Ideas & Debate

Ebola screening in Kigali offers lessons on how serious countries value security

jkia

A section of JKIA in Nairobi: A country’s entry points should be manned by polite but firm officers who leave nothing to chance. PHOTO | FILE

Last Thursday afternoon I walked gingerly through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) always on the lookout for anyone coughing or looking like they had the sweats.

I was en route to Kigali on my favourite, proudly Kenyan airline that had picked Gate 4 as the departure gate which is quite a schlep across the building if one favours a quick shot of cappuccino at the Java located at Gate 14.

But the long walk gave me time to observe the airport through the narrow lens of the Ebola paranoia that has beset the media, the country and the world.

Departing passengers mixed freely with transiting passengers and there were no signs of overkill that I have observed in Hong Kong and China where people walk openly with face masks adorned due to some perceived disease they fear receiving or spreading (which I believe is post-SARS paranoia).

I still hadn’t seen any sign of medical staff or a port health team in the entire time that I had walked from Gate 14 to Gate 4. (On an entirely different note, if you ever have to take a flight from Gate 3 and below, pray to your chosen deity as those gates are in the very bowels of the airport where no light ever penetrates and the few remaining ceiling boards look like they were used as dartboards by very bored airport staff.)

All in all, a pretty relaxed atmosphere throughout the airport.

We landed in Kigali a few minutes to 6pm local time. I had noted that one of our female ministers was on the flight so I expected to find Kenyan embassy staff waiting for her at the bottom of the plane.

Alas, it was not so. Together with her bodyguard, they got on the bus like everyone else to be transported to the main terminal. I have to admit, I was rather chuffed at this equalization of passengers.

My smugness was shortlived because waiting at the terminal was a tall, swarthy Rwandan man with officialdom stamped all over his grim face. I didn’t look back.

I figured that was the Cabinet Secretary’s welcoming committee. I promptly forgot about her as I traipsed down the stairs to the immigration hall.

At the bottom of the stairs stood two medical staff who were politely pointing to the side where forms were stacked on various tables for incoming passengers to fill.

The form was a basic one-pager that asked everything short of which my political party of choice was back at home. The medics were firm, but polite.

You would not get past them without the form. I had failed to write the telephone number of the Serena Hotel where I would be staying.

“Madam, you must write the telephone number,” the lady dressed in white scrubs said to me. I shrugged my shoulders and responded that not only didn’t I have the telephone number, but there couldn’t be that many Serena Hotels in Kigali that they would have a problem finding me if need be. She told me to stand straight and pointed a plastic temperature-reading gun at me. “Ahh, madam you’re fine!” she declared. I almost slumped to the ground in relief.

I got to the immigration desk. The immigration officer reached out for my passport in a gloved hand. I raised my eyebrow in suspicion and a gentleman who was standing next to the immigration officer noted my concern.

“Madam, we are just taking precautions,” he said. I chuckled, telling both of them how I was impressed with the apparent Ebola checks. “But you’re coming from Kenya, even there they are tough,” the immigration officer said. “Umm, why do you think so?” I asked.

“I saw it myself on Citizen TV news,” he responded. It wasn’t lost on me that local Rwandans thousands of kilometres away were watching our television station. The gentleman who was standing on the side clearly differed and shook his head gently.

50 per cent

“I was in Kenya last week to check on the steps you are taking to screen passengers from Ebola countries because our government wants to be sure that passengers in planes coming from Kenya have already been screened.”

He stopped abruptly, as if he had said too much. “But you are still screening passengers,” I said. He smiled. “We only gave Kenya a 50 per cent pass mark, that is why we are still screening your passengers.”

I particularly love visiting of Kigali, which is clean, orderly and extremely safe.

Driving through the numbered streets on our way to the hotel, Francois, the driver, pointed out a slum that was precariously perched on the slopes of a hill.

“Serikali itatoa hizo nyumba na ihamishe watu pande ingine,” he explained in Kiswhaili the government’s initiatives to move people away from the slums out of town so that the land would be used for better buildings.

Francois, like many Kiswahili speaking Rwandans, was born out of the country and returned to Rwanda to help build his country.

He hastily pulled to the side of the road when two motorcycle outriders with the words Military Police emblazoned on their backs zoomed past, followed by several four-wheel drive cars at high speeds that left our car rocking in their wake.

Our Cabinet Secretary had arrived in Kigali in the style to which she was accustomed. A fleeting thought went through my mind: was she subjected to the plastic temperature gun in the quiet confines on the VIP receiving room?

I wouldn’t have been surprised. Rwanda’s tight controls over external threats be they rebels from Eastern DRC or an unseen enemy in the name of Ebola is illustrative of what an African government that takes care of its citizens can do.

Sending their medics to test the Kenyan Ebola controls at JKIA was a good example that Kenya is not viewed as that all knowing omnipresent big brother that we tend to believe we are!

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka