How Jubilee leaders are playing into Raila's hands by Makau Mutua

All isn’t well in the house that the son of Jomo built. The Jubilee regime – now in its fourth month – is in full panic. The “digital” regime is turning out to be truly “analogue”. Gone is the euphoria of the early days. No more jacket-less and rolled-up sleeves at State House conferences. The “new-look” Cabinet of “technocrats” is invisible.
The regime has lunged from crisis to crisis. This seems to be our “winter of discontent”. Which begs the question – why hasn’t Jubilee hit the ground running? Methinks I know why. Jubilee has too many “bogeymen” and “soft underbellies”. There’s a crisis of confidence within the inner sanctum. It won’t get any easier with The Hague trials looming.
Let me tell you why Jubilee is choking. First, you can’t effectively govern if you see “dire threats” and bogeymen everywhere. Most of these threats are either imagined, or “unforced errors”. Let’s focus on Jubilee’s most important bogeyman – former PM Raila Odinga.
Mr Odinga has become a nightmare for Jubilee. But – and you can take this to the bank – this is none of Mr Odinga’s doing. It’s Jubilee that’s turned Mr Odinga into a “bugaboo”.
Rather than focus on its programmes, Jubilee has chosen to lavish Mr Odinga with unwanted attention. Instead of burying Mr Odinga – after “beating” him in the March 4 elections – Jubilee has inexplicably decided to resuscitate him. It’s the most bone-headed thing I’ve ever seen.
Mr Odinga was either going to retire, or focus on re-building Cord in readiness for 2017. He appears to have chosen the latter. It would have been in Jubilee’s self-interest to let Mr Odinga expend his legendary energies on Cord.
But no – Mr Kenyatta’s party has chosen to detract Mr Odinga from Cord. It’s done so very crudely – by poking Mr Odinga in the eye every chance it gets. You can’t humiliate a lion of Mr Odinga’s international stature and get away with it.
Who can forget the mean-spirited slights – denying Mr Odinga access to VIP lounges, demanding that he “retires” from politics to enjoy benefits of a former PM, withdrawing bodyguards and ordering that he returns “official” vehicles?
I wonder who is advising Mr Kenyatta. A new government has no time to waste chasing after its “vanquished” opponents. But the government has spent the last two weeks imagining that Mr Odinga’s former campaign manager, Mr Eliud Owalo, is planning a Kenyan “Arab Spring”.
I laughed so hard I almost cracked a rib. Why make such wild and baseless claims? It’s what we call the theatre of the absurd.
It was a flashback to Kanu regimes of yore – like former AG Charles Njonjo warning that it was “treason” to “imagine” the death of the President. Or the Moi regime accusing me and fellow University of Nairobi leaders of being paid by the Soviets in 1981 to overthrow the government.
The Kenyatta regime keeps on making the same mistake time and again. At the Kisii funeral of school children who perished in a tragic accident, Jubilee leaders were shouted down and forced to abandon their speeches. The surging crowd demanded that Mr Odinga addresses them.
The former PM didn’t disappoint – he delivered a stinging critique of Mr Kenyatta’s fledgling government. The crowd ate up every word. It was a good thing Mr Kenyatta skipped the event. That’s the role of the opposition in a democracy.
But that’s not the way Jubilee mandarins saw it. They accused Mr Odinga of orchestrating their humiliation. Once again, they played into Mr Odinga’s hands. They are fuelling him free of charge.
Jubilee has made other tragic blunders. Take the debacle over the Makueni Senate seat left vacant by Senator Mutula Kilonzo’s death. Jubilee spent inordinate energy to block lawyer Kethi Kilonzo from succeeding her dad. This was unseemly, petty, and heartless. As if that wasn’t enough, Jubilee sought to block Ms Kilonzo’s brother – lawyer Mutula Kilonzo Jr – from running. How these mean-spirited tactics endear Jubilee to the people of Makueni beats me.
But Jubilee was bent on alienating Makueni voters with self-inflicted wounds. This isn’t how you win friends and influence enemies.
This is no way for Jubilee to expand from its traditional strongholds among the Kikuyu and Kalenjin. Has Jubilee ever heard of soft power?
No single Jubilee programme has gotten off the ground. Its most touted programme – the primary school laptops – is teetering on the brink of collapse. It’s ill-thought, and seems to be a boondoggle for vulture capitalists. Why would kids be given laptops when they have no desks, or computer-literate teachers? This is a populist project that can only end in tears.
Other crises have sucked oxygen out of the regime. It was the legislators who set the ball rolling by raiding the public purse. Kenya has the second highest paid legislators after Nigeria. Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto failed to stop MPs from fleecing the public. Quite frankly, it was the teachers – not MPs – who deserved a pay raise.
It’s clear the Jubilee regime doesn’t have traction. The big elephant in the room is what’s going to happen once The Hague trials start in September. I expect that the International Criminal Court will reverse itself and require that Mr Ruto be present for every session of the trial.
He will be out of the country for large amounts of time. So will Mr Kenyatta when his trial begins in November. My point is that the government won’t have adequate time to get its programmes on track once the ICC trials start. There’s reason for Jubilee to panic.
Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC. Twitter @makaumutua.

How Jubilee leaders are playing into Raila's hands by Makau Mutua

There's too much talk of unity but very little action to match the talk by Maina Kiai

President Daniel arap Moi’s ascension to power in 1978 was a breath of fresh air for many Kenyans. He was everything his predecessor Jomo Kenyatta was not: Young, outgoing, and accessible. He visited the remotest and most marginalised — both politically and geographically — areas of Kenya, preaching unity.
He even coined the slogan “peace, love and unity.” But Moi’s actions belied his words. He quickly became the master of divide and rule, interpreting unity to be about him, rather than the country, embarking on a crusade of detentions without trial, sham trials for supposed dissidents, and harassment and killings of anyone suspected of dissent.
His regime was behind the massacre in Wagalla in 1984, and behind the violence in the Rift Valley from 1991, seeking to instil fear, divisions and intimidation so as to maintain power.
Today, Uhuru Kenyatta seems to be taking a leaf out of the Moi playbook, emphasising, that his biggest task will be to unite Kenyans, and that he would have done this even if he had not been declared President by a compliant IEBC and Supreme Court. He has cited his visits to areas that are opposed to him as symbolic of his desire to build unity.
But, like Moi, we need to look at his actions rather than his words and the in-out trips he makes to “opposition” areas. And these actions, sadly, belie his words.
Take the Makueni Senate poll for starters. While this was an opposition seat, TNA has every right to contest it. But the amount of effort, money, and influence expended on keeping out Cord from the seat is startling. Kenyatta’s TNA has rolled out all the tricks, but in the process they have alienated the Akamba, as we see from the heckling that TNA is getting.
To be sure, this growing animosity is not just against TNA or Kenyatta, but also against the Gikuyu community who are seen as “wanting it all.” And notice, incidentally, how silent William Ruto has been in this?
I don’t know which strategists are behind all these manoeuvres, but they seem to have lost sight of the forest for the trees, consumed by their recent successes in getting what they want. But I know that this sort of arrogance — reminiscent of the Jomo Kenyatta days — only creates more divisions and not unity in a country that is already deeply divided.
Then take the Eliud Owallo saga. He writes a column questioning the impartiality of the IEBC, predicting that it will send us into chaos — and thereby echoing the sentiments of more than 60 percent of Kenyans, going by the most recent polls. He is hurled in for police questioning.
That is simply harassment and intimidation. And it adds on to the growing divisions, especially when it turns out that he is being linked, and no one knows how, to a new, above-board initiative by someone else. It all seems an effort to dominate and intimidate Raila Odinga and his supporters, but it has the impact of contradicting Kenyatta’s unity calls.
Third is the issue of devolution. There is nothing as crucial to Kenya’s sustenance as one nation as devolution. Its implementation has clearly reduced the tensions expected after flawed presidential elections.
But the Kenyatta regime remains hostile to it, despite its rhetoric, putting into place all sorts of hurdles and conditions to getting devolution operational. The appointment of County Commissioners — who wield delegated presidential powers — is the most obvious sign of the regime’s disaffection with devolution.
It is not enough to argue that the Constitution mandates devolution. The Kenyatta regime must go beyond this and facilitate the transfer of power, capacity and responsibility to the Counties, without trying to supervise or undermine them.
Ultimately Kenya’s unity will be determined by how well the devolved system works and unless Uhuru Kenyatta is seen as working fully for its success, even the self-induced failures by many governors will be attributed to him.
mkiai2000@yahoo.com

There's too much talk of unity but very little action to match the talk by Maina Kiai

In the hot seat:CORD Leader Raila Odinga

Why ICC cases cannot be tried in Kenya by Makau Mutua

Perish the thought – unless you are smoking something. The Hague cases against President Uhuru Kenyatta and DP William Ruto won’t be tried in Kenya, or Tanzania. Nada – never.
I know it’s Law 101 that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.
The accused normally face justice in the jurisdiction of the crime. Victims confront their tormentors “at home” – at the scene of the crime. But that’s for regular murders and assorted felonies. It’s not for the most egregious heinous crimes – like crimes against humanity.
Justice would be extinguished if Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are tried in East Africa. I will tell you what – you don’t pull a lion’s tail in its own lair.
Voted overwhelmingly
No one should have been shocked that judges at the International Criminal Court voted overwhelmingly to reject staging The Hague trials in Kenya or Tanzania. Frankly, I thought the Trial Chamber was out of its mind to even contemplate – let alone recommend – that the trials be conducted in Kenya.
Whew – the Trial Chamber may be in desperate need of a little education on how “justice” works in our neck of the woods. Trying the duo in Kenya is like asking an emaciated, chang’aa-ravaged addict from Murang’a – or Kitui – to duke it out with boxer Mike “Iron” Tyson at his prime.
The fight would be over before the referee blew the opening whistle. Don’t believe the biblical fable – tall-tale – about David over Goliath.
Let me break it down for you. The purpose of a criminal trial isn’t to amuse the public. ICC cases are only initiated when the court believes the crime was “probably” committed. That’s not all – the court must believe that the prosecution has a fair shot at making the charges stick.
There must be “reasonable grounds” to justify the issuance of summons or an arrest warrant.
The prosecution must further show “sufficient evidence” to warrant the confirmation of charges. These hurdles are key to ensuring a fair trial. Neither the prosecution, nor the defence, should be put in a position where it is impossible to prepare for trial.
I have three reasons trying the cases in Kenya would have sank them. First, it’s not a secret that The Hague trials sent former President Mwai Kibaki into a tizzy. He spent the twilight of his regime trying to save the ICC targets – the “Ocampo Six” suspects and then the “Ocampo Four” indictees – from damnation.
Mr Kibaki sent former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka on an ill-fated African Union “shuttle diplomacy” to sabotage the ICC.
The Kenya Government’s admissibility challenges fell flat before the court. Mr Kibaki breathed a sigh of relief when ICC Prosecutor let go of Mr Francis Muthaura, but was still miffed Mr Uhuru Kenyatta was in the vice of the ICC.
There’s no doubt the Kibaki state was determined to save Mr Kenyatta from The Hague at all costs. AG Githu Muigai seemed to have been put on the ball to frustrate the ICC. ICC Prosecutor, the indomitable Fatou Bensouda, has repeatedly accused the “sweet-tongued” Muigai of devious sabotage.
She’s called him the legal face of Kenya’s lack of cooperation with the court. He has – by his own public admission – refused to turn over certain documents deemed crucial by the prosecution. Nor is there any reasonable doubt that Mr Muigai is at the centre of legal strategies by the state at the AU and the UN Security Council to upend the trials. He’s the chief government legal adviser.
That’s why the ICC judges were right not to send the trials back to Kenya, which they must consider a “hostile state”. It stands to reason that a government that has expended so much diplomatic capital – and treasure – to obstruct justice can’t be trusted to host the trial.
Unpopularity with Kenyans
I am sure the judges felt they would be under surveillance, if not direct intimidation.
I believe Jubilee bloviators and goons would’ve been unleashed to lay siege on the proceedings to prove their “unpopularity” with Kenyans.
Neither could the judges trust Tanzania as host. It’s clear President Jakaya Kikwete has been more concerned with pleasing Mr Kenyatta than seeking justice for victims. The judges can see a trap when they smell one.
Second, you’d be a fool to believe that witnesses and other Kenyans on the prosecution’s side would confront Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto on their home turf. The Chinese have a saying – “the peacock that raises its head gets shot”. The duo has rabid supporters and the machinery of the state under total command.
Only if you had a death wish – or were extremely foolish – would you take the stand against them in Nairobi. The ICC has alleged disappearances, bribery, intimidation, recantation, and even killings, of witnesses.
This is bone-chilling stuff. I believe the prosecution has given this information to the judges. There’s no way – nyet – the judges could move the trials back to Kenya with this dossier.
Finally, the ICC doesn’t want to be seen as a wuss – a cowardly gutless wimp.
It has already embarrassingly conceded too much to Mr Ruto when it ruled that he didn’t – contrary to its own statute – have to be physically present for all the sessions of the trial. This was a total travesty.
All defendants – whatever their station – must be treated equally. No special favours.
One more ruling like that and the ICC will become a laughing stock. The ICC will rise or fall on the Kenyan cases. That’s why it has to stand its ground.
Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC. Twitter @makaumutua.

Why ICC cases cannot be tried in Kenya by Makau Mutua

Police warn residents against city firm buses

What is happening to our country, this level of insecurity is unacceptable.

Police have warned commuters against travelling in certain buses in Nairobi, saying they risked being robbed.

Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo said a number of buses belonging to Citi Hoppa had been carjacked and the drivers and conductors were suspected of colluding with the gangsters.

He said a bus belonging to the firm was carjacked in Nairobi every day and the management had refused to cooperate with police.

The IG posted a warning on his official Facebook page. “Citi Hoppa will be withdrawn from the roads because they carry at least two criminals in the morning and evening, thus commuters are hijacked and robbed,” he said.

Earlier, Nairobi police chief Benson Kibui had asked the firm’s managers to come to Buruburu police station following a carjacking on Thursday.

The full bus left the city at 8pm but stopped on Jogoo Road and picked up seven men who turned out to be robbers. “Three passengers were injured by the carjackers who drove the bus to Githogoro slums. They dumped them there after robbing them,” said Mr Kibui.

Citi Hoppa operations manager Githaiga Weru denied the claims. “We attended the meeting at Buruburu police station where 17 matatu saccos and bus companies were represented and were all complaining about their vehicles being carjacked. Why should police pick on us?” he asked.

On claims that the firm had defied orders to frisk passengers on boarding, Mr Weru said: “All our bus stops are manned by uniformed crew carrying metal detectors.”

Police warn residents against city firm buses

  

What next for Raila

Ruto case won't be in Kenya or Tanzania

African court rules out trying Ruto by Lucas Barasa

The awful truth African American wallet exchange

A close look reveals a deeply divided Kenya by Lukoye Atwoli

On the surface, Kenya has moved on from the bungled 2007 election and the resultant violence, and is now a largely peaceful country on the brink of unprecedented socio-economic growth.
The government exudes optimism that the challenges facing our country are few and easily surmountable.
Most of the bickering is attributed to a robust opposition which, though vexatious, is being tolerated by the progressive Jubilee Government. A beautiful image, the very fulfilment of the dream of democrats everywhere. On the surface.
A deeper look, though, reveals a deeply divided nation. To illustrate this, let us examine a couple of the newest crises that have faced this government and how we have handled them.
Teachers went on strike three weeks ago, demanding implementation of a deal signed over a decade ago giving them higher allowances.
The government initially claimed that the deal had been overtaken by events, then said it had been countered by another Gazette notice, and finally asked the teachers to go and negotiate a fresh deal.
The actions of the government are not surprising. What was interesting, however, was the reaction of Kenyans.
A majority of those that made comments exhorting teachers to go back to work were assumed to be supporters of the Jubilee Government while those supporting the strike were deemed to be opposition supporters.
Indeed, it has been explicitly stated that the teachers’ union is under instruction from opposition politicians, with senior government officials arguing that there must be a reason the teachers’ union is refusing to negotiate with government.
The question on the lips of government supporters is this: If the teachers’ union negotiated with both the Moi and Kibaki governments over the issue of pay, why are they refusing to negotiate with the current government?
Instead of looking at the issues that teachers are raising, many are looking at Raila Odinga’s Cord coalition as the culprit.
The other issue that has been in the public domain is the nomination of aspirants for the Makueni senatorial seat.
During the hearings of the tribunal to determine whether one of the candidates was properly nominated or not, most of the publicly expressed sentiments had no legal content. Comments made by individuals only served to expose their political leaning, without offering any clarity as to whether the process was proceeding as it should or not.
Of course the electoral commission continues to provide fodder for both political formations by demonstrating its incompetence in carrying out relatively simple tasks. For instance, many of the ongoing election petitions are confirming the commission’s inability to do simple arithmetic, causing problems for many incumbents through no fault of their own.
However, it has become impossible for many of us to interrogate these issues without an ethnopolitical prism.
It is difficult to see such a society as the paragon of civility and stability, and I am afraid we are bottling up our frustrations, which could explode unpredictably at the time we need them least.
One would hope that the government is working on ways of dealing with these divisions to forestall the sort of nonsensical chaos we faced just five years ago.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at Moi University’s school of medicine Lukoye@gmail.com; Twitter @LukoyeAtwoli

A close look reveals a deeply divided Kenya by Lukoye Atwoli

The Great Hustle by John Githongo

 Sad, that this is what appeals to the youth these days.


Just before the 1992 election, I remember meeting an old friend standing outside a supermarket in city centre. An academic high flier in school he'd attended one of the top government schools in Kenya and then gone on to obtain a top degree in the sciences from University of Nairobi.
'JUA KALI' FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS:
The sun was hot, and from his dusty shoes, it seemed as if he'd done quite a bit of walking. We exchanged warm pleasantries and quickly recapped on what had happened in our lives since we'd last met.
When I asked what he was waiting for standing in the sun he explained that he'd gone into 'real estate'. As part of this he'd brokered a deal to sell a plot of land to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).
The NSSF was the biggest repository of long-term capital in Kenya. It was widely accepted that selling anything to them meant you could charge the earth: many grew rich from this.
So my friend was standing there, and had been for hours, waiting for a 'guy' who was due to show up so they could seal the deal. He'd put his life on hold waiting for one dodgy transaction. It was "jua kali" for the middle class.
Prior to the 1992 well-connected businessmen and politicians made a killing selling land to the NSSF at hugely inflated prices. It was Kenya's most lucrative hustle at the time.
The president or commissioner of lands would allocate you a plot of land and you didn't even need to process a title deed. All you needed to do was take the documentation of allocation to the buyer and millionaires were made overnight.
The fall of the Berlin Wall had caused the Cold War's primary protagonists to abandon many of their client states and leaders, Kenya included.
All of a sudden, much to his chagrin, in 1991 President Moi found himself under pressure to liberalise politically. A number of brave leaders from the political, religious and legal fraternities, following the initial lead of probably one of the biggest brains in the church at the time, Reverend Timothy Njoya, started calling for the reintroduction of multiparty politics in Kenya.
Politicians like Ken Matiba and Charles Rubia stuck their necks out too and at great personal cost. Political pluralism was understood by some to be some sort of silver bullet that would end what had turned into 18 years of repression under Moi.
YK92: THE GREATEST HUSTLE MACHINE EVER:
Moi, ever the pragmatist, eventually announced that the constitution would be repealed to allow for other political parties. But this wasn't until he had put in place the machinery to ensure that he emerged victorious from the polls that were held in 1992.
A group of hard driving and ruthless young Kanu supporters formed a group called Youth for Kanu'92 - YK92 - to campaign for the president and his party.
The resources that were made available to them from the State were mind-boggling. Our current Deputy President, William Ruto, and politicians like Sam Nyamweya and Cyrus Jirongo were so flush with cash that, when combined with the infamous Goldenberg scandal that saw roughly 10 percent of GDP extracted from the economy to help finance Kanu's election bid, they had the effect of literally changing Kenya's political moral landscape. No one had ever really heard of these individuals before, but their cash and ruthless political tactics, accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of opposition supporters in various parts of the country considered 'Kanu zones', dislocated entire institutions like the judiciary and police. YK'92 became the ultimate hustlers.
The hardest working of them had come up from not only obscurity but also the humblest of beginnings to make good in a very short time.
This gave them a resilience that has seen them not only survive until today but also prosper fantastically while doing so, both in political and financial terms.
For the last two decades, their faces have filled our screens and taken up newspaper column inches as they have fought all manner of fraud and corruption charges.
Since Jubilee came into office we have witnessed behaviour not dissimilar in spirit to that which prevailed in the early 1990s during YK92's heyday. From scandals involving land, the refurbishment of official homes, the renting of jets etc; the figures involved are big, attitudes unapologetic.
Though the media reports these scandals, little overt outrage accompanies them. The most organised opposition thus far was Boniface Mwangi's captivating attempt to stop the newly elected MPs making the raising of their own salaries the first order of substantive business by the House.
Despite being baptised "MPigs" by this creative campaign that captured the imagination - and news headlines - the world over, the politicians still managed a major hustle that saw them receive, at the end of the day, more or less the bloated salaries they had been seeking in the first place.
SONKOISM & CONSOLIDATION OF RETAIL SIASA:
Though we are loath to admit it to ourselves too loudly, even shallow bouts of introspection force us to come to terms with the fact that Gideon Mbuvi aka Mike Sonko was elected senator in Nairobi with over 800,000 votes!
This senator's blatant exhibitionism and other antics had previously caused the educated middle class to recoil. They recoil in part because he has emerged a more compelling role model to the youth than the so-called Captains of Industry.
At one time, when he found himself arrested his supporters were televised outside the police station where he was being held shouting: "Mwizi wetu! Tunataka mwizi wetu!" (Our thief! Give us our thief!) To the poor of Nairobi, Sonko is a Robin Hood character accused of corruption by the traditional ruling elite who don't appreciate a young man who has made good on the street and shares his largesse generously with his constituents.
The 2013 election saw more of such individuals elected to public office than ever before. It introduced a retail politics of systematically dishing out the goodies on a scale unprecedented since 1992.
A cultural shift would seem to have taken place, especially among the generation below the age of 34 which, good students of its parents, measures success using wealth no matter how it is acquired.
No other group typified this sociopathic attitude towards corruption more than YK92 and the changes it wrought on our national culture with regard to what holding public office means. A generation later, youth are eager to embrace the kind of politics that will lead them down the path these role-models have pioneered.
And thus, anecdotal evidence, especially from the vitriol on social media, would suggest that Kenya's most committed tribalists, thieves, liars and anti-Kenyans, swirl in the toxic broth of self justifying, iPad carrying, enterprising, mortgage paying, night clubbing, articulate, English speaking, facebooking, twitter using, café latte sipping, flat screen owning, MNET viewing, English football league following well educated, internationalised, twittering class of Kenyans between 30 and 40.
The veneer of civility isn't even skin deep, a simple casually dropped comment or question will cause a response pregnant with bigotry and a sense of entitlement. Ask them what the British government's planned payout to the victims of imperial Britain's worst excesses means and their eyes glaze over which a profound and implicit 'so what?'
That this has happened has caused an existential crisis among Kenyans who've been involved in activism for constitutionalism, the rule of law, human rights etc.
One asked me last week (and I paraphrase): "John, I've been in this good governance industry for over 20 years. Humiliating myself every year begging foreigners for cash so we can do civic education, preach human rights and peace and worth of citizenship and in the end so what?! Ive nurtured a generation that cares only about money and tribe."
In Sonkoism then, a retail politics kicked in and reached its nadir in the just completed election: where money was shown to buy people and our votes and we don't decry this condition.
Indeed, we have seen it blessed by segments of the church, creating over the last five years the most noxious mixture of religion, money and politics in Kenyan history.
Indeed we revel in the gospel of money. The deadly lessons of the post-election violence apparently unlearnt and in a cynically brilliant strategy a narrative was cultivated that God was backing one side in the past election and the result was therefore divine. All this turns many of us into what we often like to decry - hustlers through and through.

The Great Hustle by John Githongo

http://allafrica.com/stories/201307080308.html

Scandal of missing fire engines in Nairobi

This is unsettling, and puts the lives of Nairobi residents at risk. I can't believe this is happening in 2013. Be careful folks, because if anything happens you are on your own. Yet MPigs are having their salaries raised, governors have outrageous budgets, but Nairobi county has no fire engines. Talk about priorities. Mwananchi don't matter.Where does our tax money go?

Nairobi residents and business premises are dangerously exposed to outbreaks of fire following revelations that none of the fire engines owned by the county government is working.
The Kenya National Fire Brigades Association (Kenfiba) secretary-general Mr Francis Liech, a fire fighter, said the machines broke down as a result of neglect.
“The city fire department has always received a raw deal from past regimes; regular maintenance has been a big issue. And, as we speak, not a single fire engine is up and running.”
The fire at Herufi House on Harambee Avenue on Thursday exposed the sorry state of affairs at the department. Private fire fighters and the National Youth Service were called to rescue occupants in the building that houses the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics offices.
No fire engine from City Hall was at the scene.
Trouble at the department dates back to 2009 when fire engines valued at over Sh80 million were auctioned off because the City Council could not pay Sh70,000 repair charges. The engines had been repaired at a garage in Industrial Area.
According to documents seen by the Sunday Nation, three fire engines, one from the fire headquarters, a Renault CBH 340, was auctioned after the council failed to settle a bill of Sh7,400.
The second engine, a Renault Midlum 210 water tanker based at the Ruaraka substation, was also sold for failure to settle Sh29,660 and replace the siren system.
Another Renault Midlum 210, based at the Enterprise Road substation, went the same way because of an outstanding Sh29,660 bill. A Land-Rover TDI 110 based at the headquarters was also offloaded for the paltry sum of Sh9,120.
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero admitted this sad state of affairs. “It is unfortunate that a number of equipment are broken down. But we have ordered new equipment, and the county government will soon be receiving donations from various well-wishers,” he said.
He outlined a number of measures he was instituting to improve fire emergency response services.
“Under the Nairobi Metropolitan services improvement project, we are reviving some Belgian tenders that ought to have brought four fire engines to City Hall. The tenders were floated during the days of mayors here but abandoned midway.”
In the interim, he said City Hall had partnered with private firms like G4S and KK to help put out any fires.
Together with the expected donation of three engines from a UK-based company, Mr Kidero said Nairobi will have 10 fire engines by the end of the year.
The governor also revealed that the fire department would now operate directly under his office so that he could be directly in charge of disaster response in the city.
“I want to coordinate operations myself. I’ll see to it that things are streamlined.”
Mr Joseph Maina, a firefighter, said they were so poorly prepared he could only pray that no fires broke out. And their morale was further dented by lack of wages.
“We are yet to be paid our June salary. And with all the dangers involved, we are only paid a risk allowance of Sh500,” he said.
The matter also came up for debate at the County Assembly where the lawmakers called for the decentralisation of the fire services. However, Mr Kidero cited land grabbing as a major impediment to the city’s plan to decentralise fire substations outside the city centre.
“Land parcels meant for fire substations in Waithaka, Jogoo Road near Aquinas High School, Dandora and Lunga Lunga, in Westlands, Gigiri, Baba Dogo, Buru Buru and Zimmerman have all been grabbed by private developers. This is a major drawback but I have written to the National Land Commission asking for its intervention,” he said.

Scandal of missing fire engines

Update Related article Fighting fire in Nairobi with one fire engine.

Drama in Kethi Kilonzo's tribunal hearing

What do Kenyans owe former Premier Raila by Makau Mutua

I don’t know about you, but I am disgusted by a matter of no small consequence. That’s the degrading abuse President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government is meting out to Cord leader Raila Odinga. It’s unbecoming. No — it’s actually primitive.
Equally alarming is the lack of public outcry. Would Kenyans be as meek if the “victims” were former presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki?
Methinks not. Which begs the question — what do Kenyans owe Mr Odinga? What does any country owe its freedom fighters? Why would Kenyans worship distant anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, but allow the Jubilee administration to spit on Mr Odinga, their local liberator?
Don’t argue — Mr Odinga is the closest thing in Kenya to the incomparable “Madiba”.
The snubs and petty assaults by state functionaries on Mr Odinga look innocuous, but they are huge. Let’s sample a few. He’s denied access to VIP lounges at JKIA. And then forced to line up and wait for his baggage at the “hoi polloi” conveyor belt upon arrival from trips abroad. His security detail and guards are withdrawn.
He’s denied pension benefits and VIP perks unless he “retires” from politics. Let’s call a spade what it is — because it’s not a spoon. The State is trying to rub the man’s nose in the dirt. It’s “gratuitous violence,” and a naked assault on the man’s dignity. The question is why? What’s to be gained? Who’s giving these demeaning commands?
I don’t really care for many in the Jubilee crowd who demonise anything Mr Odinga does. Those bloviators and hissing mobs aren’t my concern. I’d like to know what Mr Kenyatta’s role — and DP William Ruto — has been in this sad saga. Is it State policy to humiliate Mr Odinga by “murdering” his spirit? If not, why hasn’t Mr Kenyatta publicly addressed it, and openly reprimanded — if not fired — the complicit factotums?
His silence can only mean one thing — acquiescence, or direct involvement. It seems clear Jubilee ideologues are nervous about Mr Odinga, and have advised he be cut off at the knees. There’s paranoia Mr Odinga is “regrouping” to launch a counter-attack on the fledgling Jubilee administration.
I am convinced that when history is written, it will show that Mr Odinga was the most reformist politician in Kenya’s first 50 years. This is simply an objective fact. Do I think Mr Odinga has been, or is, perfect? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
He’s made many mistakes, some of them serious. But on balance, no other Kenyan politician — alive or dead — can hold the reformist candle to him.
He’s suffered gravely in the vineyards of struggle. He was brutally detained for almost a decade for fighting for democratic change. But he bounced back every time to fight again. Even when he was wronged — as was apparent in the 2007 polls — he put the nation first.
Kenyans know the sacrifices Mr Odinga has made. It’s unarguable Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are direct beneficiaries of the democratic space Mr Odinga helped create, and which they’ve exploited to attain power.
In John 4:38, the holy book says “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour”. That aptly describes Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto — the duo sits atop a state shaped largely by the yeoman work of Mr Odinga.
Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have never broken any sweat struggling for reform. That’s why it’s maddening their regime is bent on burying the man who laid the golden egg.
I know most Kenyans see politics from the prism of the tribe. That’s why they can’t see straight. But if they could don national lenses, they’d see that Mr Odinga has no peer in politics. He towers over a field of dwarfs. It’s true he wasn’t always the statesman he is today. I was critical of him when he seemed to be more “Luo” than “Kenyan”.
But that’s a problem he’s long transcended. I was critical when I thought he made certain deals that were either unprincipled, or driven by short-term political gains. And I was critical when he seemed to bargain away certain reformist agendas. But he’s overcome these hurdles. He’s a rare true nationalist among senior leaders.
Let’s put “Railamania” and “Railaphobia” aside and candidly assess the man they call Jakom, or Agwambo. He has the progressive left politics of his famous dad, the late doyen of opposition politics, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He has the fire of the “people’s millionaire,” the martyred late Nyandarua North MP JM Kariuki. He has the vision of KPU ideologue — and martyr — the late Pio Gama Pinto.
He rekindles the nationalist embers lit by Mau Mau supremo Dedan Kimathi and Nandi chief Koitalel arap Samoei. He has the moral courage of MeKatilili wa Menza, the Giriama anti-colonialist heroine. OK — I won’t fault him for not possessing the clairvoyance of Syokimau, the Kamba priestess who foresaw colonialism. That’s what I call iconic.
So, what do Kenyans owe Mr Odinga? I would suggest that first all regime slights and juvenile taunts of Mr Odinga be stopped pronto. That’s Mr Kenyatta’s duty — the buck stops at his desk. He and Mr Ruto should stop running scared of Mr Odinga. I know Kenyan history well enough to know that successive governments haven’t celebrated reformers.
They’ve been more apt to kill, detain, torture, and persecute democracy champions. This must change — starting now. Kenyans — and the government — owe Mr Odinga respect and reverence, not small-minded, mean, inexplicable assaults.
Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC. Twitter @makaumutua.

What do Kenyans owe former Premier Raila

JSO interview Raila Amolo Odinga

Part two

Jubilee government is rubbish says Martin Ngatia

Uhuru Kenyatta never won Kenya elections-Martin Ngatia

JSO Boniface Mwangi interview

Part two



Maximum respect Boniface, wish we had more people like you in Kenya.

Obama: 'Kenyan in the House' by John Githongo

When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2009, the celebrations in Kenya were so enthusiastic that one could have been forgiven for thinking he'd just taken over from President Kibaki.
The outpouring of joy and pride among Kenyans was a massive boost to the national ego coming after the debacle of the previous year's post-election violence. "There is a Kenyan in the [White] House!", many of us crowed. Being a committed tribal nation too this call was also accompanied by "There's a Luo in the House!"
We were blissfully unaware that American politics has become toxically partisan and there are nutters about in the US trying to question President Obama's credentials arguing he is not an American! His Kenyan roots are being used as part of a wider concerted campaign to discredit him.
The joyful delirium after his election lasted around 48 hours and grim reality set back in. In fact when people thought it through properly, they realised that had Obama been a Kenyan politician, he probably would never have been elected: he comes from the wrong tribe; attacks corruption a little too energetically; supports a woman's right to choose and gay marriage; and, has never been accused of or prosecuted for grand corruption or fraud.
OPS! THE 'JUNIOR' SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS GETS ELECTED PRESIDENT!
When he had visited Kenya in 2006 and made remarks criticising tribalism and corruption, some government officials dismissed him 'as a mere junior Senator from Illinois'.
It earned him the enduring antipathy of some of Kibaki's diehard supporters. Among the older generation the consternation was compounded by the fact that they had never imagined a black man in the White House. Actually, to this day, some still haven't come to terms with it, especially those wazee who were educated in the US in the 1950s and 1960s.
They simply did not have the political frequencies in their heads to grasp the sheer magic and scale of the historical moment that Obama's election implied. That said, there are also many Americans with the same political 'bandwidth problems'.
It remains a testament to the robustness of America's democratic model - with its multitude of imperfections - that an African American could be elected to the White House three decades after Martin Luther King was gunned down in Memphis Tennessee. It's a place where dreams do indeed come true and on a massive scale. The shock of his election among those who had abused him when he visited in 2006 was such that the government did an urgent about face and declared a public holiday to catch up with the real mood on the ground and celebrate together with the rest of the population.
OBAMA, KENYA AND THE ICC:
This is President Obama's second visit to Africa. Last time, in 2009, he passed through Ghana for one-and-a-half days. There was disappointment if not too much surprise that he chose not to drop in on his 'home country' of Kenya. This time he is going to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
Once again he is not coming to Kenya. Most knew why - state visits to countries where the head of state and his deputy are defendants at the ICC for crimes against humanity is bad politics and poor diplomacy. The White Houses' Ben Rhodes told journalists: "We also as a country have a commitment to accountability and justice as a baseline principle.
And given the fact that Kenya is in the aftermath of their election and the new government has come into place and is going to be reviewing these issues with the ICC and the international community, it just wasn't the best time for the president to travel to Kenya at this point." That the White House chose to press this point was taken as significant by some observers given that silence would have been understood in the same way.
The anecdotal evidence is that among ordinary wananchi disappointment that Obama wont be visiting his 'home country' is real. It reminds us all too painfully that 'normal' ended with the last election and we are in uncharted political waters. Such is the slap in the face that one prominent businessman hallucinated himself into having received an invitation to meet President Obama so he could 'reject' it in a contrived episode of patriotic pique. In real terms too, though the government will put a brave face on it, it's a reverberating blow to the Kenya government.
Kenya is the most important country on this side of the African continent in economic and military cooperation terms. It is also one of the oldest and most consistent allies the US has ever had in Sub Saharan Africa. The war against terror has only served to attenuate the critical importance of this relationship. Much to the chagrin of the human rights fraternity and important elements of the Muslim community, for example, Kenya's security forces seem to generally pick up anyone the US tells them to.
The leading Kenyan Muslim human rights advocate, Al-Amin Kimathi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, for example was arrested and held for months in Uganda a couple of years ago when he travelled there to inquire after the conditions of a group of Kenyans allegedly illegally renditioned there. When his lawyer Mbugua Mureithi showed up to assist Kimathi, the Ugandans arrested him too! This blatant subordination of the constitutional rights of Kenyans continues to be deeply unpopular and rightly so.
A former US government official I chatted to last week also explained that an influential domestic constituency in America - both in the corridors of power, civil society and media - would not have reacted kindly to President Obama meeting with Messrs. Kenyatta and Ruto. The 'consequences' former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, warned about have clearly started to kick in.
KENYA AND THE WEST: LOSE-LOSE
The ICC and the fact that Kenya's head of state and his deputy are defendants before it, has caused an unprecedented diplomatic quagmire, and in terms of relations with the West - a lose-lose situation for both sides.
The Jubilee coalition was created by the situation the ICC cases presented - possibly a first-time conundrum for the ICC. It is unprecedented for the Kenya Government too: we have the clearest and most aggressively articulated foreign policy in our country's independent history. Our diplomats are working overtime to very clear objectives.
Their most important success thus far has been to get the African Union, while celebrating its golden jubilee last month, to get Kenya and the ICC to the top of the agenda and belligerently so without the slightest hint of irony considering that it was Kenya's own leaders who chose the ICC route. They have then proceeded to stare down the West by constructing the narrative of the ICC as an anti-African political tool of the West.
Thus the push for 'Kenya to look East'. In and of itself this fits with aspirations African progressives have had since the 1960s and 70s when there was much talk about South-South cooperation led by Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad and Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. A criminal case is fast tracking the cooperation! Kenya has an ancient relationship with the 'East'. China's relationship with East Africa, for example, goes back to the 15th century. In the 17th century the Omanis showed up and their Sultan actually made Zanzibar his capital in 1837.
The West is in a lose-lose relationship with Kenya for now. They are helpless: at once trapped by their need to adhere to international norms of human rights and good governance that they articulated and have exported globally, and powerful interests that must be massaged continuously. At the same time playing off the East versus the West is slightly more complicated than things were during the Cold War because of the interdependence globalization has created. Still, as Kenya courts 'new' friends its becoming clear that this means the creation of new enemies as well.

Obama: 'Kenyan in the House' by John Githongo