being one of the most unequal societies in the world.

An Oxfam report showed that fewer than 10,000 super-rich Kenyans own more wealth than the rest of us combined.

Another study has indicated that most of the wealthy people in Kenya are either politicians or are connected to the political class.

The other day, we learned that the political class has ordered hundreds of helicopters in readiness for campaigns despite the tough economic times.

In other regions of the world the wealthiest are businesspeople, IT innovators or those in the entertainment industry.

As a matter of fact, in the developed world people who leave employment to go into politics lose a substantial part of their income. In Kenya, people become rich when they get into public office.

Yes, there is money in politics. The problem is that it is money that should have gone into making sure children like those in Baringo can have adequate security in their homes.

It is money that should go into making drought-prone areas water secure so that children can stay in their homes.

It is the same money that is supposed to make sure every child in Kenya learns in a proper environment with adequate learning materials.

So corruption perpetuates inequality.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator