Kibera Goodbye.
At least in the words of Kenyan President William Ruto, Africa's largest and one of its most populous slums, Nairobi's most famous and iconic (if you can call it that) slum, along with Mathare, will be transformed within 10 years into a "housing estate."
Ruto made this announcement last Sunday, saying that the project will be implemented through the government's ambitious social housing program, which aims to provide Kenyans living in informal settlements with more decent housing than affordable tin shacks, creating the opportunity for Kibera's own young and unemployed to participate in the construction of the houses and consequently hundreds of jobs.
"This plan was introduced for two reasons. First, it is not about houses, it is about jobs," confirmed the Kenyan leader. "Our plan is to build at least 200,000 houses to ensure that all young people in Nairobi have jobs. Consequently, we also want to get people out of the slums. Especially here in Kibera. In 10 years there will be no slum here; we will have turned it into a working-class neighborhood."

Kibera, with its 250,000 census population (it is probably at least double that number) over an area of about 2.5 square kilometers, thus joins six other areas of the capital (Ruiru, Pangani, Starehe, Shauri Moyo, Homabay, and Mavoko) for which a social housing project has been activated that will build 250,000 homes per year for the next five years. The new government has already launched a pilot project in the Mukuru slum, where 14 thousand housing units will be delivered, involving more than 4,000 local youths in the construction work, again according to the president.

Going back to Kibera, the history of informal settlements, which originated even before Kenya's independence (Kibera, originally Kibra, a Sudanese word meaning "forest," in particular was assigned around 1918 by the British Empire to Nubian soldiers who were part of their army. From there after 1963 migrants from Lake Victoria, Luo tribes, and other parts of the country were added. With the Kikuyu in Nairobi renting them shacks and running the business rounds. This created quite a few conflicts over the years, as well as local mafias and gang battles often linked to the different tribes.

But Kibera for many of its residents is also a mother, albeit an unreliable, dangerous, slutty one. It is an anarchic gut of the capital where anything can be inserted, incorporated, and where always something passes and sticks. Those who have the access code and know their way around can hardly give up the freedom of that sheet metal prison. It is difficult to understand, but for those who have visited it several times, studied it without interests other than to understand and explain the slum away from clichés, it is so.
That is why in the past a Kenyatta government housing project failed. Apartments built on the edge of the slum were handed over to needy families who could have led more dignified lives, but instead decided to rent them out and stay and live in their absurd, controversial, engulfing microcosm. We will see if Ruto can convince the slum people.