KENYA BEYOND 2005

2008-11-22T17:22:00.002-05:00

This is the response the Kenya government made following my blog on piracy. These Somali leaders should go home and build their country and stop this piracy. They cannot do it from the safety of Nairobi.

Kenya threatens to impose sanctions on Somali MPs (Daily Nation)

By OLIVER MATHENGEPosted Saturday, November 22 2008 at 22:07
Kenya has threatened to impose sanctions against Somali leaders if they do not spearhead efforts to restore stability in the Horn of Africa country.
Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetang’ula issued the threat on Friday saying leaders must be responsible for the political situation in Somalia.
The minister said member states of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Development (Igad) would impose sanctions on the leaders and their family members.
He said this would ensure that the Somali leaders no longer sought “safe havens abroad. We are faced with an embarrassing situation where Somali Members of Parliament came to Kenya for a meeting and have refused to go back home,” the minister said.
“They have to go and build their country. They can’t leave it to warlords that are partly benefiting from this criminal enterprise. I think hard decisions have to be made in one way or the other to enable us move to the next level.”
Mr Wetang’ula was speaking at the InterContinental Hotel in Nairobi, where he hosted heads of foreign missions in the country for a consultative meeting over the escalating incidences of piracy along the East African coastline.
He attributed this increase to the political instability in Somalia. Defence minister Yusuf Haji also attended the meeting.
The international community has raised concern over the growing number of hijacked ships in the Indian Ocean reportedly by Somali pirates. The minister said President Kibaki would host an international conference in Nairobi to discuss the matter. He however did not give a date for the meeting.
“The plot has been thickening day by day, and has now turned into a major international enterprise affecting all of us,” the minister said. He said the fact that pirates were now hijacking ships from as long as 800km from the shore showed that the problem was big.
Praising a decision by India three days ago to destroy one of its hijacked vessels, Mr Wetang’ula said that all countries must now prepare to act tough on the pirates.
“I think sometimes we must take decisions that are harsh... We must act now,” he said.

2008-11-20T22:12:00.001-05:00

THE PIRATES HAVE STRUCK AGAIN!

I hate to say this but I told you so. In a previous post on piracy I warned that these thugs will be targeting a more valuable vessel than the fishing boats they have been hitting. They now have a 100 million dollar worth of crude and a whole tanker under their armpits. They are operating with daring impudence and temerity. They are collecting ransom right left and center. They defied international maritime law and instituted their own banditry laws that puts to shame the pirates of old, Caribbean included. The world is still at a loss on how to handle them.

We cannot turn merchant ships into warships. Merchant vessels should prowl the waters safely and uninhibited. The law of the sea cannot be turned to the law of the jungle. These pirates must be faced with utmost force and be annihilated. There should be no safe haven for them. All their operating bases should be targeted and destroyed. All who harbor them should hang with them. The beneficiaries of the loot should not be spared either.

This brings me to the question, where is all the ransom money going? We know it is not financing the building of hospitals in Mogadishu, neither is it financing education or supplying water to the Somalis. This loot is being recycled to buy arms to destabilize the region and entrench some warlords in power. This is a recipe for disaster both inside Somalia and in the neighboring countries. Kenya is still sitting and watching and even hosting the so called Somali government MPs in the capital. If they cannot control their own backyard, what business does the Kenya government have in according them any recognition.

You cannot lead by telepathy, which is what these fellows attempt to do from the safety of Eastleigh lodgings. Kick them out and let them go and tame these pirates. Parading some fellows in court delivered by the British doesn’t mean we are doing much. Don’t we have a sizable Somali population in Kenya? Don’t they have links with some of those Somalis? Must we wait for someone to put their finger in our noses before we react. As Achebe would ask, if someone comes and defecates on your floor, do you close your eyes and pretend not to see? No! You take a stick and break his neck. These have not only defecated on our floor they are defecating on our food lines, our export routes, our import routes, our fuel route and we are closing our eyes and pretending not to see.

Cut off those safe havens. Simply splatter them along the ocean shore. Bomb them if need be to oblivion. This way we are protecting ourselves from being hit where it hurts. If this piracy continues we are going to pay dearly and the events of August 1998 will look like Diwali fireworks. My philosophy is simple, preemptive strike is not cowardice. Let us give maximum support to those fighting our battles for us, the Indian Navy and the Royal Navy, While we shamelessly debate over whether to punish the killers in our midst who sponsored the ethnic cleansing after the elections, the two nations have taken the mantle to defend our gates. We have lost the moral authority to point at these pirates for our actions are worse than theirs. The pirates in our leadership should be routed out too.
If that supertanker is not rescued, through ransom or by force, and the pirates destroy it as they might, the environmental consequences will be catastrophic. Believe me they are prone to destroy it. nothing matters to them other than ransom. Then what? They will take another one and another one? Someone must put a stop to this. There must be preemptive action. Seal those safe havens, splatter those mother ships, cease those ransoms, enforce maritime international law. Kenya government stands indicted. This happening at your door step on your watch, and you are doing nothing discernible to help yourself or others. The ball is squarely in your coat. Do not fold your tail and hide behind grass blades. Even if you can’t bite, just bark.

2008-11-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

OBAMA: WHAT LESSONS FOR KENYA?

So Kenya declared a public holiday to celebrate Obama’s victory. A number of goats and bulls and countless chicken have met with premature death in the name of celebration. This is all good and befitting the man soon to reside in the best-known address in the USA. All this euphoric celebration made me think of the way we celebrated our own election results some ten months ago. Instead of slaughtering goats and chicken we slaughtered each other. Instead of letting the law and legally empowered institutions take action we hijacked that responsibility and went berserk. Instead of accepting defeat in humility and meekness we still harbor grudges and seek revenge. Yet when the Americans carry out the very same process and elect their leader, we shamelessly take to the streets in tumultuous celebration and declare holidays.

What is the lesson to be learned from the American elections? First is the maturity of democratic practice. People listen, reason and react. People do not react then reason. If the power of the spoken word is not backed by the power of the character behind the word, then the prospective candidate has no chance. In Kenya we want to back our words with force not character. That is why we have politicians hiring some goons to intimidate their opponents. We saw the humility of John McCain in his concession speech, if you are defeated, eat the humble pie and live to fight another day. But Kenyans are never losers, even if they get one per cent of the votes it is rigging and not democracy.

Second we must learn to cherish our institutions. Beginning with the election process. This must be made sacrosanct. It must be beyond manipulation and bias. This can only come about if we learn to man the institutions with competent men and women. Our social, economic and political fabric has been weakened by our allowing cronyism and payback is the guiding principles of appointing people to these institutions. We must transcend this and look at competence, integrity, patriotism and devotion to democratic ideals in the appointments.

Third we must learn to appreciate our own values. We should not rush to embrace only those who turn out to be successful. There are many Kenyans who in their own small ways should make us proud. Let us also celebrate them the way we celebrate this American whose father was a Kenyan.

Fourth every child out there ought to take heart and know that the only thing that can limit your becoming what you dream is you. Obama grew without a father in the house, his mother died of cancer, and his grandmother who did not live to savor his victory brought him up. This is typical of some boys out there and they should take heart that someone has walked the path and made it. This however does not mean the fathers should abscond from their responsibilities. But there is much to learn from this victory than claiming kinship and seeking favors. The greatest lesson to me is that dreams come, true, no matter how long it takes.

Some members of parliament are bending backward looking for appropriate preachers and priests to conduct public prayers of thanksgiving. There is nothing wrong with prayers but there is everything wrong if the purpose is to be seen to be most loyal and greatest praise singer of the US president-elect. Remember the IDPs in your backyard; they need more prayers and perhaps some handouts, if not their homes. When was the last time you called for prayers or help for them or visited them? If you are religious you might remember the saying that Jesus said that if you help any of these (referring to the children and suffering) you are doing it to me. Charity begins at home. Pray to Our Father who art in Heaven, not to the one who art the Whitehouse.

Lastly, if we are a working nation we need to change our attitude to work. Kenya has at least eleven official public holidays, more if you are a Hindu, more if the president visits your area and more if Obama wins elections. Thank God it is only possible one more time. Add to this the annual leave, sick leave, funeral leave and you have two months of working time off and paid. Kenya should rethink her work ethic. The policy of hanging jackets on chairs and closing offices for lunch should be reviewed. Stagger the lunch hours, even if this will dismantle the nyama choma lunch clubs, and deliver services whole day. Pay people per hour rather than per month or per day and this will improve productivity. Instead of a public holiday, Kenyans should have worked full day Saturday, and for free.

So my fellow Kenyans as we rush to establish kinship with the US president-elect, let us first cherish the kingdom we have in our land, nurture it, and learn from the lessons of the American Dream. Blood, sweat, toil, and fatalities of Civil War and civil rights movement marked the path walked by many before Obama could start on the journey towards the presidency of the United States of America. Let us not just see the breasting of the tape but the rigors of the journey, the agonies of the afflicted, the desperation of the destitute, let us pull them up for they too have a dream.

Piracy in High Seas

2008-10-19T13:51:00.002-05:00

Over the past month a drama has been unfolding off the coast of East Africa. An Ukrainians ship laden with arms destined for Kenya has been commandeered by a rag tag army of pirates armed with all sorts of short-range weapons. The pattern of highjacking has developed from small boats to bigger ships. The pirates have been emboldened by the apparent lack of deterrence in the region.
Kenya’s strategy has been unknown, ineffective and in some way emboldening the pirates. Kenya has not shown by word or deeds its capacity to protect her interests in the region. The maintenance of clear, open and safe sea-lanes on the east coast of Africa is paramount for the sovereignty and security of Kenya. Kenya should not condone any interference with maritime security near her borders. When such a threat is from a bandit organization from an anarchic neighbor, it is demeaning and unacceptable that we are reduced to the level of contemplating ransom payment for release of our cargo. Whether the cargo on board the high jacked vessel was destined for Kenya or not, the fact remains that the sea-lanes are threatened and something has to be done.
Kenya has a duty, indeed a responsibility to demand the cessation of such activities on her doorstep. Kenya should act in conjunction with other maritime nations of the Indian Ocean to ensure safety of all ships in the region. These sea-lanes are vital to our economy and national security. All our oil imports from the Middle East pass through here, all our imports from China, India, Japan and other countries of the east pass through here. If today we allow these pirates to take one ship and demand compensation, tomorrow they will take a whole oil tanker. One cannot imagine the consequence, environmental, political and economic if, God forbid, they were to take one such tanker and blow it up in the ocean.
We need decisive early action. Kenya must flex her muscles and show her willingness to step in and protect shipping in the area. Kenya should send her ships to patrol the region. Given the ships are not equipped for prolonged sea stay, you nevertheless need to bark and show your fangs even if you cannot bite. Those thugs deserve to be blown to oblivion and the world will not shed tears over them.
The moment they get emboldened, they are going to get sympathizers from the international terror organizations and soon we will be dealing not with the ragtag pirates but with Al Qaeida and others on our doorstep. The time to stem this tide is now. Back your bark with the sound of your guns, conduct exercises in the region, show them the consequences of their actions, let them see you can blow them to smithereens to protect our national interest.
Kenya should lead in this responsibility. We cannot wait for America to come and do it for us, yes we may need their help, but let us show those pirates that the 21st century is not the age of piracy. Once they get enough revenue from the sea, they will start getting guns, which will be used along our borders and eventually inside our country. Let us nip this menace in the bud, let our navy, army and air force flex their muscles along the common border. Test the endurance of our navy along the international waters off the coast of Somalia. Let us work with other maritime powers of the Indian Ocean especially India and South Africa. Let us dare those bandits to touch our ships and let us send them a clear message, keep off the waters off our coastline. If we are not a nation of cowards, let us take the dare!
Are we declaring war on Somalia no. Are we declaring war on pirates you bet, be they Somalis, Kenyans or whatever breed. The time to act is now.

WHEREFORE OUR EDUCATION

2008-07-25T10:57:00.002-05:00

The current wave of strikes and arson in schools is cause for concern. That the minister of education responds with setting up a commission is cause for greater concern. Commissions in Kenya have been taken to mean a temporary reprieve and buying time for the fire to wear itself out and be smothered and ashes dissipated. Schools unrest in Kenya at all levels is an epidemic that has been with us for a long time. What we haven’t done is to prescribe a permanent cure. We have always administered temporary relief balm soothing the swelling while the cancer beneath festers to break out again elsewhere.

Our boarding schools have been the biggest culprits of this menace. We need to address not only the causes but also come up with prescriptions for the cure. I am a product of day school. I went to a day primary school and a day high school and we never had a strike. The only boarding school I attended was for my A levels, and we had a strike. One of my children went to a day high school and they never had a strike, the other went to a boarding school and they had a strike. A local high school in my neighborhood was a day school for many years without any student problems, but from the time it became a boarding school, it has been characterized by strikes and acts of hooliganism frequently. This may not be scientific research but there is something to be said about boarding schools being more prone to student unrest and accompanying mayhem and destruction than day schools.

There are, however, some unique exceptions like Starehe. But by and large our boarding schools are breeding grounds for strikes. Our boarding schools are not cheap. The cost of maintaining a student there is sometimes beyond the means of most parents. The return on investment is not proportionate when you factor in the material, intellectual and sometimes human destruction that occurs there. We need to seriously look at the efficacy of boarding schools versus day schools. The days when boarding schools were established because the students could not commute daily are gone. With advancement in transportation, people are able to cover vast distances each day. We should do away with the boarding schools. This way we will promote our neighborhood schools and develop a sense of ownership and responsibility of the institution. Our children would be home each night and parents would take greater responsibility over their discipline and welfare.

Currently parents send their children to boarding schools, leave them with the principal and are not bothered to even pay the required fees for their maintenance. They abrogate their responsibility and expect the teachers not only teach but also feed, nurture, discipline, counsel, guide, train, control and educate without their full participation physically and materially. The pressure on school administration and teachers is excessive without adding performance contracts. For teachers to be able to perform effectively, they need the necessary resources. Apart from books and labs, they need the security and protection that comes from knowledge that their disciplinary actions will be upheld, their tenure is protected from political whims and their salaries will arrive on time. With this they will be able to exert measures and institute systems that work. But in most of our schools this is not happening. Let the parents take over the ownership of the schools.

Who owns Nairobi School, for example? Is it Abdi’s father from Garissa or Omwami’s father from Bungoma or Njoroge from nearby Kangemi? To instill a sense of security in our institutions we must instill a sense of ownership. The parents, the teachers and mostly the students must develop a sense of ownership of the institution. If this is lacking, destruction will continue as the destroyers will see it as them versus us, it is their property not our property. In a culture like ours where materialism takes precedent over reason, it may take time to instill such a sense of ownership but it is not impossible.

Students cannot develop a sense of ownership if they view their school as a prison. While maintenance of discipline and order is conducive to good learning, participation and ownership of the rules and regulations makes it easier to enforce discipline. When students are engaged in the formulation and implementation of discipline, the institution runs smoothly. The students become the owners of the rules and the teachers guide and supervise their implementation. When the students are empowered to handle lower level disciplinary infringements, the school is relatively at peace. This in no way absolves the school administration of ultimate responsibility, but it eases the workload of the teachers. But if the teachers are drunken with power mania, wanting to show whom the boss is, they end up stressing themselves and the school suffers. Teachers should always remember that the interest of the child is supreme. The child should be the focus of all decisions.

The schools are not there for the teachers or the parents, they are not there for the minister to set commissions, they are not there for the politicians to brag and blast, they are there for the education of our children. The basic question, indeed the only question, that should be asked before a decision is made about a school should be; is this in the best interest of the child? Therefore, it is my contention that in the best interests of our children, we should decentralize provision of education. Put the parents in the center of the operations. It is their children; they should be primarily responsible for them. If they choose to delegate this responsibility to the teachers there should be a contractual relationship, which all the parties should respect and enforce. This is no strange supposition. Decentralization was the rallying call of the last elections, where is the implementation?

That there are incidents of bullying in our schools today is an indictment of the failure of the school administration. The culprits for bullying in schools should not be the student, but the head of the school. Any school head that has not been able to control bullying in their school should not head the institution, ability to control bullying should be a basic requirement in every evaluation of the school head’s performance. But for this to work, the channels of communication between the parents, their children and the school must be open and smooth. There is parental responsibility here and should be established on the first day they send their children to the school.

I know this is a long haul but it is possible. We have to start somewhere, somebody has to take the first step and say we must change. We cannot hide in the premise that our children are only there for four years. We must have the long view and make it better for those that will come after us. I am sure I am not alone in seeing that the school that I went to is the same school my children went to and perhaps my grandchildren will be going to, if we do not change it now, we are condemning our grandchildren to the same mess that we were exposed to. One day we might be faced with the inevitable question from a grandson; why didn’t you take action when you had the capacity and foresight?

We also need to address our examination system. Our education system lays too much emphasis on the final examination, ours is a system where a student can be an A student for eight or twelve years, depending on the exam, but on the final exam the student gets an E perhaps because of extraneous circumstances like death in the family, illness, or others and that students is condemned as a failure and denied chances of advancement. We must change our system to be cognizant of the day-to-day effort of the students. Knowledge is the cumulative sum of all that is learned and cannot be effectively measured by selective questions administered on a wet soggy day. All the accumulated knowledge over time should be considered at some point, this should ease the pressure on the students to just perform well at the end of their courses. The knowledge that their day-to-day classroom performance will somehow count towards their final grade will shift their focus to the purpose of their being in school, gain education, improve attendance, and not plot strikes and hooliganism.

Too many resources have been expended in ostentatious buildings and buses at the expense of the basic materials like books and labs. This too must change. Our schools should not be seen as shining only during the annual musical festivals, which do not take the participants beyond the funfair of appearing in the capital once a year. Where are the musicians, actors and actresses, dance troupes that emerge from this annual circus? We are wasting tremendous time, talent and manpower in preparing the children for this annual circus, which is seen as a terminal event. It is time it was taken a step further and utilize the talents in perhaps recording their work and marketing it and giving the children a direction towards a career. Some of these children may not be gifted academically and this may be the only avenue where their talents can shine. We should not deny them this opportunity. Let our children see that there is life beyond the classroom. Going to high school and college is an ideal but is not panacea to our problems, there are a lot of people that are successful without having made it to college, albeit with greater stress. But we must show our talented youth the various avenues open to them and guide them accordingly. Our system is such that if you do not excel on your academics you are a failure. It is time we looked at the other alternatives open to those who are not academically gifted.

My recommendations therefore are: systematically abolish all boarding schools, empower students in school discipline enforcement; institute a sense of ownership of the schools among the players, parents, students and teachers; Shift the focus in education policies, staffing procedures, promotions and funding to what is best for the student rather than the teacher, politician or community. Schools are there for the child and everything else should revolve around that. Change the system of our examination to include the school life performance rather than one exam performance. Develop the extracurricular activities to be a vocation for the student not a trophy session for the schools.

Kenya My Country, I weep For You.

2008-01-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

In times of turmoil and anguish like now, in times of desperation and mayhem like the present, when dusk forestalls fear and dawn brings desperation, that is when leaders distinguish themselves. That is the point when leaders to peace and prosperity distinguish themselves from leaders of mobs and ruffians.

A leader does not sprout from the triumphant parade of the victors but from the humility of the vanquished. A leader does not thump his chest and lift his nose at the vanquished but stretches his hand and points them to the road of recovery. The good book of prophet Isaiah calls us to reason ‘Come therefore let us reason together’. This is the sensible thing to do, this is the right thing to do, and this is what we should do. And the time to do it is now.

But as somebody said, you cannot shake hands with closed fists. You do not sit down and talk when your house is on fire. You first put out the fire and then sit down and talk. Find where the fire started, make sure it does not ignite again. The call for talks, reconciliation and peace cannot be heeded when the bows are out of the quivers and the machetes are being sharpened. We cannot talk when our mouths are full of vitriol, hatred and war-mongering. If these leaders talked to the millions that came out and voted, why can’t they talk to the same to lay down their arms and stop this madness?

I refuse to believe that killing your neighbor, burning his house, destroying his livestock and livelihood will change your socio-economic or political status for the better. You have lived in the same neighborhood, drank from the same well, eaten together, gone to the same church, same hospital, same harambee meetings, same cattle dips, same water project, your children go to the same school, and overnight he becomes your enemy because your favorite candidate did not win the election. What folly, what madness, where did we lose our tracks?

We stood in the same queues waiting patiently for our turn to cast our ballot, what was the purpose of the ballot? Was it not to pick one from the many? What was the plan B? Was it not to accept the verdict of the people? If there was a discrepancy, foul play, irregularity, is it going to be corrected with the axes and fires on our neighbors? If your neighbor steals your cow, do you go and steal his? No. You call the elders and let him answer before them? You cannot burn the whole forest just because you are feeling cold and need to warm your toes. You should not kill, or die, just because somebody feels he should be the president, MP or councillor. Believe me. Moi was right, the ugali plates in your house will not increase just because that person won or lost. You may burn or loot but that will change your circumstances for a moment and then you go back to your old routine. Woe unto you if you will have burned that factory, shop or farm that employed you.

My fellow Kenyans, why are we so myopic, shortsighted, blindfolded, unreasonable? Must we hack each other to death just to make a point? What happened to reason? Where are those helicopters that were crisscrossing the country during the campaigns? Why aren’t they crisscrossing the country preaching peace? Is this not the time for the leaders to distinguish themselves from the mob and halt the violence?

Yes we have the police and security agents to do that, but we need all and sundry to play their part. If this is not forthcoming then we have no choice but to indict them of complicity in this mayhem and imminent genocide. We do not need half-hearted condemnations; we need total commitment and action. Call off these goons and gangs.

. These murderers, arsonists and looters must face the full force of the law. Their protection or remission should not be on any other agenda other than the courts. This is the only way we can tell that you are for peace and that you command respect of those you purport to represent. The country is on the verge of collapse, and if we do not guard it together, save it together, build it together, we shall surely be destroyed together.

KENYANS NEVER LOSE!

2007-11-22T00:47:00.000-05:00

Kenyans are always winners. No Kenyan ever loses. We are a very rare species who detest, nay abhor, that word loser. Ask any politician, none can ever lose an election be it secret ballot or mlolongo (queuing). Even when your queue has two people on it and your opponent’s has a thousand, you cannot lose. You have to be rigged out. All politicians are rigged out. The people who vote you out don’t matter, their opinion is irrelevant, you get rigged out by your political enemies. Never mind you cannot name one such enemy.

Our sports teams are no better. All the world referees in all sports are in a conspiracy to lock out Kenyan teams. Be it soccer or rugby, tennis or swimming, boxing or athletics, the referees, coaches and umpires are against us. They rig us out. Our athletes are always subjected to conspiracies by other teams’ coaches. They conspire to have our opponents defeat us. They are not supposed to do this, we are winners and never losers. Why should all the world volleyball teams, cricket teams, basketball teams conspire to deny us our victory. We are not losers. We do not lose we are only rigged out! The Ethiopians and Moroccans have conspired to defeat our runners in all world events. This is unacceptable, we are being rigged out.

We have to win at all and every cost. We go and move the courts to declare us winners. We profess written and unwritten procedures and manifestos. We have no confidence in any official who declares us defeated. Our enemies will always have bought them before we could reach them. There is never any justice unless we are the victors. We have developed a culture of intolerance. We have grown some impervious solidity to reason and common sense. We do not ever contemplate working with others if we lose to them but we expect them to work with us, perhaps for us, when we win.

We are not guided by organizational principles and goals. The professed party manifestos and memorandum are trashed the moment we fail to secure the party favour. Never mind it is the people who will have decided. The concept of the majority is not ingrained in us. It can only be the majority if we win. Past popularity is assumed to be our heritage in perpetuity. Never mind that assume makes an ass of u and me. That is why when we lose nominations we have to hop from party to party in search of a parch for we can never lose gracefully. That is why we have to hire goons to wreck havoc on our enemies, never mind they are the voters. That is why we have no confidence in the returning officers. That is why we cannot sit down and agree on a workable system of nomination since we seek to skew it in our favour. That is why we will fail in our quest for democracy.

Democracy is not the result of elections and nominations. Democracy is the process. Democracy is the acceptance that the people’s decisions are to be respected. Democracy behooves our leaders accepting that you don’t have to be an MP to be an effective leader. There are other myriad ways of serving the people. Unfortunately the leadership culture in Kenya subsumes there is a hierarchical pecking order of leaders, with the Mps at the top. Chest thumping and the material accumulation that our MPs have allocated themselves so shamelessly in the past is leading some greedy hyenas out of their dens. They cannot lose because their investment has to bear returns. It is not service and duty to the electorate, it is an economic enterprise with the voters being the pawns in this shuffling of ‘resources’ for maximum returns in the nest five years.

Time has come for the voters to tell these investors that their capital is not welcome, it is tainted and the value of their currency is down. It is time these politicians learnt that there is, yin and yang, players and referees, heads and tails, winners and losers. Not all are rigged out. Let us grow up and nurture democracy, tolerance and principles. Stop hopping like grasshoppers in the morning dew. None of us is indispensable, the country will not halt in its match of development just because you will not be in parliament or county council next year. As someone would have said, the quantity of ugali will not increase when you win or lose.

Let’s Tread Cautiously

2007-11-10T11:31:00.000-05:00

Where there is smoke, there is fire. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between National Muslim Leaders Forum and ODM – read Raila Odinga – currently in circulation is astounding as it is stunning. This, on the heels of the Obiero interview.

I do not claim to know the veracity of the document neither have I known the NMLF or even heard of them before. What I do know is that this is a group willing to stake their reputation, credit and public support -if any- over dogmatic statements over what they perceive to be the Kenya we want. What are the issues propagated there in?
· Their clamor for establishment, recognition and perpetuation of sharia laws in Kenya
· Decimation of a unitary state into fragments serving parochial religious interests
· The myopic intended neutering of the recovering tourism industry at the coast
· The underlying threat of all the non coastal people and investors
· The threat on religious freedom
· The establishment of a theocratic Jimbo
· The threat on the Kenyan women
· And the other myriad issues enumerated in the document or impinging on the rights of the people of Kenya.
Expressions of these and other extremist views are within the purview of constitutional freedom of speech. But when they are views endorsed by a presidential candidate, one who seeks to lead a nation resplendent with a diversity of cultures, religions, economic endowments, ideologies, aspirations and the whole plethora of assorted tribal interests and infatuations, then there is cause to stop and ponder.

Why should any leader, least of all a presidential hopeful, subscribe to such ideas? Is this election going to be worn at any and all cost? Are we going to mortgage our future and that of our nation to such extremism and dangerous views for our nation? Are these the principles we shall see guiding our nation the next five years? We cannot and should not experiment with the freedom that was won through the shedding of blood. Raila and his cabal are selling our freedom to radical Islamists. By placing his signature on this MOU, he has placed his signature on the death knell of our freedom, our sanctity, our future and the essence of our nationhood. The witness to this document is Balala, as a Muslim his interests in the document are well manifested. Yet this is one of the people advising and supporting Raila in his effort to destroy our freedom and demarcate our nation into tribal kingdoms and ethnic supremacy.

It has taken long to build our country, it is not the best, but we should not dynamite a house to rambles because of flawed plumbing. This MOU is dynamite. The signatories do not have the interests of the nation at heart. Support them at your own peril. This marriage must not be consummated.

ODM BICKERING IS NOT HEALTHY FOR OPPOSITION

2007-07-31T08:08:00.000-05:00

The conscience of the nation has been held hostage by the incessant bickering and boardroom dealings of the ODM leadership. There is no doubt that ODM commands a considerable following, this is political capital that should be utilized with magnanimity and candor. The ODM presidential hopefuls are keen to present a picture of unity to the public while they roll their sleeves to slug it out the moment they lock themselves in the boardrooms. There seems to be a believe that all that is remaining is the choosing of a candidate and the next thing is a march into state house. The bickering and back stabbing does not augur well for the much taunted unity.

Kibaki in the meantime has continued to avoid playing politics. In his public pronouncements he continues to extol economic development and exhort hard work and ingenuity. Kibaki has evaded talking about political parties and continues to direct the conscience of the nation on matters affecting the people in their daily lives. The president does not deem it worth his time to comment on the opposition’s bickering. He merely directs the nation to concentrate on issues that have a direct bearing on their lives.

As elections draw near, the talk of the nation will inevitably shift to matters electoral. Right now the obsession with the choice of candidate on the part of the opposition and choice of a party on the part of the incumbent continues to dominate the media. But we need to change focus to substantive issues. The mission of the ODM right now is limited to removing Kibaki from state house. The tempo of the referendum has slowed down, that was a straight Yes/No choice. The presidential elections will not be run on a Yes/No basis. We will have to scrutinize the candidates, their credentials, their vision, their capabilities and their potential at achieving what they set out to do. We must be focused on the future of the nation, our sustained economic development, international relations, our security, our health, our education, our infrastructure, agriculture and culture and at who is best placed to take lead us in these ventures. ODM is not giving us this chance.

While the ODM continues to fight over who will hold the knife, Kibaki who currently holds both the yam and the knife continues to solidify himself in the conscience of the nation. ODM leaders come out as a group that cannot agree among themselves, they come out as group guided by selfish interests, a group where holding the knife is more important than planting the yam, all that bickering is about who will sit where at the banquet and nothing about who will make the banquet.

As a group, ODM has failed to focus on the future of the nation and has decided to focus on the future of the individuals. The cracks in the ODM are becoming valleys and pretty soon the chasms will be impassable. The various corporate members will be standing on their own islands hailing the boat of unity which is fast drifting away with the ebbing tide. As I have argued in an earlier treatise, the hunt is not yet over. Let the ODM strategize the hunt, get all the hunters together, sharpen the spears and the knives, whet the hunting dogs with the scent of the catch, then go catch the hunt and place it on the table to share out. Right now they are sat at the table with forks and spoons ready to eat what is still in the jungle.

NATIONAL INSECURITY

2007-05-23T16:24:00.000-05:00

We are a nation under siege. The gruesome killing and decapitation of innocent Kenyans is not only barbaric and ghastly but it also sends some ominous signals about the collapse of security system in the country. These murders are becoming too frequent and too macabre to be the works of 'normal criminals'.

The execution style beheadings and dismemberment of the victims is symbolic of sending alarms, fear, despondency and submission to the populace. The people are being cowed and there is no apparent help from the law enforcers. Our police force is under siege, with their numbers being decimated daily by the same criminals they are chasing. Their response is to execute innocent tailors whose only crime is being law abiding and carrying legitimate business in crime prone areas. Whether these killers are mungiki or not, it does not matter, the bottom line is heinous crimes have been committed, innocent Kenyans have been massacred, beheaded, mutilated and fed to the dogs, policemen have been killed in line of duty, and we have not had these criminal apprehended and taken to court.

We have killers and their paymasters on the loose. People do not just become demented over night and start chopping off others heads without cause. Somebody is instigating this mayhem. Somebody is planning, supporting, encouraging and perhaps benefiting now or in future from this. It is just too systematic to be random. I do not claim monopoly of this theory, I am not a trained crime buster but I do not need to have gone to Kiganjo to come to these conclusions. I am sure the police must have come to the same conclusions. Let us see action, let us have the local leaders being utilised in the search for these criminals. Somebody knows these criminals, somebody feeds them breakfast, lunch and dinner, somebody washes their bloody clothes after they commit these crimes. Somebody sees them sleep the whole day and go to work at night, somebody sees them spend money without an apparent job. Somebody has a hunch about somebody else, yet no one comes forward with information. Perhaps we are too numbed, too afraid to speak. This is what the criminals want, the society we live in has been too inured and anesthetized to become my brothers keeper.

The people trust their government to protect them. From Mt Elgon to Karuri, Muranga to Kiambu, even in the city itself, tax payers deserve a better deal. Calling for calm and no retaliation is not the final solution, if no positive results are forthcoming, if the police will not defend the people, then the people will defend themselves and the results will not be pleasant. How many must die before drastic actions are taken. It is no weakness admitting your own weakness. Desperate time require desperate measures, these are desperate times. If the government is weak in solving crisis after crisis, murder after murder, call for help, this is no shame, there are foreigners more schooled in this yet we cling on to our myths of superiority while our people get killed daily and no convictions are obtained in courts. Get help and learn from it and move on.

Protecting the citizenry should be paramount. When people are insecure they cannot thrive. The government must come out firm and decisive, there should be no compromise. Those sympathetic to the criminals and those harboring them or bank rolling them should face the law. Some of those in the present government were ruthless in law enforcement during the Mau Mau war, why they cannot use the same decisiveness and wrath beats logic. The police should get to the root of these criminal activities that sprout every election year. They have the manpower, they claim to be the best, what is stopping them from getting the results. Is someone blocking their way? We do not want the parades of the suspects, we want the convictions of the criminals, that way we will know they are safely behind bars and we can continue our work in peace.

Mr. president, if you cannot twirl the whip and check this mayhem, then the people might turn and give it to someone else who can. Save your job.

Is Raila’s populism good for Kenya?

2007-05-11T15:54:00.000-05:00

It is increasingly evident that the elections later in the year might be a race between the incumbent Mwai Kibaki and the pompous populist Raila Odinga. We have known Kibaki’s style of leadership tutored under Kenyatta and Moi, and whetted over the last four years in state house. Every one who knew Kibaki was aware that the man from Othaya was not a bulldozer that clears the forest of stumps and rolls the boulders away overnight. Kibaki is a calculating and patient operator hacking at the stumps and splitting the boulders a splint at a time. He tends to focus on specific issues, like economy, and pushes others, like security, to the periphery, as to the efficacy of this is a matter for another forum. Raila on the other hand is a bulldozer clearing all on his path without sifting through the debris while paving a highway for his hummer.

That Raila is a calculating politician is not in doubt. His frequent metamorphosis and mutation makes it difficult to discern what manner of a man he is. One day he is the revolutionary overthrowing a legitimate government by force, the next he is a die hand oppositionist of a duly elected government and on the third day he rises up as the secretary general of the very party whose cockerel he was feasting on the previous night. Raila’s casuistry and political maneuvers are all aimed at one thing, sitting on the throne at state house. Raila hopes to become a king , a supreme chief and not a servant of the people, he is like a chameleon which can hide its color but not its character.

Raila is at constant pains to explain himself, his chequered past haunts him and places veritable blocks to his veracity and trust. Our professed aspirations are measured against our past actions. When it comes to walking the talk your past paces and strides determine the trust and faith the people accord your current pronouncements.

Kibera is home to one of the biggest slums in Africa. Of late we in the diaspora have been inundated with news clips of various dignitaries visiting Kibera. The squalor, filth and dilapidated life of the residents have become a tourist attraction. Recently one of the most widely watched television programmes in the USA, American Idol, featured Kibera’s emasculated, bedridden HIV/AIDS victims. Yes, this helps to touch the American benevolence but it does not help to shore up Raila’s leadership and concern. Pictures of dignitaries jumping over cesspools and open sewers are not the showpiece of the backyard of an aspiring president.

Raila thrives on populism and mass adoration. He does not thrive on performance and delivery. Raila is heavy on promise and weak on delivery. Langata, like every other constituency in Kenya is recipient of millions in CDF, yet there is little to show for it. While he is busy traversing the country like a gothic warrior, his backyard is a quagmire of desolation and disdain. It is true Raila did not create Kibera slums, Raila inherited Kibera slums but Raila has not shown a way out of Kibera slums. Charity begins at home. If you cannot scratch your own itching belly, how can you scratch my itching back.

Raila thrives on hero worship. Those that will not bow to his throne will be discarded. Those that have crossed his path in the past, directly or by association better be digging holes to hide when he is enthroned. Raila will not just be sworn in, no, his handlers can not allow that, Raila will have a coronation, complete with pages, horse carriage and bag pipers. Raila’s ego cannot allow him to be humble in victory just as he cannot be meek in defeat.

There are numerous obstacles in his path to the state house though. The people will have to be convinced that he is not going there for revenge. As yet most Kenyans fear this may be a driving force. Raila’s combativeness will not give room to dissent and reconciliation. In politics you only need a whiff of fear, despondence or disdain for the embers to erupt into flames. The people will need continuous assurance and appeasement that there will ot be revenge and retribution. Kenya has thrived on forgiving and forgetting the suffering of the past. Kenyatta paved the way with reassurance of the settlers, Moi followed with the Ngorokos and change the constitution group, Kibaki followed with Moi and his henchmen. That is how Kenya has survived. We cannot build a nation on fear and apprehension, peace and tranquility does not thrive in suspicion and mistrust. Raila does not exude tranquility, forgiveness and humility. At this early stage of campaign, he manifests the arrogance of the monarch rather than the timidity of the servant he purports to become.

Raila is hampered by cultural bias. No matter how much we try to ignore it, culture, customs and ethnicity, play a big role in Kenyan elections. Kenyans may be mesmerized by flamboyance, big entourage, and bashing of the government of the day, but they will recede to their tribal and cultural cocoons when the push comes to the shove. Kenyans have started to feel the warmth from Kibaki’s fire, they feel their pockets being heavier, they are more optimistic than before , they are more prone to blame Kibaki’s handlers, and punish them, and leave Kibaki alone. Kenyans know that Raila is notorious of jumping ships whenever he sees it being steered from his chosen course.

Raila is not a team player no matter how much football allegories he alludes. Raila would rather sink the boat than have it steered to a safer port if he is not at the wheel. Raila will rock the Kenyan boat and derail the progress that is already initiated through his extremist policies if he takes the helm.

The emerging middle class that purportedly support Raila is the same class that never bothers to vote. The elitist campaigns alienate the poor and suffering. Ostentatious parades and grandiose launchings resonate very well with the middle class and some western donors, but are fodder for those opposing him. The majority of voters are for here and now and will not remember the promises of yesterday tomorrow. But they will remember the missed meals when the left over was fed to the pigs.

It is time to tone down the big talk and get to the nuts and bolts of how and where. The platitudes and slogans are the hallmarks of revolutionary leaders. Humility, meekness, modesty coupled with positive actions, vision and trust are the trademarks of true leaders. The same multitude that shouted Hosanna! Hosanna! is the same that shouted Crucify Him! Crucify Him! five days later. Raila led the Hosanna chorus five years ago, now he is orchestrating the crucify chorus. You can’t trust this man.

Why is Kibaki’s star shining brighter now?

2007-04-25T22:26:00.000-05:00

Recent opinion polls have been good news to president Mwai Kibaki. He has continued to enjoy great support from all those polled with his approval rating reaching 60%. This is good news for a president who is being ganged against by an opposition, which is more interested in its survival as a cabal than exposition of a futuristic ideal.

Kibaki’s style of governance is the complete opposite of Moi’s. Moi thrived on populism, interference and I know all the answers kind of policy. His hand was in every pie from the village polytechnic to international affairs. Kibaki has sought to give greater latitude to his ministers and the civil service. He has assumed a rear seat posture overseeing his troops’ performance. The introduction of ministerial performance evaluations and contracts is one such approach. However this noble idea has not brought out the fruits it was intended to. Evaluations without attendant consequences, positive or negative, make a mockery of the whole effort.

I have argued elsewhere that Kibaki is the general of his troops. He has his company commanders and lieutenants in the field. When the troops are out in the trenches and the battle gets hot, they look back to the captains and lieutenants for immediate guidance and orders. These in turn go to the generals for the overall guidance and war strategy. The general sees the whole war while the captains see the immediate battles.

General Kibaki has won, or at least is winning, the economic battle. He has managed to beat back the enemy in the infrastructure front, the agricultural front, the national pride and faith in the government. Kenyans, especially those in the Diaspora, have gained confidence and trust in their country’s leadership and have started investing heavily back home. Kibaki has enhanced democracy by not interfering with the operations of the opposition and other dissenting voices, albeit not without hitches. These small battles have served to give Kenyans confidence and faith in their president, hence his popularity.

However, there is one area where the field commanders have failed their general, security. When the people cannot carry on their daily lives without fear of attack, when the people cannot carry out their business without extortion, when the people cannot live in peace on their God given lands then something is wrong. The war cannot be worn when half the troops are not pulling in the same direction with their general. The war is lost when the general cannot give his captains directions while out in the field. The president gave his ministers latitude in the performance of their duties. Unfortunately most of them lack the training, background and experience to operate in environments where independence of thought and action is the hallmark policy.

After years of watching government by directives, most ministers found themselves mesmerized by the powers they command without directives on how to use it. Previous regimes had taught leaders to toe and dance the party cum government line. When they were let loose, they had no idea what to do. They are more concerned with popularity than performance yet their evaluation is on performance and not popularity. Security continues to be the number one concern of Kenyans in the Diaspora. Mt Elgon area, Mungiki, Northern Rift, Somalia border all constitute a major threat to national security.

Michuki finds time to go to the USA to talk about international terrorism while his backyard is burning. The police commissioner threatens to charge politicians with dissent while Mungiki is killing his men and innocent citizens. These are the kind of battles we don’t want. We do not want to waste our national energy on fighting for our right to speak out loud; at least this does not kill like the thugs in Mt. Elgon or the Mungiki in Banana.

I have not heard of the police commissioner visiting those clash areas. I have not heard of the president visiting those clash areas; yes mama Jimmy was there, but we did not elect Lucy Kibaki, we elected the husband. Kibaki’s leadership in the restoration of faith in our national security is lacking. He needs to give directions and leadership, he needs to take charge of the fight against Mungiki, he needs to take charge of the fight against the rustlers in Northern Rift and we need to see him do it.

Show of war arsenals, tough talk, armed police presence are all tools of deterrence. Don't we have these in abundance? Does't the president have powers to flaunt and even use them to protect his people? Has anyone complained of use of excessive force in quelling Mt Elgon crisis? Has anyone complained of large scale louting of Mungiki in Banana and Githunguri? The answer to all these questions is a loud NO! Pray then, why is the president and his field commanders failing the people. We demand action physical tangible action to restore security in the whole country. If the president's leadership and direction is going to continue to be conspicuous in its absence and inaction in these areas, then this might be his Waterloo. All the good will and popularity may not be enough to send him back to the house on the hill; there may not be enough voters left come voting day, not at the current rate that Mungiki is killing them.

The time for talk and lullabies is long gone, it is time for the baton and the prisons.

The hunt is not yet over

2007-04-25T22:04:00.000-05:00

Why is ODM-Kenya sitting down to share the meat when the hunt is not yet over. The deer is still out in the bush and running yet they stop the hunt to share the imaginary spoils. They want first to agree on who will be the meat roaster, who will oversee the skinning , who will be the keeper of the bones, yet the game is not even caught. The fragile opposition is held together by the hope of each getting a big share of the spoil. When the day of reckoning comes and one of them is appointed to wield the knife, the fall out will begin.

All the rhetoric about unity and common purpose is just that, rhetoric, empty at that. Time is running out for whoever is given the mantle to face Kibaki to begin the long and arduous task of selling himself/herself and the policies he will pursue. Taking Kenyan voters for granted will prove disastrous. Kenyans are increasingly getting fed up with the dithering and teetering of the ODM leadership. Since they denied voters the right to pick on of them to lead the hunt, time has come for them to decide on who is to take the gauntlet and face Kibaki. Uncertainty and procrastination does not augur well for the opposition. Kenyans will get increasingly exhausted by this uncertainty and may become lethargic and disillusioned.

There are those that support ODM because of specific candidates as soon as the spoils are shared they will flutter away with their candidate. The earlier this happens the better for the fight for leadership. The energy expended in flamboyance and arrogance needs to be contained and channeled to the fight for democratic supremacy, something the opposition is faulted for by denying the voters the right to pick one of them. The Kenyan presidency is not a collegiate presidency. Only one person can be the president at any given time. This grouping of ODM aspirants needs to come up with one of theirs so that the public can be focused on the battle ahead. The notion that the unity can be maintained only if they agree to share the spoils is a selfish defeatist misnomer. These agreements or MOUs are not worth the air expended in uttering them not even if you solder them on cast iron. The country is guided by the constitution not MOUs and other pre-election power sharing deals. Who tells them they will be elected in their own constituencies anyway? This is fodder for inefficiency and arrogance in public service, when ministers owe their positions to boardroom deals rather than competence and experience. You cannot buy loyalty.

The opposition is at pains to show their solidarity, at a whiff of doubt of this they rush out as one to show they are together. Most observers can tell that the only unity is at those staged photo sessions. Every good hunter knows that the easiest way to catch game is to break the herd first. Kibaki is a hunter, he is waiting for the herd to break and one by one the game will be picked, poached, acquiesced, contained and bagged. Come elections day, most of these die hard oppositionists will be die hard Kibaki supporters. As Achebe would tell us, the man who holds the knife decides how the yam will be shared. Right now the knife is in Kibaki’s hand and it is likely to remain there unless the ODM decide who is going to lead the hunt rather than who is going to eat what part

Watch this space.

LETTER TO ROBERT GABRIEL MUGABE

2007-03-16T06:12:00.000-05:00

Dear comrade Bob,

Some twenty years ago you assumed the title of President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. This was as it should be, for although you were prime minister for seven years, there was still Canaan Banana as president and you felt you were subordinate to a non-combatant like yourself. He had not been in the bush as you had, nor in prison or exile and does not hold six degrees like you. You have steered the ship of state through some turbulent times. You weathered the storms of Smith’s UDI and crushed the rebellions of the Ndebele in the notorious Gukurahundi of the 1980s. You have thereby proved that you are a survivor, if any proof was needed.

Comrade, just take stock of what you have done to the Zimbabwean people. The euphoria and awe of liberation is long gone, you cannot lead the people with the achievements of the past, you have to lead them with the promises of a glorious future. Today your Zimbabwe is a doomed relic of the very illustrious Kingdom after which your country is named. With a life expectancy of 37 years, Zimbabweans are soon becoming an extinct people unless they start marrying and reproducing at very young age. As for you, at 83 you are already a deity and a legend with over two life spans.

You hold three degrees in economics, I have none in the field. You therefore know better than me that hyper-inflation is not a positive economic attribute. Yet, you continue to lord over an economy slowly drifting to barter trade. A 1700% inflation does not translate into growth and prosperity which Zimbabwe people are entitled to, which you continue to deny them. It is said if you buy some stuff in the morning and have to exchange for some reason an hour later, the price would have changed. This is a daily occurrence comrade. Your populist land reforms transformed your country from a land of agricultural affluence to a land of agricultural paupers. People do not eat populism nor does the economy thrive on populism. Populism is the fodder for dictators seeking to boost their egos as they watch their starving subjects raise dust as they sing and dance their praises, expending their energy trampling the very ground they should be digging.

You have been in charge of the country for over quarter century, yet you still blame colonialism for your failure to lead your people to prosperity. Yes most of our problems in Africa have colonial roots, but our failure to emancipate ourselves from them is not colonial. Freedom in Africa was worn with blood and sweat. Enough blood was shed for the freedom, we now need to shed sweat and toil to nurture it. Yet you, like other African leaders before you continue to shed blood of the very people you purport to protect and lead. The strong handed manner your police and political goons handled Tsvangirai and other opposition supporters is reminiscent of the brutality meted on other opposition leaders in Africa. Perhaps you are intent on copying them or even exceeding them. A brutalized leader of opposition is very good ammunition to fight you and your leadership inside and outside Zimbabwe. This is the only image of Zimbabwe most of us will see and react to. You may be doing a lot of good things in Zimbabwe, we don’t care about that for we will not see or hear of them. What we care about is what we see, a man with a fractured skull being hauled to the courts to answer charges of holding a political meeting. In the free world, and this does not include Zimbabwe, there is something all cherish, it is called freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Just cast your eyes to the north and find out what happened in Kenya, the Moi regime tried to stem the tide, it was swept out by the will and power of the people. But history is full of dictators who lorded it over their people and bloomed. it is also full of dictators who lorded it over their people and became irrelevant. If you get time just find out what happened to Mobutu, Bokassa, Doe, you may also want to have a word with Haile Mariam, Moi, Kaunda who lorded it over like you and were swept aside by the very people they thought were loyal subjects.
Comrade, you are an African, if only by birth and colour, so let me use the African folk wisdom and tell you this; do not try to hold back a breaking dam with your bare hands. You are trying to patch your leaky dam while still downstream. You and all like you will be swept in its path. You cannot hold back an idea whose time has come. The will of the people supercedes the will of the leaders. If you cannot keep pace with the will of the people, you will be swept to the dustbin of history. Your struggle for your country is too valuable in the history of your country, you do not wish to be remembered as the leader who led his country from the greatest hope to the greatest ruin. There is no shame in walking away from a long hard fought war. The shame is in living and even dying in a long fought worthless war. You are on the brink of the latter, your war against democracy and change is futile. It is time to go.

LET US BE RUTHLESS WITH THE CRIMINALS

2007-02-11T21:29:00.000-05:00

Drastic times call for drastic measures. Dawa ya moto ni moto. I believe in the gospel of ruthlessness to combat ruthlessness. At times like these I would take the bible literary an arm for an arm and an eye for an eye. We have let the thugs rule our lives; they control our very movement and even extort tolls on us.

The government stands indicted over all these through its indifference and ineffective soft gloves policy. The government is pandering these thugs because the elections are nigh. But the peace loving, hand-working people of Kenya are condemned to a life of fear and despondency. The people have become prisoners in their own homes. The greatest worry of the Kenyan driver is the hijacker; the slowing down at every corner or pothole is a threat to the driver and his vehicle. Yet we do nothing concrete to combat this menace. Since when did the thugs heed the surrender ultimatum? Who in their right mind will surrender the tools of their trade? They will simply devise new methods of hiding the weapons and continue to use them on the innocent wananchi. That is why I said I believe in combating fire with fire. It is wasted labor and time to just declare verbal war on crime, we declared this war eon ago and we are still losing. The war against crime will not be fought with mere declarations, not even meeting with the top cops and top administrators, the war will be worn when the government realizes that the criminals have no respect for human rights and their humans rights deserve no respect.

I advocate the ruthless approach. If in the process some innocent people will be inconvenienced, too bad. But it is better to be temporarily inconvenienced than to be permanently obliterated by the thugs. We need an operation, call it ‘anvil’ or whatever and swoop on those known sections of the city harboring the criminals and screen everybody. Go from door to door, in the process pick every suspect (and weapon) and haul him or her before the law. Do this for every notorious section of the city and country. Let the politicians yell harassment, haul them in too if they block the operation. If they have a better plan they should have brought it forward by now. Get the GSU, APs. Regular police, City Council askaris and even Game wardens involved, after all some of these criminal behave worse than wild animals.

We must hit these criminals hard and deny them space to carry out their evil mission. In the worst scenario lets get the army involved. The cattle’s rustling across Kenya/Uganda, Kenya/Sudan, and Kenya/Ethiopian borders is a sure cause for the army to be involved. Get the police from those areas and deploy them in the urban areas and deploy the army to patrol these international borders. It is in their mandate to protect the country from external enemies, what other evidence do we need when the rustlers cross those boundaries?

Force must be met with force. You cannot call thugs to a round table negotiation. Do you negotiate with a thief when he breaks into your house? No! You hit him hard where it hurts just as he is trying to hit you. Our government should not succumb to the thugs, their masters and hirelings, if the government is not complicit in these actions why don’t we see drastic measures being taken and not just being wished or talked about? At what number shall we see actions? How many more must die before we take off the gloves and fight bare knuckle with these thugs?

When innocent scholars are killed the world notices. When foreigners are robbed the world notices. When the government does nothing beyond rhetoric, the world notices. When France reacts and suggests relocation of UNEP we shout it’s unfair and subtly cry racism. As Kenyans we may be immune to the insecurity but in the international arena, a threat to personal safety is a major concern. We therefore need to be ruthless, merciless and determined to eradicate all criminals from wherever they are in the country. Criminals don’t belong with the law-abiding citizens they belong in the prisons until they reform. If we have to be ruthless to send them there so be it. If some toes have to be trodden in the process, so be it, but the balm of their healing will be more soothing and appreciated than the scars of the thugs’ pangas and bullets.

I look forward to the day when Nairobi drivers will be able to drive with their windows down and even signal with their hands knowing their watches are safe. I look forward to the day when metal grills and doors, high walls and electric fences, armed watchmen and gatekeepers will be relegated to the jails and prisons. As it is now, Kenyans go from office to prisons where they lock themselves all night. We have learnt to become a nation of cowards surrendering our rights to the thugs and secluding ourselves in our own cocoons and assume that we are free and safe.

We cannot be a free people as long as we have succumbed to the fear of the thugs, the fear of the hijacker, the fear of the rapist; we must turn the tide and make the thug start fearing the law-abiding citizen. We need drastic measures. This is not the time to play politics. There is too much at risk and we dare not be soft. The time for talk and ultimatum is gone let us now act. For too long we have given ultimatums but there are no consequences following the lapse of those ultimatums. The thugs know this and are willing to call the government’s bluff. Let us declare war on the thugs, real war, not the hitherto war of words. Let us forage their hideouts, waste them and their plans, parade their carcasses and haunt their friends and comrades and give them no peace. Peace is for the law abiding, the hard working tax paying people of Kenya. Not for bandits, thugs, criminals, carjackers, rapists and other convoluted sadistic Neanderthals masquerading as respectable citizens by day and thugs by night.

KIBAKI AND GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT

2007-02-03T12:29:00.000-05:00

Of late there has been talk that Kibaki broke a ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’ arrived at prior to the 2002 elections. It is possible there was such an agreement among the parties involved. It is also possible that one of them is not telling the whole truth. It is even possible that all parties are not telling the whole truth. But that is a matter of conjecture whose veracity is very circumspect. What is now evident, and should have been all along, is that politics is a matter of convenience and expedience not about truth and facts. If politics was about truth, George Bush would be in prison over WMD, Saddam would still be lording it over the Kurds.
Politics is a matter of pandering the most good to suit the circumstances, not a matter of showing what a gentleman you are. Ask any Kenyan politician, none can make it in politics if they always told the truth. You have to promise heaven to the electorate and sacrifice your trueness to be relevant in the scheme of things political. Kenyans have been tuned to expect this of their politicians and gentlemen is not their title.
So what if Kibaki acceded to a gentleman’s agreement, this is a matter brokered by parties who can no longer sit down together and even share a cup of tea. Whether it was an agreement among individuals or among political parties, the field has changed drastically and is no longer feasible to enforce it, if at all this was an original intention.
When Raila, Kalonzo, and co walked out and formed different entities, the intent of the agreement was negated as the agreement could only work if the parties continued to be in harmony. By walking out on Kibaki, they walked out of all that held them together, i.e. the gentlemen’s agreement. This was not a social contract with the Kenyan people, who are the ultimate deciders on such issues, it was a matter of political convenience and expediency at a crucial moment in the change of political leadership in our country. The matter has not been in the public domain and the piece-meal nature of its release smirks of desperation and blabbering. If it was very crucial, it should have been hammered from the day Kibaki was sworn and we should have accepted it by now. Nevertheless, the politics of the day desires that Kibaki offer himself for re-election. Let those opposed to this convince the electors that he does not deserve a second term.
ODM-Kenya should learn from the events of 2002 agreement that boardroom brokerage, of political dispensation, is a fluid and volatile engagement acting as a bridge to the vast fertile plains of national largesse. When the people are not involved in the selection process of their flag-bearers, any backroom agreements are subjected to the whims of the selected leader, more so if they are unwritten. Such agreements become secondary to the wishes of the electorate. The selected leader will always fall back on the adage that it is the will of the people when breaking such agreements.
The elections should not be decided on the basis of who agreed with who about what, the elections should be about what has been done and what is going to be done. They should be about deciding who is capable and is best placed to lead the country to claim back its lost glory. They should focus on who is best placed to lead the fight against endemic insecurity, corruption, income inequalities, unemployment and poor infrastructure. The people should judge their leaders by their actions and potential to lead them from current social and economic morass to greater heights of prosperity and affluence. If in doing so, certain gentlemen’s agreements have to be broken, so be it.

WHO WILL PROTECT OUR POLICEMEN

2007-01-19T22:48:00.000-05:00

Our Kenyan policemen are an endangered species, they are being gunned down by the thugs like targets at a shooting range. At this rate we may soon be setting up another force to protect the police from the thugs.

Two weeks ago five policemen were gunned down in line of duty, while escorting cash to Nakuru. A sixth one going to their rescue met a similar fate. Hardly a week later, another policeman was fatally shot, with others sustaining bullet wounds, in a vehicle while intercepting escaping thugs. The thugs escaped after shooting at another vehicle full of policemen further down the road. The other day, policemen responding to a distress call, after some thugs set up a roadblock and robbed motorists around Langata, were met with a hail of bullets and were lucky to escape any fatalities. Nairobi is not Baghdad nor is Kenya Iraq where indiscriminate killing is the order of the day.

In the past, the Kenyan police has been ridiculed and blamed for lack of rapid and efficient response to distress calls. Now it seems their response, though rapid is disconcerted, haphazard and seemingly dangerous to them. The death of a policeman in line of duty, especially in America is a solemn occasion. Should an officer be fatally shot by a criminal, the wrath of the force is unprecedented on the criminal world. The criminals in Kenya have learnt not to fear the police force. They are traversing the country robbing banks and cash in transit in scenes reminiscent of the Wild West. Other quasi-criminal groups and gangs have taken over some sections of the city and other major towns, levying tolls and protection money. Most of the ordinary wananchi do not bother to report crimes or if they do it is just a formality, they expect little or no response. There has been a growing discordant between the police and the people. That is perhaps why the death of the policemen is taken like just another ‘bahati mbaya’ (bad luck) and life continues. The wrath, agony, anguishes and apprehension normally associated with such brutality was largely lacking among the general population and even among senior police ranks, measured by their public utterance and assurance.

The police force has been misused in the past to brutalize and terrorize the very people it is supposed to protect. This has not earned the force goodwill from the people. Some policemen have formed some alliances with the underworld, harboring them from the law and benefiting from the criminal earnings of the thugs. Some of the notorious thugs and most wanted criminals are former policemen. To some serving policemen, their uniform is just a job and their heart is not in the profession. These must be weeded out for they not only demoralize the professionals but also put them in peril while on patrol.

The government is not blameless, as the resources for the police to carry out their duties efficiently have been lacking. The basic rights of an employee have been denied the police force for long. Adequate housing is essential especially where the employer demands the employee live at the workstation. Githunguri police station in Kiambu, for example, was among the last projects completed by the colonial government before independence, since then there has not been a single building or residential quarter added at the station. Yet, the number of policemen at the station has more than tripled leading to congestion and sharing by multiple families facilities and accommodation originally meant for single officers . The policemen and women are not secondary school kids to live in open dormitories. Nor should we subject families to abuse of their privacy. If we must have them living on the station let us house them adequately. A demoralized army is a sure candidate for defeat.

The criminals know the demoralized and unmotivated nature of our police force they prey on this and exploit their inability to respond rapidly. It is unforgivable in this day and age that police two-way radios are not standard equipment for every policeman. Policemen on the beat should be in constanct contact with their station which is receiving calls from the people and be directed where they are most needed. Waiting untill they walk back to the station to be dispatched again is closing the gate after the horse has bolted out. We may not have reached the level of the American police force where every policeman has a vehicle or motorbike, but we are too late if we cannot equip every station with an operable vehicle. The Land Rovers may be ideal in the rural terrain where the roads are impassable, but there is no justification in having them chasing criminal in the city, this is an operations vehicle. I am sure there have been off duty policemen or even plainclothes ones on duty who have fallen victims to matatu hijackings. They were as helpless as the other passengers because they did not have any arms with them or even communication equipment. Empowerment entails provision of correct and adequate tools to perform your responsibilities. The G3s may be ideal for long range tactical firing but are nothing but cumbersome inside the confines of a car. To combat crime you have to think like the criminal otherwise you will always be outsmarted.

We have witnessed the police force being mobilized in large numbers to stop demonstrations and even line up the presidential routes. Let us see the same vigor and versatility being applied in the hunt and apprehension of those that are making the towns and the entire country unsafe. The biggest fear for the majority of Kenyans overseas on visiting home is insecurity. Majority of Kenyans at home say insecurity is an area the Kibaki government has not delivered. When people cannot walk freely, when banks cannot guarantee their employees’ safety, when businessmen cannot guarantee the safety of their daily takings, when police escorts are not immune from banditry, then something is drastically wrong. The police must turn the tide against these criminals. To do this the government must give them the necessary tools, morale, training, empowerment and motivation to carry out their duties. The police must earn the respect of the people they serve through duty and service not extortion and blatant braggadocio. If the police force cannot protect itself from the criminals, who will protect the poor mwananchi?

I pity my fellow Kenyans.

2006-12-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

As we close celebrating the birth of Christ, we commence the season of the birth of political parties. We are a vibrant lot sprouting a party after every disagreement. After you fail to gain the party post you have coveted for long, you start your party where you become the automatic head. Some are busy strategizing and positioning themselves for later sale or barter in the market of power sharing. Parties have become commodities to be bandied around with presumed following being translated into votes. The real culprits in this game are the Kenyans who allow themselves to be treated like chattels in the antique shops. They blindly follow these leaders from party to party seeking morsels from the power brokers and favors from the dominant parties.

The ethos, goals and manifestos (if any) of these parties are never heard nor considered. Like the rest of the mainstream parties whose manifestos and goals are only dusted during the elections, these new parties do not have an agenda to promote. Few of the membership can tell what their party stands for, other than winning the state house race. Yet Kenyans consistently follow them around giving them credibility. Ford-Kenya has seen most mutations in the history of political parties in Kenya. We have not yet seen the end of it.

Political awareness among Kenyans should not be limited to the voting day only. Kenyans must begin to question the wisdom of hopping from party to party after every crisis, real or imagined. Why does this major awareness of the weakness or failure of a party occur only when you lose a post? The failure of the individual to win favor in his party should not be course for the membership to split. People must learn to appreciate political parties as being beyond the individual. The whims of an individual are not the wishes of the party. People must learn to stick to principles of the party and sink or swim with their parties if they believe in them.

Parties that evolved and thrived around an individual tend to die once the individual is removed from the center, ask Ford Asili and NDP. Irrespective of the membership there is no machinery in place to sustain the momentum and drive once the fulcrum is crushed. This is because we build the parties around the individual rather than around a philosophy or belief that can be pursued irrespective of who is at the helm. Until Kenyans learn to pursue a philosophy. an ethics, a belief they will always pursue an individual who will lead hem around in search of the elusive path to state house and state largesse. No wonder I pity my fellow Kenyans.

KENYA BEYOND 2005

2006-12-26T20:16:00.000-05:00

I am coming back wait for me.

Disaster Management

2006-07-10T05:14:00.000-05:00

The ugly hydra of disaster management has sprouted another head. Thirteen innocent lives have been lost. The death of these Kenyans should not be dismissed as just another bahati mbaya. This is a tragedy that should have been avoidable or at the least manageable. Preliminary reports indicate there was chemical spillage on the floor of the factory. This should have been a clear warning signal to stop every thing until the source and cause of spillage was determined and corrected. But perhaps production was not to be delayed, there were pending orders to be fulfilled. Other reports indicate there was hindrance by some parties of those willing to rush in and attempt to rescue the trapped employees. That the fear of losing money to looters superseded the need to break down the doors and perhaps rescue some of those people in itself speaks volumes. The premium we place on human live is at such a low level that they better burn than us lose money. This goes to the ridiculous ethos of business conduct in Kenya, make money at whatever cost. Businesses should have adequate insurance for such tragedies and even loss of cash. The employees in such hazardous occupations dealing with chemicals should have insurance beyond the meager workmen’s compensation. The Labor Ministry has the responsibility of enforcing industrial safety and compliance with the relevant statutes.

The disaster management team should have been at the forefront in the prevention of such disasters through education. Most of our factories have no disaster management capabilities. Some do not even have a single fire extinguisher, and those that do may not have people competent to operate them. These are not trophies to be hung in the offices, they are survival kits that should be readily available to all on the floor and all should know how to operate them. Frequent fire drills in the factories should be mandatory. Evidence of these should be in the factory inspectors reports (if the office still exists in the Labor ministry). Each factory should have a fire marshal, an established routine in case of fire, a designated area for employees to gather in case of a fire, a delineated route of escape and a fire door accessible and operable from the inside. These are simple common sense safety measures, yet they are non existent in most factories.

The government should be proactive in disaster management. Safety equipment in factories and public places should be mandatory, they should even be tax deductible to promote their affordability. The law should be enforced where they are not installed. We should not sit and wait for disasters to happen before we enforce safety. Employers have a responsibility to acquaint every employee with the safety regulations in their factory and enforce their adherence.

The disaster management team is now awake and will perhaps issue a statement and visit the site of the disaster before going back to sleep until the next disaster. This is a team whose business is not public relations, their primary duty should be educating the masses on the basics of avoiding tragic consequences as a result of tragic occurrences. They should start with teaching the people what to do in case of a house fire, stove bursting in flames,ground caving in, floods, motor accident, chemical spillage, train derailment, mass changaa poisoning, before thinking about earthquakes and terrorist bombs. Our people are willing to help incase of accidents but do not always go about it the right way. This is education that can be carried through the mass media, train volunteers in first aid, not just for wearing uniforms and marching up and down during national days, but volunteers in all walks of life who can be the first line of response in a disaster.

Sitting down and drawing up budgets for offices, vehicles, titles and grandiose projects will not help. Basic prevention lies in simplicity of the issues not in their complexity. Disaster management should start at the ground level, the factory worker, the matatu conductor, the mwananchi crossing the road. It is a legal requirement that all matatus should have a fire extinguisher, how many of these work, are they checked for operation during the annual licensing of the matatu? How many people know how to operate them? These are basics that would come in handy in time of a disaster.

Let us educate our people on safety and this way they will save their lives and those of others. We do not have to wait for another disaster to happen for us to appreciate the need for being proactive.

Charles Wairia

THE PRESIDENCY AND CIRCUMCISION

2006-07-10T02:37:00.000-05:00

The sentiments of Dominic Odipo on the electability of a non circumcised president in Kenya belay the wider problem of leadership in the country. (Eastandard, July 10, 2006). Over the years tribalism has permeated the political culture of the country to the extent that merit, qualifications and commitment are secondary. In every level of elected leadership in the country the issue of tribe is paramount. Even in cosmopolitan constituencies like those in Nairobi, the tribal constitution and concentration of the population determine who gets elected.

Over the years the issue of the tribe has been hammered into the minds of Kenyans to the extent that we no longer see ourselves as Kenyans first and tribes second. We are tribes first and Kenyans second. There are those who would say the tribe is not a factor in their national thinking, they are silent and in the minority. History has taught us otherwise. When Kenyatta was president the Kikuyus received favors from the government in jobs, ministerial appointments, parastatals, land allocation etc disproportionately from the other tribes. When Moi took over he replaced the Kikuyus with Kalenjins in meting out favors and preferential treatment. Kibaki has now reversed the trend and put Kikuyus back on the most favored table.

National issues will unite people irrespective of tribes. We have seen it happen in Kenya right from the war of independence and lately with the formation of LDP, although it was a group of disgruntled Kanu elements, and during the constitutional referendum. We have seen the nation coming together in times of natural disasters and other man made tragedies. The people have transcended the tribe and pulled together as a nation in the recent past. As soon as these tragic events pass we retreat to our tribal cocoons and seek to promote the egoistic interests.

The principal culprits in propagating tribalism, in my opinion, are our leaders. Over the past forty years, during election time the leaders hammer on the tribal theme at the expense of other agenda. The electorate is bombarded with the false gospel of tribal supremacy. They are told the enemy is the other tribe, if you elect the other tribe you will deny your own the chance to eat and consequently the chance for you to collect any crumbs. From previous practice and experience, the people regrettably have seen this happening and therefore elect their own. But if we were a nation that valued and promoted meritocracy we would be a nation that fights tribalism. When the area is tribally homogeneous we transcend to the clan and filial ties to promote ourselves. Rarely is merit a prerequisite for leadership.

Right from the top, the seats of power are shared on tribal considerations. It does not matter whether you have the relevant qualifications to lead a ministry, what matters is if you are of the relevant tribe. Merit is thrown out of the window and that is why we have a bloated cabinet with people manning ministries in which they have no background training or experience.

What has all this got to do with circumcision? We may have the best candidate for the presidency from the Luo community, he may have all the best credentials and present the best agenda for the nation and still be unelectable. By virtue of lack of physical mutilation of genitalia of their male species, the Luos are in the minority in the Kenyan tribal cultural practices. When threatened by a common enemy, the Luo, the Kenyans will revert to their common bond and perception of cultural supremacy by virtue of their having faced a common torture, the knife. That is why the Kikuyus perceive themselves closer, culturally, to the Luhyas and Mijikenda than to the Luos and vise versa.

Circumcision as a tribal rite of passage is consistently dying. Among the Kikuyus it no longer carries much significance to the initiates. Most, if not all, are circumcised in hospitals and clinics. This is increasingly being performed at younger ages when the significance of the ceremony is lost to the initiates. There is no longer the glory of withstanding the knife and the teaching that went with it. As a rite of passage it is obsolete and therefore irrelevant in the modern world. There are some tribes that still hang on the past performance like the Bukusu, but with the advent of AIDS the tribal circumciser is fast joining the jobless crew. The pain of cutting the foreskin or plucking teeth is pain. You cannot and should not apportion degrees to either. Neither should you determine leadership on whether you have withstood either pain. Our leaders know this but they will not dare tell it to their people. They thrive in the perpetuation of peoples’ ignorance that the enemy lies in the foreskin and not the government policies and their execution.

Time has come for this nation to grow out of tribal psychosis and promote national leadership based on merit and vision. Loss of foreskin does not instill wisdom and leadership, it instills a permanent scar and momentary pain. The covering of the glans is not the covering of the brain, the two are not related and that is why God in His inestimable wisdom placed the two in opposite ends. To judge a leader by removal of foreskin is not only immoral but also downright degrading to both the potential leader and the electorate. What we need to do is to remove the mask we conveniently adorn as protectors of culture and traditions, while what we are protecting is greed and avarice for leadership and exploitation of the masses.

Charles Wairia

STOP WHINING ABOUT THE COLLAPSE OF UCHUMI SUPERMARKET

2006-06-07T02:52:00.000-05:00

The lessons from the collapse of Uchumi supermarket chain should be heeded by all. The problems at Uchumi did not just happen overnight on 30th May.

The government through ICDC made a hasty retreat from Uchumi in September ‘05 by selling much of its stake in the company. This move meant to infuse fresh capital into the company was like putting a new coat of paint on a rusted leaking hull and did not bear much positive fruits. The new captain Chris Kirubi tried to navigate the ship from the shallow waters. His actions added more weight to the overloaded ship and this accelerated its grounding. What should have been done was to offload excess cargo, dump the inevitable dead stocks and make a radical change in the direction. Like in all government parastatals, the invisible hand of the government was always involved in the boardroom. While the government might profess to have given the parastatals independence of action, it maintained control through the appointment of the board of directors. This appointment is not always merit based. Hence one cannot divorce the collapse of the chain from the government.

The clear lesson from Uchumi is that the government has no business in business. It is not the business of the government to sell Kasuku and roiko. I have no tears for the fallen Uchumi. I do not wish to see the government getting involved in matters best handled by the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The cry in the past has been for the government to get out of business now we are calling the same government to come back and rescue our managerial failures. Give me a break. Either we get the government out of business and it stays out or we forget about privatization. We cannot have it both ways. Who is being rescued here? Is it the business of the government to bail out individuals or institutional investors? Emphatic No! It is the business of the investors to take the responsibility of their investment decisions.

We have to learn to take risks and live with the consequences of our actions. Let us not be sentimental just because we lost our investment. This however does not absolve the management of Uchumi from facing the consequences of their actions. If there was any wrongdoing by the present or past management, by all means let the law take its course indiscriminately. If there is no law in place to protect the small investor, let us hope there is a legislature awake to sponsor one. The whining and blaming is not a solution, the solution lies in enforcing the law or legislating one. Period.

Let us not mourn and whine at the collapse of Uchumi. This might be a good thing for the investors. There is a gap to be filled, there are consumers out there waiting to be serviced. The loss of Uchumi is the gain of the next door supermarket or kiosk. The demand for the products will not cease, somebody will step in and provide the service.

The thousands of individual share holders in various companies should take heed. It is not the number of individuals that count but the number of shares held. As a block they may have the numbers to influence action in the respective companies’ boardrooms. But they lack the capacity to act as a block and are therefore always at the mercy of the big shareholders. This therefore, shifts the responsibility for informing the investing public about the risks of various investments on to the stock brokers. Other than trading shares and earning commissions, it is incumbent upon the brokerage firms to provide all relevant information to enable the investor make an informed decision.

In the past we have seen the hunger for shares by small investors in the various rights issues in the stock exchange. The recent rambunctious scramble for Kengen shares, and the current volume trades of the same, is indicative of the awareness by the small investor of the quick bucks to be made in the stock market. Kenyans are an interesting lot, believe if Uchumi shares start trading tomorrow, there would be many takers. Perhaps it is time some investor tapped this market and built a new Uchumi.

Charles Wairia

GITHUNGURI, CRADLE OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS.

2006-06-05T01:58:00.000-05:00

The history of Githunguri is the history of Kenya. Githunguri among others is renown for it being the site for the independent school set up to avail higher education to Africans in competition or compliment, depending on ones sentiments, with missionary schools. Higher education in colonial Kenya was provided predominantly by missionaries. It was therefore skewed to favor the proponents of the faith. After the break with the traditionalists following the female circumcision prohibition of 1929, those that continued to practice the ritual were denied chances in the missionary high schools. In early 1930’s independent committees were formed to establish independent schools. The schools were to cater for the increasing number of young kikuyu who missed opportunities in the mission schools like Alliance and Mangu. By 1939 there were 63 Kikuyu independent schools in Kenya with an enrollment of about 13,000 pupils. It was in this year that the two main independent schools organizations, Kikuyu Independent Schools Association, (KISA) and Kikuyu Karinga Education Association (KKEA), came together and agreed to establish a teacher training college. Githunguri, the site of Kikuyu first independent school, was selected as the site for the college. The Kenya African Teachers College, as it was called, trained African teachers for East and Central Africa. Githunguri independent school was the biggest of all independent schools providing education from elementary through primary to secondary and college. By 1947 the school had an enrollment of over 1000 pupils with Mbiyu Koinange, the first Kenyan to hold an MA degree, as the principal, Kenyatta as administrator and other Kenyan luminaries like James Gichuru as teachers.

Githunguri became the hub and center of learning with the establishment and growth of the school. Students came from all over the country to further their education and train as teachers. The growth and management of the school was a lesson in self determination. It showed that the African could run institutions of higher learning and train young men independent of the government and missionaries. This was a direct challenge to the established order. The colonialist viewed this as a threat. Inevitably the concentration of so many independent minds led to general political education and awareness. To the colonialist this success in independent education was a threat to the established order, and they tried their best to frustrate this effort. With the declaration of emergency in 1952, all the independent schools were closed down. The buildings in Githunguri were burnt down and the site became a temporary holding ground for political agitators. Today on the foundations of the new college buildings that were being put up stand the offices of the local District Officer.

Githunguri is host to many first. It is the home to the first day high school in Kenya, St Joseph’s High School Githunguri. It is among the first sites of Harambee secondary schools in Kenya. Currently, with over twenty high schools, Githunguri has more high schools than the whole of North Eastern Province. Its student population is perhaps higher than the total population of some districts. It is the home of the first African dairy milk producers cooperative society in Kenya, Githunguri Dairy Farmer’s Cooperative Society.
Githunguri is home to leading figures in Kenyan politics and governance. It is home to late vice president Josphat Karanja, it is home to former AG Joseph Kamere, home to former Head of civil service, Jeremiah Kiereini, home to former Auditor General, Gicho Njoroge, home to former cabinet minister and current MP, Arthur Magugu, home to two former nominated MPs, Jackson Kamau and Rose Waruhiu, home to fiery politician and doyen of Moi oppositionists Njehu Gatabaki and home to one of its luminous sons and freedom fighter Waira Kamau.

With its rich history it is incumbent upon the current leadership to commission a program to preserve it. A local museum to house the independent schools history and a research center for the independent schools movement would be a good starting point. There are still a number of former students of these schools around and their experience and knowledge should be tapped and preserved in scholarly papers. The center would be expanded to house cultural festivals and preserve cultural artifacts for posterity. The center would engage a few of the many graduates in history, sociology and anthropology in guided research and report writing. The center would be a local resource center for teachers and students. With collaboration with the Kenya National Library Services it would provide library services for the local community. I am sure this is a local project that would attract support widely. Token allocations from the constituency development fund would perhaps attract funds from other organizations and donors. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Charles Wairia

KIBWEZI ARID LAND PROJECT

2006-05-20T01:56:00.000-05:00

For many years I have entertained the feeling that Kenya would be capable of turning her arid lands into an oasis of agricultural produce. The collapse of the Kibwezi project proves me wrong. This modest effort at dry farming was, according to reports, bringing in one million shillings a month in profits. It had an annual input of some fifty million shillings in donor support from the Israeli and American governments. When the Israelis were running the project it was a model of what a country can do with whatever nature has given you. They set up the project and for ten years run it profitably alongside Kenyans who were to take over thereafter. No sooner had the foreigners walked out than the indigenous well learned rightful owners took over and turned the project into a cash cow to feed their avarice and greed. They not only looted the profits but also the produce. They milked the cow dry forgetting you need to give it fodder for it to produce more milk. The 12,000 acres of model farming have been turned to acres of shame and failure. Let us not forget that this project is located right in the middle of Kamba land where famine is a perennial phenomenon. Year in year out we are treated to pictures of people queuing for meager hand out of famine relief maize and other dry rations. This project was not only a net employer but also a net producer of edible and nutritious commodities.

One does not need to be a professor of agriculture to know the potential that our dry lands have in transforming the food production capacity of our nation. With planning and management we should be net exporters of agricultural commodities. With the example set by Kibwezi, is it any wonder that we are a perennial begging nation? Simple economic management is all was needed not only to sustain the project but to also expand it and commission other projects in other areas.

The current deluge of floods will definitely be followed by prolonged drought, just like the one that preceded it. All this water will eventually be washed into the ocean and with it much of the fertile alluvial soil from our slopes and rangelands. Other than trapping this water for hydro power generation, we hardly utilize it for anything else. Even in the dry areas there are no simple dams built to hold the water for the livestock for at least a few weeks after the rains subside. We must change our focus and style of management. Unless we learn to conserve the few resources we have we cannot expect the donor community to have faith in our ability to manage the billions we go begging each year. Is it any wonder that we are not warmly received by the donor community? Yes we will wax wild that we can do without them, but what are we doing to ourselves? If we were able to sustain projects like Kibwezi and added others from our own resources, then we can afford to thump our chests. Right now it is empty rhetoric and utter futility at covering our shame and failure in management.

After the highlight of the collapse of the Kibwezi project, I am tempted to expect a commission will be appointed to look at the causes of the failure of the project. The report will be filed somewhere and in the meantime the rot will continue and the culprits will still be enjoying their ill gotten wealth. After some time we will be looking for billions to revive the project. This is the banal nature of Kenyan leadership. Start a project with pomp and gusto, invite the top echelons to launch it, talk about its importance in launching our nation into the technological age and our becoming an industrial nation, then like a phantom disappear until the next donor meeting or elections. Look at the Muhoroni rice project; look at the cotton industry; look at the perennial hunger in northern Kenya; look at the perennial floods in Kano and Budalang’i; not to include the roads that are never maintained but need to be rebuilt every few years; the drainage systems in urban centers that drain only the allocated resources and not the storm waters, the list is endless.

Our professors who were running the Kibwezi project must have taught some students some agricultural management, or even economics and administration. I am sure one such graduate could do a much better job in running the whole enterprise and leave the professor to do what they are best at, teaching in the classroom. The culture of appointing managers on the basis of political correctness or tribal balance goes negative to the principles of management which look at the innate qualities of the manager. We must address the issue of corruption, correct the evils of the past and punish the guilty. We must at the same time look ahead and commission the utilization of the arid lands for agricultural production. We can never rise from abject poverty if we cannot feed ourselves, and we cannot feed ourselves if we cannot manage our production capacity and exploit our full potential. Kibwezi must not be allowed to become a national shame.

Charles Wairia

KENYAN POLITICAL PARTIES

2006-04-18T01:52:00.000-05:00

One is left wondering the cause of the transient nature of political groupings in Kenya. One of the main reasons is the purpose for which the groups are formed. Most of these parties tend to consolidate themselves for the purpose of gaining political power. They gravitate around winning seats in parliament or local authorities. They incline around personalities rather than philosophies, their manifestos are filed to meet legal requirements rather than sell their vision to their followers. Their internal cohesion is maintained so long as the leaders gain power and recognition. The prize is often limited and this leads to conflicts within the group leadership. This seems to be the case with ODM.

The ODM came together with a specific goal, to mobilize the voters against the draft constitution. After the achievement of the principle objective, the momentum was stifled. To mutate ODM to a political party, which will take the leader to state house, calls for a different approach. The constitution referendum gave the electorate two choices, yes or no. It did not matter whether it was Raila or Kalonzo or Kibaki leading the parties, the choice was still either yes or no. Presidential elections are a different plate altogether.

All the ODM leaders who have put their stake at the presidency may be assuming that the momentum of the referendum will be simply transferred to their advantage. After the referendum, ODM has become an amorphous grouping of ambitious individuals seeking to use it to step into state house. If the ODM leaders fail to solidify it and give it another identity other than a vehicle for achieving their egoistic agenda, then its implosion will lead to the demise of their ambitions.

ODM should have continued on the path of mutation into a political party. It should develop group culture, identity, cultivate belongingness of the followers and be seen to be on the path to political maturity. The leaders are not the movement, they are just drivers. If the vehicle is a ramshackle with poor maintenance record packed with passengers, it does not matter how level the road is or how good the driver is it may not make the whole journey. If they do not refine the vehicle, tune it, spray paint it, put good music and working seat belts, the passengers will hike another ride. Perhaps the most important thing is to put a sign indicating the destination.

The gestation period is over and it is now the season for the birth of political parties. Kenyan political parties have failed because they have been built around personalities. Leaders migrate from one party to the other with their pockets of followers. Most Kenyan political parties would fail the test of formal organizations in the Max Weber sense. They lack norms and values, the type and purpose of the group is to serve an individual, they plant the seeds of their own demise. Kenyans have been cheated out of political maturity by the temporal nature of these parties. When one observes the leaders forming new parties this late, Kenyans should be ware that these are vehicles for either retaining power or getting power. The Kenya electorate is always used as a door mat to guard the door and carry all the mud and never enter the house. It is time the mud was scrapped elsewhere for the mats are slippery and will trip you if you step on them.

2006-04-11T04:27:00.000-05:00

Death is Life's Common Denominator.

Kenya mourns the death of six MPs among them all MPs from two districts, Marsabit and Moyale, and other leaders. The death of the Marsabit leaders among others is tragic given the circumstances. They died on a mission to seek reconcilation and peace for their region.

While death is life's common denominator, the death of some is viewed as more tragic than others due to the variance in their abilities and contributions in the society. Dr Bonaya Godana lies in this category. He was a bright star in the republic and perhaps the brightest from Marsabit. His demeanor and guise was that of a cultured gentleman, shunning public confrontations and being principled in his uttering. Godana was in the class of MPs who gave parliament dignity. He is one MP whose full potential was never fully exploited. Nevertheless, you cannot fault his leadership abilities and the affection his people had for him. Every time we lose such a leader, we are bound to ask ourselves what is the legacy they leave behind. Where is their philosophy recorded? Where are those scholary papers, treatise and expositions that they bequeth our libraries? Where is the experience as MP, Minister, Deputy Speaker, Lecturer, recorded? Why must we allow the cumulative knowledge of our leaders be buried with them?

With all the resources that parliament is allocating to itself, they should pass a law that each MP should write up their achievements at the end of each parliament. These documents should be edited and be availed to public libraries. Our leaders must develop the culture of writing books for posterity. The habit of reciting national achievements and struggles during national days is not enough. The Mau Mau veterans are fast disappearing, who will be left to document all that happened in the forests. Very little is written by actual combatants. Most have a story to tell and we should not let them go to the graves with their stories. Their stories belong to the nation and should be archived for posterity.

Death is cruel and tragic. To day you are present, tomorrow you are the late. May God console the bereaved and rest the souls of the departed peace.

USE THE ARMY TO TRANSPORT RELIEF FOOD

2006-03-16T14:39:00.000-05:00

Our armed forces are reputed to be among the best in Africa. It is undeniable that the role they continue to play in peacekeeping in various countries makes us proud. We have managed to internationalize our armed forces to the point where it is, perhaps, the only institution that reflects Kenya positively to the world.

It is however ironic that while maintaining peace in Kosovo, Sierra-Leon, Congo and elsewhere and ensuring that the refugees in those countries receive food and water, their brothers and sisters back home are dying from lack of same supplies. They are not dying because of war or civil strife, but because there is no transport and other logistics in place to ensure delivery of the much needed relief. The stores in Eldoret and Kitale are bursting with excess grain while people are dying a few hundred miles away from hunger.

Over the past forty years of independence, the government has done little in form of communication and road network improvement in North Eastern, and Northern Rift parts of the country. The areas have been left principally as the training ground for our armed forces. The army is a regular visitor and a popular friend of most of the locals. This is why the army should get involved in the food distribution and water drilling in these areas.

There is the immediate need to send food to the remote areas where people are dying daily. The army should mobilize its transport battalion and render support. They are familiar with the terrain; they are disciplined, organized and capable.

The time to demystify the armed forces is now. The armed forces should not be viewed only as a source of entertainment during national days. We should not just take pride in their outward attire and well timed marching and trooping of the color, we should get some tangible benefits from the huge investment that we put in them every year. Yes, the forces should be ready to combat any external threat, but their transporting food to El Wak or Kipini does not compromise their preparedness. Using the Engineering Battalion to drill waterholes in Wajir Bor or Lokitang’ gives them a human face. After all as frequent visitors to those areas they will have assured themselves of regular water supply. The supply branch would involve their personnel in acquisition and distribution of the relief food, and the transport battalion be used in moving the food. The lessons learnt in such undertakings would be important in times of war mobilization. This would be the closest they would get to real situations over and above simulated training, which lacks the perils of nature.

Our armed forces have manpower trained in various fields, they are adept at withstanding adverse weather conditions, and therefore, drilling boreholes and building dams would not be way out of their role. Some people may not be comfortable with the army undertaking such civil responsibilities, but the army is best positioned in terms of training, equipment, manpower and adaptability than any team the water ministry can build. This is not an act of hostility but a civil responsibility, which is consistent with the Force Act.

Perennial famine in our country’s north and northeast will never end if we do not address the issue of water availability. Although we need the short-term transportation of food, the solution lies in provision of water all year round, both for the livestock and humans. Lon- term goals of irrigating the area and tree planting should be in the agenda. While Nairobi is preoccupied with mundane issues of mercenaries and press freedom, people continue to die and the government is clearly not on top of the famine issue. Since the president’s visit to the region last December, the fate of the residents seem to have been left to the NGOs which are handicapped by lack of logistical support. This is no longer news. It is becoming increasingly difficult to retain it in the limelight and give it the thorough attention it deserves. The international community has been given other fodder to chew at the expense of people continuing to die.

If we involved the military in such humanistic endeavors, the subtle suspicion and mistrust between them and the civil in their inordinately large budget allocation would diminish. The military should take the initiative; it is not like the people in those regions care who provide the food. All they care for is the food and water not whether it is coming from NGO or the military. Let us use what we have and save our people from hunger. Right now what we have in abundance is the might of the army in huge trucks being polished and oiled daily for the next Madaraka day parade. Load them with grain and take them to Turkana and Pokot, when they come back beat up, creaking and dusty, we shall willingly reach deeper into our pockets and bail you out. Right now we are penny pinching because we are not sure our money is well spent.

We have not had war in forty years, we pray we have no war in forty years, right now let us fight poverty in our nation, that is the only war most of us will fight in our lifetime. After all, according to Napoleon, an army marches on its stomach, yes you are your brother’s keeper when he is hungry you are hungry or are going to be hungry. Hunger is not a virtue; it does not need to be glorified.

Capt. (Ret) Charles Wairia
USA

CHUKI NA MICHUKI

2006-03-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
Genesis 3:14
The good minister of internal security would like us to believe that someone in the Standard newspaper stepped on the serpent and stirred its wrath. The minister would like us to believe that the serpent was acting on the natural enmity that originated from the Garden of Eden. Be that as it may, my bible tells me that the serpent shall bruise my heel but I shall bruise its head. Now tell me Mr. Minister is this serpent tough enough to withstand the rod that it has made me pick.

I did not know that serpents are leading the people of Kenya. It is true serpents are the only creatures that slither and crawl through holes to wreck havoc especially at night. The serpent had to destroy and steal, beat and maim. The serpent had to make sure all other species crawl and slither like it. The serpent never chews its food it swallows its prey whole, horns hoofs and all. This serpent sought to swallow what is rightfully public property, which is right to information. By seeking to cripple the operations of the Standard group, the government has exposed itself to ridicule, calumny and mistrust. The government has come out of this shameful episode more divided and weaker than before. The days of the big man are gone; these are not the days of the colonial DO or post independence chiefs. Then the words of those fellows was law, the minister should know this having been one. In case it has escaped the ministers mind there is something called the rule of law. This is where the case between the serpent and the people is heard and decided.

It does not matter whether the serpent was enraged by the actions of the people, it can no longer decide to bite the heel without due process. Let us hope the Standard group will show the way and pursue this matter through the courts. Let us hope the courts will not be intimidated or cowed to favor the serpent. The serpent must be brought to trial for both punitive action and deterrence for future evil intentions. But already in the peoples’ court the serpent is guilty.

The minister would have liked the serpent to continue hibernating. Unfortunately while it was hibernating the people were going hungry. The very storekeepers entrusted with guarding it were looting the harvest store. When the media cried foul, the serpent was unleashed on the town crier.

Kenya is a nation of civilized beings, hence the massive condemnation of this act of thuggery. There is however cause to stop and wonder, if such destruction and misuse of police force can be executed without the knowledge of the police commissioner or even others in the chain of command, is it any wonder then that the police force has pockets of loyalty to individuals? Is this not direct abuse of the role of the police? Ministers come and go, but the government institutions are more or less permanent. This is why they should be de-linked from individual minister’s whims and wishes and be guided by the bureaucratic machinery. These systems must be institutionalized and not be changed with every cabinet reshuffle. If Michuki respected the rule of law and the official machinery of the government, he would not have taken it upon himself to release the serpent. That he did this shows his contempt of the very constitution he swore to uphold and protect.

There is no place for such arrogant leaders in the Kenya we want. He should do us a favor and tender his resignation, which is the measure of responsibility and maturity. Anything short of this is arrogance and abuse of the Kenyan people. The people reserve the right to take up a stick and hit the serpent on the head.

Charles Wairia
USA

POLICE THUGGERY AT STANDARD NEWSPAPERS

2006-03-02T03:42:00.000-05:00

Could a meeting between Mwai Kibaki and Kalonzo Musyoka be a threat to national security? Is this the reason why the police had to react by destroying the sources of dissemination of such highly seditious and sensitive news?

It is good to learn we have a QRU squad in the police force. It was indeed quick to respond to the news of threat to national security at the Standard newspapers. May be Osama bin Laden had been seen in the vicinity; maybe he was hiding in the building ready to address the nation through the KTN television network. Maybe the Standard was about to reveal another secret meeting of oranges and bananas. All these are plausible causes for the thuggery that was visited on the Standard, but they are not justifiable. Even if bin Laden was to address the nation from the studios the wanton destruction and mayhem was not necessary. The use of anti terrorist commandos to destroy equipment, beat and rob innocent citizens, burn newspapers and cause panic and alarm in the journalistic world is a dire violation of the rights of the people of this country.

The crack squads in the Kenyan security system are quite adept at flagrant display of raw power. They exhibit their ruthlessness to the wrong people. Beating innocent employees going about their business and shouting obscenities and stealing their phones does not augur well for a disciplined force. Respect for the law and protection of the innocent is paramount in any operation. This is never instilled in the minds of these goons who end up acting like the very thugs they are supposed to be hunting. Given that they were obeying orders, the civil thing to do would be to get court orders and then execute them in a manner commensurate with their training and regulations. Even then, dismantling of equipment, if ever justified, should be done in a civilized manner.

Was Osama bin Laden in I&M Towers or Likoni Road? Why did the police raid these premises in the middle of the night? So they think by burning the days edition they would stop the dissemination of information? That is classic idiocy and myopic thinking, stopping a man from speaking does not stop him from thinking. The thought will always somehow end up being vented and verbalized. But I guess this is too complex for the government system to comprehend hence, they seek to kill and maim the messenger.

We spend a lot of tax payers’ money to train and equip our police force, but when the same force is turned against innocent civilians, something is drastically wrong. Destruction of private property in the name of national security is scandalous. In a country that prides itself of being democratic, the practice of the democracy must be institutionalized. We cannot talk of democracy in the abstract; it must be there in every day operations and activities. Right from simple actions like letting the law take its cause when there are issues in dispute. It is not the work of the police to mete out mob justice on institutions like the mass media or wreck havoc and create chaos in private investors’ domain.

When will the government learn to respect the very laws that lead civilized societies? When will the government realize that the freedoms we enjoy are not gifts and largesse to be dispensed to their cronies but inalienable, fundamental, natural and succinct rights bestowed to all by virtue of their being human? For how long will the government continue to undermine the democratic space that cost the lives of many, and the continued impoverishment of others to create and nurture? For how long shall we continue to send wrong messages to the international community that they are the ones who do not understand us? Is it any wonder that we are beginning to be treated like a pariah nation in the international community? We are our worst enemies. The things we consider small and insignificant are the one that gain maximum attention. A raid in the middle of the night is headline news world wide in the middle of the day. Just because we are asleep does not mean the world is not awake. The gains of the last few years can be set back a decade by the actions of a single night. Let sobriety and reason supersede chaos and mayhem. Justice and candor supersede injustice and casuistry.

Charles Wairia
USA

NEW LOOTING ! ! !

2006-02-23T17:25:00.000-05:00

The parliamentary Service Commission has been busy reviewing the perks of the MPs. Barely a year has passed since the MPs awarded themselves hefty pay hikes and allowances. The emoluments they have given themselves are to put it mildly obscene.. The increase is not commensurate with the inflation rate neither is it related to economic growth rate. We cannot even justify it on the basis of increased work load. It is therefore incumbent upon the Commission to explain to the nation, that is the employer and paymaster, the criteria used to arrive at those figures.

Just because the corruption loopholes are being sealed does not mean that they should now loot directly. Is this another political fundraising project or is it in preparation for the jail time they will not be earning anything?

The country is tired of feeding unproductive leaders. Some of them have not even made their maiden speeches? The overseas allowance is a gross abuse of reality is irresponsible expenditure of public finance. A per diem of $760 in USA? Ridiculous! Are they Donald Trump? You can get reasonable full board accommodation in Washington DC for half that amount, three meals a day and a swimming pool! Are these foreign trips fund raising ventures? What happened to the old system of imprest. I will bet my next paycheck that if you asked them to produce receipts to cover the allowance, they will be hard pressed even if they inflate the figures.

On what basis were these figures arrived at? Did the embassies in the respective countries confirm them? Let us stop the looting of public funds through giving it an aura of official approval.

Our ministers and their assistants are among the most highly paid in the world. With the bloated cabinet we have, it amounts to pampering them for political purposes. This is corruption of the first order. The perks will be jingled every time one of them expresses dissenting voices. Let us hear them say this is undeserved pay hike. Let them shoot it down and act at least reasonably if not responsibly.

When was the last time parliament debated salary increase for the common mwananchi. The annual ritual of raising the minimum wage by 5% or 7% every labor day is seen as satisfactory. The only thing is this minimum wage was overtaken by events a decade ago. You cannot live on the minimum wage, thanks to the employers they no longer consider those guidelines otherwise there would be nobody to work for you.

As the president talks of performance contracts for the ministers and civil servants, we need performance contracts for the MPs. Going to sleep in bunge for the better part of the 90 days that the house sits in a year and taking home over quarter million shillings as bonus at the end of the year, over and above all the other tax free allowances, is obscene. Bonuses are awarded on the basis of performance, profitability and value produced. Not on the basis of just being on the payroll. We need an explanation and satisfactory justification for this latest looting of our kitty. Over to you Hon. Kaparo.

CABINET RESIGNATIONS, WHAT NEXT?

2006-02-14T03:46:00.000-05:00

Now that the four Ms are gone, (or stepped aside) Murungaru, Mwiraria, Murungi, and Muthengi what next? What of the other two M's Moody and Muthaura?

Let the president agonize about their replacements, as usual politics will take precedence over merit. Two Merus and a Masai are bound to join the cabinet in the endless dance of tribal balance and voter mollifying strategy. But that is not a major issue, what is at stake here are the underlying causes and consequence of the events leading to these resignations. The resignation of these fellows should open the way for accelerated investigations and arraignments of these suspects in court.

The case for Saitoti is clear. Sixteen years of investigations, denials and commissions should produce adequate materials for instantaneous prosecution. The endless charade of commissions on commissions should end. The people want to see these suspected economic saboteurs in court answering for their deeds or misdeeds. This should not be window dressing for the donors, it should be justice for the common man whose sweat was expended and whose heritage was squandered.

The stepping aside should not be a strategy to cool the tempers and ease the pressure from the people. Though it should be a sobering moment, it should not be construed that the Anglo Leasing saga is now solved. An arsonist does not go free just because the fire has been put out.

We should not have the investigations tied in bureaucratic red tape. It is true former PS Githongo has a duty to give a statement on the Anglo Leasing saga but it is not true that his statement can only be given in Nairobi. Given the magnitude of his claims against so called prominent personalities, his apprehension on his security is understandable. Regardless of the assurance by the government, Kenyans have not yet learnt to fully trust their government. Therefore if the mountain cannot come to Mohamed, Mohamed must go to the mountain. We should spare no resources in reaching to the bottom of this scandal and sealing all loopholes so that others with similar tendencies should be stopped in their tracks.

While investigations are going on the former ministers should be in protective custody as state guests in Kamiti. There is something called interfering with investigations. The owner of the collapsed building in Nairobi is a state guest at Kamiti because investigations are going on. The Anglo Leasing scandal players should be away from the public. Given their stature in society they are most likely to be intimidating any potential witnesses. Lock them up after all there is sufficient cause to suspect their complicity in the crime. We should not be going softly on some people just because they are friends with the seat of power. The president’s acceptance of their stepping aside, albeit belatedly and reluctantly, shows his willingness to distant himself from his cronies.

The resignation of Gitonga, Murungi and Murungaru has shattered the second power center that has been jostling for influence with the old guards; this clears the way for the Karume, Michuki, and Wanjui group to entrench themselves as the principle power brokers around the president. We do not moan the departure of the younger group. They had their chance to change the course of our nation but they succumbed to greed and corruption. They put self above nation, greed before thrift, arrogance before service and pride preceded their fall.

The people will not relent, the remaining two M's of Anglo Leasing remnants, Moody and Muthaura, must also step aside. If Kibaki is serious about making corruption something of the past, he must start by making sure his house is spotless. Right now, in the language of old Kanu, there are madoadoa (spots) of corruption and they will pollute the rest of the cargo. They should also step aside for the juggernaut of transparency to roll and flatten all the molehills of corruption before they become mountains.

The president’s action in the next few days will give a clear indication of his commitments. So far his language and actions do not show seriousness in the fight against corruption. This thing can not be fought through public appeals for calm and reason. The people have learnt the hard way, over a number of year, that whenever the government says the matter is under investigation, it literary means the matter is being removed from the public eye, hence being suppressed. The president should be decisive and be seen to act. The president should not sit and wait for his ministers to be pricked by their conscience and resign. Some have no conscience to prick them. Some respond by seeking to cross examine their accusers and trying to introduce extraneous issues in the debate. The president must act, after all he appointed the cabinet, if he can hire he can also fire. So what is the business of stepping aside, fire them and order a fast probe on their affairs. If not you will be sinking with them. Mr. President the time to act is now. 2007 is fast approaching. What legacy of your presidency will you bequeath your country?

Charles Wairia
USA

CRY FOR HELP

2006-02-13T03:49:00.000-05:00

Martin Meredith in his book The Fate of Africa notes that ‘for the most part, Africa has suffered grievously at the hands of its Big Men and its ruling elites.’ On Kenya he observes that ‘even when regimes have changed hands, new governments, whatever promises they made on arrival, have lost little time in adopting the habits of their predecessors.’ Three years after declaring that ‘corruption will cease to be a way of life in Kenya’, the government is seen to be doing little to combat the menace.

The western world and the donor community, to whom we constantly turn for largesse and support, are slowly exhibiting fatigue symptoms. The vast amount of aid sunk into the country is not replicated in discernible projects and programs. People are dying of hunger and thirst, yet the Cereal Board is bursting with excess storage of maize. What is there is grand evidence of avarice, greed and conspicuous consumption by a privileged few. The pampering of the politically correct cabal at the expense of the nation is something that the people can no longer condone. When Kibaki declared war on corruption, it was to be fought by all and from all the fronts. Some of his confidants took it that the war was to be fought on other fronts and at the lower levels and they expected to continue with business as usual.

Most problems of post independent Africa can be traced directly to its leaders, their caliber, their vision, and their commitment to national ideals or lack thereof. Some leaders come into the scene full of promise and determination. One such was Kibaki, but he quickly found himself in the shackles of paternalism and political maneuvers which have manipulated his power and made him a lame duck. Kibaki’s hands-off style of leadership was taken as a license to loot. He trusted his ministers to act judiciously and patriotically, they ended up being malicious and spiteful. In spite of all the damning evidence, they still continue to cling on to office and the entrapments of power. This is abuse of the people’s intelligence and abrogation of the contract between the government and its people. The people cannot continue trusting the intentions and actions of their government when their confidence in the truthfulness, integrity and honor of the key players is heavily eroded. The people cannot, and should not, be forced to wait another two years before cleaning up the mess that is in the government today. The time to take the initiative is now. As the Swahili saying goes asiyezimba ufa atajenga ukuta. Stitch in time and save nine.

Kenya has had opportunities in the past to be a political show case in Africa and the world. Beginning with the peaceful transition of power in 1978 through the various elections, rigged or otherwise, to the era of competitive politics and ascension of opposition to the seat of power in 2002, Kenyans exhibited resilience and maturity rare in African politics. The people should not allow this faith and confidence to be lost because of the actions of a few. Demand for accountability at every level should be the clarion call. We must seize the time to show the world that we can live the true meaning of our national motto harambee, that we can pull together and in the same direction and rid ourselves of the corruptor and the corrupted.. It is not enough to just sweep the floor and leave the dirt by the door side. It must be collected and deposited in the compost pit where the stench does not permeate the house.

The government should not forget the lessons of the November 2005 referendum. People united in a course are like a juggernaut that will crash all on its path. Those able to harness this force will reap the fruits that fall when the tree is shaken. The international community is watching to see whether the government will respond to the cries of its people. Only then will they come in and help to pull them out of the abyss into which they have been deposited by the gluttony and greed of its leaders. The wanton suffering in the countryside, hunger, insecurity, breakdown in the infrastructure and the attendant neglect of the various projects should be addressed forthwith. We cannot continue to blame God for all our problems. God played His part when He endowed us with the capacity to think and act proactively. That is why He does not give us rain all the time so that we can sink wells and get water. The days of Moses talking to rocks to produce water are long gone. We need action, selfless and humble service. Some are however busy digging canals to divert the river course from its natural path and denying the others their rightful share of the water. Somebody please pull us out of this mess. But they have dug a pit, thrown us into the pit, we will surely not trust them to pull us out of the pit. It is time to look for someone to pull us out of the pit.

Charles Wairia
USA

FIRE OF CORRUPTION

2006-02-09T05:07:00.000-05:00

You do not leave your burning house to go and sift through the ashes of your burnt granary. Common sense dictates that you put out the infernal and then find out what caused the fires in the granary and main house. The government is going about the business of corruption in Kenya in reverse order. The house is burning, firemen are the arsonists and yet you are calling them to sit down and discuss not only how to put out the fire but also the causes of the fire. They cannot be trusted to put the fire out neither would they be objective in the investigation. Let’s look at the firemen:
Kiraitu Murungi, the minister for Energy seems to have expended much energy in covering up and condoning corruption. The Githongo dossier is damning enough for any innocent person to lie low and not come out fighting. It merits response and rebuttal otherwise the court of public opinion will convict on available evidence. As a lawyer, the minister knows that courts convict on the basis of the presented evidence, not the withheld evidence however convincing it would have been. That the garrulous minister has been evasive and silent in the face of the accusations is indicative of the veracity and magnitude of the indictment. Continued silence and inaction is tantamount to contempt of the people’s court. The fire cannot be put out with him in the firefighting crew. Step aside and let the fire trucks through.
The VP Moody Awori seems to have been sucked into a quagmire way beyond his mantle. But he has gone about putting out the fire the wrong way. We all can see the house is on fire yet, uncle Moody is asking us what fire, who says I lit it? He may not have lit the match but he had the match box. He may not have fanned the fire but neither did he call in the fire brigade when the fire started. The fire can only be put out if he lets the firefighters in. Step aside and them in, they’ll establish your innocence or otherwise.
There is no doubt that Professor Saitoti has been one of the most prolific and active ministers in the Kibaki government. He has undertaken his education portfolio with the vigor and energy of a man on the run. He has been trying to run away from his past but it is fast catching up. Of all the Moi era Goldenberg perpetrators he is the only one still in the cabinet. When he therefore talks of ‘they’ chasing him for political expediency, we are lost as to who he refers to. The time for accountability is here and the shifting of blame to unnamed people is long gone. Either stand up and carry your cross or get your Cyrene to help you carry it. Unlike Anglo Leasing which is a flaring flame, Goldenberg is a smoldering heap refusing to die out. We may never recover the billions but our souls will be mollified when there will be token restitution and punishment of the guilty. The professor should step aside for us to rake through the embers, he cannot sit in the same cabinet that is trying him or even discussing him.
As argued above, we must put out the burning fire of Anglo Leasing before attempting to fight the fires of Goldenberg and allied. We cannot wait another ten years for Anglo Leasing and allied to be addressed. The evils of this government must be sorted by this government. This government is under obligation, least by its own electro promises, to cleanse itself of those scandals perpetrated and those perpetuated during its watch. Yes we need to know about all the past fires, we need to convict the past arsonists but the house is on fire now and the arsonists are right here. First let us stop and then chase those who lit yester fires.

Charles Wairia

Kibaki's Silence is Very Loud

2006-02-06T05:16:00.000-05:00

Having lived in the land of George Bush for a few years now, one of the things I have noted about the man is his indefatigable drive to sell his policies and ideas. In the run up to the Iraq invasion the man moved and rallied his entire administration to the cause, however misguided. They read from the same script and danced to the same tune. There was no question that they were united in the run up to the war. In the failed social security reforms that the president fronted, he was out in the field day and night selling his ideas to whoever would listen. The program was not rejected for lack of salesmanship but for its inherent weaknesses. But this did not stop the president fronting it with vigor and gusto.

The Kenyan president on the other hand works from a completely different script. He assumes that all Kenyans are literate enough and economically endowed enough to be able to buy and read the newspapers or own radios and televisions to be able to follow the operations of their government. Kibaki’s style of leadership assumes he has the best people in the right jobs. It ignores that his cabinet appointments are mostly based on political merit rather than professional competence. When you appoint people on the basis of political merit, you have to provide political leadership to them. Leaving them to provide professional leadership leads to embarrassment and inadequacies in good governance.

The finger pointing and loud silence of the 88 plus cabinet is indicative of lack of political leadership. There are a few voices in the wild, Koigi, Nyaga, Kombo but these are forlorn echoes in the cavernous labyrinth that is corruption in Kenya. The voice that should be reverberating and thundering is missing. Every herdsman knows that there is always a thieving goat in every herd, and a good shepherd will keep a constant eye on it. He will constantly shout at it to turn back, and the goat will know it is marked. A herdsman cannot afford to slumber when the thieving goat is loose. Kibaki’s pen is full of thieving goats, they are not tethered and the herdsman is falling asleep.

Our land is calling for political direction. The country is bleeding from the wounds inflicted by corruption. Some of the thieving goats are tethered but still bleating, while others are silently munching, and chewing the cud, awaiting the gates to open they go browsing in the neighbors maize garden. The chief shepherd needs to reassure the neighbors that their plants are safe from his marauding herd.

The press has been doing a commendable job in most peoples eyes, (except Mwakwere and co). It has pointed out the evils that have permeated the society. It has brought the people’s conscience and awareness to a level that shames the lethargic elite that has left governance and leadership to the garrulous and incompetent. The press has broken down the façade and aura of invincibility that our leaders coat themselves with. Those incubating the eggs of corruption have now known that their hatcheries will be invaded and the chicks destroyed before they reach the brooders. What we need is for the big rooster to crow and all the others will fall in line.

Kibaki is not seizing the moment to articulate his policies and give this country direction. The president had to be dragged almost reluctantly from his Christmas recess to visit the dying of North Eastern province. This is no longer an issue in the public limelight. Even when Kenyans have to go and buy water in of all places Ethiopia, and be humiliated in the process, not even a local leader sees this as a problem. The president has not bothered to comment on the Anglo Leasing saga, maybe it is too ethereal for him. The Goldenberg report had to be squeezed into his busy schedule, we need to hear his comments on the same. The nation cannot afford to wait until the next Madaraka day or Jamhuri day for the president to address the issues that are bothering his people. Murungaru laid the blame of the navy ship tender on the president’s door step. Let us hear the president say something about it. Silence will be more fodder to rumors and innuendo. You cannot wish away an itch, you have to stretch your hand and scratch it, the people are itching for truth and justice.

All those adversely mentioned in the various corrupt deals, be they Anglo Leasing or Goldenberg, should step aside for justice and fairness to take course. Political expediency should not be allowed to overshadow morality and competence. Integrity and temperance in public service must be restored. The political class should not be allowed to instill benign loyalties to a cabal that is as transient as the regime which founds it. The civil service is a solid entity whose operations and policies continue to affect the people long after the regime is gone. It should not be operational at the exigencies of a political class but should serve all the people and protect their resources and heritage. It is therefore necessary to wipe out any contaminants at every level before it starts affecting the whole cargo.

My bible tells me ‘where there is no vision, people perish’ a nation’s vision can best be articulated by its president. People are by nature forgetful creatures, they therefore need to be reminded of their vision constantly otherwise they will curve out their own. The nation must pull together and the call must come from somewhere. Kenyatta talked Harambee, shouted Harambee, instilled Harambee. Moi talked Nyayo, shouted Nyayo, instilled Nyayo. Mr president, where do you want Kenyans to rally?

TENDER FOR KENYA NAVY SHIP

2006-02-01T07:24:00.000-05:00

A lot has been said about the purchase of the Kenya Navy ship which has cast aspersions on the way this tender was handled. The armed forces have developed a culture of silence about their operations and expenses as if they are not budgeted from the public funds. The era of transparency and accountability calls for all institutions of the government to open themselves to public scrutiny.

The company awarded the contract is Astilleros Gondan SA of Figueros on the Bay of Biscay in Spain. It is an old company (est.1925 current location) best known for building of small fishing boats. It has been selling small fishing vessels to such African countries like Senegal, Gabon, Liberia and Angola since 1978.

The biggest job it has ever handled is the building of the 3807 ton Cloud II, a 96 passenger three mast luxury sailing ship completed in 2000 for a German company. It has a draught of 5.03 meters and a maximum speed of 14 knots. The other big jobs are two cargo vessels for Spain each displacing 2469 tons completed in 2001. There is no record of the company having manufactured any vessel for any navy anywhere in the world. The closest are the two 622 ton search and rescue vessels for the Indonesian police in 2002. These are not very impressive statistics for a company building a fighting ship for the Kenya Navy.

The company was not a registered Defense Equipment Supplier by Spanish Ministry of Defense and Spanish Ministry of Industry as defense equipment supplier and exporter before September 2005! This was two years after the signing of the contract with the Kenyan authorities. The mentioned registration allowed the company to offer, fit on board its constructions and export defense equipment according to Spanish regulations.

Questions that arise include how did the navy decide to deal with this company when it was not even licensed in its own country for such a job? How was it evaluated and pre qualified? Is the navy buying a fishing vessel which is the specialty of this company? The technical specifications for fishing vessels are different from those of a fighting ship. There is no record of this company having ever made any naval ship. Why is the Kenya navy the guinea pig for this company? As I have argued elsewhere there is something wrong with our procurement system. Four billion shillings is not small change, and when it is channeled through processes that are unclear for purchase of goods that are suspect, the pain is excruciating. Hence the demand that this contract be laid on the table, together with those other competitors who lost in the bidding. That way we might at least be mollified and our pain placated.

Charles Wairia

KIBAKI'S ARMY OUT OF STEP

2006-01-31T05:48:00.000-05:00

The Kibaki government is finding itself in very unfamiliar territory where it is cornered and is seeking to defend itself. The various commanders are trying to muster their troops but most of them are either AWOL or on sick leave. The few present are simply too demoralized to act. A demoralized army is a defeated army. The Kibaki troops are well fed, pampered and brightly attired but their morale is zero. The commander is not able to give that pep talk that uplifts the sunken spirit. The troops are unwilling to die for their commander.

Every commander knows that his troops will die for him if they believe that he is there for them at all times. Soldiers would fight in tatters, hungry and cold if they believe in their commander. If they see his tenacity, resolute determination, guts, and sheer abrasiveness in the face of the enemy, they will throw their full might at the battle ahead. Soldiers do not necessarily believe in a cause, they believe in their commander. When a commander commits his troops to battle he better be prepared to lead them. All successful generals in history physically led their troops to battle, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, McArthur, Swarznekoff, etc., were physically there with their forces. Their presence emphasized their commitment, and their leadership from the front augmented the resoluteness of their cause. The war on corruption is no exception. The big general and his field commanders must be physically present.

Kibaki is sending his lieutenants to marshal the troops, but there are no discernible battle plans they are articulating. Theirs is to praise the genius of their general at reading the many battle plans and commissioning the drawing of others that are never tested on the ground. Out of all those commanders only the novices are loud enough to be heard. Where are the battle tested old guards? Or are they just laying low mistaking the cannon booms for thunder, the bullets for hail stones and saying it is a matter of time the cloud will pass? How wrong they must be, the battle against corruption and looting of public kitty is not a passing cloud. It is a relentless bombardment and onslaught of justice on the ubiquitous malady that has permeated the Kibaki government in the short time it has existed. The corrupt dealings and subsequent imbroglio that the nation has been immersed into, will face the unremitting artillery of public scrutiny and accountability until every penny is accounted for and every culprit punished.

Do the various field commanders have faith in their general? There are feelings that some of the field commanders have sold the others to the enemy. As such they are wavering and teetering in their support, and are not confident of winning the battle where trust is lacking. The big general himself is loud in his silence. Wars are not worn in the silence and comfy of the garrisons, they are worn in the rough of trenches and bunkers, the desert sand dunes and the urban dark alleys. The soldiers need to be exhorted, encouraged and reassured that the though the battle is tough the war is just and winnable. This can only come from the big general himself and it must come sooner rather than later. It must be accompanied by actions that will reinforce the words and reinvigorate the troops with morale and drive for victory.

Some of the Kibaki troops are too polluted to be allowed into the public domain without risk of contaminating the rest. They will need to be quarantined until their suspected plague is diagnosed and treated. Unless this happens, all the efforts at damage control by the other lieutenants are futile. Excreta do not stop to stink just because you cover it.

When the World Bank turns off its flow of support, it is a clear signal that something is drastically wrong. Kenyans remember the way donors and foreign governments were competing to be the first to open their coffers for us after the 2002 elections. The looters thought this was because of their own selves rather than the trust bequeathed them by the Kenyans, they squandered this goodwill that we enjoyed. Other foreign donors are surely going to follow the World Bank lead. You do not go borrowing or begging to maintain affluent lifestyles incongruent with your capacity and sustainability. Kenyans today view any defense of the corrupt Anglo Leasing and allied dealings as effort to preserve the frivolous and wasteful opulence that the leaders exhibit in the midst of misery and hunger.

The big general has caused the war on hunger to be forgotten. Corruption and maladministration has turned famine and accompanying human suffering to the periphery. We should fight both fronts with same vigor and vitality until we achieve victory. One thing is clear, the war on corruption will be relentless, not the way the government sees it but the way it should be, which is no sacred cows to be spared. Resigning of the leaders, though a necessary pre requisite is not sufficient. After any war, there are war criminals, and there are trials and meting of justice, or at least there should be. Kenyans will not be satisfied until justice is done and seen to have been done. They will not be satisfied with commissions, judicial or otherwise. History has shown that commissions in Kenya are just a way of buying time and wishing away an issue. There have been far too many commissions whose reports have not been implemented. Some have not even been made public, this has been shear waste of our meager resources.

This is the time the clean men and women of our nation came forward to salvage the little credibility remaining in our nation. Kenyans cannot continue to entrust their sheep to the hyenas. There was an allegation, which has not been denied, that the president’s lieutenants told the anti corruption czar that the president himself knew how these things (corrupt deals) worked, him having worked in the treasury. That this has not been dismissed as upumbavu talks volumes. Where there is smoke there is fire. The big general must muster his troops and lead from the front.

Moi, despite his failings, led from the front. His troops knew where to tread, if they got out of step they were quickly sent back to the ranks. But the big general knows this for he was a culprit once. Our troops are not matching together, some are out of step and others are simply too tired to match. Halt the whole platoon and sort them out otherwise they will sort you out.

Capt. (Ret) Charles Wairia

Do We Still Trust Our Government?

2006-01-30T02:46:00.000-05:00

During the 2002 national elections the NARC coalition pleaded with Kenyans to entrust them with the mandate of leading the country to greater glory. Over three million Kenyans responded by trusting that once the NARC was elected things would change for the better. At the beginning of 2003, Kenyans were the most optimistic people in the world.

Trust is defined as confidence in and reliance on good qualities, especially fairness, truth, honor, or ability. Do Kenyans see good qualities in their government in the handling of the Anglo Leasing saga? No. Do they see fairness? No. Do they hear the truth from the government? No. Does the government fail on the trust test? Yes. Trust is the principle currency of any government. No government should allow the people’s trust to be eroded. If a government loses the trust of its people, it loses its moral authority to govern.

The revelations by Githongo on Anglo Leasing, cannot be wished away as LDP agenda as the empty rhetoric of Kanyingi and Kamanda seem to suggest. Kenyans trusted the government to fulfill its promise of zero tolerance of corruption. Yet a cabal of ministers saw it fit to propagate corrupt deals and expect to get away with it. If the government cannot make the individual ministers answer for their actions then the whole government cannot escape a charge of complicity in defrauding Kenyans of their trust.

The Anglo Leasing saga and the events surrounding it has eroded the trust the people of Kenya had on their government. The loud silence coming from State House is reminiscent of the see no evil hear no evil adage. You cannot sit back and wish away a festering cancerous growth on your foot after diagnosis. You must submit to chemotherapy, if it doesn’t work amputation, otherwise it will spread to the whole body and you will die. The organs that are not tainted with this cancerous blood should be protected and preserved. The putrid ones should be surgically removed.

The head surgeon however, does not feel confident to perform the operation. He has all the tools and the patient is ready on the operating table. Can we trust him with the surgeon’s knife?

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT SYSTEM

2006-01-27T03:49:00.000-05:00

Anglo Leasing is a hydra that is sprouting new heads faster than you can cut them. The perpetrators, in their hurried scheming, seem to have ignored the obvious. Not everyone in their team was playing ball. There seem to be pockets of integrity determined to protect the public kitty.

The revelations of the scrupulous manipulation of the public procurement procedures and the accompanying apparent loss of public funds are issues that would bring down any government in the civilized world. The government is the custodian of public property. We, the citizens, bequeath our government the prudent and judicious management of this property. It is disheartening to note that our government through its agents is a frequent abuser of this trust. If this was an employee, he would get a letter referenced ‘show cause why your services should not be terminated’.

The Anglo Leasing saga has phantoms returning money that they do not admit having received initially. Restitution is an acknowledgement of guilt. In the old impromptu audits, especially in the military, if the money was not in the cash box, or the safe, it mattered little that it was in your pocket, it was missing and whether you returned it or not, you were culpable. Even now if the money is not in the treasury or has been properly expended someone is culpable. The last time I checked this was called theft by servant.

Something is not right with our procurement system. We seem to be very eager to set up high level committees and commissions which become moribund because they are either too bloated or there is no political goodwill for their success. At such times they become tools of manipulation by the few in the know. The inter-ministerial committee is either complicit in the frauds or ineffectual and past its sell by date. It neither barks nor bites.

There are a milliard companies in the world that are competent and willing to tender for the various supplies and services. Why we should continue to single source from the same supplier whose previous dealings are suspect beats the sane mind. Once a supplier is involved in dubious dealings, they should be blacklisted and denied future business. Only in Kenya do we keep going back to the same discredited supplier, this stinks of vested interests which we call corruption, which is a crime.

Government procurement contracts are public property. They should be available at least to all the parliamentarians and by extension to the wananchi. The MPs, as the people’s representatives, should familiarize themselves with the sourcing, contracting and payment procedures to be effective watch dogs. We are spending too much money on our MPs, per capita, for the services they are rendering. Each MP should have the capability to research issues in the public domain for them to make positive contributions in their debates. They should grow the teeth to bite for the sake of the wananchi. Vested interests and camaraderie should not cloud objectivity and truth.

The central tender board should be strengthened and manned with professional purchasing and supply managers. The workings and tender manipulations in the Anglo Leasing saga, Mahindra saga, AP Communication Equipment saga, where one family is linked to all the lucrative and dubious contracts in the government, is nothing new in the trade. To beat the single sourcing rule, one family will register five companies, say in five countries, all will tender for a particular contract, with inside collusion other companies will not be invited to tender. To the outsider, you will have five different companies from five countries tendering, a façade of a truly international sourcing but they all belong to the same family. Check those addresses in UK; India, Switzerland or Nairobi, there is bound to be some common link. In such a situation, what is to stop the company quoting any price they want? Somebody is being economical with the truth.

A simple search in the internet or on the ground can unravel most of this mystery. This is one reason why the former regime restricted access to information. Any company worth its salt has a website giving at least some basic information of its operations. Let us utilize technology to beat the corrupt and treacherous at their game. The Narc regime has no business being economical with truth. The public is entitled to information, not only the sugar coated PR, but also the bitter truth of its failure and incompetence.

It is only in Kenya where the government buys items in wholesale volume at a higher price than you get at the retailers! Even when it is duty and VAT free! This beats common sense, even if you do not take advantage of the economies of scale, you should take advantage of the guarantee of payment, or do government checks still bounce?

If this mess is not sorted fast enough, then, even those who are very clean will be stinking to the heavens when the ***t hits the fan.

Public money is not a wild cow to be milked by whoever wants. The owner has come home and the cow is now under zero grazing. No dairy meal, no milk.

Charles Wairia

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

2006-01-25T13:42:00.000-05:00

The collapsed building in Nairobi brings to memory the reaction to the Nairobi bombing in 1998. Then, as now, the first government responders were the GSU fully armed with guns, only to find that what was most required were shovels and wheel barrows. I hear this time the police arrived fully armed with rifles. Whether the rifles were to be transformed into shovels remains to be seen.

The disaster response team is an unknown entity. I, like most Kenyans, don’t know whether it is under the police, army or city council or whether it really exists. They, assuming they are there, are supposed to be prepared to respond to any disaster, natural or man-made, anywhere in the country. If they exist they were caught flat-footed. There was no evidence of professionalism in the rescue mission. Eight years after the Nairobi bomb the lessons learnt seem to have been lost. We had to rely on Israel and the USA to sort out our inefficiency, just like we did in ‘98. Thank God we do not have these calamities as often as the Israelis, for if we did the Americans and Israelis would permanently camp somewhere in the city. I hate to imagine the consequence of a major disaster like an earthquake. There was an earth tremor in the city recently, people simply ran out of the buildings. What next? Suppose a building had collapsed. Do the occupants of the various buildings know the nearest fire exits? Can they maneuver the stairs in complete darkness?. Do the various buildings have a disaster management strategy. Where would the employees muster after evacuating the building? These are basics of fire drills that every office should have. Muster and roll call is not demeaning, but it helps the rescue teams know where to concentrate their efforts. Time is of essence in disaster rescue and you do not need to have it wasted on searching endlessly in areas where the occupants have all evacuated and not accounted for due to lack of operable systems.

How many times has the fire brigade arrived at a scene of fire only to run out of water? The various fire hydrants in the city stopped carrying any water decades ago. The ladders are too short and cannot reach the higher floors, the fire fighters end up just warming themselves in the fire as the buildings are consumed to the ground. I saw the picture of seven fire fighters gawking at one of them digging with the only shovel available. They might as well divest themselves of those colorful jackets, which must be suffocating in the heat, instead of just idling in a disaster area completely lost as to what to do. We must professionalise the firefighting teams to be able to cope with any disaster in the city. Professionalism is not rushing through the city with the blaring sirens, or wearing colorful uniforms and marching during Labor Day Parade, it is what you do at the scene of disaster and how you confront the challenge of your calling. Fire fighting is a calling not just another job, if you have no dedication, guts and tenacity you are a danger to the others, and yourself, best you keep off.

Our police respond to all disasters almost the same way, keep the people at bay while they take the vantage point to watch and agape. This might be useful when you have the professionals managing the situation, but this is not always the case. Most times the wananchi become the professionals. Every body wants to help but they don’t know how to help. Sometimes the injured are best left in their state if there is no immediate danger of more harm, until a professional medic is available. All the wananchi think about is to take the person to the hospital by any available means thereby handling the injured like a bag of cabbage without due care as to the nature of the injury. Immobilization is never considered since most believe that the greatest danger lies in your not getting to the hospital. They will throw you onto the back of a pick up truck, after frisking your pockets, and will mistake your fixed stare of shock as smile of appreciation.

The government was quick in getting foreign help. This of course is tacit acknowledgment of our inability to cope with such a disaster on our own, so much for our sovereignty. We are not lacking in examples of preparedness, I would even guess that these countries would be willing to train a team of disaster management experts who in turn should train others. But like every thing in Kenya, there is always the question of how do I benefit. But collapsing buildings do not ask what tribe you are, nor do they ask for the kickback.

Somebody is guilty of homicide if not murder in this disaster. Were the plans for this building properly drawn and approved by the relevant council authority? Did a qualified and registered architect draw them? Is the structural engineer a qualified and registered practitioner? Did he/she inspect the building during the various phases of construction? Was the foreman qualified for such undertaking? There are a lot of questions that the public is entitled to ask. The moment a Kenyan life was lost and the government resources were expended to sort out a private investor’s mess, then the issue is no longer private developer versus city council but the people versus the private developer, city council, architects, engineers and others. They all must answer for their negligence, omission or commission, the guilty must be punished in accordance with the law and the public must see it done.

Let us hear from our disaster management team. Let us hear how they are preparing to meet any future challenges. We do not want to hear there are no resources, no money, we will start when funds become available. Disasters will not wait until the funds become available, they will strike at any time. The funds therefore should be availed especially when we received back all those billions from Anglo Leasing. Transparency means openness, disaster management need not be done in secrecy, in times of crisis like the recent one, you will need the cooperation of the citizenry, if they are ignorant of your role they will not be swift in cooperating. Educate the people through the media of the need to respect those with the responsibility of managing such situations. They in turn should be loud and visible by uniform or insignia. Do not crowd just to see, give way to emergency vehicles. Buses, matatus, and private vehicles should divert from the disaster area. A bus ploughed into a rescue ambulance causing injury. The police should have sealed off the area, this is common sense but that is not very common among most people.

But wait, in three months the disaster will have been forgotten, new labor will have been hired, construction will resume after a number of people make token appearance in court, they will be released on bond with surety, the case will be fixed for mention in six months time. By this time we will have forgotten this whole saga and will be thinking about the world cup, the budget and the next elections. People having died in this building will be dismissed as bahati mbaya, just another statistic in our national tragedies. Until the next tragedy strikes and we will start the whole cycle again.

Charles Wairia

THE GODS PEED ON ME

2006-01-06T05:43:00.000-05:00

The other night I was caught in the middle of a storm. Not of the political or social nature, but of the rain variety. I have watched storms come and go from the safety of my house, but never have I driven in one. It began with the splattering of heavy rain drops on my windscreen. There was the rumbling of distant thunder and flashes of lightning. These were not new to me. I grew in the tropics where rain is often accompanied by thunder and lightning. A mile up Highway 301 north, I met with the fury and wrath of the gods of thunder. Lightning and thunder were trying to out do each other. Flashes of lightning lit the road so often I nearly put down my sun visor. Thunder was no longer rumbling and distant but was making itself known to me in a cascade of noise all around my car. One time it was the loud clapping on my ears the other the sharp staccato bedlam threatening to split my eardrums and render me deaf. The rain itself was heavy and incessant. I was leaning forward trying to maintain my driving on my side of the lane. With lights on and the wipers on maximum I could hardly see beyond twenty feet. I tried the full beam and it came right back at me. I therefore settled for the low beam and trudged on. I thought I was driving too fast and checked only to find I was doing 35mph. for a while I saw no other vehicle on the road and I wondered, could there have been a call for vehicles to keep off the roads. I checked the radio and they were happily playing their music, no mention of the storm. So much for local storms.

Why must the gods fight in the middle of the road and when I was driving there? I had one mission, outrun the storm. The weatherman had said the storms would be localized, I therefore knew I would get out of it in a little while. And sure enough by the time I got to Sharpburg, the storm had died, I had actually outrun it. And so I drove in the drizzle and got to Rocky Mount. By the time I parked my car the storm had caught up with me. It took a straight line while I followed all the meandering of the road. The storm was furious that I had attempted to outrun it and cheat it from beating down on me. So it summoned all its fury and beat upon my car making it impossible for me to get out. It summoned all its relatives, lightning thunder, wind and beat upon me. My mind started wondering can you be hit by lightning while inside a vehicle? This thought made me cling away from the window.

The storm did eventually pass and I was safe from its vagaries and fury. As I sat in the vehicle waiting for it to subside I remembered a story told me by my Masai friend. In the Masai folk role it is believed that when you have just a drizzle or splattering of raindrops, the god of rain was actually urinating elsewhere and decided to shake in your area. You end up with a sprinkle of rain drops. With this wisdom, I realized the gods of rain really meant to urinate on my car this night. I hate to think what the thunder and lightning was.

CONSULTATIONS

2006-01-06T04:00:00.000-05:00

I was watching the news and saw the president of the USA, George Bush, holding a meeting with former secretaries of state and secretaries of defense going back to the Kennedy era. In Kenyan parlance this is called holding consultation. These are men and women who served or continue to do so, as experts in foreign affairs and defense. They went through senate grilling and confirmation and gave their best in the positions they served. They have published writings about their work, given lectures, have been consulted and have given advise. They form a reservoir of knowledge and experience that the nation can tap on at a time like this when America needs to re-focus her Iraq policy. These were eminent citizens from both mainstream political parties, Republicans and Democrats.

This sent my mind on a whirl tour of our political landscape. Who would our president call at his table, as experts, to discuss national issues, set aside international? In Kenya today our MPs become experts and professionals overnight on being appointed to the cabinet. A constitutional lawyer becomes an expert in environment and pollution, a former councilor becomes an expert in sports, a cycle repairman is an expert in wild life. Tomorrow, if there be a reshuffle, the same faces will become experts in foreign affairs or water.

The appointments into the various positions of authority tend to lean on political expediency rather than professionalism. The Permanent Secretaries, who as accounting officers, are supposed to be the experts in their respective ministries are not exempt from this game of musical chairs. Most of them are in the wrong ministries per their training and experience. The same case with the high commissioners and ambassadors, some were plucked, as it were, right from their slumber in the village and planted on these posts with no prior training, experience, or even inclination for the job. This is a major de-service to the nation and an embarrassment to those experts in the profession.

Back to the issue of whom the president would sit down with. Looking at the political spectrum over the past forty two years of independence, and three presidents, we have had more ministers of foreign affairs in that period than America has in the same period with nine presidents. This dearth of expertise is not limited to foreign affairs it is prevalent across the whole civil service and pre-eminent in the cabinet. Our level of experts is at the lower cadres of the civil service whose advice is often ignored.

Which field is Kalonzo Musyoka an expert in, education, foreign affairs, environment, deputy speaker, law, ODM all of which he has served, with distinction in some I should add? How about Nyachae; public service, agriculture, finance, energy, industrial enterprise, opposition, where has he left his mark? We do not suffer from lack of experts rather from lack of appreciating our experts. In every field we have qualified manpower whose talents we can tap, yet every day we ignore them and seek counsel where it is least available. We have to distinguish between sycophancy and expertise. We have our Washington Omondis, Yashpal Ghais, Wangari Mathais, Mazruis, Bethuel Kiplagats, people whom the world hungers after and whose opinions are respected and sought. Yet at home we are tinkering with the psychos who will dance at the wriggling of the threads. Let us give honor to our prophets and respect their message.

The art of consultation need not be left to the kitchen cabinet. That some ministers would threaten to resign if the president sat down with the ODM leadership, shows the extent to which our political leadership value national unity. For the president to succumb to such threats and cancel a meeting of national importance and significance is to show how weak he has become. Wapende wasipende, progress in constitution making will be only possible when the bananas and oranges are mixed together in the salad bowl.

You cannot clap with one hand. Right now, by locking out the ODM out of the plotting the way forward in the constitutional process, the government is attempting to clap with one hand.

ARE CIVIL SERVANTS STILL OBEDIENT SERVANTS?

2006-01-05T03:17:00.000-05:00

There was a time I used to receive letters from the government signed your obedient servant. It made me proud that I was an employer of a very obedient servant. I therefore coughed my PAYE (pay as you eat, we called it) tax very happily. I was not even afraid of the GPT because I at least enjoyed the role of a master employer.
Somewhere along the line, the servant forced his way into my house. He started by not being obedient, then he decided that he could no longer proclaim loudly and in writing that he was my servant. He was no longer sincere and could not dare claim he was faithful. He kept double dealing moving from my employment to others on the side stealing my hours. He could not claim to be true as he never kept any promise or fulfilled any pledge. Finally he ceased to be even civil to me. He became my master and started demanding advance pay before providing services.
We had to share costs, share the labor, I pay for added value, genuine or mystic, I pay fuel levy and a milliard of other visible and invisible taxes. This created a dilemma since I was still paying him his monthly salary, allowances and stipends. I was no longer the master but the servant. Only one thing did not change, I continued paying the servant without the servant giving the services.
That is why I continue to suffer, one day dying from lack of food, another from eating un-inspected meat, another from the terror of the thugs at night, but I am still the employer only this time of a not so obedient servant. Only after catastrophic events will the servant come and arrogantly demand why I should embarrass him by exposing his inefficiency.
Your obedient master,
Charles Wairia.

NYANZA AND EDUCATION KCPE 2005

2005-12-30T02:42:00.000-05:00

KCPE RESULTS 2005

The figures from the KCPE results present some interesting reading. Some people are bound to condemn them as not representative of the situation on the ground without giving us what is representative of the situation on the ground. In light of lack of alternative figures we are bound to go with what we have.

The girl child is still a threatened species in our examination performance. Nationally only a third of the 900 best students were girls in last year’s exam. Looking at the provincial figures, the disparity in top scoring girls ranges from a low of 22.12% (23 girls in top 100) in North Eastern Province to a high of 40.52% (47 girls in top 100) in Nairobi. Nairobi and Rift Valley produced some of the brightest girls, something to consider when thinking about where to get your future wife.

North Eastern continues with its perennial dismal performance. The song will be repeated again this year as in the past 40 plus years of independence about lack of facilities and the nomadic nature of the residents. The government will be called to bring development and preferential treatment sought in the form one admission process. By the end of February the whole thing will be forgotten until the next results in December. NEP may have a case, but what of Nyanza.

There was a time that Nyanza produced some of the best brains in h\the country, maybe it still does, but this is not reflected in performance in last year’s exam. While Nyanza leads in the awakening of the political consciousness of the nation, it continues to trail in the education arena as measured by KCPE performance last year.

Let us look at the statistics. The top performing student in Nyanza scored 447 which beats only NEP whose top scorer had 421. Nyanza managed to put only 2 (read two) students in the top 100 nationally, whose cut off point was 444. Compare this with 34 from Central, 25 from Nairobi, 19 from RVP and even 6 from coast. In Nyanza, only 8 students scored above 440 marks. Compare this with 62 from Central, 37 from Nairobi, 38 from RVP, 21 from neighboring Western, 12 from coast, 17 from Eastern.

If you look at the cut off score of the provincial performance, among the top 100 in the province, Nyanza’s performance is dismal. The lower score of 423 among the top 100 beats NEP and Coast. However the latter has a higher number of quality performers. The bottom 100 in Central had 435 which was the score for position 21 in Nyanza.

Of course these are statistics and can be interpreted differently but one thing they don’t do is lie. While the ranking of performance is irrelevant, the quality of performance cannot be ignored. Absolute scores are reflective of the trends in opportunities for higher education. Short of quota systems, which I believe are inherently discriminatory against better students, some areas will continue to lag behind in sending their sons and daughters to national schools. There is need for local leaders to analyze the results from their constituencies and focus on quality education. Most of our leaders, including those in the cabinet keep calling upon the government to provide resources for various projects. Yet few of them have ever produced concrete programs to be implemented at the local level to improve performance. Who is this government?

Leaders in Nyanza and other provinces should sit down and address their shortcomings and start remedial measures to improve performance. Some leaders will only talk about problems when the press is there. They will never sit down with their constituents to seek ways to improve the lot of the common man. This is playing politics. The solutions to some of these problems do not lay in shouting about them in the press. It is not in Nairobi or state house. Some of the problems can be solved at the local level. Let the teachers be involved, let the parents be involved, let the wearer tell you where the shoe is pinching. If each school improves its performance by a mere one point per year, nationally we will be pulling up the quality of our education. Let us have all the MPs coming up with programs of how to lift the standard of education in their constituencies. Let us not play politics with education. Just because some MPS are highly educated doesn’t mean the whole constituency is highly educated. Conversely just because most MPs are educationally challenged doesn’t mean their constituents should wallow in the quagmire of illiteracy and ignorance.

A LESSON IN PATRIOTISM

2005-12-28T03:49:00.000-05:00

In those days we used to take pride in being Kenyans. In a continent of military coups and political instability, Kenya was an oasis of peace and tranquility. The East African Community had just collapsed and a sense of nationhood was gaining root in Kenya. We had left Kenya on first January in an East African Airways plane and were to come back home in December in a Kenya Airways plane. In between a lot of water had flowed under the bridge.

At the elite naval officers’ training school in Dartmouth, Kenyans were a welcome and respected lot. Together with Nigerians, Ghanians, Bangla Deshi, and other commonwealth and Middle East nationalities, we formed a strong team of international officer corps. We shared our experiences and respected our cultural diversity. As happens when in foreign lands, you tend to identify with and befriend other foreigners more than the indigenous people. And so was the case in Dartmouth. The first circle of friends was other Kenyans, then other Africans, then other internationals and finally the British. This eventually changed as we got better acquainted with the British and started interacting with them more. Some came into the second circle but the first circle was always sacrosanct for the Kenyans and could not be bleached.

The six of us had gone through the six month basic training in both Lanet and the naval base together. This had tied us together through common experience. The training did not only instill military tactics and knowledge, it is created a common bond between us. You end up being your brother’s keeper. You never leave a fallen comrade behind. The bond created during basic training persists for a long time and serves to sustain friendships among the officers. Here we were in the midst of British winter furthering our military prowess. The experience was daunting just as it was exciting. As relatively young cadets, I was the oldest at twenty five, we were ambassadors at large for our country. We took this role literally and were very vocal in defending our country any time there was a debate on any issue touching it. Our history and particularly our country’s future kept coming up especially because of the advancing age of our then president. The question most often asked was what would Kenya be like after Kenyatta. We were very defensive of our independence and believe in stability and peaceful continuity even after Kenyatta. History has at least vindicated our faith.

One day my friend and I walked into Barclays bank at Marble Arch in London. As we lined awaiting our turn, we saw this man ahead wearing what was then the national tie. The national tie was made up of the national flag colors. Wearing it was a sign of pride in the nation and people wore it especially on national days. Later the tie was emasculated by the Kanu party who made it a sign of loyalty to the party. Today no one, other than the die hard Kanu activists and some recalcitrant village demagogues parade themselves in the tie. This has made our nation lose its symbol of identity. The moment the national symbol was made a party symbol it made it repugnant among the non party members to identify themselves with it. Kanu hijacked the national tie and made it their own.

The gentleman I was talking about was patiently lined up ahead of us. We debated as to who was to approach him and test whether he was truly a Kenyan. My friend just stood next to him and while pretending not to address him simply said ‘habari mzee’. The man turned with a wide smile on his face and answered the greetings enthusiastically. He went on to explain that he wore the tie specifically to announce to all and sundry that he was from Kenya. His reasoning, which we could not fault but rather confirmed, was that by wearing the tie he was proud to be a Kenyan and more so in the land of former colonizers. He was proudly going about his business showing off as it were and announcing to other Kenyans, that he was around. He emphasized that our having approached him had vindicated his claim. After our self introductions and having finished our business in the bank, we shared a cup of coffee and exchanged contact address. It turned out that he even knew my father and this cemented our bond.

The thing I remember most about this incident is the pride the man showed in our national tie. The loss of this symbol to party demagogues and sectored interests haunts me every time I remember this man. Living in foreign land, I find myself looking for a national symbol. When I look at a number of flags flying at a hotel or other venues I instinctively look for the Kenyan flag. I wear with pride my T-shirt with a miniature flag sewn on the pocket and the word Kenya emblazoned across the front. I hang a miniature emblem of the Kenyan flag on my rear view mirror in my car. These small symbols serve as constant reminders of my country. Sometimes you meet somebody who will ask you whether you are from Kenya after they see you so attired and you strike a conversation. But the most frustrating thing about all this nationhood hullabaloo is when you go back to the motherland. There you discover there is nothing called Kenya. There we have provinces. We have regions, Mt Kenya, coast lake, dry regions etc. There are no Kenyans only tribes. You are either a Kikuyu or Luo, Luyhia or Kalenjin, Masai or Kamba never a Kenyan. When you go to check the tribes, they are not there only the clans remain. Where did the Kenyans go?

HOME COMING SEASON

2005-12-26T01:48:00.000-05:00

After reconstituting the cabinet, it is now the season for homecoming. The ministers are planning homecoming parties to show the flag and the spoils of the last war. It matters little that people are dying of hunger. That is an unfortunate thing and an unwelcome diversion from the celebrations.
Why should people decide to go hungry so soon after eating all those oranges and bananas? Didn't we send delegation after delegation to the great chief at the state house pledging our loyalty. Didn't the great chief dish out all those districts, promised jobs, postings, lunch money and other handouts at these fuctions? How can you people be so ungrateful as to go hungry at this time.

The government is very busy celebrating Christmas as well as preparing for the new year. The whole cabinet has to keep the great chief company at the coast. Those people from the periphery of Kenya claiming to be hungry should wait until the government comes from recess. We even doubt whether you are true Kenyans. Didn't I hear you have cousins in Ethiopia, brothers in Somalia and uncles inEriteria. And you, don't your grandfathers live in the Sudan? How can you claim to be Kenyans so soon after refusing to eat bananas.

This is the attitude the government has taken. We have to wait untill all the maize is collected into the Cereal Board depots before we dish it out. Death can wait. We have to wait until we appoint a commission to assess the situation on the ground before we release the food. We have to wait until the rest of the world comes to our aid, before we open our own stores. Talk about a ministry of special programmes. Talk about strategic food reserves. Talk about planning.

This time and age no Kenyan should ever be going hungry, set aside dying of hunger. Only in Kenya will you spend billions on dead end constitution review and not a penny on alleviating hunger. Only in Kenya will you spend millions to buy loyalty from an inflated cabinet and not a penny to institute water programs in the arid area. Only in Kenya will you receive aid to finance HIV/AIDS projects and still hold nearly a billion shillings unutilised in the bank while death continues to devastate the population. Only in Kenya where helicopters will criss cross the country campaigning and non will be available to visit the dead and dying from famine. Only in Kenya will we condemn those who highlight the plight of the hungry as enemies of development. Only in Kenya will it be famine when the president says.

Let us get out of the culture of dependence on foreign benevolence. Let us for once lead the way and feed our own. Open the graneries. Get the army off those barracks. Send them to distribute the food to those communities dying out there. Let's give human life higher premium. Let us address the issue of famine alleviation in the long term. The bottom line is our ability to combat adverse weather. It is a known fact to all but the government that in the dry areas water conservation is paramount. We have lake Turkana which hitherto has no agricultural utilization. Why can't we look at irrigation using this lake? or Baringo or Victoria. You talk about cost? well we can raise almost a billion shillings in the next 24 months without affecting our current budgetary allocation. How you ask. Simple. Reduce the current cabinet by half.

WHO ARE OUR NATIONAL HEROES?

2005-12-21T03:14:00.000-05:00

The naming of 20th October as Mashujaa day is commendable but begs the question; who are our mashujaa or national heroes? Kenyatta day has hitherto been identified with the arrest and subsequent incarceration of the founding father of the nation, Jomo Kenyatta. The name tended to overshadow all the other worthy heroes of the independence struggle. A time has come for the others to be accorded their proper place in the history of our nation. We however need to identify them by name and contribution. We cannot have hero’s incognito. When we seek to identify who should be called a hero, you are likely to hear all sorts of opinions and interests being propagated. These will range from tribal loyalties, clan interests, and professional bias to sycophancy. National heroes don’t necessarily have to be deceased, politically active or have been imprisoned individuals. National heroes are found in all sectors of the society, in all occupations and all age groups.

Are we going to limit the Mashujaa day to honor the political heroes? Are we going to honor our athletic heroes like Kipchoge Keino, Paul Tergat, Henry Rono, Rose Tata Muya, John Ngugi etc? Are Job Isaac Mwamto and Mambo Mbotela mashujaa? How about “Mama Kayai” and “Ojwang Hatari’? Are these Mashujaa? I am sure there may not be much debate about the inclusion of the Kapenguria six (though most died paupers), or Dedan Kimathi and Koitalel. Neither should the inclusion of those who were assassinated in post colonial era produce heated exchanges; Mboya, J M Kariuki, Gama Pinto, Ouko. But the question to be answered before inducting them into the Mashujaa hall of fame is; what was/is their contribution to the national struggle and conscience that distinguishes them from the other ordinary citizens of their time. An assassin’s bullet can make a hero out of a desolate ineffectual leader given the right political and social climate. An imprisonment or detention can make a hero out of a coward and a submissive puppet out of a hero. The suffering and manner of death are therefore not necessary pre-requisites for being accorded the title of shujaa.

Every village or town has its hero. When I was growing up we had a very strong man who would carry a whole electric post on his shoulder. He was known to have held a donkey by the rear leg with one hand and shoved it into a thicket a whole twenty meters away. I am sure he would have no place in the Mashujaa day. His heroic exploits were purely local at times detrimental to the society for he used his superior strength to steal timber from the forest. By the same token we have a lot of eminent Kenyans, whose exploits would qualify them as national heroes, but their character and social mien would knock them out.

Few people would talk or even write with confidence without fear of contradiction about the contributions of those we consider heroes. This is partly because we have sung about them for so long without delving into their actual roles in their respective fields, that we have lost their specific contributions. This is a challenge to the historians to get out there and document these events. We need to document accurately the role each played. (This is the topic of my next article in this series). How they went beyond the call of duty in sacrifice and use of personal talents, resources and leadership for the sake of the nation.

If Mashujaa day is going to be limited to the political heroes, then how are we going to honor the other eminent Kenyans? To me Geoffrey Griffin, Prof Mazrui, and Ngugi wa Thiongo are as great heroes in education as Kapenguria six, Dedan Kimathi, and Tom Mboya are in politics and should be accorded equal status during national celebrations. We have an opportunity to identify those Kenyans whose national contribution has been rendered obscure through either ignorance or deliberate obfuscation by those seeking self glory. You do not become a hero through etching your name in stone monuments and edifices nor through slogans and songs. You are not a hero through ostentatious pretensions and chest thumping, neither through acquiring undeserved titles and accolades. You are not a hero just because you have been re-elected into parliament since independence, neither because of your wealth or lack of it. Until the people recognize you as such, you will never be a hero. It does not matter what you want them to believe or force them to shout, this is temporary when the chicken come home to roost, and you will be dumped where you belong, the dustbin of history. Ask Idi Amin, Bokassa, Mobutu, Samuel Doe, Milosevic, Shah Pahlevi, and Marcos.

Let us have a national body that will receive and review nominations to “Shujaahood”. For a long time we have wasted our national honors on undeserving individuals. Just because you are a government minister for a month doesn’t mean that you are a worthy recipient of the Golden Heart. These national honors have lost value since the criteria for their award are not defined and cronyism cannot be ruled out. Let’s clean up the mess created in the past and accord appropriate honor and glory to those most deserving. That poor village woman who fed the Mau Mau freedom fighters her last chicken may be a worthy hero. But unless someone comes forward with their story we shall continue to edify the beneficiaries of their sacrifice as the true heroes.