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.
Taabu,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, Chris's previous sarcasm laden post was really annoying. Chris, I have noticed that when Taabu posts something, you quickly unleash another one -relevant or not, to steal his thunder, am I lying?
Back to the post. Frankly, I don't know much about him other that the facts listed, but this new electoral fellow does not inspire confidence. There is no time for 'on the job training'. Does he even know where to start or is he going to get instructions from somewhere? I can imagine him being swayed this way that way, threatened/enticed by the MKM, and at the end of the day achieving nothing.
Kenyans, we are doomed!
Congrats to him at least his resume is recognizable unlike the other guy ,whats his name ? we should continue and elect a president from a minority community , big tribe politics will finish us ,
ReplyDeleteTaabu, you guys are putting too much pressure too early on in the game. Give him time, things will happen, but as usual, Kenyans want nothing short of manna falling from heaven.
ReplyDeleteHe can do a good job, but it is an uphill task, and probably many will think he did a poor job, because in Kenya its 100% or nothing.
Once again, we are getting all this wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe problem we have been having for years now of misconducted and mismanaged elections were never about who sits on the electoral body chair. The problem is much more than the chairmanship of that body. It is about corrupted institutions--the police force, political parties, the provincial administration, the media, the 'accredited' watchdogs, a decayed court sustem etc. Add that to our morally corrupt values (lynching suspected supporters of opposing candidates and a stupid willingness to receive bribes) and tell me how we can have free and fair elections even with Jesus Christ at the helm of the election body.
It has never been about the chairman. Think about it; Samuel Kivuitu is the man opposition politicians (including my own party leader) and our media people (including this blog) BLACKMAILED the President into re-appointing to the chair. Then, we were convinced that any other appointment would have been a calculation to rig the polls. We cited Kivuitu's handling of the 2002 elections and the 2005 constitutional referendum as proof of his incorruptibility. The President succumbed to our wishes and here we are in 2009 proclaiming a young lawyer the messiah who will save us from electoral theft. Something is wrong with us.
We all believe that President Moi stole the election of 1992 from Ken Matiba. The problem, however was not Chesoni. The problem was a compromised provincial administration and use of government resources for partisan campaigns. Justice Kriegler, the man we now love to quote in this debate ascertained that there was no electoral usurpation at the KICC where the chairman and his commissioners had a direct role. He found out that election theft occured on the constituency level where civil servants, provincial administrators, party thugs and immoral 'leaders' made it impossible to come up with a fair verdict by either stifling free participation for everyone or 'punishing' those who were suspected of not planning to vote the 'correct' way.
I personally do not know anything about this young lawyer and I am not the type to believe everything the media says. What I know is that all those who were shortlisted---Maina Kiai, Koki Muli, Francis Kaparo and all those other guys are qualified to head the body. They cannot be the solution, however. The solution lies with an empowered electoral commission--one that has the machinery felt heavily right to the polling centre. An elctoral commission that has the power and the institutional capacity to arbitrate over electoral disputes as opposed to filing petitions with the high court. On top of that, the voting masses themselves have a solemn obligation to demand the highest of standards from politicians such that we are not engaged in the usual childish name-calling that has come to characterize our politics and which is singly responsible for the uncivil competition that often times incites animosity. If we cannot have a conducive plattform for civil political competition and participation, if the field is not level, that is just another form of rigging that wont be addressed just because we have a new electoral chairman named Ahmed Hassan.
Lastly, congratulations to him. It's my sincere hope that he does a decent job.
By Kipkirui K’Telwa
ReplyDeleteVice chancellors should embrace dialogue
The Standard Blog, Published on 29/03/2009
Threats by students from three universities to demonstrate on Monday to protest against the planned interrogation of their 35 colleagues at Kenyatta University should send out a signal to national leadership. The message is that vice chancellors live in the past while students have left them as they seek to live in the future.
Decisions to shut down the university and expel or suspend students in order to instil order are practices associated with dreaded Kanu disciplinary committee. Expulsion and suspension of students or disbanding their unions are wasteful, archaic and inhuman ways of resolving conflicts in the society. It is akin to extra-judicial killing of criminal suspects. In any case, has failed in the past to serve its intended purpose. Renown persons including James Orengo, Mwandawiro Mgangha, Hassan Omar and Chelagat Mutai were expelled from campus for their activism. But they sought learning institutions in more pluralistic societies where they flourished. And because of the authoritarian regime in our public universities, even professors who agitate for better salaries or working conditions risk being expelled as their students. And many of them are at home after challenging regimes unwilling to change.
In the recent past, two Egerton and Kenyatta universities have been rocked by student’s riots leading to closures. In Kenyatta’s case, the Vice Chancellor Prof Olive Mugenda shut down the institution when students who had not been registered to sit the end of the semester exams due to fee balance, staged "a not so peaceful protest march" that resulted in damage of property worth Sh17m.
Even though in an advert carried in the local media the vice chancellor said only 500 out of 17,000 students participated in the protest, the university administration decided to charge every student a fine of Sh1,000 before carrying out any investigation or addressing any of the issues raised by the students’ body. At the end of the re-opening exercise, the institution would have collected Sh17 million. How did the authorities estimate the penalty?
Isn’t the administration over-flexing its muscles in a bid to suppress students from seeking meaningful dialogue?
I am not trying to say the students acted rightly when they howled and threw stones at motorists along the busy Thika highway. They know the Vice Chancellor never operates from the highway. The students misdirected their anger and "miscommunicated" their raw rage on motorists who neither register students nor administer semester examinations. In fact, many a matatu crew has not been to the university, except to pick or drop passengers.
Therefore, the action of both the students’ union and university senate lower their dignity before the eyes of the public. Parents neither close down homes when they differ with their children nor call in area chief. As he clock ticks towards Monday, it is hoped that national leadership will step in to avert more destruction of property and careers as students face off with their vice chancellors.
anon 7:08,
ReplyDeleteare you nuts? sure we should dialogue with arsonists and mungiki, form a coalition like the one for odm thugs to avert destruction.
are you reading from ODM manifesto by the way?
0.9m okuyus are roaming the pithalls of kenya and one mungiki here thinks we give a hoot. hehehe kalenjin walionyesha okuyu noma. never again will they rant about "mau mau peasant bravery".
ReplyDeletemuungu fixed them and kalenjin did it double shot. na bado. the real final fix is coming. watch the space. it will not be televised.
I know him from collee. I think it is irrelevant whether or not he has integrity. As vikii has said any electoral body in nairobi that has no control over what goes on in the provinces will fail. kenyans and their policians are thoroughly corrupt. If they are willing to rig elections why then blame a chairman sitting in nairobi? you meet people everywhere bragging about how they "voted" for those voters who did not turn up!
ReplyDeleteLawyers are not scoundrels. they play a very important part in the justice and democratic system of our country by providing legal services (most of the time pro bono)and advising the general public on their rights. Law Society of Kenya was very instrumental to the democratic process during the KANU regime and the author seems to have forgotten the many various and important roles that Lawyers have played in making Kenya a more open society. Its very uncouth to mock the sacrifice that many lawyers have made ( including loosing lives) to make Kenya a more just society.
ReplyDeleteplease taabu reign in your mistress. dont copy kibaki and have drama in public, she has a point though.
ReplyDeleteKwani students have NO responsibilities? Just rights? Tell whoever wrote that article in standard to go live in utopia.
ReplyDeleteTaabu,
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not want to prematurely condemn this nomination, it is indeed regrettable that the PSC overlooked one Ms. KOKI MULI for this job merely because they share ethnic origins with disgraced Samuel Kivuitu. Koki was the best qualified in terms of electioneering.
As I said before, KOKI stands above all the other candidates in terms of experience in electoral matters and I think it is only Maina Kiai who can match her when it comes to moral standing.
When all is said done, young AHMED ISAAK HASSAN is without experience for such a high profile public appointment and I doubt if he can withstand and resist pressure exerted by rich-with-stolen-money election fraudsters like Kalonzo, Kilonzo, Kenyatta, Kiraitu and Saitoti.
I see this nomination as having been influenced solely because PNU mandarins are remote controlling one PSC Chairman ABDIKADIR H. MOHAMED a well known puppet of AHMEDNASIR M.ABDULAHI who is mentor, tutor, and chairperson to both Abdikadir and Isaak.
As you can imagine, ever since attending the Kibaki 1million per plate dinner at Safari Park, Lawyer and university lecturer Ahmednasir has be openly pro-PNU and anti-ODM and his law firm Ahmednasir, Abdikadir & Company Advocates has been awarded lucrative government contracts forcing the duo to expand the firm. Clearly, the duo who were a struggling law firm just two years ago, are now one of the leading and biggest law firms in this country - thanks to being the unofficial legal advisors to PNU.
I am eagerly awaiting parliamentary debate on this nomination next week and for now I am taking this appointment with a pinch of salt. I am not sure if parliament will endorse this appointment given the already poisoned politics that has denied KOKI MULI what could have been an automatic choice appointment.
Wacha tungoje.
Blogger Taabu,
ReplyDeleteplease desist from insulting cicero and his good attempts of video blogging. your slight was mean and uncalled for. cicero, fight on. we love www.future4kenya.com
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5677527701956477323&postID=8386476620836394723
Charles.Nairobi.
ReplyDeleteThe man must remain NEUTRAL!
We all saw the mess Kivuitu put us in by TAKING SIDES after ODM won by over 1 MILLION SOLID VOTES in 5 constituencies.
He must not be bought out like Kivuitu.
Its a tall order.
God give him courage to do the right thing.
God Bless Our Beloved Kenya!
Phil, you are so amusing. who does not know koki muli is one of the few kaos who support odm and its supreme leader? as mutula said, both uhuru and raila tried to influence the decision of who the chair would be. you have no mind of your own and for you to be so supportive of koki muli is confirmation that she was the odm candidate.
ReplyDeleteTaabu,
ReplyDelete"The government has reappointed George Muhoho as Kenya Airports Authority managing director. His contract has been renewed for a further one term of three years."
What are you going to do about???
I suggest you start looking at people's performances and not their tribal backgrounds, otherwise you will die a very frustrated man!!
Here we go again with the bullshit! The very same was said about Amos Wako and Kivuitu. They were men of principle. Please! These are political appointments and no politician is that stupid to appoint someone who will deviate from the play book. The last idiot who did that was Chiluba and look where that got him!
ReplyDeleteSo what did Chiluba do? I thought all he did was to back a candidate who, once elected, stood for that basic creed that all men are created equal and that all should carry their own crosses. Chiluba was himself a beneficiary of an inclusive electoral process sanctioned by kenneth Kaunda, but he chose to pursue politics devoid of any principle and fraught with vendetta-mindedness. Clearly, there is so much that I do not know especially how he supported common democracy even in the remotest of ways.
ReplyDeleteMuhoho is back at KAA helm .
ReplyDeletehttp://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Local/Muhoho-is-back-at-KAA-helm-3930.html
Vikii,
ReplyDeleteChiluba was someone that defied logic. Now his suits are in lock down.
Quite right that things can only start to function properly if the institutions are functioning properly. Having a "clean" (wo)man in office will not do much except to tarnish their own image and even jeopadize their careers and lead to disbarrment.
Again, the Kenyan media is doing a diservice to wananchi by not asking the pretinent questions. Namely what is the road map towards ensuring transparency in our electoral system. Suffice it to say this character will romp into office with a big salary but no teeth. Last time I checked, ECK was not able to audit votes.
Taabu aka problems,
ReplyDeleteIs this what Dr.Raila meant when he said IIEC should be chaired by a foreigner? As a Kenyan of somali origin Hassan does look more like a handsome male MODEL than the restorer of integrity in the future of kenyas polls
so Hassan, you have very high standards to live upto-it seems you have to have more integrity and impartiality than a foreigner-and you know how us kenyans just love foreigners and anything foreign-i'm wondering how you will achieve this mean feat of being accepted by all?
but anyway i'm not going to judge you by your cover-at the very least now Kalonzo has some competition in the looks&beauty department
I can only pray that the guy has a moral standing and will stand stiff in the face of deceit. As someone pointed out here, it does not matter who seats at the top of the electoral body..true that but it beats all logic if that person has no clue about what is happening or is easily compromised. We just need people of integrity. You see, if Kivuitu had integrity and indeed saw that there was no clear winner in 2007, he would have stated so on live TV and not made an announcement in a room away from the public.
ReplyDeleteWe just need people who cannot be compromised. If this guy turns out to be made of similar stuff that one Ahmednassir Abdulahi is made of then we are in trouble.
Is this what Dr.Raila meant when he said IIEC should be chaired by a foreigner?
ReplyDelete--Hili ni swali ngumu sana. Why ask Taabu exam questions? But I wish he answers it.
Comprehensively.
I am disgusted that muhoho has been reappointed. This man should have retired a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteKibaki just gets more and more disgusting. Shame on him.
As regards the one billion shilling office for the PM, let it be known that Raila did not request nor initiate the intended renovations.
ReplyDeleteThe inception of that idea is part of a multi-pronged attempt to shed bad light on the person of the PM. It’s tantamount to putting him between a rock and a hard place.
Raila cannot publicly show disdain for the proposal because his doing so ultimately diminishes the importance of his office. Further, the ploy crafted by Muthaura and his consorts was mainly meant to steal public funds. This is how it works in government. It is the white elephant scheme of 2009. All you have to study is the line up of contractors queuing to do the renovations. They are precisely all aligned to Kibaki and PNU. The one billion shillings will be paid to Kibaki’s friends to paint walls and re-carpet the lobby area amongst other shoddy and unnecessary ‘improvement’ projects.
The reason no work has began is because Raila has flatly refused the project in a very private way. He knows the plan is to blame him for the waste of money and insensitivity to wanainchi walloping in these dire economic times.
-From a concerned and very privy civil servant.
Ahmed Issack Hassan IS A WIFE BATTERER!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteKalonzo should not mistake his temporary respite with safety
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eastandard.net/columnists/InsidePage.php?id=1144010696&cid=489&
Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka says Chief Mediator Kofi Annan should now stop "babysitting" Kenya and keep his hands off.
But even little children know better than this. There is a joke about a man who was once drowning. As he was being swept downstream, he kept shouting, "God, please save my life! Spare me, God!"
Suddenly, he saw a twig hanging from the riverbank. He grasped at it and got a bit of respite.
Reflecting about his good fortune, amid gasps of breath, he thought of himself as very clever. "Whauh!" he gasped aloud, "That was close! How so clever I am! This stupid river almost went with me. Eh, it is good to be clever. I am now safe, happy."
Reflecting further, he went on to say: "And sometimes when you are almost drowning like I was, you hear foolish people claim they are the ones who saved you. You even hear someone called ‘God’ saying He has helped you. Which God? I saved myself and some self-styled saviour wants the credit?"
And alas, the twig gave in to his weight, and was soon rolling downstream again. In a panic, he said, "No! God, wait! That was only a joke! God, can’t you take a joke?"
Whereupon he heard the voice of God saying, "Boy, of course you know I can take a joke. As a matter of fact, why don’t you come right over here where I am? We can do a few jokes."
If you should perchance come across the VP, would you kindly share this little joke with him. For, he does not seem to know the difference between being safe and enjoying temporary respite.
The Vice-President has reinvented himself in his old Kanu style. He does not see things clearly, once again. Since breaking up from the original ODM family, he is increasingly confounding. Then he was a man about whom respected elder Kenyans like former ambassador and veteran journalist Mude Dae Mude could shower praise, as Mude says in his new book, Fight for the Orange: In Search of the Kenya I want.
Part of our problem is we do not have consistent leaders who see things objectively all the time. Kalonzo cast the picture of a visionary between October 2002 and August 2007. Then he reverted to his Kanu outlook.
That is the outlook of a man who said those fighting for political pluralism in the early 1990s were dreamers.
He described the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga a "bad mannered individual," because Jaramogi was expanding our democratic space. He repeated the "bad manners" tag when Jaramogi took the then Vice-President George Saitoti to court over the Goldenberg affair.
During his tenure as Deputy Speaker, the VP was living fear for the media. Kanu was enjoying the apogee of power. People like the VP were the pillars of that unfortunate regime. On the flimsiest of grounds, media houses were excluded from parliamentary reporting.
As Education minister, he got the police to clobber teachers senseless in the streets of Nairobi. Their sin was asking for the implementation of their pay package.
Today, the VP is telling Annan to keep off Kenya.
The reason is that the good Annan, this week, expressed disappointment with the pace of institutional reforms since the signing of the national accord, especially what is referred to as Agenda Four. He said Kenya is sitting on the edge of a precipice. The only thing that can save this country is institutional reforms ahead of the next General Election.
If we should continue dragging our feet while embarrassing international Good Samaritans, then it might not be such an unwise thing for you, my dear reader, to begin getting your passport and visas ready before 2012.
Annan is only telling us to stop cutting the tree branch we are sitting on. But our wise men can only tell him to get his nose out of this. It is this kind of short-sighted and arrogant leadership, which has got us where we are.
The bigger tragedy is the same honourable noise-makers were the choir masters of the orchestra that brought us here.
You will often hear them condemn "24 years of Kanu misrule" forgetting they were Kanu ‘damu’. The nation would do well to beware of such leaders and keep pushing for institutional reforms. Help is welcome from anywhere, and especially from Annan.
This Kalonzo chap is an IDIOT, just likes making irrelevant noise in a bid to stay relevant on the Kenyan political scene. And there is one Vikii who praises this person as if he's the next best thing since Jesus! Boy oh boy! Vikii who oils your pockets?
ReplyDeleteWhat I fancy least is engaging in a shouting match with fools. Tafuteni mwingine.
ReplyDeleteVikki you call others fools, yet don't see the log in your own eye. Don't prop yourself to be better than us bwana, wewe bure tu.
ReplyDeleteI said idle fools looking for someone to bandy words with should look elsewhere. Don't you muttonheads ever get it?
ReplyDeleteMy friend, mutton head is you and the Kalonzo fellow you keep proping up. Tutaona where you'll end up.
ReplyDeleteWhere did you say "idle fools"?
I think you have some growing up to do.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete