Tough Women Who Beat Up Kenyan Presidents

As we sat down gulping our beers and discussing politics at the popular local, time as always was flying at high speed. This happened years ago. It was a week day and I remember telling my friend several times that we should start heading home. No need to upset our wives I told him. Glancing at my watch in shock just then I realized that it was already 2am.

That last statement had quite an effect on my friend more than what time it was. He demanded to know who the boss was in my house and I tried to explain to him that being a boss came with responsibilities. He reassured me loudly that if I was scared of my wife he would take me home personally and do the explaining on my behalf. He proceeded to order two more rounds since that issue was now settled.

Our local wasn’t too far from where we lived and in those days Kenya was much safer than it is today and so we staggered home and reached his gate a handful of minutes to 4 am. He suggested that I give him a few minutes to pop in and then he would escort me home as promised. I agreed confident that since he was known to my wife there would be no problem. Immediately he started knocking on his front door I knew something was terribly wrong. The knock was so timid that you could hardly hear it in the quite of the night. I assumed that his wife was asleep and she was never going to hear it. I was just about to move forward to give the door a proper knock when the door swung open violently.

“Hello mama Shiro.” I piped confidently expecting to see the usual warm smile. Instead there was a cold stare and she pointed her finger at me, “YOU!!!” was all she said before grabbing her husband by the collar hurling him inside the house and slamming her front door shut.

Inside I could hear a scuffle and my friend’s meek voice pleading; “please mama Shiro.” The English promptly turned into Kikuyu (most of which I understand). She hurled abuses at him at him while doing something violent to him (I have never been sure what exactly).

I walked away quickly to face my own wife’s wrath.

I learnt an interesting lesson that day. And that is whatever you do, never believe what your friends tell you about their personal lives when you are drinking. In the bar all men are total men who rule their houses with an iron hand and where wives do everything as commanded. And as one man told us in the bar those days with a straight face, when he needs what a husband needs from the wife at night, all he has to do is clear his throat and his wife is ready to deliver. That sounded more like slave trade to me but most of all I have always suspected that it was pure fiction. Designed only to entertain drinking buddies.

All these memories have come flooding back with the national debate that has been going on since last week about Kenyan men who regularly receive a serious beating from their wives. We are told that women from Central province lead in husband battering and especially a place called Nyeri.

But what most Kenyans do not realize is that at least two out of the three Kenyan presidents we have had so far have had some very tough women for wives. The late Lena Moi caused such a serious fracas at State house Nakuru during a state function in the 1960s that Moi was forced to get rid of her from his life and although he supported her until her death shortly after he left office in 2002, the two never lived as husband and wife again. Observers hardly fault Lena who was said to be a very religious woman and blame it all on Moi who was having an affair with a Kikuyu police officer at the time. He did not realize that Lena had already heard the whispers and carelessly decided to have a dance with the said woman. Lena saw red and even efforts by President Jomo Kenyatta to cool things off by insisting on dancing with her had no effect whatsoever.

Mwai Kibaki’s suffering for many years in the hands of Lucy Kibaki is well known. But what most people find unacceptable was the fact that Lucy was known to jeer and mock Kibaki’s many unsuccessful efforts to become president of the country but was quick to rush to his side at State House shortly after he was sworn in as president. The wife who had helped poor Emilio retain his sanity all those years, Mary Wambui (Kibaki’s second wife) was shoved to the sidelines and to make matters worse was denied together with her children on national TV during prime time viewing.

Tough no nonsense women have been with us in Kenya for a long time and there is really no reason why the press should make such a big fuss about them now, as if they have suddenly sprung up from nowhere.

Indeed the point that everybody seems to be missing is the fact that most Kenyan men find tough women extremely attractive and very sexy. Almost irresistible. There is no feeling that comes anywhere close to that of conquering a tough man-beating woman and seeing her finally surrender to your charms. Those who have tamed wild horses will have an idea of what I am talking about here.

How Democratic Is The Orange Democratic Movement?

The consensus within the Orange Democratic Party is that Raila Odinga should not be opposed by anybody when he seeks the party’s ticket to vie for the presidency. The feeling is that this is a waste of time and resources because he is the most suitable candidate and there is really no other stronger candidate to represent the party. So why waste time and resources going through the motions of proving the obvious?

"Weak-leaf" Musalia Mudavadi: The meek hen who has suddenly turned into a lion

Folks this is the reason why I keep on saying in this blog that it is easier to teach old dogs new tricks than it is to expect to change our current political class. We just have to get rid of the current crop of leaders (including our beloved Raila Odinga) and go for a fresh start with a brand new crop of leaders (for better or for worse) if we are going to have a fighting chance of saving our country.

This is exactly the kind of “democracy” that Mzee Jomo Kenyatta fostered in KANU in the early days and just look at what happened? This unique Kenyan “democracy” caused the kind of problems in our country that are not likely to be solved in our generation, indeed they will probably need another two or three generations of bado mapabano to deal with them.

Raila Odinga himself has been forced to state the obvious and announce that Mudavadi has every right to oppose him for the party ticket. But sadly this does not change the fact that the “real owners of ODM” will hear nothing of it. Their kind of democracy says that those who are worshipped are exempt from the rules that everybody else follows. Kenyan voters now have a right to ask a simple question;

If they are behaving like this before their man gets to State house and starts to yield real power, how will they behave when they are drunk with whatever people inhale in the corridors of power?

Chances are that a blog like Kumekucha may be quickly shut down and told that we have no right to make any negative comments about his most Excellency the PORK.

Having said that it is also true that the behavior of Musalia Mudavadi is not consistent with his character and the politician we have known all along who avoids confrontation at all costs. Some people here in Kumekucha are fond of calling him Weak leaf (instead of Wickliffe which is his Christian name). This is to emphasize the fact that this is a politician who has never been his own man.

Admittedly you really cannot blame the ODM “democrats” for suspecting that Mudavadi is not acting alone in his quest for the ODM presidential ticket. For starters the man is very close to retired President Daniel arap Moi and there are those who suspect that Moi could be behind a bid to weaken the party from within. Even if it is not Moi who is involved ODM has numerous other enemies who litter the landscape just waiting for a chance to sink in their daggers into the heart of the party.

It is also true that there is no way that a closely fought race for the presidency within ODM between Raila and Mudavadi will affect party unity big time, going into the election. Chances are that if and when Mudavadi loses to Raila, the Luhya vote will fly out of the window never to return, Fred Gumo or no Fred Gumo.

Knowing Kenyan politics these are fears that are justified.

Still the rules of true democracy have no exception. Not even when a hen suddenly turns into a lion.

Are We Obsessed With Imperialism?

By  Mwarang'ethe
Tragedy of human history is this. The world’s harvest is abundant enough to satisfy the needs of humanity. However, for want of wisdom, its reaping is regulated by the laws of battle.

In response to our last essay, Ocampo 4: A Flawed Defence Strategy, available here: http://is.gd/aAs8FE, a regular commentator at Kumekucha Mr Philip, wrote this:

“We have the imperialist, then we have our leaders who are equally as evil as them, with the same mission. There is a possibility that when all these imperialists are exterminated then our leaders will easily move from their front seats to the throne. I feel that's the connection you have TERRIBLY FAILED to fathom. Because in your case all our problems are caused by imperialists, so that when they cease to exist, then our problems will also end.”

Essentially, this is the same question Mr Taabu and other anonymous commentators keep on asking. However, we have refused to dignify his/their questions for at least two reasons.First, Mr Taabu and his friends, assume they know not knowing they do not know. For instance, with an air of an intellectual and finality, he tells us that, Kenya has not been able to build a single inch of railway. That is a fact. He then, tells us how South Africa is ahead because there are white people there. That is also, a conceded fact. However, if Mr Taabu was a man of learning as he fools himself to be, he would be able to differentiate between (a) facts, and (b) science. He seems utterly ignorant that, FACTS/KNOWLEDGE are only materials of science and not science itself. Thus, accumulation of bar talk/peasant facts is useless if the MEANING or the UNDERSTANDING of these facts is absent which should be the sole interest of men of learning. The fact that, he/they just mentions these facts and leaves them there tells us he/they confuse them to be science.

Secondly, we find his/their aversion to human experience in political and civil liberties as well as political economy akin to the barbarism of the Roman general who shouted at the Athenian general and a philosopher in peace negotiations to try and save Athens that, he had gone to Athens to punish the rebels and not study history. With that barbaric statement, he went ahead to destroy the ancient Athens.  In other words, many are deceived as to the GREATEST OFFICE of a well ordered society. It is not the office of the mere lawyer, the president, the minister, the general or the mere economist. It is The Sacred Office of the Historian. Anyway, with such men, you just leave them alone. Back to Philip’s query.

To answer Philip’s question, we first descend into the human laboratory, i.e. history. To the wisest of the Roman era, the corruption of the Roman government appeared so utterly incurable. As such, it was supposed to indicate the approaching dissolution of the globe. Actually, to some extent, the inability of the ancient people to reform their corrupt government, made many turn to Christianity which offered hope in a crumbling civilization.

The question we must first ask is this. Why were the ancient civilizations unable to solve the problem of corruption? Simple.Then, as is today, it was the pressing evils of the MOMENT that drew their attention and called for redress. As a result, there lacked a tranquil diagnosis and a patient endeavour to remove the deep seated causes. Thus, in all ages, it is the strain felt by the individual that furnishes the motive power for any attempted reforms and the individual cannot wait. As a result, the therapeutic measures are inevitably crude and however well meant or even well designed cannot do. So, is the ICC “solution” to the African mess.

So as to discover the disease which killed the ancient civilizations and hence be the seers of their generations, historians have done a thorough post mortem of that dead society. Their discovery is this. The degradation of the humanity of that age did not come about because of an inherent principle of decay proceeding from the inevitable state of exhaustion in the condition of a highly civilised society. Nor was not because of a moral deficiency that produced incurable corruption and thereby, rendered good governance impracticable.

In truth, the evils of that society were produced by the injustice and oppression of the Roman government. So, why couldn't’ they reform it? Simple. The Roman government was too powerful to enable the people to force it to reform its conduct. Given the fiscal rapacity of the Roman government which fettered the people’s industry and the oligarchical constitution of the curia, the PUBLIC OPINION became powerless. Thus, the destruction of the upper and the middle class made it impossible to regenerate the Roman State. In other words, the greatest imperfection of the government arose from the total want of any popular control over the moral conduct of the public servants. This is so because, political morality cannot live without the atmosphere of public opinion. As such, the fiscal system was the PRINCIPAL CAUSE of its decay. Check around the world today, and the same disease is rampant.

And, for comparative purposes, nothing offers more instructive lessons to humanity than the wealth and power of the Cherson city which was protected from fiscal rapacity of the Roman government. As a result of this, its commerce, freedom flourished under the institutions which protected property rights even as the whole Roman Empire fell into pieces. Now, if you follow the history of Europe after the death of the Roman Empire, you will discover that, the revival of civilization in Europe was only possible when the people had acquired power sufficient to enforce some respect for their feelings and rights.

In other words, the real problem in African is lack of an economic set up that can allow the emergence of a real middle class which can exercise the moral restraint on the African governments. As a result of this weakness, we have seen NGO’s, donors and the like of the ICC becoming the “defenders” of the Africans who are now treated like infants who need guardians to defend them from their own governments. Since these foreign bodies are the ones which give African leaders money, they listen to them and treat their citizens with contempt.

Therefore, if the West was serious, it would demand fiscal reforms which would create the necessary environment for the growth of the middle class for without it, the African governments shall never respond to the citizen needs. It follows then, that, any fiscal measure which deepens poverty and helplessness in Africa should be avoided at all costs. The question is, what does the West do? It does exactly the opposite and thereby, create conditions for more violence, corruption and impunity. Having forced the African governments to create such conditions, the West comes much later and proclaims itself the protector of the helpless poor Africans. They shamelessly mock the victims of their own rapacity and fraud! In other words, the West in its hubris like that of the ancient free men is accusing Africans of moral deficiency/degeneracy whereas, historians have proven that is not the real cause.

Before we show how the West is playing with the African minds, we descend again to the Eastern Empire of the Roman Empire. Under the reforms of Constantine, we add, just like the recent Kenyan reforms, he required additional revenues. As a result, he instituted two taxes termed Senatorial and Chrysargyron taxes. The first alienated the aristocracy because, the Senators had been exempted from tax before. Does that remind of something? The Chrysargyron taxes were a tax on PROFITS which was levied in the severest manner on EVERY species of receipt. Today, if you tell a man/woman that taxation of profits is robbery, they will wonder. Needless to say, contrary to the expectation of Constantine, these additional taxes fettered industry which led to decline in trade due to decreased consumption, poverty and insecurity which continued to lower the scale of civilization as society frames started fraying.

When Emperor Anastasius took over, being more enlightened than Constantine, he did what is a very rare virtue of a sovereign. He voluntarily reduced the revenues of the State by abolishing the lucrative, but, very oppressive taxation on profits which affected every industry and every one. The effect of this measure was INCREASED PROSPERITY which like an energy drink, reinvigorated the body politic of the Roman Empire. Despite him having relinquished State revenue to ensure the happiness of his people, the State revenue increased due to increased commerce and prosperity and left over £ 320, 000 pounds of gold in the public treasury.

Now, let us look at what the West is doing in cahoot with its puppets in Africa. Sometimes back, when all mainstream newspapers, lawyers like Kilonzo, Ocampo’s and even all bloggers were silent, we raised a red flag about a demand of the IMF to the government of Kenya to raise the VAT when we read this: “IMF calls for VAT reforms to increase collection.” Among other stuff, we read this:

“A widening and simplification of the Value Added Tax(VAT) bracket could increase Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA)’s revenue collection by an estimated Sh40 billion. This disclosure was made on Thursday by Mr Ragnar Gudmundsson, a resident representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), at a Nairobi Hotel. He was briefing the media on the forthcoming conference on Revenue Mobilisation in Sub-Sahara Africa...” Available at http://is.gd/0yFPYS.

When we raised this issue. As usual, we were accused of crying imperialism all the time. That was then. Now, we are reading this: “New VAT Bill threatens to increase cost of living.” Among other stuff, we are now reading that,

“The price of a number of essential commodities such as milk, maize and wheat flour is expected to go up, with the Bill proposing that processed agricultural commodities be struck off the list of VAT exempt items. ..Other items removed from the tax-exempt list include animal feeds, agrochemicals, newspapers, sanitary pads [DOES ANYONE REMEMBER WHAT RAILA SAID ON SANITARY PADS?] and cooking gas – all deemed essential. This means that prices of manufactured goods will go up by anything from16 per cent – which is the standard VAT rate – should the proposed bill become law in the current condition, as manufacturers of commodities increase costs to recover money paid to the taxman.” Source: http://is.gd/6cJRjJ

Basically, anyone schooled in real economics, i.e. anyone not mentally derailed by the IVY LEAGUE of FOOLS in pseudo - economics,  knows this. Men produce wealth for consumption. Therefore, when you curtail consumption, you curtail production. When you curtail wealth production, you create unemployment and attendant social problems. We can assure the reader that, the social effect of these VAT increases so as to pay Western debts, which are created by attacking our currency by the same West, SHALL create more social problems than the 2007/8 PEV violence. However, such stuff, the imperialists do not broadcast in their loud mainstream media. This leaves a lone blogger to bear the burden of raising such issues under epithets of ignorant mobs.  

The question we ask is this. If the Westerners are interested in the well being of the Africans as they claim, why is it that, in cahoot with their USELESS puppets like Kibaki and Raila, they are creating poverty and helplessness which makes it impossible for Africans to hold their governments into account? Also, why are the mainstream newspapers, lawyers, NGO’s, bloggers etc, so eloquently silent over such deliberate impoverishment of the African people by these Western schemes? It is only when the West comes to pick up one of their puppets as a means of fooling gullible and suffering Africans, we see the mainstream media, so called lawyers, NGO’s and bloggers vomit all their praises on their white saviors. This being the case, it makes us wonder, is it so difficult to understand the logic of what we are laying bare?

The ultimate question is this. Do the Western states controllers know that, they are creating poverty and wars in Africa? Yes. We know this because, we have done our research from their own recordings. During the World Bank and IMF hearings in 1945, bankers testified to the USA Congress to the facts that chaotic economic /economies, such as African economies, must as a matter of LOGIC produce CIVIL WARS and TOTALITARIANISM. So, the Western imperial planners know exactly what they are doing. But, why are they doing this?

Once again, during the same World Bank and IMF formation, it was stated in very unambiguous words that:

"Nothing is MORE MENACING to WORLD SECURITY, than to have the LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, comprising MORE THAN HALF OF THE POPULATION of the world, RANGED in ECONOMIC BATTLE against the LESS POPULOUS but INDUSTRIALLY more advanced nations of the West." So, TESTIFIED the USA Secretary of TREASURY, Henry Morgenthau at the SENATE in its 1945 hearings on the WORLD BANK.

The question is, how does undeveloped Africa contribute to whatever they call WORLD SECURITY? Again, it is simple. Today, just as example, Africa exports about 20 million barrels of oil per day. Now, if African living standards were to improve just by 20%, all this oil would be consumed internally. As a result, there would be shortage of 20 million barrels per day. With such shortage, the oil prices would be more than $ 500 per barrel. Does ANY IDIOT think the BMW of Germany, Toyota of Japan, the Daewoo of Korea, the GM of America and the millions of jobs they provide in the West would survive under such prices? No and no.

This being the case, the Africans must be kept in a state of confusion and stupidity with cosmetic reforms which means that, although their population is increasing, which is producing social tensions in absence of economic expansion, they must not be in a position to consume their raw materials. Increasing the VAT is one of the methods used. This leaves these resources CHEAP and AVAILABLE to the WORLD as they call it. To blind Africans from this brutalization and dehumanisation, they subject them to massive dosage of IDEOLOGICAL BOMBING which STUPEFIES them to run away from the TRUTH as they chase ILLUSIONS, DELUSIONS and CHILDISH FANTASIES created for them.

Finally, we ask:

(a) When a MERE lawyer like Ocampo speaks, every Kenyan listens.

(b) Why is it that, when an African who is a lawyer like Ocampo, but, also, learned, not listened to?

(c) Does it have to do with self hatred?