8 August 2026
By Booker Ngesa Omole
General Secretary, Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK)
On Nuclear Energy, Sakwa, Scientific Socialism and the Question of National Sovereignty
To Prof. Larry Gumbe,
It is noteworthy that we find ourselves in public debate once again. The last time we engaged in serious public contention was over your position regarding the accreditation of the Engineering Degree programme at the Technical University of Kenya and, more broadly, your political alignment with the late Raila Odinga. Today, you occupy the position of Chairman of the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency, an institution at the centre of one of the most consequential technological, economic and strategic questions facing Kenya.
Questions have now been raised regarding my position, and by extension the position of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK), on nuclear energy.
Let us therefore answer clearly, scientifically and without ambiguity.
CPMK DOES NOT OPPOSE NUCLEAR SCIENCE
The Communist Party Marxist Kenya does not approach nuclear energy from a position of technological backwardness, superstition or reactionary opposition to science.
We are Marxists.
We understand that the development of the productive forces is an indispensable element in the transformation of society. Nuclear science represents one of humanity’s major scientific achievements. Nuclear technology has important applications in electricity generation, medicine, agriculture, scientific research, industry and other fields.
CPMK therefore does not advance the absurd proposition that nuclear technology is inherently evil or that Kenya must remain technologically backward.
Our position is neither “nuclear at any cost” nor “nuclear never.”
Our position is clear:
Science must serve the people.
Energy must serve national development.
Strategic infrastructure must belong to the people.
Scientific knowledge must advance human welfare rather than private accumulation.
Nuclear technology must never become an instrument of imperialist domination.
We support the development of scientific knowledge and advanced energy technologies. But we insist that such technologies must serve the sovereign interests of the Kenyan people and must be developed under conditions of public ownership, democratic accountability, scientific transparency and national control.
The question before us therefore cannot simply be reduced to whether nuclear power is scientifically possible.
The question is much deeper.
Nuclear power for whom?
Who owns it?
Who finances it?
Who supplies the technology?
Who controls the infrastructure?
Who controls the land upon which it is constructed?
Who controls the strategic resources beneath that land?
Who carries the risks?
Who receives the benefits?
And ultimately, whose class interests does the entire project serve?
These are not anti scientific questions.
They are precisely the questions that a serious Marxist analysis must ask.
TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM CLASS POWER
Professor Gumbe, scientific socialism teaches us that technology does not exist in a social vacuum.
The productive forces develop within definite relations of production. The same scientific discovery can serve radically different social purposes depending upon the class that controls it.
A nuclear power station developed under democratic public ownership and integrated into a sovereign national development strategy is one thing.
A nuclear project dependent upon foreign capital, foreign technology, foreign contractors, foreign financing and imperialist strategic interests is another thing entirely.
The mere presence of sophisticated technology does not make a project progressive.
A neo colonial economy can possess modern technology while remaining economically dependent.
A comprador state can construct modern infrastructure while deepening foreign domination.
A ruling class can speak the language of development while transferring strategic resources into the hands of foreign capital.
Therefore, we refuse to be dazzled by the word “nuclear.”
We examine the class relations behind the nuclear project.
NUCLEAR SCIENCE, NATIONAL DEFENCE AND IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION
There is another dimension that cannot be excluded from a serious discussion of nuclear science: national defence and the balance of forces in the international system.
CPMK rejects the monopoly through which a handful of imperialist powers reserve for themselves the most advanced scientific and military technologies while demanding that the peoples of Africa remain permanently dependent, technologically disarmed and strategically vulnerable.
Nuclear science cannot therefore be discussed only in terms of electricity generation. The development of nuclear science and the mastery of advanced technology can also form part of a country’s long term scientific and strategic capacity to defend its sovereignty against imperialist aggression.
We recognise the distinction between peaceful nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. At the same time, we reject the hypocrisy of imperialist powers that maintain enormous nuclear arsenals and military capabilities while lecturing oppressed nations about what technologies they are permitted to develop.
A genuinely sovereign Kenya must develop its scientific, technological and industrial capacities rather than accepting permanent technological dependence.
A people that cannot master advanced science will remain dependent upon those who do.
For CPMK, therefore, nuclear science must be approached within the broader question of national sovereignty and the international balance of forces. The ultimate objective is not nuclear militarisation for its own sake. The objective is to ensure that imperialism cannot impose its will upon a technologically defenceless people.
Scientific capacity is part of sovereignty.
Industrial capacity is part of sovereignty.
Energy security is part of sovereignty.
Defence capability is part of sovereignty.
And the right of a sovereign people to develop the scientific knowledge necessary to defend their independence cannot be surrendered to imperialist powers that themselves refuse to disarm.
At the same time, CPMK stands for the peaceful resolution of conflicts and against the indiscriminate use of weapons of mass destruction against civilian populations. We reject nuclear blackmail and imperialist aggression, while recognising that the long term security of oppressed nations requires the development of independent scientific and technological capabilities.
We cannot demand that Africa remain technologically weak while imperialism remains technologically armed to the teeth.
The question, therefore, is not simply whether Kenya should possess nuclear technology.
The question is whether Kenya will remain a technological dependency of imperialism or develop the scientific, industrial and strategic capacity necessary to exercise genuine national sovereignty.
WHY SAKWA DEMANDS A DIFFERENT QUESTION
This brings us directly to Sakwa.
CPMK’s objection to the processes surrounding the proposed nuclear development in Sakwa is not an objection to nuclear science.
It arises from the concrete material circumstances surrounding the project.
There is evidence concerning the opacity surrounding the process, the treatment of local communities, the killing of artisanal miners and the use of state power in circumstances connected to contested land and resource interests.
These are not imaginary concerns.
They are not inventions of people opposed to science.
They are material questions arising from what has taken place on the ground and they demand proper investigation, documentation and accountability.
When communities are subjected to coercion and people lose their lives while strategic land and resources are being reorganised, no responsible scientist, professor or public institution has the right to tell the people simply to remain silent because the project carries the label “nuclear.”
The people have a right to ask questions.
Indeed, they have a duty to ask questions.
THE GOLD QUESTION CANNOT BE WISHED AWAY
There is another question that demands a serious answer.
Why is a nuclear power project being contemplated in an area associated with significant gold deposits?
This question cannot simply be dismissed as conspiracy theory because it is politically inconvenient.
Where valuable mineral resources exist beneath or around strategic land, the question of ownership becomes a class question.
Where land is being acquired or reorganised, the question of who controls that land becomes a class question.
Where artisanal miners are displaced, criminalised or killed, the question of who benefits from the resulting reorganisation of the territory becomes a class question.
And where a major strategic infrastructure project is subsequently proposed in the same geographical space, it is entirely legitimate to demand a transparent explanation of the relationship between these developments.
We therefore ask:
Who owns the land in Sakwa?
Who controls the mineral resources beneath it?
What gold deposits exist in the area?
What arrangements have been made concerning those resources?
Who stands to benefit from the reorganisation of the land?
What is the relationship between the nuclear project and existing mineral interests?
Why was this particular location selected?
What independent geological and economic assessments were undertaken?
Were local communities fully informed and consulted?
What happened to the artisanal miners operating in the area?
Who is responsible for the deaths that have occurred?
Have those deaths been independently investigated?
These questions require evidence, documentation and independent investigation.
They cannot be answered by press releases.
They cannot be answered by appeals to patriotism.
They cannot be answered by invoking scientific progress while refusing to confront the material reality experienced by the people.
THE QUESTION OF LAMU
There is another fundamental question that Prof. Gumbe and NuPEA must answer.
The nuclear power project was previously associated with Lamu. The proposed location has subsequently shifted towards Sakwa in the Lake Victoria region.
What changed?
What new scientific, geological, environmental, economic or strategic information caused the authorities to reconsider Lamu and identify Sakwa as a preferred location?
If water availability is being presented as one of the considerations for nuclear power generation, then the question becomes even more compelling.
The Indian Ocean contains an incomparably greater volume of water than Lake Victoria. We are not suggesting that water availability is the only criterion for siting a nuclear power station. Nuclear siting involves numerous considerations, including geology, seismic stability, cooling systems, environmental impacts, grid connectivity, transmission infrastructure, population distribution and emergency planning.
Precisely for that reason, NuPEA must publish the comparative technical assessment that led to the change from Lamu to Sakwa.
What did the Lamu assessment establish?
Why was Lamu subsequently abandoned or deprioritised?
What deficiencies were identified at Lamu?
What advantages does Sakwa possess that Lamu does not?
Were comparative geological studies undertaken?
Were comparative environmental assessments undertaken?
Were the projected costs of transmission and other infrastructure compared?
Were the risks to local communities compared?
And critically, were the mineral resources and land ownership patterns in the two locations part of the assessment?
These are reasonable questions.
If the relocation was based entirely on objective scientific and engineering criteria, then NuPEA should have no difficulty publishing the evidence.
The Kenyan people should not be expected to accept a change of location for one of the largest and most strategically consequential infrastructure projects in the country’s history merely because an agency says that the new location is technically suitable.
There must be a transparent chain of reasoning from evidence to decision.
Lamu was considered. Sakwa is now being considered. What changed?
That is a straightforward scientific question.
And if water is genuinely an important consideration, then another straightforward question follows:
Why move away from the Indian Ocean and towards Lake Victoria?
We want the technical answer.
We want the documentary evidence.
We want the comparative assessment.
Not political rhetoric.
Not public relations.
The science. The evidence. The documents.
SCIENCE REQUIRES TRUTH
This is where your position as a professor becomes particularly important.
Science is not the repetition of official statements.
Science is investigation.
Science is evidence.
Science is verification.
Science is the willingness to confront inconvenient facts.
Science does not begin with a conclusion and then search for facts to justify it. It begins with the material world.
Therefore, when communities raise concrete questions about land, mineral resources, environmental consequences, displacement, artisanal mining and deaths, the scientific response cannot simply be to dismiss their concerns as misinformation without confronting the evidence.
If the evidence is wrong, disprove it.
If the allegations are false, publish the evidence demonstrating that they are false.
If the project is transparent, open the contracts, feasibility studies, geological assessments, environmental assessments, financing arrangements, land agreements and technical reports to public scrutiny.
That is what scientific accountability requires.
THE CONTRADICTION OF THE “1970s MARXIST”
You have at various times presented yourself as part of the generation of Marxist intellectuals that emerged from the political struggles of the 1970s.
That history deserves respect only if its principles continue to have meaning in the present.
Marxism is not an academic decoration.
It is not a historical identity.
It is not something one carries from one’s youth as a badge while serving as a technocratic administrator of structures whose class character demands interrogation.
A person does not remain a Marxist merely because they once read Marx.
Marxism is a method of analysing society.
It is a commitment to uncovering the material relations beneath political appearances.
It is a commitment to the emancipation of the working class and oppressed masses.
It requires us to ask who owns, who controls and who benefits.
The contradiction therefore is not simply between Larry Gumbe and Booker Omole.
The deeper contradiction is between a claim to Marxist politics and the uncritical administration or defence of processes whose class character has not been transparently established.
THE COMPRADOR QUESTION
Kenya remains trapped within a neo colonial economic structure in which strategic sectors are routinely opened to foreign capital while the Kenyan people are told that such arrangements constitute development.
We have seen this repeatedly.
Foreign capital arrives.
Strategic resources are identified.
Land is reorganised.
Local communities are displaced.
The state provides political and coercive power.
Foreign corporations receive access to resources and markets.
The Kenyan people are left with promises of employment, development and trickle down benefits.
This is the classic structure of comprador development.
Therefore, when the nuclear question emerges, CPMK will not suspend its class analysis simply because the technology involved is sophisticated.
We will ask whether Kenya is developing sovereign scientific capacity or merely becoming a consumer of foreign nuclear technology.
We will ask whether Kenyan scientists, engineers and workers are being developed to master the technology or whether Kenya is being permanently positioned at the receiving end of an imperialist technological chain.
We will ask who finances the project.
We will ask who supplies the reactor technology.
We will ask who owns the intellectual property.
We will ask who provides the fuel.
We will ask who manages radioactive waste.
We will ask who carries the long term liabilities.
And we will ask who ultimately captures the economic value.
This is what national sovereignty means in the twenty first century.
SAKWA AND THE QUESTION OF STATE POWER
The most disturbing dimension of the Sakwa question is therefore not simply the nuclear proposal itself.
It is the relationship between strategic development, land, minerals and state power.
If people are killed while resisting dispossession, that cannot be treated as an unfortunate side issue.
If artisanal miners are killed while mineral territories are being reorganised, the deaths require independent investigation.
If communities are intimidated into silence, that is not public participation.
If critical questions are suppressed in the name of development, that is not democracy.
If the state uses coercion to prepare the ground for strategic investment, that is not national development.
It is the political economy of accumulation backed by state power.
And CPMK will not legitimise it.
THE CHALLENGE TO PROF. GUMBE
Professor Gumbe, we therefore challenge you not with slogans but with questions.
Open the process.
Publish the evidence.
Explain the choice of Sakwa.
Explain the change from Lamu.
Explain the land question.
Explain the mineral question.
Explain the position of the artisanal miners.
Explain the deaths.
Explain the financing.
Explain the ownership structure.
Explain the foreign interests involved.
Explain the technological arrangements.
Explain the safeguards protecting the local population.
Explain who ultimately benefits.
And do so not merely as a government spokesperson, but as a professor who claims a commitment to science.
If the project is genuinely in the interests of the Kenyan people, transparency should strengthen it rather than threaten it.
If there is nothing to hide, open the books.
If the science is sound, subject it to independent scrutiny.
If the economics are sound, publish the figures.
If the land acquisition is legitimate, publish the agreements.
If the mineral question is irrelevant, demonstrate why.
If the deaths have no connection to the project, establish the facts through independent investigation.
That is the standard we demand.
CPMK’S POSITION
Let there be no misunderstanding.
CPMK does not oppose science.
CPMK does not oppose nuclear science.
CPMK does not oppose technological development.
We oppose the subordination of science to capital.
We oppose the subordination of national development to imperialist interests.
We oppose the use of state violence against communities.
We oppose secretive processes involving strategic national resources.
We oppose the dispossession of workers, peasants, artisanal miners and poor communities in the name of development.
We oppose technological dependency masquerading as technological advancement.
We oppose the conversion of strategic national infrastructure into another avenue for foreign accumulation.
And we oppose any attempt to silence legitimate public questions by branding them anti scientific.
Our position is therefore simple:
Science must serve the people.
Energy must serve national development.
Strategic infrastructure must belong to the people.
Kenya must develop sovereign scientific and technological capacity.
Nuclear technology must never become an instrument of imperialist domination.
And above all:
No development project has the right to demand that the Kenyan people surrender their land, their resources, their lives and their sovereignty in exchange for promises of progress.
Professor Gumbe, the question before us is therefore not whether you can defend nuclear energy.
The question is whether you can defend the entire political and economic process surrounding its development in Sakwa under conditions of full transparency, public accountability, scientific scrutiny and national sovereignty.
That is the debate.
And CPMK is prepared to have that debate anywhere, with anyone, on the basis of evidence, science and the material interests of the Kenyan people.
Booker Ngesa Omole
General Secretary
Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK)