The United Green Movement (UGM) Party and the 2027 Presidential Flag-bearer Retired Chief Justice David Kenani Maraga, warn that the Government is sleepwalking the country into a predictable climate disaster by failing to plan ahead of the forecasted “Godzilla” El Niño rains.
The Kenya Meteorological Department, the World Meteorological Organization, and the regional climate authority, ICPAC, have all warned that Kenya will experience the most extreme El Niño rain season in 150 years. In their forecast, the “Godzilla El Niño” has an 8-in-10 chance of sweeping the region from October this year through to early next year.
The United Nations has already listed Kenya among 22 countries facing the highest humanitarian risk from the calamity, and launched a $202 million global appeal to assist 8.8 million vulnerable Kenyans.
This year’s forecast predicts worse rains than the historic 1997 El Niño. Yet, despite the alarm sounded by the experts there is no visible contingency preparation by the government to mitigate the looming disaster.
Specifically, the country is staring at the following national risks which have been flagged by experts:
- Agriculture and Food Security: Smallholder farmers make up over 70% of the sector. Unharvested maize across Western Kenya and the Rift Valley faces rot, sprouting, and aflatoxin contamination, threatening national grain reserves and opening the door to corrupt import schemes.
- Infrastructure and Ecology: Riverine flooding is expected along the Tana, Athi, Ewaso Nyiro, Rift Valley, and Lake Victoria basins, with severe water backflow threatening Homa Bay, Kisumu, and Nakuru. West Pokot, Elgeyo Marakwet, Nakuru, and Murang’a face landslide risk, and bridges, schools, and markets face washouts.
- Public Health: Damaged water and sanitation systems raise the risk of cholera, typhoid, and malaria outbreaks in informal settlements and marginalized rural areas. Failure to pre-position medical supplies now would be indefensible.
Failure to prepare is not ignorance, it is negligence. The State cannot wait for floods, landslides, and disease outbreaks, then rush in with cameras and corrupt “emergency” tenders after lives and livelihoods have already been destroyed.
We demand immediate, visible action: a national plan to protect smallholder farmers and food reserves; urgent release of county funds to clear drainage, reinforcement of riverbanks, standby local emergency response mechanism; pre-positioning of essential health supplies in high-risk areas; and a clear evacuation and relocation roadmap for communities living in known flood and landslide zones.
At the heart of this effort must be the urgent passage and implementation of the Ukombozi Petition presented to Parliament, which provides a framework to mobilise millions of unemployed young people for the mass manual labour required—digging drainages, strengthening riverbanks, building water-harvesting pans, and restoring local infrastructure—to get the country ready before the El Niño strikes.
Consequently, the UGM Party demands the implementation of the following urgent measures:
- Urgent Post-Harvest Agricultural Intervention: Deploy government-backed mobile drying units and mechanical harvesters to the North Rift and Western regions by August 10, 2026, procured transparently and allocated by need, not political loyalty.
- Immediate Release of County Mitigation Funds: Clear outstanding Treasury allocations so counties can activate Anticipatory Disaster Risk Mechanisms and establish 500,000 decentralized water-harvesting pans in ASAL counties within three months.
III. Healthcare Stabilization and Medical Stockpiling: KEMSA and the Ministry of Health must pre-position water purification kits, anti-malarial medication, and cholera vaccines with a six-month buffer stock, with zero tolerance for procurement scandals.
- Civil Protection and Human Rights-Centered Relocation: Under Article 43 of the Constitution, publish a non-coercive evacuation and resettlement roadmap for landslide-prone and flood-plain communities in Murang’a, the Rift Valley, Tana River, Nyando and Budalang’i.
- Strategic Water and Resource Harvesting: Harvest excess waters from Mt. Kenya and the Aberdares through decentralized, solar-powered water-harvesting pans, turning floodwaters into productive ASAL green belts rather than another opaque mega-project.
The UGM Party will hold the government to account for every death, every washed-away bridge, every destroyed crop and every preventable disease outbreak that is a direct consequence of state negligence and failure to prepare.
And here we want to send a clear message to the government: we will not allow any state officials to turn a national emergency into business opportunities for politically connected cartels to divert or misappropriate funds earmarked for this disaster prevention. All officials will be held to account for their actions or omissions.
Thank you.
Signed,
Hon. David Kenani Maraga, EGH
2027 Presidential Flag-bearer & Co-Party Leader
United Green Movement (UGM) Party
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