“Across the political spectrum, people looked to Asian Americans…..Japanese and Chinese Americans…..as an example…..for other minority groups to follow: “Look how they ended up! They’re doing just fine. And they did it all without political protests.”

-Ellen Wu, Associate Prof. History/Director of the Asian American Studies – Indiana University Bloomington.

The first quote is a Facebook comment that is emblematic of the current thinking and narrative emanating from deep inside Central/Mount Kenya region – the region’s obsession with isolating Raila Odinga and the Luo community from the (other) communities that have (also) been discriminated against by the authoritarian kleptocracy of Kenya’s four presidencies – including the current one headed by two former crimes-against-humanity suspects.

(And yes, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto ARE former crimes-against-humanity (CAH) suspects so far from repeating a lie, say “Raila will take our hard-earned money” until said lie becomes the “truth”, repeating the CAH truism is intended to remind those with short memories that they did in fact elect accused criminals into the highest offices in the country.)

The storyline that “other” communities are “happy” or “satisfied” with the status quo is a selfish move at self-preservation that other nations like the US have continued to use to moderate its racist and discriminatory behavior while simultaneously using state instruments of power and violence i.e. the FBI and an increasingly militarized police force to delegitimize, isolate and brutalize the one group that has been at the forefront of exposing said racist and discriminatory behavior – African-Americans.

Similarly, the Central/Mt. Kenya wing of Jubilee, no doubt coached by the ultra-right wing-leaning Cambridge Analytics, has embarked on the same ploy:

Like the pre-Civil Rights’ Nixonian America and Kenyan governments of yore, the government of Uhuru Kenyatta has decided to use state instruments of power and violence i.e. law enforcement, paramilitary GSU, national intelligence and military-grade weapons to systematically brutalize the Luo; this the one community that has always challenged the credibility, indeed legitimacy competence and forthrightness of the country’s supposedly national leaders.

And even as the national government, again past and present, sets out to frustrate and murder some of its most patriotic and brilliant minds from the Luo community, they are simultaneously scheming to co-opt, cajole, show-case, bribe and in some cases, threaten leaders from the other communities that have always been distrusting of the central government (pun intended).

Turned on its head are the well-worn tropes such as “destroying”, “stealing” and “rule of law and order” as pronounced by none other than Uhuru Kenyatta – in front of the faithful at a rally in Muranga:

We are not going to watch as protesters stone our police stations or steal from Wanjiku in the name of demos. We are a government of rule of law and order and that must stand.

– President Uhuru Kenyatta

At the same event, Uhuru accused Raila who had traveled to give a lecture at Chatham House in the UK of travelling abroad to “kneel before his foreign masters.”

In saner times, the irony of someone whose entire persona, personality and commercial interests are choreographed genuflections and testaments to his European (British) socialization actually accusing someone else of “kneeling before Europeans” would be treated, first as comic relief, then with the contempt it deserves thereafter.
Unfortunately, that glaring irony and hypocrisy is roundly applauded as it was by the multitude gathered for the event in Kenyatta’s central base.

It is this sycophancy that lends credence to the myth of the “model minority” by tolerating such blatant hypocrisy baked in Uhuru Kenyatta’s comments while overlooking and obscuring, conveniently or otherwise, the reality about whose collective shoulders these “model minorities” have stood on and continued to stand on, this as they pursue fair, free and transparent treatment in their own country!
Also lost along the way is the distinct differences between the treatment afforded the Luo vs. those “not burning their towns”.

All along, moral and ethical relativity is readily dispensed with to ameliorate the use of deadly force against those at the tip of the spear of the fight for fairness and equality and obscure the ethics of hitherto “untenable” actions such as police brutality.

Suddenly, the means justify the end AND the end justify the brutal means because the perpetrators “are protecting the businesses and properties” of those that are “not burning their towns” from the “protesters who stone ‘our’ police stations or steal from ‘Wanjiku’”.

The anxiously violent and ethnicizied authoritarian status quo in Kenya, much like the anxiously violent and racist status quo in pre-Civil Rights’ America, is desperately trying to change the narrative.

Uhuru Kenyatta and Jubilee are trying to shift focus away from the(ir) murderous behavior the world has seen splashed across print, TV and social media towards the “(Luo) protestors who “stone ‘our’ police…..” while simultaneously lathering up the other communities currently aligned against the violent and discriminatory Jubilee Coalition.

The post Changing the Narrative and Pitting Luos against the “Model Minorities” appeared first on Biz Post Daily.

The IBRD report was released ~6 months before the Supreme Court exposed an incompetent and partisan bungling of the general elections by the IEBC; one that set in motion an angry and incoherent reaction from an “entitled” Uhuru Kenyatta and his toadies.

Diarietou Gaye, the bank’s Country Director for Kenya attributed the country’s robust growth to “a stable macroeconomic environment, low oil prices, earlier favorable harvest, rebound in tourism, strong remittance inflows, and an ambitious public investment drive”.

The same report also cautioned that the country faced “…..headwinds…..” that had little to do with the elections and certainly not the current impasse as Jubilants would like the country to believe.

The report identified (a) the drought which led to crop failure, dying herds of livestock, and increased food insecurity, (b) poor rains that increased the cost of the country’s cheapest source of energy – hydroelectric, (c) spillover effect of both the increases in food and energy prices that combined to drive up inflation to a five-year high of 10.3% in March 2017. A net importer of oil, the country also begun to suffer the global price increases of the commodity throughout 2016 into 2017.

Notwithstanding, the foregoing are/were “headwinds” that effective planning and competent oversight (would) typically mitigate.

Kenya, a majority of her people and her leaders are corrupt. As a result, the country has had to face increased cost of borrowing because of its inability to curb the endemic scourge – across all segments of the country.

The economic impact of corruption was recently illustrated by the decision of VR Holdings AB of Sweden to move its planned Malindi power plant to Tanzania – this according to a piece in Business Daily (“Swedish firm moves Sh.235bn Malindi power plan to Tanzania”). A company spokesperson said that VR Holdings switched their focus to Tanzania….(because) Kenya is proving to be a ‘very difficult’ place…..”

“A very difficult place…..”? I will let the diplomat-speak stand on its own – given the principals: The preternaturally cordial and by-the-book Swedes and the ever corrupt and always-ready-to-eat Kenyans.
Added to the foregoing is a reality most jingoistic supporters of the status quo in Kenya are loath to admit: Kenya has not endeared itself to its east and central African neighbors.

Going back to the Nyerere/Kenyatta era shortly after independence, Tanzania, the region’s largest country, has always been wary of what its socialist-leaning founding father called the “dog-eat-dog” capitalistic ethos of Jomo Kenyatta.

Similarly, Rwanda and Uganda became increasingly distrustful of Uhuru Kenyatta’s obsession with mega-projects whose economic viability and cost-benefit-analysis were tenuous at best. This apprehension over the culture of “kitu kidogo” that pervades nearly all business deals Kenya signs was at the back of the minds of the country’s African Union (AU) partners when it came to voting for the next chairman of the continental body.

In a February 2017 piece titled “Details of how Amina Mohamed lost African Union Commission election”, the Standard writes that “some East African countries may have undermined Kenya’s candidate for the position of chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC).” The article quotes South Sudan’s Ambassador to Ethiopia James Morgan as saying that Ms. Mohammed’s fate was sealed in part because of “how Kenya relates with its neighbors…..” with Burundi pointedly saying that “Kenya interferes with her internal affairs by condemning its internal conflict.”

Left unsaid by Mr. Morgan is the hypocrisy of a country less than 10years removed from near-genocidal post-election violence passing judgement on the internal conflict of another!

Finally, echoing what most Kenyans already knew, an unnamed S. African diplomat averred that Amina’s closeness with Mr. Kenyatta “might cloud her judgement as she could use the position to advance Kenya’s rather than Africa’s agenda.

One word: ICC.

Taken together, the narrative that “the ongoing demonstrations by NASA are ‘affecting’ the economy” is a deliberated and desperate attempt at deflecting responsibility from the country’s current leadership – Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Jubilee. Their failure to lead and assure the business and investment community of their fidelity to free market and more importantly, fidelity to the process of transparent and accountable democratic principles are more responsible for the skittish economy and business environment than the unarmed and relatively peaceful demonstrators.

All told, business and investors abhor uncertainty and that has been exacerbated by the drawn-out oftentimes vitriolic tone of the on-going race for the presidency.

And the notion that “Raila has not ‘sold’ his vision to Kenyans effectively” is a convenient default of those who have continued to bury their collective heads in the sand and refused to bite the hand that feeds them – President Uhuru Kenyatta – this instead of embracing Raila’s calls for good governance, accountability and an end to impunity.

The only scenario that would worry the business community and investor-class more than the perfect storm described above would be an ethnicized, corrupt, inept, militarized and trigger-happy law enforcement apparatus obviously carrying water for an ethnicized, corrupt and inept government led by an unhinged former crimes-against-humanity duo. Other than the visits to The Hague, the rest has been the case since independence.

The post Blame Uhuru not politics for the poor performing economy appeared first on Biz Post Daily.

Why do I say that?

Well let’s start off with those ill-fitting wigs!

Seriously? Can you say contrived, trite and ill-fitting?
And here I thought “Kenya was rising (and writing its own story)”. Maybe it’s the time I have spent abroad, US to be exact, but lawyers (or barristers in Kenyan-speak) here do not wear such garishness. They are mostly bespoken but not as if they were part of a 19th century blackface minstrelsy performance – in the Queen’s Courts no less!

And while I agree that a presentation in front of the Supreme Court should be the zenith of most legal careers, “should” is the operational word.

Any lawyer presenting a case in front of the robed justices of the Supreme Court should be able to write their tickets thereafter – especially if (a) they’ve done their homework, (b) they are blessed with the gift of gab and can quote/cite dead white men/poets oftentimes in a dead language (of which Latin is one), (c) the specifics of the case portend a monumental impact in the society and (d) the case the lawyer is supporting/defending has an altruistic, “greater good” sense about it.
From the get-go, y’all know where my bias lies – and so it is with the on-going case.
I support NASA’s petition against the now-obviously manipulated IEBC-announced results of the just-concluded general elections pitting Uhuru Kenyatta vs. Raila Odinga.
Only the most partisan toady can argue that Ezra Chiloba, Wafula Chebukati and the coterie at the IEBC played it straight translating the vote tallies from the precincts as reflected on Forms 34A (source data) onto Forms 34B – which were then scanned/transmitted through the black hole that is the Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS); results that were then announced by a visibly stressed IEBC Chairman Chebukati on August 11th.
IEBC did not play it straight and that’s why they cannot produce the raw data (34A) and are having a hard time allowing Orengo and Co. access to the server that contains the scanned Forms 34B i.e. the electronic version of Forms 34A!
The foregoing aside and to reiterate my earlier prediction, in a couple of weeks, SCOK will rule that the 2017 Presidential Elections were rigged, manipulated, tampered with etc. BUT not enough to “affect the final announced outcome”.
So like the “august” body did in 2013, SCOK will rule in favor of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto.
Kenyans will then proceed to break or dislocate their shoulders patting themselves on the back while announcing how “far they have come compared to S. Sudan, Rwanda and Somalia” even as the same kleptocratic former crimes-against-humanity suspects and their cabal continue to eat.
Back to the on-going Kabuki Theater at SCOK, the bluster by one particular actor has been hot and heavy though belied by his obvious lack of fidelity to the spirit (honesty) of the very laws he is now bloviating about. For all the loquacious grandiloquence (I am beginning to sound like him!) of this barrister, the petition is pretty straight forward:
Why were the vote tallies cast at the constituency level different from the totals transmitted AND announced by the IEBC?
The grand soliloquy the barrister launched into and is known for did NOT and does NOT answer that simple math problem!
I am sure that many viewers and listeners were wowed by the elegant prose masquerading as:

a. Response to NASA’s petition and
b. Sufficient reason why the petition should be denied

That like Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Tony Blair during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq circa 2003, the masterly and courtly ease with which a simple 1+ 1 = 2 morphed into the dreaded Pythagoras Theorem, the bane of many a trig student, only to reappear as a “small thing which no law knows the cure for” was the “piece de resistance” – so announced the lawyer.
Along the way, arcane and archaic expressions such as “de minimis non curat lex” and the comparatively simple “sui generis” and “res judicata” were dispensed with such ease and pomposity that some were left wondering how anyone could challenge the veracity of such a performance!
This barrister obviously subscribes to the belief that “quid quid Latine dictum sit altum videtur” i.e. anything said in Latin sounds profound – only that it doesn’t always – certainly not in this case!
Because once the long-winded illustration of “throwing everything including the kitchen sink against the wall and hoping something sticks” is deconstructed, the counsel’s obfuscation fails to answer two simple questions:

1. Why are the vote tallies cast at the constituency level markedly different from the totals transmitted AND announced and
2. Does the end justify the means?

To paraphrase Josaphat Nyamwange in a piece titled “Findings at the Supreme petition reveal a lot about IEBC and the future of Kenyan election” (Standard August 29th, 2017), Kenyans can accept Mr. Chebukhati’s announced results for the presidential race, the “how” said results were arrived at be damned!
Conversely, the country can insist on the “how” said results were arrived at; how the actual votes were cast and tabulated onto Form 34A then onto 34B through the server then formally announced: This, the proverbial making of sausage that is democracy, in my opinion quod erat demonstrandum i.e. is what should have been demonstrated by the meandering barrister.
It was not and at this rate, medoubts it ever will.

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Released in 1983, the ten-chapter 87-page fifteen thousand worded quick read is direct and to the point regarding details of a corrupt Nigerian society whose equally corrupt leadership got its mandate from an equally corrupt, culpable and hyper-tribal section of the Nigerian population!

It sounds like a broken record but the problem with Kenya is a corrupt and ineffectual leadership which gets its mandate from their ethnic groups – making said groups just as culpable as the kleptocrats they “elect” into office.

And as vividly illustrated by the just-concluded elections, the corruption and impunity of the Jubilee government is now aided and abetted by a bi-polar and schizophrenic international community (US, EU, AU, UN) that was once poised to exact justice against those accused of crimes against humanity (in 2008) only to flip the script and validate a demonstrably rigged and manipulated 2017 election whose aftermath featured violence meted out against an opposition-leaning segments of the Kenyan society by state agents seemingly commanded by the country’s top leadership.

The trouble with Kenyans is that they’ve allowed their country to metastasize into the cancerous growth they are now seeing in the violent and corrupt cabal leading them! And like their Nigerian “brodas”, Kenyans are quick to sit back and wring their grabby hands and vote in the same causes of the ill they complain about ad nauseum!

How do Kenyans re-elect an Uhuru/Ruto duo that oversaw their country become the third most corrupt country in the world; this according to a survey on prevalence of economic crimes released in Nairobi yesterday by audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – Feb, 27th 2016 Standard: “Survey: Kenya ranked third most corrupt country in the world”?

On the other hand, that Anne Waiguru, who was implicated in the KSh.791 Million scandal at the Department of Devolution & Planning, is poised to bring her “talents” to Kirinyaga as its County Governor says it all.

Kenyans don’t care! Make that “some” Kenyans don’t care!!

White elephants such as the SGR and the primary school laptop boondoggle have imbued wanaKenya with a sense of invincibility (tuko juu sana!); in the process blinding them to the rot that is their country! It doesn’t hurt that Kenyans boast some of the world’s best runners and rugby players!

Notwithstanding, if ever there was an example of what anthropologists refer to as “cargo cults” i.e. the belief by a society that can barely feed its children that one day, without the requisite sacrifice and hard work, they will become a “nuclear power”, I’d hold Kenya as Exhibit A!

At least America, for all its many fault, IS a superpower! As was South Africa which ended its nuclear program in 1989 and signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1991!

I recently saw a FB picture of a matatu displaying a bumper sticker with the caption “My Country: Love it or Leave it!” written over colors of a “flattering” Kenyan flag!

How patriotic! How trite and disingenuous – from an industry that is notorious for flouting every traffic rule in the book!

It, bumper sticker, reminded me of the zeitgeist in 2003 shortly before America and its “Coalition of the Willing” invaded Iraq to “rid” Saddam of his WMDs. This is the faux patriotism, displayed mostly by those whose turn it is to eat or those whose people are already eating, that English writer/poet Samuel Johnson was referring to.

Irishman Oscar Wilde’s take on the nationalism/patriotism currently pervading Kenya (and America’s white supremacists) is even more on point: It is “the virtue of the vicious”; an expression explained by ruminating on how one muddies the corruption, xenophobia, bigotry and overall dysfunction that pervades (their) society: Kenyans have done so by questioning the loyalty, “patriotism” and religiosity of those pointing out the rot to wit:

All those questioning the “god-chosen” duo of Kenyatta and Ruto are “unpatriotic” “un-godly” ingrates!

Fortunately (or unfortunately), Kenya’s leadership have continued to overplay its hands, especially since 2002 when “punda” finally “chokad” and kicked out the authoritarian and corrupt 2nd president Daniel Moi.

In the late public servant Chris Msando and 6-month old Samantha Pendo, Kenya’s 2017 General Elections, regardless of the upcoming Supreme Court ruling, has its icons (Chinua Achebe’s Aminu Kano) and illustrations of how depraved the pursuit of power can become – even by attendees of “prayer rallies”.

The current talk of secession may peter out but I will be very surprised if Kenya reverts to status ante.

Follow this blog on Twitter @OmindesWords

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As read somewhere, a country gets the leadership it deserves and deserves the leadership it gets:

Kenyans now have the leadership they deserve – again.
Like Tom Mboya, looks like Raila Amolo Odinga will go down in history as the best president Kenya never had – and fortunately for him, it will not be due to an act of evil or due to lack of effort.

It will be due to Kensanity:
The tendency Kenyans have of electing the same corrupt and incompetent leaders and expecting different results.
“Democracy” is tortuous and capricious.
It is also fluid.

Kenya, like the People’s “Democratic” Republic of Korea (DPRK) or North Korea as it is commonly known, has been ruled by a handful of certified kleptocrats, some who like their counterparts in DPRK, have been accused of horrific crimes.

Similarly, America, arguably the world’s most foremost democracies, had codified in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of its Constitution, a law decorously referred to as the “Three-fifth Compromise”. This was a law that pegged slaves, descendants of Africa, as 3/5 humans!

And Rwanda, the new darling of the west, amended its constitution to allow its post-genocide president Paul Kagame a third seven-year term as its president – which he just won – with ninety-something per cent of the votes! Oh and he is also intolerant of dissension and opposition.

Is it any wonder that Winston Churchill offered that “democracy, is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
Chairman Mr. Wafula Chebukati’s IEBC spoke last week and barring any unforeseen events, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta will be sworn in as Kenya’s president. Fellow crimes-against-humanity suspect (former) William Samoei Ruto will be his deputy and on a side note, it is my estimation that he, Ruto, will have fulfilled his usefulness to the coalition loosely referred to as Mt. Kenya Mafia/Uthamikists.

While it can be said that the race for 2022 begins now, I offer that the fight for Kenya’s independence; for her soul will continue beyond 2022. The country is a flailing and divided amalgam of distrustful less-than-compassionate and selfish balkanized ethnicities all vying, oftentimes violently, to control the national purse string.

Short of throwing up one’s hands, “accepting” incompetence, mediocrity, avarice and “moving on”, there are those still willing to toil along hoping that justice eventually becomes their “shield and defender”. These Kenyans, much like African-Americans, continue to sacrifice their lives for a Kenya they believe does not care for them – this as embodied by how easy it is for the very instruments meant to “shield and defend” them from injustice to be turned against them – as vividly demonstrated this weekend in Kisumu, Kibera, Babadogo etc.

It is this unyielding dedication to public service for the greater good that compels me to join a long line of well-wishers and supporters offering their unsolicited advice to Raila Amolo Odinga:

Mr. Prime Minister, you have fought the good fight, not once, or twice or even three times, but your entire life and the easy, frankly lazy thing to say is that “you’ve lost” – each time. Even as I am fully cognizant of the reality that voting/elections is about “winners” and “losers”, that would be an indolent way of looking at your public CV.

RAO, I will not dwell on the elections of 2007, 2013 or the just-concluded 2017 race. I will leave that to historians and frankly my lack of objectivity – my soft spot for the man we affectionately call “Baba” – will be all too obvious.

What I will focus on is the forward former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga wrote in Babafemi Badejo’s book “Raila Odinga: An Enigma in Kenyan Politics.”:
That “(G)iven the crisis of political leadership in Africa (and I definitely add Kenya), and the burning quest for alternative political leadership on the continent, Raila Odinga…provides an interesting case study …and food for serious thought on both issues.”

Amolo:
Take a bow from a grateful global audience; this even as I acknowledge the dregs of “Railaphobia” that persists among some pockets of an ungrateful nation: It is true, a prophet is not without honor save in his own country but be that as it may Mr. PM, take time off from the country’s socio-political stage and rejuvenate your soul, your spirit and tend to your well-being and that of Mama Ida.
You have earned it.
You deserve it.

You’ve done your part, ironically, bequeathing an ungracious nation a system of governance, that while far from perfect, has given hitherto marginalized communities seats at the national table. And no, the journey is far from done – as amply demonstrated by events of the last five years.
It is also this reality that informs my hope that upon your return, you will write another book, this time delving into the darkness that was these last elections. I understand that as a former PM, you are sworn to secrecy on some state matters but on things you are able to reveal,
TOBOA!

Tell Kenyans why you sacrificed yourself and your family your entire adult life.

Explain to those who have open ears AND open minds why you chose to be the official and unofficial watchdog against those who continue to look for opportunities to rape the national treasury.
Tell Kenyans and the rest of the world why you risked life and limb to nurture the churlish polity that was Kenya circa 2002 – and continued to do so year in year out.

What happened to Chris Msando?
What of Jacob Juma?

What are your thoughts on the way forward, not necessarily as the Opposition, but in response to the statement or aspiration “The Kenya We ALL Want is________”?

What of implementation of the changes recommended by the TJRC and Kriegler Commissions?

Unlike the self-described “light of Kenya” who set the country along its current ruinous path of greed and self-engorgement, your life sir, illuminated the way for many in a country that continues to drunkenly stumble its way towards true devolution, multi-partyism and democratic & incorruptible space.

And far from the narrative propagated by some quarters, those who support the ideals upon which you have based your life have never deified you.
Your supporters understand that like all humans, you have foibles – plenty of them if I may add – but unlike those who only talk about patriotism, sacrifice and public service, your life has embodied it.

The time you ran afoul of the law was not because you were accused of crimes-against-humanity. You were never in court to answer questions about how you acquired seven-figure balances in foreign bank accounts or sprawling properties in faraway lands.

You were not in trouble for committing crimes against humans who looked to you for leadership.

You were in court to answer charges that you were part of a group that wanted to overthrow the corrupt and despotic government of the current president’s political mentor Daniel Arap Moi – something you eventually did in 2002 when you famously thundered “Kibaki Tosha”.

The fact is, it has never been about you or your family. Mr. PM, use your post-2017 General Election time to share that truism – that it doesn’t have to be your “turn to eat”.

That teaching and engaging the many eager and willing public servants will benefit the greater society and like the saying goes, a rising tide will lift all ships! A free and equitable Kenya will be more stable and secure which in turn will allow citizens to actualize themselves in any way they so choose.
I look forward to your work with the UN to “analyze the results of the (2017) ballot” that in my opinion has been panned as much as it has been embraced. And while at it, can you agitate for an independent non-Kenyan investigative body reopen the shoddy investigations into the assassinations of Tom Mboya, JM Kariuki and Robert Ouko?

But first Mr. Prime Minister, take some time off to heal yourself and replenish your spirits because the rudderless country still needs your extensive experience and wisdom and gravitas.

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Part of the reason leaders in countries in the “hot zone” of the disease — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — avoided the issue was because it focused international spotlight on how demonstrably ill-prepared they were to contain the pandemic.

Then-Cabinet Secretary for Health James Wainaina Macharia penned an article titled “How Nigeria beat Ebola: Key lessons for Kenya as told by CS James Macharia” to catalogue how Nigeria had successfully contained and beaten back the outbreak and what Kenya could learn from Nigeria’s experience. The former banker offered that Nigeria had:
– Identified AND acknowledged the outbreak very early on,
– Not politicize the outbreak i.e. allowed investigators to do their work unimpeded,
– The infrastructure fully equipped and ready for use,
– Actively worked with ALL local stake holders and
– Luck on its side!

Fast-forward to 2017 and Kenya is now dealing with an outbreak of cholera and like the outbreak of Ebola, it is the perfect storm of incompetence, corruption, impunity and for good measure, election year politicking!
One outbreak was traced to the Weston Hotel where doctors were attending a science conference. The hotel is linked to the Deputy President William Ruto. It doesn’t surprise anyone that there were efforts to suppress news of the outbreak within the hotel.

In another outbreak of the disease, the Cabinet Secretaries for National Treasury and Industrialization Henry Rotich and Adnan Mohammed were stricken after eating catered food at a trade fair held at the Kenyatta International Conference Center (KICC).

And in May, three people died after eating at a wedding in tony Karen just outside Nairobi.
Since May, 336 cases of the disease have been reported with Mathare, Huuruma and Mukuru Kwa Ruben being the most affected areas – this according to The Star newspaper.

Surprisingly, given the highly contagious nature of the food and water-borne disease, one would expect the equally-crowded areas of Kibera, Korogocho, Mukuru kwa Njenga, Sinai, Kwa Reuben etc. to be just as affected by the outbreak as the afore-mentioned slums – all areas with little to no structured sanitation including open sewers, little to no plumbing and foods cooked under some very suspicious and unregulated conditions.

On the other hand, the high-profile instances (Weston Hotel, KICC & Karen) all occurred in three distinct spatially-segregated geographic “ground zeros” – in organized (catered) and presumably sanitary settings.
Not to belabor the point, but my SO is an engineer and consistently reminds me that all investigations follow predictable methodologies AND identify/focus three basic components:
– Man
– Process/Machine
– Material

To wit, caterers prepared and served the food at the wedding in Karen, the conference at the Weston Hotel and the trade fair at the conference center.

Identifying the possible source/s of the outbreak/s in these instances would be comparatively easy compared to identifying the possible source/s of the outbreak/s in Mathare, Huuruma and Mukuru Kwa Ruben.

The government in a bid to be seen as doing something moved to order the immediate closure of San Valencia Hotel and Jacaranda Hotel in Nairobi, both linked to supplying food infected with cholera to public events. It’s however interesting that Weston Hotel which is linked to the Deputy President was not among the hotels affected by the order.

Why the Jubilee government would deny that the outbreak at the Weston Hotel was cholera – two months into the outbreak – speaks to the three elements of the perfect storm alluded to at the beginning: Corruption, Impunity and Election Year politics.

The blanket cancellation of medical certificates of all food handlers is a knee-jerk and illogical reaction that speaks to incompetence and flailing.

The decision not only metes out collective punishment to those in the food industry with nothing to do with the outbreak, it creates panic within an industry that is vital to the country’s economy.

The current cholera outbreak, like the ongoing violence in Laikipia and elsewhere, is yet another example of a Jubilee government that has been demonstrably corrupt, incompetent and poorly led.

Edited by @IamOminde

The post Jubilee’s Handling of the Cholera Outbreak – Election Year Politicking, Malice or Incompetence? appeared first on Biz Post Daily.

Mr. Raila Odinga made the announcement while addressing a political rally in Kibera this past Sunday, April 2.
Unsurprisingly, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chair Wafula Chebukati pushed back and called the decision “illegal” while adding that it’s the commission’s sole purview to “tally, collate, announce and declare the results of an election.”

NASA’s announcement is an interesting strategy that may also have unintended consequences including plunging the country into chaos; certainly into a constitutional crisis if the vote is close or perceptions abound that it is rigged. The latter concern takes on an urgency when viewed against the background of legislative machinations that begun in late 2016 and gave the Interior Department’s CS Joseph Nkaissery exclusive power to decide who has access to the national population register. The population register, for those who don’t know, determines the raw vote numbers ergo how elections are won/lost.

Additionally, Jubilee, from President Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and the man in charge of internal security Mr. Nkaissery’s, have all ratcheted up the tough talk and saber-rattling as illustrated by the name-calling and warnings that they’ll “nyorosha” opponents, the loading up on law enforcement materiel including additional police and NYS personnel, anti-riot gear including personnel carriers – and this just includes the items that have been publicized!

The fact is, NASA’s concerns should not be summarily dismissed given the IEBC’s history of incompetent handling of past elections and if preparation for the upcoming 2017 August 8th elections is anything to go by, then I wouldn’t be comfortable sitting back and heeding spokesman Manoah Esipisu’s call to “support the body” nor his ridiculous claim that “anyone who casts doubts on the work of the IEBC cannot claim to be a champion of the new Constitution.
While wrought with danger, I fully support NASA’s constitutional right to ask for and ensure “the announcement of results at three levels – the polling station, constituency and national”. It is their prerogative and their role as the opposition – to hold the government’s feet to the proverbial fire. Along with that support is a call, make that plea to agitate for that constitutional right in a respectful and peaceful way.

Jubilee for its part should consider NASA’s move to have parallel tallying center/s, a warning shot across the bow. It puts the onus on them to ensure a free, fair and transparent elections. The question is:
Does Jubilee plan on honoring the spirit of the Constitution or does it intend to “win” the elections by any means necessary?

Follow this blog on Twitter @OmindesWords

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That was the take of one of the world’s richest man — on the importance of college. While Mr. Zuckerberg went on to plug the value and importance of college, there was no mistaking that Facebook’s CEO fully recognized that some people can become wildly successful without graduating from college or even high school including the millennial who is worth $58bn — that is fifty-eight billion with a “b” dollars; money whose source is fully traceable!

Meanwhile in Kenya, Mombasa County Governor Hassan Joho and Nairobi Senator Mike “Sonko” Mbuvi are being upbraided because they are not the “college-educated” paragons of society Kenyans expect their political leaders to be; at least based on images of their educational records making the rounds on social media — Twitter to be exact.

The 4th Form papers of President Kenyatta’s nemesis Hassan Joho are supposedly fake according to that benchmark of unquestionable service and moral rectitude the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC). Yes, that same KNEC that for the first time in its history this past October, oversaw examinations that were supposedly “clean” and free from corruption.

“Sonko”, for his part got an “E” in Mathematics during his ’92 certificate of examinations exams. Defending the failing grade, the Nairobi Senator claimed that lots of students failed Math that year:

“Watu wangu getting an E in maths in 1992 haikuwa mbaya kulikuwa na mass failures.”

And late last month (February 27th), the Daily Nation offered “evidence” of the “graduation” of Gov. Joho’s foil — from the respected liberal arts institution Amherst College. The newspaper offered a scanned copy of the institution’s commencement program bearing President Kenyatta’s name, circled, as proof that he had “graduated with a degree in political science and economics”.

In the US, it is common knowledge that just because someone’s name appears on an institution’s commencement/graduation program does not mean they received their degree i.e. graduated. It simply means that they filed paperwork to walk or participate in the ceremony — for a host of reasons. The student still needs to go through a degree checklist — successfully — AND settle any outstanding debts including tuition, parking tickets, room&board, overdue library books etc. Only then will the institution confer a degree to the student. For the record, I am yet to see confirmation from Amherst that it awarded Uhuru Kenyatta a degree in political science and economics.

There is interesting congruency between the educational backgrounds of Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Joho albeit spun differently: Both have copies of some “evidence” of their educational history floating somewhere in cyberspace and anecdotes from “classmates” of their physical presence in some classes. However, one “graduated” while the other is fighting off “claims that he forged his certificate to get admission” into college.

Mewonders why?

The timing of these revelations, especially of Joho’s papers, coming in the wake of the KRA’s decision to freeze his assets portend an ominous trend to say the least.

Nigerian Author Chinua Achebe writes that “a frog does not hope around in broad daylight unless its life is in danger.”

I will not pussy-foot around the issue:

Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho is the target of a coordinated smear and character assassination campaign by the Jubilee Government. What makes the attacks scary and extremely Nixonian is the government’s use of its instruments of violence (military and para-military), regulatory oversight (KNEC) and compliance (KRA) against the governor.

The same government that could not provide suspect Uhuru Kenyatta’s bank records (not to mention phone records) to the International Criminal Court simply flipped a switch and Joho’s bank accounts were frozen. And a week later, the same inept group of bureaucrats who until the other day could not conduct a clean examination to save their lives miraculously checked and cross-checked multiple references and records and concluded that “Joho Hassan Ali did not register nor sat for the year 1992 KCSE examination….”

Simply astonishing and proof that Jubilee can indeed rise to the occasion and expedite adjudication of corruption cases if it so wants to. Or can they?

Unfortunately, there was a minor yet telling detail on the “VERFICATION AND CONFIRMATION OF EXAMINATION RESULTS” letter issued by the KNEC making the rounds on social media.

Memo to Jubilee’s Operations Research — Please Read Carefully

If, as head of an agency appointed by the incumbent government, you are going to write an official letter, retrospectively, questioning the educational qualifications, indeed intellect of a public figure who also happens to be a member of the opposition and a thorn in the side of the incumbent government, make sure that the letter is pristine before making it public.

The purported official letter casting aspersions at the educational qualifications of the opposition member should not have any typos or grammatical errors. It shouldn’t have punctuation, stylistic or use of tense errors.

Gov Joho “did not register nor SAT for…..”?

Shouldn’t it be “…..did not register nor SIT for…..”?

The comedy of error continues when one tries to make sense of the claim that Gov. Joho allegedly forged his Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) Certificate; one that shows Cs, Ds, and Es instead of the desirous As and Bs!

My reading of the tea leaves:

In classic Trumpian fashion albeit without the 3AM Twitter rants, Jubilee is deliberately and strategically using shoddily forged and manufactured documentation along with state instruments of power and control to intimidate and frustrate Gov. Hassan Joho — arguably the second-most powerful and articulate voice in the Opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) Party.

Even more telling is the fact that Jubilee has not pursued others who have been accused of having fake academic papers with the same zeal they’ve done going after Gov. Joho; the same Joho the same government cleared to vie for the governorship of Mombasa four years ago.

The glaring hypocrisy aside, let’s not kid ourselves. Hassan Joho is collateral damage in Jubilee’s ultimate goal: Election Day Victory.

The faux outrage over grades, certificates and degrees are all slights of hands to mask and obfuscate Jubilee’s skullduggery at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) with August 8, 2017 less than one hundred and thirty-four days away.

The post About Scanned Commencement Programs, Forged Graduation Certificates and Failing Grades. Or Is It? appeared first on Biz Post Daily.

In the exchange the colleague asked, as justification for Kenyatta’s thin-skinned reactions to various county officials, “what would happen to me were I to approach POTUS the way Joho approached Uhuru”.

It was an interesting analogy only that it was also a false equivalence – a logical fallacy where two opposing arguments appear to be (logically) equivalent (in quantity and quality of evidence) but are not because one side has more and better evidence.

For one, I am not a governor of a state so were POTUS to visit the state where I reside, I wouldn’t be anywhere near him unless by accident.

For an apples-to-apples comparison, I offered as an example of presidential comportment, Barack Obama’s reaction to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s disrespectful behavior towards him when Air Force One touched down in Phoenix (back in Jan 2012). As the hosting governor, Ms. Brewer “welcomed” Mr. Obama to Arizona but allowed her partisanship to manifest itself in her reaction towards the visiting POTUS.

I told my colleague that “rather than call the US Army/Marines to place Gov. Brewer under ‘office arrest’, POTUS simply walked away leaving her standing on the airport tarmac in the hot desert sun – fuming.”

After that, my colleague demurred any further response to the Obama/Brewer saga and as he has done severally, pivoted to a friendlier topic.

Their partisan differences aside – Obama is a Democrat and Brewer is a Republican – The White House coordinated Obama’s visit with Phoenix (state capital of Arizona) and kept the Republican governor in the loop. By respecting the chain of command (as constitutionally mandated AND reflected in the relationship between the federal government and state government) Gov. Brewer’s behavior was widely-panned across the aisle because she had allowed her personal (and partisan) bias to manifest itself in the way she engaged the ultimate symbol of national unity – President Obama.

Had my colleague respected and embraced the fact that Gov. Joho is the chief executive of Mombasa even as President Kenyatta is chief executive of the country, he would have acknowledged that State House Nairobi had violated basic protocol by failing to co-ordinate the visit with State House Mombasa.

My take:

The pervading sense of entitlement or “uthamaki” (has) allowed President Kenyatta and his supporters such as my colleague to behave as if Kenya, its military and her natural resources belong to a select few i.e. “ya mama yao” and constitutional niceties be damned!

To wit, understanding the constitution, the various branches of national and county government and how the officials occupying those offices are supposed to interact with each other dovetail with the choices the voters make – at the ballot box – and what constitutes acceptable behavior.

Either my colleague knew the chain of command between State House Nairobi and State House Mombasa and chose to ignore it or did not know said relationship between the two hence was spewing partisan ignorance and hubris. Both scenarios point to one thing:

Understanding how government works or “Civic Education”, especially in a nascent democracy is extremely important and vital in assuring that citizens knowledgably participate in their own governance instead of defaulting to the banal AND extremely dangerous (sense of) entitlement reflected in constructs such as “uthamaki” and “giniwasekao”.

The ignorance and hubris reflected in the latter, “giniwasekao” loosely translated to mean “we’ve already taken this thing” proved even more costly because it bred an apathy that allowed supporters of Raila Odinga to incorrectly assume that their candidate had “already won” the 2012 General Elections against the crimes-against-humanity duo of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto.

What befell CORD/Raila in 2012 is what befell the Democrats/Hillary in 2016; this regardless of the many narratives their respective supporters want to point to. Allegations that the elections had been “rigged” or “storen” by Jubilee-leaning IEBC workers or hacked by the Russians, swung by terrified and disaffected racist, misogynistic and xenophobic disaffected white male voters in Hillary’s case pale in comparison to the hubris and apathy of either party’ respective voters.

Instead of internalizing the simple and practical reality that elections are about hard numbers a la tyranny of numbers and executing on the basics of voter registration and election-day turnout, RAO’s supporters took their collective eyes off the ball and failed to (a) get their national ID, (b) register to vote, (c) canvass the precincts to make sure that others had executed on (a) through (c) and even more importantly, (d), turn out to vote!

Likewise, HRC’s campaign believed its internal polling that showed them “winning” and/or being competitive in traditional GOP strongholds. In the process, the campaign overlooked campaigning i.e. selling their ideas and even more important, election day turn in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – all states Obama won in 2012.

In the US, Democrats are already planning for 2018.

In Kenya, the countdown to August 2017 is on.

The post Uthamaki, Giniwasekao – the relationship between tribal bigotry and voter apathy appeared first on Biz Post Daily.

I must hand it to President Uhuru Kenyatta. The years spent at Amherst did help him. The delivery of the State of the Nation speech was polished and flowery.

The speech was also hypocritical and so removed from the reality of the last four years given the facts on ground that Mr. Kenyatta needed a drink midway through his delivery.

On a side note: Just because someone’s name appears on the program of a college’s graduation ceremony does not mean they received their degree. It simply means that they filed paperwork to walk or participate in the ceremony — for a host of reasons. The student still needs to go through a degree checklist – successfully – AND settle any outstanding debts. Only then will the institution (at least in most countries) confer a degree to the student. Given Kenya’s reputation as a “degree mill”, I can see why some, including ‘journalists’ accepted a scanned copy of a commencement program as evidence that UK “graduated” from UM-Amherst.

Back to the State of the Nation address. Two words:

PARALLEL UNIVERSE.
In 2013 when the digital duo was traversing the country attending “prayer rallies”, they offered Kenyans a campaign platform titled “Harmonized Coalition Manifesto – Transforming Kenya: Securing Kenya’s Prosperity 2013-2017”.

Incidentally, attempts to provide a link to the document garnered the following message:
” This site can’t be reached; file’s server DNS address could not be found; DNS_PROBE_FINISHED-NXDOMAIN”

In the document, summarized in an article online, the coalition of Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Charity Ngilu and Najib Balala promised to:

• Put food and clean water on every Kenyan table,
• Ensure that every child in Kenya gets quality education,
• Create wealth,
• Ensure that every Kenyan gets quality and affordable healthcare,
• Empower Kenyan women to take their rightful place in developing this country,
• Keep Kenya safe and secure both internally and externally,
• Develop a cogent foreign relations and trade policy for Kenya.

I keenly listened for clear articulation of these promises to no avail. I waited for the Amherst-attendee to verbalize in his polished English the promise to “Put food and clean water on every Kenyan’s table”.

I am not sure what nation Mr. Kenyatta lives in but the one most of us live in is not the one described in the seven thousand five hundred and fifty-three words; words that made up a false sense of security and accomplishment and directly contradicted by a majority.

When IPSOS asked Kenyans what their main concerns were back in December 2016, a plurality listed hunger, corruption and the high cost of living as “the most serious problems facing them” including one in five (17%) who “barely have enough to eat”!

While opinion polls have taken a bashing over the last year due to the onslaught of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, any leader would be remiss were they to summarily dismiss or minimize findings that a section of the population “barely had enough to eat”.

Mr. President, Kenyans are hungry. They are also thirsty!

In the winding one-hour monologue, there was no mention or use of the word “food”. There were three (3) mentions of the word “water” but not within the context of the president’s delivering on the promise to “put clean water on every Kenyan’s table”. In what is a metaphor for President Kenyatta’s first term in office, one of the mentions of “water” was within the context of borrowing money from France to fund a water project!

Corruption, something President Kenyatta has accurately described as an “existential threat to the peace and security of Kenya” was mentioned ten (10) times – in a speech five hundred words shy of eight thousand words! And true to his now-patented tendency to obfuscate and misdirect on the subject, he offered, as an update, the mea culpa that he “knew…..eliminating corruption would be a journey on a rocky path”; that the “seeming lack of progress” is not accurate.

Let me cut to the chase on the subject:

There is NO “progress” in the “efforts” against corruption. Were that true, the many high-profile scandals during the president’s 1st term would have been addressed swiftly and sans prevarication. The president’s own deputy, his sister and cousin would have been hurled before the courts and either prosecuted on corruption charges or exonerated. To date, a coterie of low-level scapegoats has manipulated a corrupt court system to escape prosecution
It is quite possible that one can go to King Fadh Hospital in Lamu and verify “the addition of a new Accident and Emergency Care Centre” and some of the promises the addition entails.

What is unmistakable and has repeatedly played out over the last four years are images of Kenyans, all of them rich and well-connected, being ambulanced to South Africa, India and United Kingdom, in search of better medical treatment. What Mr. Kenyatta promised was “quality affordable healthcare” for “every Kenyan” – key words “every Kenyan”.

How President Kenyatta can reconcile the foregoing dichotomous realities from his first term in office escapes me. It is the same alternate reality that explains why it took him almost four hundred words to explain his campaign’s succinct nine-worded campaign bullet point “Ensure that every Kenyan gets quality and affordable healthcare.” The president’s State of the Union spiel on healthcare is illustration of the crisis management adage (that) “if you are explaining, you’ve already lost the narrative”.

Mr. Kenyatta almost sprained his arm congratulating his administration for “delivering honest exams.” That any society; any administration would tout the delivery of “honest exams” in a singular academic year as an accomplishment is just sad and an apt illustration of the nadir Mr. Kenyatta’s government has fallen to. Unfortunately, the corollary of the corrupt educational system is plain for all to see:

Incompetent and/or unqualified personnel, fake degrees and certificates, rampant physical, sexual and psychological abuse of students – happening inside some of the country’s top institutions including the flagship Alliance High School.

Again, how the president can reconcile the foregoing set of facts with his campaign promise of assuring that “every child in Kenya gets quality education” escapes me. It simply does not add up.

The same disconnect exists for the remaining four (4) of the seven (7) promises President Kenyatta and his Jubilee Coalition made to the Kenyan voters.

The 2017 State of the Nation was a slick blend of wiz-bang prose that did not and does not align with the reality facing many Kenyans.

People are dying of hunger and thirst in “the nation” where most Kenyans live, Schools are failing, corruption is rampant and the teachers are underpaid and disrespected. A handful of well-connected tribesmen own virtually all the wealth in the country. Patients who don’t have any money are left to fend for themselves and doctors are threatened with termination when they agitate for better wages and working conditions.

Women are 2nd class citizen in a nation that is unsafe despite spending billions to arm its police force (and military).
Kenya is a nation shunned by her neighbors who see her leaders as selfish unprincipled demagogues who act with impunity, not in the interest of their subjects, but to protect themselves from being held accountable.

I am not sure which nation President Kenyatta was referring to in his State of the Union address but it certainly wasn’t mine nor of people I know.

May God Bless Us and may He Bless THIS “Kenya” we live in.

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