Nairobi — IT'S DIFFICULT FOR ME TO MEET President Kibaki. It's also hard to meet his political rivals Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka. Since one of these men will occupy State House come January, I will tell them about a man who taught Economics at the University of Nairobi in the mid-1980s.

"Assume a world in which there are only two products, food and clothes." And as he spoke, he would draw a left vertical line to represent food, and a bottom horizontal one for clothes. In between, he would sketch a slope, which he called "demand curve" to illustrate how people demand more clothes at the expense of food, and vice versa.

"Be sure," he would implore sagely, "that the demand curve touches neither the vertical nor the horizontal axes. It touches the vertical axis, you have a well-fed nude; the horizontal, you have a well-dressed corpse."

THEREFORE, WHEN I READ ABOUT the latest surge in oil prices, all those demand curves started racing through my head, this time with regard to our national policy on petroleum.

Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, speaking at the 11th Africa Gas and Oil Conference in May, said: "As poor countries joined the race for economic development, the demand for petroleum rose. So did the import prices."

Petroleum already accounts for 22 per cent of Kenya's imports. The path Kenya has taken is an old one, having been trodden before by countries like the US. Yet, whereas the US has vast oil deposits of its own, Kenya has no known reserves.

There is no doubt that an abundance of cheap energy spurs industrial development. And since the US struck oil in Pennsylvania in 1859, petroleum has led to its economic growth for 148 years, installing that nation as the world's unrivalled superpower.

For decades, until 1945, the US was the world's leading oil producer. Oil not only hastened its economic growth, but also led to its military might. In Blood and Oil, Michael Kare notes that "during the Second World War, the US was able to extract oil from domestic fields to satisfy its own forces and those of its allies".

Then things fell apart. America now realises that while it was blessed with oil deposits, such wealth is finite. By 1950, the US began to rely on imported oil.

During that decade, foreign oil accounted for 10 per cent of its supply, but in the 1970s, it had shot to 36 per cent, At the same time, domestic production began an irreversible decline in 1972.

A country with less than five per cent of the world's population now uses 25 per cent of global oil supply, and by 2025, will need 50 per cent. So the US has to police the Persian Gulf to ensure oil keeps flowing.

This dependence on foreign oil costs America dearly. International Energy Outlook 2003 predicts that the US will spend $3.5 trillion within two decades on oil alone. In military terms, America will increasingly pay with the blood of its troops and that of the occupied nations as it invades country after country to ensure uninterrupted oil-flow.

The US also faces the embarrassment of protecting, for example, Saudi Arabia, which boasts no democratic ideals. Already, it grants the leaders of oil-producing countries all sorts of favours. And the oil-rich nations, knowing America's dilemma, are increasingly demanding more, like support at the UN.

Yet American presence in the Gulf invites hatred at home and abroad. As body bags arrive back in the US, its citizens voice mounting opposition to foreign military engagement.

IN SAUDI ARABIA, RESENTMENT IS at its peak. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 2002, Eric Rouleau noted: "Despite official denials, the US troops? are highly unpopular. In private, many Saudis say they consider it a form of occupation.

"Outsiders have underestimated the anger roused in the Saudi population by the suffering of the Palestinian people - and the fact that this suffering is blamed less on Israel than on its American protector. . ."

The House of Saud, including 7,000 princes, is all the more vulnerable due to a view that its members are corrupt.

Kenya's dilemma is what it will do when the strongest nations start grabbing all the oil. It should assume a world of just two products - oil and blood - where more blood will be spilt for the sake of oil.

We need to plan our energy security by developing alternative sources, otherwise the demand curve will touch the blood axis. Over to you, our beloved presidential candidates!

Mr Ouma is a sub-editor with the Nation