Martha: Please Take Your Grievances to Court

Lies mutate into all forms and shapes. So Ms Martha Karua wants all and sundry to believe that her fight for reforms caused her the ministerial job? Well, may be to many Kenyans weaned on the same sumptuous plate of national lies. Otherwise it is very difficult to justify the cheap gloating and glee from people falling for her sideshow like flies attracted to fermented milk.

When you read a Kenyan gloating that Kibaki did a Bildad Kaggia on Martha then you don’t need to visit a youth centre to witness juvenile bravado. The only good thing from lies is that they are sweet to cheap ears sprouting from either side of an empty box burdening the shoulders. Well, the list is long as Wangari Maathai, Kalembe Ndile, Waruru Kanja, Munene Kairu and Bildad Kaggia would tell you.

Lies are infectious and once told, you have to invent another to cover the one before it hence forming a firm foundation of PYRAMID OF DECEPTION. Now we read about principles that are as transparent as a plastic sheet whose shape remains at the mercy of any mild source of heat. The TRUTH is Karua would be still breathing fire warming PNU belly as a Deputy Prime Minister.

Kenya WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN and anybody using the present fraudulent parameters to plan her auction will wake to the rudest of shocks. No amount of half truths peddled by playing EXPECTANT SURROGACY predatorily lying in wait for fallout will deliver.

Martha has come full circle in just 15 months. The political Paul cannot shed the Saul blood running through her veins. Make no mistake! The panic in the camp Martha left without intellectual tent is palpable. Meanwhile she is handsomely reaping the ultimate wages of sin. But it will turn really nasty when the shit finally hits the fan. Any potential political suitor is better warned that Samson at least had Delilah's BEAUTIFUL FACE as an excuse for falling short of God's glory.

Tapes don’t lie
It must be unbearably painful to put your life onto a course only to see the prize awarded to pretenders crowned as a prince. But again Martha must have seen it coming given the history of serial betrayal since 2003.

Tapes don’t lie and all the denials of inaudibility and their quality won’t wash. Martha is no fool or naive and the political pressure cooker is threatening to give in. She is acutely aware of her vulnerability and insecurity. But the gatekeepers won’t dare touch her lest the overgrown worm born in December 2007 crawl out soiling all and sundry.

A caste built of vices only becomes a fortress of serial schemers hellbent on self destruction. The big political and national bang will come fast and furious. We haven’t seen anything yet, NA BADO.


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Can We Fight Crime With Technology?

I did not want to drown Taabu's controversial post and so I have decided to add my brief post here. Besides it does NOT really warrant a new post on its' own.

One of the good reasons for getting rid of all the old guys in power now is so that younger guys who are more familiar with technology can enable Kenyans to benefit from it. I will give just one example. Technology can be used very effectively to fight crime. We already have hidden cameras in town (not enough) and we already have an initiative by a private company to help people track their stolen cell phones. We also have the stalled DNA testing crime lab that is yet to be built.

However much more can still be done and only younger dot come generation Kenyans can figure this out for the country. As it is with the current jokers firmly in power, George Muhoho will always be re-appointed managing director of the Kenya Airports Authority (I mean the man is over 70 years old!!!). Are there no younger able qualified Kenyans? Besides the man does NOT need the job while many younger Kenyans do!!

As I have said here often, there is no way these old dinosaurs can give us any new ideas.

P.S. The argument I always hear is people asking what the young guys in the current political system have done. Well, the thing is they can NOT do much when the decision-making dinosaurs are still in power. We need radical surgery in Kenya. How about electing a 40 year old as President? Okay Maximum 45 years!!!?

Martha Karua Resigns Amid Slowly Crumbling Coalition Government

Breaking News

Martha Karua has kept her word and resigned from cabinet citing her inability to do her job due to interference from her boss (the executive) and those around him.

I greatly admire this woman who has never been short of courage.

She was carjacked once in the famous father Wamugunda incident and she held her head high through the whole ordeal as the scandal broke and in the end it was the press who blinked first.

Martha Karua today joined the very short list of cabinet ministers in Kenya who have dared to resign.

Then she is also a survivor of the Busia plane crash of 2003 that killed another cabinet minister and others.

However in the latest move political analysts point to the fact that she really had no choice but to resign. What do you do when you are the justice Minister and judges are appointed and sworn in without your knowledge? Besides the timing was also extremely politically prudent because Mwai Kibaki’s government is turning out to be the most unpopular ever. Clearly fresh elections are not too far off in the horizon and those who are still hanging close to the current government will have a very hard time seeing parliament again. By resigning now Martha positions herself as a rebel, the righteous woman who could not stand the stench in the place she worked and quit in protest. She is at least sure of seeing the insides of the 11th parliament.

Unfortunately that is not the whole story. Ms Karua is still positioned prominently and clearly in the minds of most Kenyans as the legal brains behind Mwai Kibaki’s election theft of 2007. Indeed as she has pointed out several times, she stood and defended Kibaki when trouser-clad males around her were either shaking in fright under the table or peering from behind her skirts.

In fact one of the reasons she started falling out with the Kibaki regime is that she was overlooked even after the gutsy work she did and in the end the person who got appointed Prime Minsiter and heir-apparent was in fact one of those peering behind her skirt when things got pretty hot around the president last January.

Still one cannot deny the fact that Martha Karua’s resignation has had a big symbolic impact on the grand coalition government. More than anything else it has exposed the weaknesses and vulnerability of the PNU side of the coalition. If the grand coalition government is a Mugumo tree then her action has cut a couple of inches into the tree and proved more than ever before that this huge strong tree shall fall after all. It is only a matter of time.

Karua has done what the noisy ODMers cannot dare do--at least for now.

Published earlier today: What happens if the grand coalition government collapses?

What Happens If The Grand Coalition Government Collapses?

There is this guy I know who went and married a cute 20 year old girl as his second wife. He was 41 years old then. (I have no idea why Kenyans do crazy things and expect their leaders to be more level-headed). So when he lost his job, she promptly left him and told him to call her when he got a job or had money. Meanwhile she went for a prolonged holiday in Mombasa (financed by her boyfriends).

At least this story has a somewhat happy ending because on losing his job, the guy started his own business which quickly and miraculously thrived and he rushed to Mombasa to fetch his 20 year old beauty, snatching her away from the arms of this good-looking Arab guy who fortunately did not have much cash.

The grand coalition government “marriage” is on its’ last legs and believe it or not it all has to do with money, just like in my friend’s case. However in this particular case “the wife” is definitely NOT coming back after the separation happens.

Are my “parables” confusing you? Let me switch to some plain language that you can understand.

I have said in this blog several times that the “cement” keeping the coalition together is cash and that once the cash ran out, the coalition would be history. And because I believe what I write here, the first thing I did after the dramatic “acrobatics” of this past weekend at Kilaguni was to look for tell-tale signs that there is a cash crunch in Kenya. I quickly found plenty of interesting stuff to confirm this.

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For starters the government has recently revised its’ budget making a hefty cut of Kshs 23 billion that will terribly affect the quality of services to the public in the last 4 months of this government financial year. This is the second time in two months that the government is cutting back on expenditure. What does that tell you?

Then even more alarming, the government has requested money from the IMF (about $100million) specifically to replenish the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Read the full article on the government’s recent cutback HERE.

And as if to confirm that all is NOT well, Deputy Prime Minister and Minster for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta warned over the weekend that the government would not be able to deal with the many “problems” facing it if the coalition partners did not stop squabbling. What problems would be at the top of the mind of Uhuru Kenyatta just now?

Armed with this information, it is not surprising at all that at the first sign of rapidly dwindling resources to feed on, the grand coalition should start wobbling. If truth be told there are other factors that caused last weekend’s circus but money was and remains the main reason.

But let me digress for a minute for the sake of those who do not think that Kilaguni was a circus. Well it was!! So many ludicrous things happened. For starters President Kibaki traveled all the way to Tsavo and then gave the morning session a miss as all the squabbling was going on. Why go to Tsavo to sleep? Are there no beds in State House Nairobi? History will remember President Kibaki as the experienced carpenter who always hated sawdust to the end. In other words the president is a politician but hates political mud fights which are what most politicians thrive on. But that is a post for another day.

Still on the subject of sleeping arrangements, there was squabbling over the allocation of rooms at the luxury tourist resort with some attendees complaining bitterly why they weren’t allocated rooms similar to the Presidents’. Then there was the dramatic walk-out by Raila Odinga. The President promptly sent for him and the PM sulkily refused to come back. If that wasn’t a circus then I don’t know the meaning of the word.

So what are the other factors that have contributed to the events of this past weekend?

Politics, of course. Every politician knows that the pressure from the ordinary folk for change is soon going to be overwhelming and will force an early election (contrary to what the President thinks). This has obligated them back to the drawing boards and the chief concern is how to face the clearly angry electorate again with limited funds. You see despite the unprecedented corruption and feeding frenzy in the one year that the coalition government has existed, most are yet to recover their “investment” of the last elections.

This is one reason why Martha Karua’s handlers have advised her to resign (she is expected to resign later today from the cabinet). Her resignation now would give her immense political inertia considering the fact that President Kibaki and most of his cronies are extremely unpopular at the moment. She would be the hero of the moment in Central province and beyond and this would raise her profile and inject life into her presidential bid. Still in my view the ghosts of 2007 hang heavily on Martha. She cannot just shake off the fact that she was the main legal mind behind Mwai Kibaki’s theft of the election. Kenyans are known for their extremely short memories but this one….aiii!!!! I have my doubts as to whether they will forget in a hurry.

Gosh this post is getting too long and so let me close by answering the question in my title. What happens if the coalition falls apart? Well ODM’s position is that we will go back to the polls. On the other hand PNU’s position is that the constitution is supreme and therefore we will revert back to the constitution and the President will re-constitute a new cabinet.

So clearly there will be a crisis and then add to that the fact that most Kenyans are totally fed up with this government and you realize that there is only one answer to the question I have posed;

CHAOS.

P.S. The gap between ordinary folk and privileged Kenyans is widening by the day. There is no better place to clearly see that than in the comments section of this very blog. On the ground ordinary Kenyans are totally and completely sick of the ODM and PNU nonsense and are united in the belief that both political parties are really the same evil thing. That is in sharp contrast to the situation here in Kumekucha where PNU-and-ODM-which-is-better debates have persisted, completely refusing to go away.

Also a must read;

Kumekucha's earlier warning in March: Titanic government fails to see icebergs ahead

What Kumekucha said about the silver lining in the coming cash crunch that is already here


News Extra
Cell phones get stolen a lot. And that is why a new service that I have just heard about should make a huge difference. Dubbed Ujanja, the service uses satellite technology to track a telephone (or even a laptop) to it’s exact location. What happens is that after some software has been downloaded to your phone, the minute it is stolen an sms will be sent immediately to a cell phone of your choice (either your spouses or your friend.). The sms will contain vital information including the new sim card number that has been inserted into your stolen phone and the location of the phone. All this makes recovery very easy.

I am thinking that this is the kind of service that has the potential of ridding us of phone thieves (which is a very big business in Kenya these days). You can get more information on this interesting new service HERE.

Of Ultimate Political Tantrum and Wages of Sin

How some phrases come so handy and very apt in capturing history as it unfolds. Sample these:

1. Chicken come home to roost
2. Asante ya punda
3. Perils of not belonging
4. Dancing yourself lame to a stuck record before the real tunes
5. Your past is a ghost never exorcised and FINALLY
5. Wages of sin ............

Well, living in denial or the naivety of playing plastic surrogacy never caused constipation. You can CON a people sometime but may never know the enormity of the devil you are creating until the can are wide open and the worms come out crawling. The price is big and no vice is SUSTAINABLE.

Storm Clouds Gathering Over Nairobi

When all hell breaks loose in Nairobi, I'll be right here to die with my fellow countrymen. I'll drive down to the JKIA to kiss good bye Kenyans who will have renewed visas to foreign lands and kept their passports ready. After seeing the cowards off, I'll drive back to the city to help this nation figure out where we went wrong and how to get back on track.

You see, I'm getting increasingly pessimistic about the possibility of a meaningful truce between the ODM and PNU. It looks as if the accord signed between Odinga and Kibaki was a silly stop-gap measure, one the PNU side had no intention of honoring. How is it that we are unable to implement Agenda Four? Who is it that stands to gain by keeping the country tied to our moribund constitution? And who is it that stands to gain by remaining adamant in the face of urgent calls to institute sustainable land reforms?

Folks, it is easy to write from the States or Europe or anywhere else and sound tough as hell, but when you are within these borders and you see the faces of destitute, hungry mothers and children, when you talk to a security guard and they tell you that they have to walk from their assignment at a CBD complex to a squalid they call home in Ngomongo because they can't afford the fare, that's when you begin to understand why the games Kibaki's inner circle is playing with our security are not funny at all.

As I write this article, I'm sitting in my office, just across from Uhuru Park. There is a beautiful worship service going on there. Men, women and children are dancing and praising God for Kenya. They are calling upon God to bless our nation. But is God listening? How come just yesterday a meeting meant to heal the coalition government blew up in the faces of our leaders? And how come there is palpable angst all over this nation? Have we come to a point where we can't resolve our differences because Uhuru Kenyatta must be made president of Kenya? Have we come to a point where perpetrators of the post-election violence have determined that they will lead this country...even by force...or let it burn?

Enough!

Kenya belongs to all of us. The time has come to tell those who think they are more Kenyan than the rest of us that we will not take their crap anymore. The Prime Minister was gracious enough to save this nation when it was clear victory was snatched from him. At what point will Kibaki and his team reciprocate that gesture? What kind of greed drives the men around this leader?

Enough!

Either Kenya is for us all or it must be for none of us.

Tackle Corruption Now or Drown in Your Rot

2006 (Taifa Hall, UoN)
"In the end, if the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost,"

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FAST FOWARD

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April 03, 2009 (Germany)
"My father was from Kenya. The US is under obligation to help Kenya on many issues but Kenya must sort its corruption problems first," Obama said in response to a question on relationship between the US and Kenya.

The more things change the more they remain the same or even retrogress. Poor Kenya.


A Little Good news for a change: You can now follow Chris as he receives highly sensitive info throughout the day and even get to know posts he is working on well in advance. You can even have a private chat with him. Follow him at Twitter. Find him in Twitter @KumekuchaChris. You will even get to see a photo of him (never before published on the web but will now be visible ONLY to his followers on Twitter). Remember that a lot of the stuff you will read on Twitter will NEVER be published because, as has been said here before, most of the information Kumekucha receives is too hot to publish or takes too long to verify (or is impossible to verify) and can therefore NOT be published. But you will be able to read it all on Twitter. Get to Twitter pronto, get there now and find Kenya's most popular and influential political blogger @KumekuchaChris

New Electoral Commission Boss Must Deliver

He has been hailed as the new non-partisan and smart head of our hitherto discredited electoral body. But can the city lawyer Ahmed Issack Hassan deliver given the politically polarized and poisoned Kenya?

Youth can be both a curse and a blessing. If being savvy and upright was to be derived from modern education and exposure then youthfulness would readily qualify as a blessing. But that may be a tall order given our HELL FOR LEATHER culture as a standard for success. We have seen youthful leaders speedily turn their age into a curse by competing against themselves to catch the older sloths ahead. They have an elastic appetite to grab as much as they can within the shortest time possible.

You cannot fail to hear the deafening sound of TRIBAL GONGS among the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC). The 39-year old Hassan must have been arrived at as a compromise with roots from the minority and marginalized part of Kenya. Even Ole Kaparo impressive record could not save him from being associated with PNU after failing to retain his speaker’s post with unanimous PNU support.

Curse of youth
All eyes are on Ahmed Hassan and fingers crossed he will banish the ghost of DECEPTION and FRAUD from our midst by exercising his mandate fearlessly and competently. All that hope is premised on the scoundrels in parliament having their acts together this time round and not introducing sideshows.

The consequences of any further procrastination are so grim to contemplate. But don’t hold your breathe yet on any matter where these scavengers hold both the yam and the knife.

Lawyers are often referred to as LEGAL scoundrels and you need look no further to confirm that. A look at their penchant to LEGALLY DEFEAT justice with eyes singularly trained on their fat bank accounts is enough. If confirmed, Ahmed Hassan must use his new post to help Kenyans reclaim their country from the jaws of murderous gate keepers. Will he bell the cat? Well, the jury is still out there on a leisurely tour.

Raila And Ali: Men Of The Month March

Gosh this year is really flying, is it not? Easter is already here with us and yet it was just the other day that we were toasting the brand new year.

Well the month of March did not prove to be the ides of March for the Grand Coalition government but then May beckons. But that is not the subject of this post.

I would like to honour two exceptional gentlemen for what they did in the month of March and I will start with the right honorable Prime Minister Raila Odinga. In the month just ended two days ago, Raila started making noise about his salary and rejected any suggestion that he should be paid the same as the Vice President. In fact he said that he would rather do without a salary than get paid what the VP is being paid.

Now we all know how hard working the PM is. After all he also made history in the month of March by issuing a state of the nation address to the press. Phil of Kumekucha tells us that no other Kenyan leader has ever done that before. So why should the prime minister be paid the same as the VP when he is making history and working so hard?

We are also aware that over 10 million Kenyans are in danger of starving and some may even die as a result of hunger-related complications. However that has absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Minister’s pay. The commentator here in Kumekucha who suggested that all leaders from President Kibaki should take a salary cut in these hard times must have been clean out of his mind. HOW??? How do our hard working leaders end up NOT being paid? What does it matter if a few Kenyans die of hunger? I mean Kenyans are dying all the time from Aids, cholera and stupidity of all kind. So what is so special about now? Ashindwe!!!!

Obama, Odinga, Oliech!!!

I mean lets face it Kenyans have to learn how to respect the office of the Prime Minister after all he is one of the principals. The people of this country really have a lot of matharau I mean how do they expect a whole Prime Minister to operate from a toilet office? Why are people opposed to the planned, almost Kshs 1 billion office for the PM in the former Shell House? Does it matter if Raila is the last Prime Minsiter Kenya will ever have? (Indeed he should be because no politician in Kenya compares to Agwambo. Not even Tom Mboya comes close). Besides the PM’s office can later be turned into the President’s office so Agwambo does not have to move because surely there is nobody else who can be president of Kenya. Is there?

We need reforms badly and we need a new beginning and the youthful 64 year old ODM captain (who is also a serious soccer fan which emphasizes his young age) is the only man who can deliver the much needed change as he has already proved during his short stint as PM.

Kenyans need to give the grand coalition government more time to do their thing. After all poor leaders cannot help the people. We need leaders with cash bulging out of their pockets and literally oozing out of the ears to give the much needed handouts to the people during their meet-the-people tours, especially around election times.

Kudos our beloved PM you are a great inspiration to the country kicking up a storm about your salary at a time like this.

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Did you know that you can get a nice clean hotel with hot water, DSTV and all kenyan channels, balcony for two at only Kshs 1,800? Unbelieveable? See for yourself.
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Our other man of the month is a man that the PM has vowed to deal with. It is none other than Maj gen Hussein Ali himself. The man earns this accolade for defending the honour of the police at all costs. His performance was at its’ peak during the troubles at Kenyatta University at the end of last month. When journalists asked about the student who was shot, the police commissioner fired from the hip and without thinking just like his kwekwe squad wild-west-shoot-out-heroes. Shoot first and ask questions later, is the motto that has helped Ali’s force literally wipe out violent crime. After all we all know that Kenya is much safer these days than before Ali. The tough soldier has just scared almost all criminals out of existence. “It is just a matter of time before the remaining ones are dealt with,” as the good commissioner is always telling us. Kenyans have to understand that if a few innocent people die in the process, this is no big deal. After all more lives are saved in the end by the police eliminating those murderous thugs.

Ali, Kwekwe, Jelimo: Bringing thugs to a speedy meeting with their maker

Anyway as I was saying, in answering questions from the press Ali denied any shooting even before the journalist had finished asking his question. The fact that later he changed his position and said that he would investigate if any policeman actually fired live ammunition at the students is neither here nor there. Ali also strongly denied that his officers had raped anybody after all the GSU are known to be self respecting eunuchs who are incapable of raping anybody. If rape actually did take place then the students probably raped themselves or were raped by other students.

Congratulations Maj gen Ali for protecting your officers from false accusations.

Warning: This was a tongue in the cheek post. Please do not make comments about how Chris has been bought by Raila and Ali


P.S. I have said here before that I think the guys at Safaricom led by Michael Joseph are just brilliant. If you still doubt this, sample the latest innovation from Mr Joseph and his boys (and girls). The cell phone service provider giant has now entered the business of giving unsecured loans and are set to make a killing doing it with no bad debts to talk of. Okoa Jahazi is a new service that has been launched today where subscribers can borrow airtime of upto Kshs 50 and pay back within 72 hours. Of course all this is recovered the next time you load airtime into your phone. The fee for doing this is Kshs 5/-. What this means is that Safaricom will be earning 10% interest on the millions of small loans they will be dishing out. Please note that this is NOT 10% annual interest but 10% on each loan. WOW!!! Even the small loans kings at Equity must be going green with envy.

P.S.2 Two days ago I wrote here about a very innovative new service for tracking your stolen mobile phone. Some people thought that it was an April fool’s prank. IT WAS NOT!!! The service actually exists right here in Kenya and you can find out more HERE. The post by Taabu about Ali’s firing was the April fool’s prank which some of our readers actually fell for. Somebody called me very excited to confirm what he termed as the best news he has heard in a long time. It broke my heart that I had to disappoint them with the bad news that it was NOT true.