What A Country

Labor Minister stoned by workers on labor day. Great. Wanainchi are becoming bold. Haki Yetu!!

Kibaki disrespected by mere Speaker of the house. Imagine showing such 'disrespect' to Moi. Folks, mambo inabadilika.

Fidel Odinga selling maize in Southern Sudan. Need more Range Rover SUVs?

'The Hague' murders fifteen mungiki adherents within a few weeks.

Mungiki murders thirty hapless villagers within half an hour. The police commissioner still has a job.

Mungiki leader released then rearrested. No comment.

Women Groups say No Sex for seven days to urge reforms. I support this but how do we enforce it?

Migingo Islands. No Uganda flag. More Ugandan soldiers. No Kenyan administrator in sight. Even Moi is incensed about this one.

Weekly Cabinet meetings. What weekly cabinet meetings?

Nairobi City. Ranked the 43rd worst city to live in for expatriate businessmen. I say for everybody.

Swine flu. What's the fuss?


Folks, even with all these, the Kenyan Passport is still number one in the black market.

Prepare For General Elections

Every publisher and media person knows that sex sells. It moves newspapers like crazy and that is exactly how one Rupert Murdoch made his fortune mainly publishing the notorious UK tabloids, The Sun and News of The World. But can sex start a revolution and save Kenya? Or rather the lack of it.

That is the question that has to be asked after women under the banner of Gender 10, a group of 10 civil societies called for a sex boycott by all Kenyan women of goodwill. The women have called for a seven-day abstention to pressurize President Kibaki and the Prime Minister Raila Odinga into ending coalition wrangles.

Because of the unusual nature of this protest and also because their timing was perfect G10 got front page treatment in media most notably the Daily Nation, but one still has to ask the question, will the sex boycott work? What impact can it possibly have in a country that has already gone to the dogs so to speak?

---------------------------Quick tip
Avoid the heavy traffic coming into Nairobi from the airport. Brand new budget hotel 15 minutes from Nairobi City Centre at Mlolongo.
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Not to mention the fact that some women feel insulted by this latest move because it portrays them only as sex objects whose only weapon of protest or blackmail is what they have to offer between the sheets.

There is little doubt that this Gender 10 move will be discussed on offices, bars and homes across the country and beyond over this long weekend. But sadly it is unlikely to achieve very much in terms of the results.

Still the pressure is mounting.

It is like cutting a Mugumo tree. The many small blows you land on the tree may look insignificant but collectively they will all contribute to the felling of the tree.

Incidentally I am informed that both ODM and PNU are at this moment very busy strategizing and preparing for elections.

P.S. Besides our leaders (including both principals) are so old that sex is no longer what it used to be. So even if their wives (and girlfriends) were to join in the boycott, it will have little effect if any in pressurizing anybody.

Why Speaker Marende Has Booked A Place In the History Books

Also published in the last few hours: Speaker Marende's smart parliamentary coup

I do not mind admitting stuff. I wrote a post but liked this comment from one of our readers much better and it is my conviction that it deserves wider distribution and thus readership. And that is the reason I have upgraded it to a main post. ENJOY!!

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This Speaker is a silent genius. Marende's was more than a parliamentary ruling.

In his hour-long ruling, he adeptly and preemptively made his own interpretation of the constitution vis a vis NARA Accord probably well aware that PNU were soon going to be rushing to courts seeking constitutional interpretation of the same.

Marende's ruling was of superior legal and political quality - very comprehensive and incorporating the realities of the day in Kenya. A classic ruling that has so far received accolades from top constitutional experts besides widespread public support.

Now challenge that!!!!!

This was the greatest move in public relations and advance persuation that I've seen in such a long time in Kenya.

Marende was giving all and sundry his own top notch constitutional interpretation of the very question Kalonzo Musyoka has announced PNU will be rushing to courts to seek an answer.

Marende tayari amelijibu hilo swala.

And in doing so, he has already convinced many that the constitution cannot be read in isolation from NARA. the good 'ol constitution is no more. The days of absolute Imperial Presidency are basically history.

It's an era of consultations and power sharing - at least in the life of this coalition. Marende amesema, waKenya wamekubali.

Marende was thrice clever just for the record and precedent - he has explicitly addressed the question of what happens when there's inconsistency between the constitution and NARA - and that is - NARA supersedes.

People like Michuki and Kalonzo who are blind on NARA need to listen to that wise counsel- all Kalonzo and Michuki see is an imperial presidency which they die to preserve and the old constitution that Kenyans die to reform...these PNU sycophants never see NARA as part of the constitution.

Then few other interesting observations.

Karua has welcomed Marende's ruling and she will be sitting in the HBC. Yaani, she doesn't insist that Kalonzo must be the HBC Chair/LGB. Tells me she doesn't really regard Kalonzo worthy of leading her. Haya! remember the reformers vs anti-reformers debate?

Did anyone read what PNU's Saitoti said? He actually welcomed Marende's ruling! unlike his PNU-mates Kalonzo and few others. Of course Saitoti also bubbled a few other words to the effect that whoever appoints the LGB still needs to be resolved. But at the moment - he's game with Marende, essentially telling Kalonzo to chill out and keep off the HBC Chair/LGB seat.

Aint that some doggonit something!!!!!

Someone tells me George Saitoti was seen yesterday at Lunch time with none other than PM Raila Odinga munching steak and ugali at Serena Hotel - this was reported in the papers too. haya!

Did someone swallow a tinga tinga like KANU jogoo did?

It is clear Kalonzo is being elbowed by Saitoti and Karua already even as Kibaki continues using him (Kalonzo) as toilet paper to wipe the big 'ol doggonit.

Let Kalonzo keep making a fool of himself...wiping Kibaki's mess...the same script followed by wakina Nyachae, Kombo, Awori, Mukhisa and other Kibaki sycophants of yesterday.

By the time they came back to voters, they were stinking nasty..and people were running away from them.

If you choose to be Kibaki's snake oil salesman, beware Kenyans pay back on you fast and furious.

I'm also reading today that ODM's Andrew Ligale has been appointed the new boss of the Boundaries Review Commission.

Anyway back to the crucial issue left pending by Marende.

He asked the two principals to consult.

Here is the interesting thing.

That consultation this time can NEVER EVER AGAIN be at a closed door room in Sagana between two individuals called Raila and Kibaki.

This time it will be a broad daylight PNU-ODM consultation through the CMC (Coalition Management Committee)....each and everytime any consultation is required.

Kibaki had better be ready to get busy working and consulting and not just sleeping and eating mutura and slaps at State House.

We shall only deal with Kibaki this time formally - with a pole called CMC.

No more informal agreements to be soon discarded by the perennial conman and thief. This belligerent half incapacitated man has held the country hostage for so long. Ashindwe kabisa!

ODM has already learnt the hard way talking to Kibaki who then orders Muthaura and Kalonzo to contradict the PM. Can the nation go through such nonsense anymore? They have said NO. ENOUGH!

and the PM himself has said so - no more talk with Kibaki informally, only formal consultations through the CMC.

And many things will soon be consulted about. Everything literally will be consulted. This is what Kibaki wanted when he trashed goodwill, let the formal consultations now take root.

I hope Muthaura and Mutua are reading these developments keenly.

It is not business as usual tena.

Haya twende!

I close with these remarks below quoted from a wise unassuming man currently Speaker of Kenya's National Assembly - whom I've previously shared a bite of mbuzi and kanywaji with here in Washington DC.

“An accord was painstakingly negotiated as the country waited with bated breath… these words were uttered before the whole world. Do they mean anything? Do the signatories to them intend them to mean anything?”

Kenneth Otiato Marende

With that I say - adios for now!

Speaker Marende's Smart Parliamentary Coup

In one fell swoop, Speaker Marende left pretenders to the throne profusely bleeding from political humiliation. And what a masterstroke which neither of the protagonists saw coming. The gatekeepers have been disabused of their murderous venture to auction Kenya and holding her citizens hostage.

All the hubris about seeking constitutional interpretation is just that HUBRIS. Never short of valueless face-saving gimmicks, the scoundrels must be burning the midnight oil scheming to invent another source of political heat. True to SLITHERING IN BETWEEN philosophy, the mouth and backs on hire must fire from all empty cylinders lest they are speedily rendered politically irrelevant.

Speaker Marende’s ruling underscores one truism which politically faint-hearted have been afraid to accept: KENYA IS AND WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AFTER THE BUNGLED 2007. You can chose to live in any FORTRESS OF DENIAL but the reality is all there for all with eyes to see.

No amount of legal posturing ever solved any politically-engineered problem. Marende’s intelligent ruling must have been alive to that fact as evident in his refusal to please either party. Instead he threw the ball back to them by reminding them that both the constitution and the national accord must be read as one and two documents.

Political auctioneers
With that single stroke of genius, Speaker Marende extinguished all the vents of hot feeding "the constitution is supreme" fallacy.

Speaker Marende has has done Kenya and her people proud in standing by them. He has banished the political smokescreens clothed in deceptive legal gabs. And in the meantime he has inadvertently and fatally bruised political egos of many pretenders who never cease to salivate at every loophole they curve from our tattered constitution to feather their selfish political nests.

Hail Speaker Marende for proving that amidst the political rot remains some sane Kenyans who can come to the rescue of property Kenya under siege from political auctioneers.

Selective Expectations from Speaker Marende

Thanks to selective amnesia, we can conveniently forget the cutthroat competition that saw Marende defeat Ole Kaparo for the Speaker post. The same people who fought him hardest are now shamelessly waxing legalistic in demanding impartiality when it suits them best.

Well, while stuck in that mode we can as well order Muthaura to stop attending PNU meetings reminding him that he is a civil servant who must be IMPARTIAL. So can Marende rise up to the occasion to solve a political impasse with pure parliamentary legalese?

Granted, Mr Marende is the Speaker and CEO of the National Assembly which is one of the three pillars of Government. But being a country populated almost exclusively by citizens drowning in national denial, we won’t bat an eyelid to mask the political posturing for all it is.

Slithering in between
All the present political heat are the cumulative cost of an ILLEGITIMATE REGIME which will do anything legal and otherwise to retain the status quo that nourishes all their grand schemes to milk Kenya dry. Leader of Government business is only an appendix in the thrilling sequel of grand deception. Whatever way Marende rules, the political embers will gather the nearest wind and soon graduate to the inevitable INFERNO.

No amount fine legal posturing can ever solve a politically engineered problem. But again this is Kenya where twisted beliefs are firmly founded on the twin vices of FRAUD and DECEPTION. Political errand boys galore and they have no qualms providing their backs for royal rides to oblivion. We haven’t seen anything yet, NA BADO.

Thoughtlessness, Indecisiveness and Downright Incompetence: The Qualities we, Kenyans, Look for in a Leader

Also published earlier today by Chris Why Snap Elections are Inevitable

By Mwalimu Peter Ngugi

Kenya is indeed a strange country. It is a country where leaders are elected on the basis of their thoughtlessness and sheer incompetence. And this has been the trend since we attained independence. ‘ We seem to cherish leaders who have perfected ‘the art and science of brewing hatred and preaching politics of division and parochialism.’ And unless we wake up and fight to invalidate the stupid value systems which have been entrenched in our politics by selfish and thoughtless politicians, our country will go to the dogs (if it hasn't already!) and we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

I have been watching the political scene since the formation of the so called Grand Coalition but nothing seems to be moving. Service delivery, internal security and all have become foreign ideologies. Politicians have been spending most of their time grumbling and scrambling for power as the citizenry gets more impoverished by the minute. I hoped against all hopes that the government would act speedily on important issues like drafting a new constitution, waging a spirited war against poverty and corruption and building an egalitarian society where people would be treated equally irrespective of their political and ethnic affiliation. But how wrong I was!

Therefore, it is unlikely that the current crop of parliamentarians will draft a new constitution any time soon because the political engineers from either side of the political divide (read the Grand Confusion) are either thoughtless or downright incompetent. In my view, most of the current members of parliament are unfit to hold any position of leadership, even at the family level! All they do is fight to fill their tumbo kubwa as the majority of us wallow in abject poverty. Remember the William-Ruto–motion-of-censure circus? It is good case in point that demonstrates that our MPs only care about their interests and those of their cronies. And this vividly elucidates why MPs chose their allegiances not purely on the merit of the motion but on selfish considerations ranging from the premature positioning of some leaders in the battle to succeed President Kibaki to an almost blood cuddling zeal to prevent the Orange Party from disintegrating.

My fellow country men and women, politicians don’t care whether you live or starve to death; their only object is to keep you and I very busy fighting among ourselves over parochial things as they milk the country dry. And that is why there is a grand rift in the so called grand coalition. Politicians are busy forming alliances and thoughtless schemes to succeed Kibaki. The censure motion against Ruto was defeated because the majority of our parliamentarians are too unprincipled and unpatriotic to fight for the welfare of the millions of starving Kenyans. To paraphrase Dr Bonny Khalwale, the mover of the censure motion against Ruto: ‘ The vote on the censure motion was between selfish politicians and millions of famished Kenyans.’ Everybody knows who won.

I assert that most Kenyan politicians are inherently tribal, selfish and parochial and are thus incapable of putting the interests of their country before their own. They have got no time to fritter away thinking about the plight of the internally displaced people or those who live in fear of being harassed, maimed and killed by members of a proscribed cult(Mungiki). Are these the people we expect to draft a good constitution for us?

Whining about bad governance, corruption and tribalism will not take us anywhere. We have got to change the situation. The power belongs to us. We can bring change, yes we can! It begins with you; are you ready to stand and be counted?

Elsewhere on the Net:
The Plight of Albinos in Tanzania: What should be Done

Why Snap Elections Are Inevitable

Months ago I said here that the only way Kenya can avoid a serious bloodbath is if we held fresh elections ASAP. See that article HERE. So naturally recent developments have given me plenty of hope that lives can indeed be saved.

The really sad thing here is that a vast majority of Kenyans who read this site (seated comfortably in their air-conditioned offices) will never understand in 100 years what the hurry is all about. And I understand and accept that. Yes, we do not have an electoral body in place. Yes it will take at least 8 months to organize a new voter's register. BUT what is the alternative to NOT having elections ASAP?

Interestingly even the ODM crowd who claim that they are ready for a snap election have no idea what awaits them. They are going to be pretty shocked because they seem to be expecting to replicate the support they enjoyed in December 2007.

Finally in answer to all those dear readers who wonder why I never comment on anything and everything that is going on. I have always believed that my niche here is reading the directions in which the politics is headed. It is the reason why most of you read this blog. For that reason I will rarely comment on something before I have enough information.

What is the alternative to NOT having a snap election? See my March 24th post.

P.S. If a snap election were held in Kenya say, probably mid next year, technically President Mwai Kibaki can stand again. That is if his lawyers accept that there was no winner in the fateful 2007 general elections. Am told that this is something which can be argued in court and things can be "organized." LOL!!!

Sammy Kamau: Product of Honesty and Sweat

Jacob Zuma: Demagogue or Political Genius?

South Africans have demostrated their fidelity to ANC party no matter the political heat and fallout occasioned by Mbeki’s ouster. The near-saint Mandela confounded many by backing Zulu boy Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma and shunning disgruntled Mbeki boys who decamped to COPE.

So what future and lessons can we learn from Zuma’s rise to the presidency of Africa’s economic powerhouse? Well, Zuma is a product of Mbeki’s contempt to voters and obtuse elitism that is galore in our local leadership too. Kenya is a living testimony to how power has a way with revealing the true insidious side of an otherwise gentle persona. Only time will tell who the real Jay Z is.

Granted, Zuma may not be sophisticated enough to craft catchy rallying calls like Rainbow Nation by Mandela or abstract slogans like African Renaissance by Mbeki. But give it to the traditionalist Msholozi he has away of identifying with the ordinary South African whose post-Apartheid dream was auctioned by Mbeki’s elitist mien and intellectual bravado.

He may be athletic around the waist with five official wives to boot but emotionally amorous Zuma maybe just what South Africa needed to stop their breakneck speed to catch up with rest self-destruction African countries. But again you never know African leaders being what they are once securely enthroned to the seat of power.

Product of contempt and elitism
Mbeki though he had the last political laugh by outsmarting hither Mandela’s heir apparent Cyril Ramaphosa and underestimating Zuma as an unambitious demagogue for VP. Well what goes around comes around and Thambo must be suffering indigestion from the huge bite of humble pie.

Zuma’s lack of formal education may just be the sweetest blessing in disguise as team playing is a must in such circumstances. If anything personalized rule has been the bane in most African countries with real power unofficially delegated to cronies and gatekeepers.

Congratulations President Zuma, all eyes are singularly trained on you and the party is yours to spoil. You have no choice but to measure up or fail spectacularly by falling to the pedestrian lows of believing a cold shower protects against HIV infection. South Africans have given their verdict and the choice if yours. Either seize it or butcher their collective hopes.