Judiciary and civil service vomiting on our shoes by sustaining eating culture by Maina Kiai

One of the interesting titbits in the standoff between Gladys Shollei and a faction within the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has been the revelation that each member of the JSC receives Sh80,000 as sitting allowance for every session.

This means that each time JSC convenes with all 12 members present, the Kenyan taxpayer is hit for Sh960,000! If JSC sits at least twice a week—in sub-committee or full sessions to deal with finance, recruitment, court cases etc—that translates to Sh7,680,000 per month, or Sh92,160,000 per year!

Every member who attends two sessions per week takes home Sh640,000 per month, for simply putting buttocks on a chair! One need not speak at the meeting or stay till the end! This is more than what most judges and magistrates make, they who sit day in, day out, listening to cases.

Of these 12 members, seven are public officers getting a regular pay check and for whom serving at the JSC is a logical part of their work!

Make no mistake: There can never be any transformation, reform, efficiency or progress when the underlying systems are as kleptomaniac as this. No number of documents, philosophies or reports can take away the fact that this “eating” can only lead to maintaining status quo.

This fundamental attitude then gives rise to other issues perpetuating corruption: cronyism, nepotism, and patronage. For if you earn an easy Sh700,000 a month simply for sitting, and on top of your other income as a judge, magistrate, lawyer, registrar or retired politician, why not go the whole hog and treat the public purse as an ATM? It is a very thin line to cross.

Hence the utter lack of shame when the JSC approves purchase of a house for Sh350 million when houses in Muthaiga go for Sh150 million.

Or that Supreme Court judges are provided with lunch and breakfast everyday catered by Serena Hotel. Or that a senior judge trades with the Judiciary as a supplier.

Sadly, it is not only the JSC that treats our taxes as personal ATMs. Parliament and the civil service are probably better at this. Now parliamentarians are convening as many sessions as they can so that they can sit and “eat” our taxes.

Thus, for instance, interviews for public positions are treated as separate sessions for each interview so as to maximise on the eating. And it is this urge to sit that motivates parliamentary committees to convene for anything under the sun, at the slightest provocation.

As the joke around town goes, for MPs “checks and balances mean cheques that improve their bank balances.”

For civil servants, the impetus is creating as many cross-ministerial committees, task forces, panels as possible to maximise on allowances and per diems. It is about having as many forums outside the station to get per diems.

There is a former staffer at the Attorney General’s office who was nicknamed “Mr Per Diem” for his efforts to ensure he attended, for the shortest time possible, every meeting of every parastatal that required the presence of the Attorney General. He would go in and sign off, and then leave for yet another parastatal meeting, assured that his allowances were made.

Foreign travel is the icing on the cake for this eating and it no wonder that “study tours,” an area of contention within the JSC, are more common than anything else. For here, our senior public officers beat the richest nations on earth in terms of the amount of per diems they receive.

This gravy train of allowances, for sitting, standing, smiling, and just being, must stop. The system today is not about service but about selfishness.

While taxpayers have been a humble lot, this vomiting on our shoes will have consequences, unless Sarah Serem can stop it.

mkiai2000@yahoo.com

Judiciary and civil service vomiting on our shoes by sustaining eating culture by Maina Kiai

Looking East won't end Uhuru's troubles by Makau Mutua

In Things Fall Apart, celebrated author Chinua Achebe “pinched” a line from Irish poet William Butler Yates.

The poem — The Second Coming — contains vintage one-liners that defy time.

Several of them describe President Uhuru Kenyatta’s predicament, and the quandary of his regime. Nowhere is this more poignant than in his “escape” East to counter President Barack Obama’s snub, and his awkward dance with the West.

Mr Kenyatta was declared winner of the March 4 election, but “everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned”. The poem says that the “best lack conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”.

We should ask — “can the centre hold,” or is “mere anarchy loosed upon the world?” Will “things fall apart?”

I chose the poem because it best captures the political – and emotional – turbulence eating at Kenya today.

We’ve never been here before — not even in the darkest days under Kanu’s President Daniel arap Moi. Never before have we been so divided, and devoid of civility. The filthiest epithets easily roll from our native tongues.

MPs openly loot the national purse, and then scornfully ask us mta do? The floodgates open. Every worker and professional follows suit and threatens a strike to pig at the trough.

Terrorists and assorted criminals kill and maim Kenyans with impunity. The lethality and brazen nature of the attacks point to a state under siege. The republic seems completely flummoxed.

At the centre of power — in State House — the fledgling regime looks like deer caught in the headlights. It says it’s implementing a Constitution it doesn’t seem to believe in.

A DIVIDED COUNTRY

Mr Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto can’t decide what to do with devolution of key functions to the counties. They want to cannibalise county governments, but that’s easier thought than done. Nor do they seem to like the Senate.

The new Cabinet and senior bureaucrats are either fumbling for direction, invisible, or are clueless.

The police chief is at cross-purposes with his civilian overseer. It seems the “falcon cannot hear the falconer”. Is “mere anarchy loosed upon the world”? Who will arrest the downward spiral, and restore sanity?

This brings me to the two elephants in the room and why Mr Kenyatta is running East. Everyone, even the defiant Jubilee crowd, knows the March 4 election left the country deeply divided.
We can’t bury our heads in the sand, or manufacture false unity or consensus that doesn’t exist. Nor can we simply “accept and move on”. This is the attitude that has failed Kenya in the past, and contributed to festering historical wounds.

Let me confess: I will throw up the next time someone tells me to “accept and move on”.

Tribal jingoism is the bane of our existence. So are statements like “tyranny of numbers”. How do we avoid “turning and turning in the widening gyre?”

The second elephant — why Mr Kenyatta is really darting East — is The Hague trials for crimes against humanity.

Don’t let anybody lie to you — Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are spending sleepless nights. They’re using every state lever to make the International Criminal Court go away. But it can’t, and won’t. This is their top priority.

Attorney-General Githu Muigai has been put on the ball. The push to have the African Union stare down the ICC is proof positive. That exercise came a cropper. Nor will any “circumlocutions” at the UN Security Council amount to a hill of beans. It tells you that a regime whose two top leaders are personally beleaguered can’t keep its eyes on the ball.

The dagger to the heart of Mr Kenyatta’s regime was delivered by US President Barack Obama. He snubbed Kenya on his African tour. It’s common knowledge that Mr Obama would have liked to use the American state to lift Kenya. But the Kenyan state has shot itself on every conceivable foot.

First, it was former President Mwai Kibaki’s bungled election and the subsequent blood-letting. Then, it was this year’s disputed election of a duo charged with heinous international crimes. In tennis, these are called “unforced errors”.

Let me tell you something — Kenyans missed a golden opportunity to leverage “their son” in the White House. It’ll likely never come again. Does Mr Kenyatta’s refuge lie in turning East?

Every Third World leader who has been shunned by the West tries to “find love” out East. Mr Kenyatta isn’t different.

During the Cold War, many an African state played the concubine to either the West or East. Some — like Somalia — were devastated by that state of concubinage. That’s why Mr Kenyatta must be careful.

He went to Russia and China. The former is a bear, the latter a dragon. He may be the scion of the Burning Spear, but his hosts were beasts of prey. They know how to pounce on their kill. They know Mr Kenyatta is unloved by Kenya’s historical masters. He’s vulnerable. That’s why Mr Kenyatta’s $5 billion “agreement” with the Chinese could be one-sided.

Neither the Russian bear, nor the Chinese dragon, are in love or party to the ICC. That’s why Mr Kenyatta was at home with them. That explains his photo-ops with top Chinese leaders, although the Russians didn’t exactly oblige. The rule of law, human rights, democracy, and The Hague trials are simply minor details to them.

It’s good news, the memory of JKIA’s mysterious inferno has receded without too much international image damage.

But I have news for Mr Kenyatta. Running East won’t resolve the domestic crises of insecurity and economy, nor make the ICC disappear.

Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC. @makaumutua.

Looking East won't end Uhuru's troubles

Kenya's soft Insurgency by John Githongo

Some weeks ago a Cabinet Secretary tried to address belligerent mourners at a funeral in Kisii and was shouted down even when forced to revert to his native tongue in an attempt to calm them.
Government officials who tried to address members of the Maasai community who'd been evicted from their homes in Naivasha met a similarly hostile reception and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. This was followed not long after by a by-election in Makueni in what was Eastern Province, where a CORD candidate who had campaigned for merely four days and won over 90 percent of the vote pulverized the ruling Jubilee party's candidate.
All this transpired as the government and our Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) went back and forth in an increasingly acrimonious negotiation over salaries. Eventually, it took the intervention of the Deputy President and President themselves to work out a solution which nevertheless left a bitter taste in the mouth when teachers realized the government had deducted the days they had been on strike from their July salaries.
This was eventually sorted out and the salaries paid in full in August. Curiously, one of the 'conditions' of the deal was that the teachers support the Jubilee government's ambitious school computerization programme - not a sign of confidence.
I spent a week in Western Province recently. Mainly listening to groups of citizens of all ages as they analyzed their condition and the general Kenyan one as well. I was particularly keen on visiting friends in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia where episodes of criminality and violence against individuals and families had seemingly escalated dramatically since the election in March.
People I knew had lost their lives in the spate of insecurity that is ongoing to this day. Indeed, as I left a gang raided Kumukuywa Market in Bungoma North and killed one administration policeman and injured another. The officers were reportedly responding to calls for help by villagers who were under attack by the gang.
This violent incident was merely the latest of many since the election that have turned the lives of many Kenyans from Trans Nzoia, through Bungoma and into Busia Counties upside down. More than the violence itself and the succession of funerals it has caused, the apparent helplessness of the security forces in the face of it has been the most confusing and disconcerting. It has done much to undermine already low confidence in the security services and administration generally.
"LET THE AIRPORT BURN!"
Then a week and half ago the arrivals terminal of the region's main transport hub, our Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) burnt down. I was late in catching up with this shocking news. The fire happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 so unsurprisingly initial speculation was that they'd struck again.
Such ideas were quickly set aside, however, as it became clear the cause may have been very domestic and the response hugely embarrassing in its ineptitude. What struck me, however, was when I raised the issue with individuals who don't support (some don't even recognize) the Jubilee government as 'theirs'. The attitude was, "Let it burn! Let them learn!" The them here being very much the Jubilee administration and more specifically when pressed, them being Gikuyus first and Kalenjins second. This depth of polarization astounded me.
When the Ufundi Cooperative House collapsed as a result of the 1998 attack on the US Embassy I remember the way Kenyans rallied together in one of the most inspiring moments of national unity and pride in decades. Even President Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu and Kijana Wamalwa temporarily set aside their political differences and in a tremendously shrewd and unifying move - all visited the site of the collapse together.
The current atmosphere most certainly doesn't seem to allow for such episodes of nation-building displays of leadership. This should be of considerable concern to all of us all. This is especially the case, when one considers the fact that the divisive ICC process kicks off next month with the start of William Ruto's case.
I was struck this week by the number of questions put to me about what this case would mean if it emerges that some of the over 40 witnesses the Chief Prosecutor has lined up against him are Gikuyu or Luo etc... This disconcerted quizzing is caused primarily by the fact that, in my opinion, in an effort to 'keep the peace' and play down the ICC cases as interrupters of national events, supporters of the President and Deputy President and elements of the media have played up the fact that with every witness who falls by the wayside, the cases will collapse.
So much so that in some parts of the country there are those who believe such a collapse to be inevitable. It may very well be. I don't know. On the other hand it may very well not be the case. Then what? Similarly, with regard to the Makueni by-election, the comportment of area residents that I have spoken to changes immediately you gently enquire into why the community voted so overwhelmingly against the government; for it was more a vote against than for anybody or anything; it was a demonstration of feelings collectively and deeply held. One voter told me, "In Makueni we could have elected a dog as Senator to teach them a lesson!" In the same vein Kisii acquaintances I ask about the fate of government officials who found themselves on the receiving end of epithets at the funeral last month are more likely than not to respond saying the incident filled them with pride and satisfaction.
This attitude "We need to show them" emerges out of a narrative among many non-Gikuyus that 'the Gikuyu are the problem'. Prior to the elections there was much talk of the 'consequences' of electing individuals who are defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) especially from the international community.
These have not materialized in a manner that Kenyans feel or take seriously. Indeed, the more profound consequences have emerged out of the toxic narrative of 'the tyranny of numbers', which essentially holds that the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru plus one other large community and a pliant electoral body have elections sown up in perpetuity.
A soft insurgency has grown out of this that has gained a currency so compelling that in entire swathes of the country - especially in Eastern, Western, Coast and Nyanza - one can ask if there exists in coherent form any legitimate and functional central authority in Kenya. For indeed, it is the central authority of the regime that has suffered the most dramatic attrition as a result of the accompanying process of devolution. Among the security services, one senses an almost existential discombobulation on the part of forces - the provincial administration and police in particular - that are at sea in this new order. It almost makes one conclude that it shan't be long before the Counties - which are political units in which wananchi have most vested their ownership and legitimacy, make a robust claim to the provision of security at the County level too.
In some of these areas, Gikuyu traders have already started to complain of a 'cold war' on the business front, for example, with non-Gikuyu customers opting to take their business elsewhere.
Regimes whose legitimacy is questioned by certain communities and in certain parts of the country are not new to Kenya. During the Moi era, especially after the reintroduction of political pluralism, much of Central Province and other parts of the country inhabited by the Gikuyu community effectively 'checked out' and turned their backs to the regime. The provincial administration in these areas treaded carefully in the understanding that they were in politically hostile territory. A similar fate has befallen the Kenyatta presidency this time around. There are parts of the country where people can't utter the words: "Rais Uhuru Kenyatta". This 'belligerent' turning of backs to the administration is, however, received on the ground by the President's backers with a similarly belligerent - "mta do?!"
UHURU HAS THE ANSWER:
These two belligerent narratives are bound to clash. The ICC process may kick them off. What's clear is that they don't have a technical fix, only a political one. President Kenyatta has the instruments and wits to appreciate this and act on it. He really doesn't have an option, as the machinery doesn't exist to protect his tribesmen from opprobria directed against the most dispersed ethnic group in the country. It will be an exercise of managing the end of the post-colonial state that will be as messy as he and his advisors decide it should be.

Kenya's soft Insurgency by John Githongo

Some weeks ago a Cabinet Secretary tried to address belligerent mourners at a funeral in Kisii and was shouted down even when forced to revert to his native tongue in an attempt to calm them.
Government officials who tried to address members of the Maasai community who’d been evicted from their homes in Naivasha met a similarly hostile reception and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. This was followed not long after by a by-election in Makueni in what was Eastern Province, where a CORD candidate who had campaigned for merely four days and won over 90 percent of the vote pulverized the ruling Jubilee party’s candidate.
All this transpired as the government and our Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) went back and forth in an increasingly acrimonious negotiation over salaries. Eventually, it took the intervention of the Deputy President and President themselves to work out a solution which nevertheless left a bitter taste in the mouth when teachers realized the government had deducted the days they had been on strike from their July salaries.
This was eventually sorted out and the salaries paid in full in August. Curiously, one of the ‘conditions’ of the deal was that the teachers support the Jubilee government’s ambitious school computerization programme – not a sign of confidence.
I spent a week in Western Province recently. Mainly listening to groups of citizens of all ages as they analyzed their condition and the general Kenyan one as well. I was particularly keen on visiting friends in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia where episodes of criminality and violence against individuals and families had seemingly escalated dramatically since the election in March.
People I knew had lost their lives in the spate of insecurity that is ongoing to this day. Indeed, as I left a gang raided Kumukuywa Market in Bungoma North and killed one administration policeman and injured another. The officers were reportedly responding to calls for help by villagers who were under attack by the gang.
This violent incident was merely the latest of many since the election that have turned the lives of many Kenyans from Trans Nzoia, through Bungoma and into Busia Counties upside down. More than the violence itself and the succession of funerals it has caused, the apparent helplessness of the security forces in the face of it has been the most confusing and disconcerting. It has done much to undermine already low confidence in the security services and administration generally.
“LET THE AIRPORT BURN!”
Then a week and half ago the arrivals terminal of the region’s main transport hub, our Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) burnt down. I was late in catching up with this shocking news. The fire happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 so unsurprisingly initial speculation was that they’d struck again.
Such ideas were quickly set aside, however, as it became clear the cause may have been very domestic and the response hugely embarrassing in its ineptitude. What struck me, however, was when I raised the issue with individuals who don’t support (some don’t even recognize) the Jubilee government as ‘theirs’. The attitude was, “Let it burn! Let them learn!” The them here being very much the Jubilee administration and more specifically when pressed, them being Gikuyus first and Kalenjins second. This depth of polarization astounded me.
When the Ufundi Cooperative House collapsed as a result of the 1998 attack on the US Embassy I remember the way Kenyans rallied together in one of the most inspiring moments of national unity and pride in decades. Even President Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu and Kijana Wamalwa temporarily set aside their political differences and in a tremendously shrewd and unifying move – all visited the site of the collapse together.
The current atmosphere most certainly doesn’t seem to allow for such episodes of nation-building displays of leadership. This should be of considerable concern to all of us all. This is especially the case, when one considers the fact that the divisive ICC process kicks off next month with the start of William Ruto’s case.
I was struck this week by the number of questions put to me about what this case would mean if it emerges that some of the over 40 witnesses the Chief Prosecutor has lined up against him are Gikuyu or Luo etc… This disconcerted quizzing is caused primarily by the fact that, in my opinion, in an effort to ‘keep the peace’ and play down the ICC cases as interrupters of national events, supporters of the President and Deputy President and elements of the media have played up the fact that with every witness who falls by the wayside, the cases will collapse.
So much so that in some parts of the country there are those who believe such a collapse to be inevitable. It may very well be. I don’t know. On the other hand it may very well not be the case. Then what? Similarly, with regard to the Makueni by-election, the comportment of area residents that I have spoken to changes immediately you gently enquire into why the community voted so overwhelmingly against the government; for it was more a vote against than for anybody or anything; it was a demonstration of feelings collectively and deeply held. One voter told me, “In Makueni we could have elected a dog as Senator to teach them a lesson!” In the same vein Kisii acquaintances I ask about the fate of government officials who found themselves on the receiving end of epithets at the funeral last month are more likely than not to respond saying the incident filled them with pride and satisfaction.
This attitude “We need to show them” emerges out of a narrative among many non-Gikuyus that ‘the Gikuyu are the problem’. Prior to the elections there was much talk of the ‘consequences’ of electing individuals who are defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) especially from the international community.
These have not materialized in a manner that Kenyans feel or take seriously. Indeed, the more profound consequences have emerged out of the toxic narrative of ‘the tyranny of numbers’, which essentially holds that the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru plus one other large community and a pliant electoral body have elections sown up in perpetuity.
A soft insurgency has grown out of this that has gained a currency so compelling that in entire swathes of the country – especially in Eastern, Western, Coast and Nyanza – one can ask if there exists in coherent form any legitimate and functional central authority in Kenya. For indeed, it is the central authority of the regime that has suffered the most dramatic attrition as a result of the accompanying process of devolution. Among the security services, one senses an almost existential discombobulation on the part of forces – the provincial administration and police in particular - that are at sea in this new order. It almost makes one conclude that it shan’t be long before the Counties – which are political units in which wananchi have most vested their ownership and legitimacy, make a robust claim to the provision of security at the County level too.
In some of these areas, Gikuyu traders have already started to complain of a ‘cold war’ on the business front, for example, with non-Gikuyu customers opting to take their business elsewhere.
Regimes whose legitimacy is questioned by certain communities and in certain parts of the country are not new to Kenya. During the Moi era, especially after the reintroduction of political pluralism, much of Central Province and other parts of the country inhabited by the Gikuyu community effectively ‘checked out’ and turned their backs to the regime. The provincial administration in these areas treaded carefully in the understanding that they were in politically hostile territory. A similar fate has befallen the Kenyatta presidency this time around. There are parts of the country where people can’t utter the words: “Rais Uhuru Kenyatta”. This ‘belligerent’ turning of backs to the administration is, however, received on the ground by the President’s backers with a similarly belligerent – “mta do?!”
UHURU HAS THE ANSWER
These two belligerent narratives are bound to clash. The ICC process may kick them off. What’s clear is that they don’t have a technical fix, only a political one. President Kenyatta has the instruments and wits to appreciate this and act on it. He really doesn’t have an option, as the machinery doesn’t exist to protect his tribesmen from opprobria directed against the most dispersed ethnic group in the country. It will be an exercise of managing the end of the post-colonial state that will be as messy as he and his advisors decide it should be.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-132364/kenyas-soft-insurgency#sthash.kskNgJgJ.dpuf

Some weeks ago a Cabinet Secretary tried to address belligerent mourners at a funeral in Kisii and was shouted down even when forced to revert to his native tongue in an attempt to calm them.
Government officials who tried to address members of the Maasai community who’d been evicted from their homes in Naivasha met a similarly hostile reception and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. This was followed not long after by a by-election in Makueni in what was Eastern Province, where a CORD candidate who had campaigned for merely four days and won over 90 percent of the vote pulverized the ruling Jubilee party’s candidate.
All this transpired as the government and our Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) went back and forth in an increasingly acrimonious negotiation over salaries. Eventually, it took the intervention of the Deputy President and President themselves to work out a solution which nevertheless left a bitter taste in the mouth when teachers realized the government had deducted the days they had been on strike from their July salaries.
This was eventually sorted out and the salaries paid in full in August. Curiously, one of the ‘conditions’ of the deal was that the teachers support the Jubilee government’s ambitious school computerization programme – not a sign of confidence.
I spent a week in Western Province recently. Mainly listening to groups of citizens of all ages as they analyzed their condition and the general Kenyan one as well. I was particularly keen on visiting friends in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia where episodes of criminality and violence against individuals and families had seemingly escalated dramatically since the election in March.
People I knew had lost their lives in the spate of insecurity that is ongoing to this day. Indeed, as I left a gang raided Kumukuywa Market in Bungoma North and killed one administration policeman and injured another. The officers were reportedly responding to calls for help by villagers who were under attack by the gang.
This violent incident was merely the latest of many since the election that have turned the lives of many Kenyans from Trans Nzoia, through Bungoma and into Busia Counties upside down. More than the violence itself and the succession of funerals it has caused, the apparent helplessness of the security forces in the face of it has been the most confusing and disconcerting. It has done much to undermine already low confidence in the security services and administration generally.
“LET THE AIRPORT BURN!”
Then a week and half ago the arrivals terminal of the region’s main transport hub, our Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) burnt down. I was late in catching up with this shocking news. The fire happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 so unsurprisingly initial speculation was that they’d struck again.
Such ideas were quickly set aside, however, as it became clear the cause may have been very domestic and the response hugely embarrassing in its ineptitude. What struck me, however, was when I raised the issue with individuals who don’t support (some don’t even recognize) the Jubilee government as ‘theirs’. The attitude was, “Let it burn! Let them learn!” The them here being very much the Jubilee administration and more specifically when pressed, them being Gikuyus first and Kalenjins second. This depth of polarization astounded me.
When the Ufundi Cooperative House collapsed as a result of the 1998 attack on the US Embassy I remember the way Kenyans rallied together in one of the most inspiring moments of national unity and pride in decades. Even President Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu and Kijana Wamalwa temporarily set aside their political differences and in a tremendously shrewd and unifying move – all visited the site of the collapse together.
The current atmosphere most certainly doesn’t seem to allow for such episodes of nation-building displays of leadership. This should be of considerable concern to all of us all. This is especially the case, when one considers the fact that the divisive ICC process kicks off next month with the start of William Ruto’s case.
I was struck this week by the number of questions put to me about what this case would mean if it emerges that some of the over 40 witnesses the Chief Prosecutor has lined up against him are Gikuyu or Luo etc… This disconcerted quizzing is caused primarily by the fact that, in my opinion, in an effort to ‘keep the peace’ and play down the ICC cases as interrupters of national events, supporters of the President and Deputy President and elements of the media have played up the fact that with every witness who falls by the wayside, the cases will collapse.
So much so that in some parts of the country there are those who believe such a collapse to be inevitable. It may very well be. I don’t know. On the other hand it may very well not be the case. Then what? Similarly, with regard to the Makueni by-election, the comportment of area residents that I have spoken to changes immediately you gently enquire into why the community voted so overwhelmingly against the government; for it was more a vote against than for anybody or anything; it was a demonstration of feelings collectively and deeply held. One voter told me, “In Makueni we could have elected a dog as Senator to teach them a lesson!” In the same vein Kisii acquaintances I ask about the fate of government officials who found themselves on the receiving end of epithets at the funeral last month are more likely than not to respond saying the incident filled them with pride and satisfaction.
This attitude “We need to show them” emerges out of a narrative among many non-Gikuyus that ‘the Gikuyu are the problem’. Prior to the elections there was much talk of the ‘consequences’ of electing individuals who are defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) especially from the international community.
These have not materialized in a manner that Kenyans feel or take seriously. Indeed, the more profound consequences have emerged out of the toxic narrative of ‘the tyranny of numbers’, which essentially holds that the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru plus one other large community and a pliant electoral body have elections sown up in perpetuity.
A soft insurgency has grown out of this that has gained a currency so compelling that in entire swathes of the country – especially in Eastern, Western, Coast and Nyanza – one can ask if there exists in coherent form any legitimate and functional central authority in Kenya. For indeed, it is the central authority of the regime that has suffered the most dramatic attrition as a result of the accompanying process of devolution. Among the security services, one senses an almost existential discombobulation on the part of forces – the provincial administration and police in particular - that are at sea in this new order. It almost makes one conclude that it shan’t be long before the Counties – which are political units in which wananchi have most vested their ownership and legitimacy, make a robust claim to the provision of security at the County level too.
In some of these areas, Gikuyu traders have already started to complain of a ‘cold war’ on the business front, for example, with non-Gikuyu customers opting to take their business elsewhere.
Regimes whose legitimacy is questioned by certain communities and in certain parts of the country are not new to Kenya. During the Moi era, especially after the reintroduction of political pluralism, much of Central Province and other parts of the country inhabited by the Gikuyu community effectively ‘checked out’ and turned their backs to the regime. The provincial administration in these areas treaded carefully in the understanding that they were in politically hostile territory. A similar fate has befallen the Kenyatta presidency this time around. There are parts of the country where people can’t utter the words: “Rais Uhuru Kenyatta”. This ‘belligerent’ turning of backs to the administration is, however, received on the ground by the President’s backers with a similarly belligerent – “mta do?!”
UHURU HAS THE ANSWER
These two belligerent narratives are bound to clash. The ICC process may kick them off. What’s clear is that they don’t have a technical fix, only a political one. President Kenyatta has the instruments and wits to appreciate this and act on it. He really doesn’t have an option, as the machinery doesn’t exist to protect his tribesmen from opprobria directed against the most dispersed ethnic group in the country. It will be an exercise of managing the end of the post-colonial state that will be as messy as he and his advisors decide it should be.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-132364/kenyas-soft-insurgency#sthash.kskNgJgJ.dpuf

Some weeks ago a Cabinet Secretary tried to address belligerent mourners at a funeral in Kisii and was shouted down even when forced to revert to his native tongue in an attempt to calm them.
Government officials who tried to address members of the Maasai community who’d been evicted from their homes in Naivasha met a similarly hostile reception and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. This was followed not long after by a by-election in Makueni in what was Eastern Province, where a CORD candidate who had campaigned for merely four days and won over 90 percent of the vote pulverized the ruling Jubilee party’s candidate.
All this transpired as the government and our Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) went back and forth in an increasingly acrimonious negotiation over salaries. Eventually, it took the intervention of the Deputy President and President themselves to work out a solution which nevertheless left a bitter taste in the mouth when teachers realized the government had deducted the days they had been on strike from their July salaries.
This was eventually sorted out and the salaries paid in full in August. Curiously, one of the ‘conditions’ of the deal was that the teachers support the Jubilee government’s ambitious school computerization programme – not a sign of confidence.
I spent a week in Western Province recently. Mainly listening to groups of citizens of all ages as they analyzed their condition and the general Kenyan one as well. I was particularly keen on visiting friends in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia where episodes of criminality and violence against individuals and families had seemingly escalated dramatically since the election in March.
People I knew had lost their lives in the spate of insecurity that is ongoing to this day. Indeed, as I left a gang raided Kumukuywa Market in Bungoma North and killed one administration policeman and injured another. The officers were reportedly responding to calls for help by villagers who were under attack by the gang.
This violent incident was merely the latest of many since the election that have turned the lives of many Kenyans from Trans Nzoia, through Bungoma and into Busia Counties upside down. More than the violence itself and the succession of funerals it has caused, the apparent helplessness of the security forces in the face of it has been the most confusing and disconcerting. It has done much to undermine already low confidence in the security services and administration generally.
“LET THE AIRPORT BURN!”
Then a week and half ago the arrivals terminal of the region’s main transport hub, our Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) burnt down. I was late in catching up with this shocking news. The fire happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 so unsurprisingly initial speculation was that they’d struck again.
Such ideas were quickly set aside, however, as it became clear the cause may have been very domestic and the response hugely embarrassing in its ineptitude. What struck me, however, was when I raised the issue with individuals who don’t support (some don’t even recognize) the Jubilee government as ‘theirs’. The attitude was, “Let it burn! Let them learn!” The them here being very much the Jubilee administration and more specifically when pressed, them being Gikuyus first and Kalenjins second. This depth of polarization astounded me.
When the Ufundi Cooperative House collapsed as a result of the 1998 attack on the US Embassy I remember the way Kenyans rallied together in one of the most inspiring moments of national unity and pride in decades. Even President Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu and Kijana Wamalwa temporarily set aside their political differences and in a tremendously shrewd and unifying move – all visited the site of the collapse together.
The current atmosphere most certainly doesn’t seem to allow for such episodes of nation-building displays of leadership. This should be of considerable concern to all of us all. This is especially the case, when one considers the fact that the divisive ICC process kicks off next month with the start of William Ruto’s case.
I was struck this week by the number of questions put to me about what this case would mean if it emerges that some of the over 40 witnesses the Chief Prosecutor has lined up against him are Gikuyu or Luo etc… This disconcerted quizzing is caused primarily by the fact that, in my opinion, in an effort to ‘keep the peace’ and play down the ICC cases as interrupters of national events, supporters of the President and Deputy President and elements of the media have played up the fact that with every witness who falls by the wayside, the cases will collapse.
So much so that in some parts of the country there are those who believe such a collapse to be inevitable. It may very well be. I don’t know. On the other hand it may very well not be the case. Then what? Similarly, with regard to the Makueni by-election, the comportment of area residents that I have spoken to changes immediately you gently enquire into why the community voted so overwhelmingly against the government; for it was more a vote against than for anybody or anything; it was a demonstration of feelings collectively and deeply held. One voter told me, “In Makueni we could have elected a dog as Senator to teach them a lesson!” In the same vein Kisii acquaintances I ask about the fate of government officials who found themselves on the receiving end of epithets at the funeral last month are more likely than not to respond saying the incident filled them with pride and satisfaction.
This attitude “We need to show them” emerges out of a narrative among many non-Gikuyus that ‘the Gikuyu are the problem’. Prior to the elections there was much talk of the ‘consequences’ of electing individuals who are defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) especially from the international community.
These have not materialized in a manner that Kenyans feel or take seriously. Indeed, the more profound consequences have emerged out of the toxic narrative of ‘the tyranny of numbers’, which essentially holds that the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru plus one other large community and a pliant electoral body have elections sown up in perpetuity.
A soft insurgency has grown out of this that has gained a currency so compelling that in entire swathes of the country – especially in Eastern, Western, Coast and Nyanza – one can ask if there exists in coherent form any legitimate and functional central authority in Kenya. For indeed, it is the central authority of the regime that has suffered the most dramatic attrition as a result of the accompanying process of devolution. Among the security services, one senses an almost existential discombobulation on the part of forces – the provincial administration and police in particular - that are at sea in this new order. It almost makes one conclude that it shan’t be long before the Counties – which are political units in which wananchi have most vested their ownership and legitimacy, make a robust claim to the provision of security at the County level too.
In some of these areas, Gikuyu traders have already started to complain of a ‘cold war’ on the business front, for example, with non-Gikuyu customers opting to take their business elsewhere.
Regimes whose legitimacy is questioned by certain communities and in certain parts of the country are not new to Kenya. During the Moi era, especially after the reintroduction of political pluralism, much of Central Province and other parts of the country inhabited by the Gikuyu community effectively ‘checked out’ and turned their backs to the regime. The provincial administration in these areas treaded carefully in the understanding that they were in politically hostile territory. A similar fate has befallen the Kenyatta presidency this time around. There are parts of the country where people can’t utter the words: “Rais Uhuru Kenyatta”. This ‘belligerent’ turning of backs to the administration is, however, received on the ground by the President’s backers with a similarly belligerent – “mta do?!”
UHURU HAS THE ANSWER
These two belligerent narratives are bound to clash. The ICC process may kick them off. What’s clear is that they don’t have a technical fix, only a political one. President Kenyatta has the instruments and wits to appreciate this and act on it. He really doesn’t have an option, as the machinery doesn’t exist to protect his tribesmen from opprobria directed against the most dispersed ethnic group in the country. It will be an exercise of managing the end of the post-colonial state that will be as messy as he and his advisors decide it should be.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-132364/kenyas-soft-insurgency#sthash.kskNgJgJ.dpuf

Some weeks ago a Cabinet Secretary tried to address belligerent mourners at a funeral in Kisii and was shouted down even when forced to revert to his native tongue in an attempt to calm them.
Government officials who tried to address members of the Maasai community who’d been evicted from their homes in Naivasha met a similarly hostile reception and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. This was followed not long after by a by-election in Makueni in what was Eastern Province, where a CORD candidate who had campaigned for merely four days and won over 90 percent of the vote pulverized the ruling Jubilee party’s candidate.
All this transpired as the government and our Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) went back and forth in an increasingly acrimonious negotiation over salaries. Eventually, it took the intervention of the Deputy President and President themselves to work out a solution which nevertheless left a bitter taste in the mouth when teachers realized the government had deducted the days they had been on strike from their July salaries.
This was eventually sorted out and the salaries paid in full in August. Curiously, one of the ‘conditions’ of the deal was that the teachers support the Jubilee government’s ambitious school computerization programme – not a sign of confidence.
I spent a week in Western Province recently. Mainly listening to groups of citizens of all ages as they analyzed their condition and the general Kenyan one as well. I was particularly keen on visiting friends in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia where episodes of criminality and violence against individuals and families had seemingly escalated dramatically since the election in March.
People I knew had lost their lives in the spate of insecurity that is ongoing to this day. Indeed, as I left a gang raided Kumukuywa Market in Bungoma North and killed one administration policeman and injured another. The officers were reportedly responding to calls for help by villagers who were under attack by the gang.
This violent incident was merely the latest of many since the election that have turned the lives of many Kenyans from Trans Nzoia, through Bungoma and into Busia Counties upside down. More than the violence itself and the succession of funerals it has caused, the apparent helplessness of the security forces in the face of it has been the most confusing and disconcerting. It has done much to undermine already low confidence in the security services and administration generally.
“LET THE AIRPORT BURN!”
Then a week and half ago the arrivals terminal of the region’s main transport hub, our Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) burnt down. I was late in catching up with this shocking news. The fire happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 so unsurprisingly initial speculation was that they’d struck again.
Such ideas were quickly set aside, however, as it became clear the cause may have been very domestic and the response hugely embarrassing in its ineptitude. What struck me, however, was when I raised the issue with individuals who don’t support (some don’t even recognize) the Jubilee government as ‘theirs’. The attitude was, “Let it burn! Let them learn!” The them here being very much the Jubilee administration and more specifically when pressed, them being Gikuyus first and Kalenjins second. This depth of polarization astounded me.
When the Ufundi Cooperative House collapsed as a result of the 1998 attack on the US Embassy I remember the way Kenyans rallied together in one of the most inspiring moments of national unity and pride in decades. Even President Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu and Kijana Wamalwa temporarily set aside their political differences and in a tremendously shrewd and unifying move – all visited the site of the collapse together.
The current atmosphere most certainly doesn’t seem to allow for such episodes of nation-building displays of leadership. This should be of considerable concern to all of us all. This is especially the case, when one considers the fact that the divisive ICC process kicks off next month with the start of William Ruto’s case.
I was struck this week by the number of questions put to me about what this case would mean if it emerges that some of the over 40 witnesses the Chief Prosecutor has lined up against him are Gikuyu or Luo etc… This disconcerted quizzing is caused primarily by the fact that, in my opinion, in an effort to ‘keep the peace’ and play down the ICC cases as interrupters of national events, supporters of the President and Deputy President and elements of the media have played up the fact that with every witness who falls by the wayside, the cases will collapse.
So much so that in some parts of the country there are those who believe such a collapse to be inevitable. It may very well be. I don’t know. On the other hand it may very well not be the case. Then what? Similarly, with regard to the Makueni by-election, the comportment of area residents that I have spoken to changes immediately you gently enquire into why the community voted so overwhelmingly against the government; for it was more a vote against than for anybody or anything; it was a demonstration of feelings collectively and deeply held. One voter told me, “In Makueni we could have elected a dog as Senator to teach them a lesson!” In the same vein Kisii acquaintances I ask about the fate of government officials who found themselves on the receiving end of epithets at the funeral last month are more likely than not to respond saying the incident filled them with pride and satisfaction.
This attitude “We need to show them” emerges out of a narrative among many non-Gikuyus that ‘the Gikuyu are the problem’. Prior to the elections there was much talk of the ‘consequences’ of electing individuals who are defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) especially from the international community.
These have not materialized in a manner that Kenyans feel or take seriously. Indeed, the more profound consequences have emerged out of the toxic narrative of ‘the tyranny of numbers’, which essentially holds that the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru plus one other large community and a pliant electoral body have elections sown up in perpetuity.
A soft insurgency has grown out of this that has gained a currency so compelling that in entire swathes of the country – especially in Eastern, Western, Coast and Nyanza – one can ask if there exists in coherent form any legitimate and functional central authority in Kenya. For indeed, it is the central authority of the regime that has suffered the most dramatic attrition as a result of the accompanying process of devolution. Among the security services, one senses an almost existential discombobulation on the part of forces – the provincial administration and police in particular - that are at sea in this new order. It almost makes one conclude that it shan’t be long before the Counties – which are political units in which wananchi have most vested their ownership and legitimacy, make a robust claim to the provision of security at the County level too.
In some of these areas, Gikuyu traders have already started to complain of a ‘cold war’ on the business front, for example, with non-Gikuyu customers opting to take their business elsewhere.
Regimes whose legitimacy is questioned by certain communities and in certain parts of the country are not new to Kenya. During the Moi era, especially after the reintroduction of political pluralism, much of Central Province and other parts of the country inhabited by the Gikuyu community effectively ‘checked out’ and turned their backs to the regime. The provincial administration in these areas treaded carefully in the understanding that they were in politically hostile territory. A similar fate has befallen the Kenyatta presidency this time around. There are parts of the country where people can’t utter the words: “Rais Uhuru Kenyatta”. This ‘belligerent’ turning of backs to the administration is, however, received on the ground by the President’s backers with a similarly belligerent – “mta do?!”
UHURU HAS THE ANSWER
These two belligerent narratives are bound to clash. The ICC process may kick them off. What’s clear is that they don’t have a technical fix, only a political one. President Kenyatta has the instruments and wits to appreciate this and act on it. He really doesn’t have an option, as the machinery doesn’t exist to protect his tribesmen from opprobria directed against the most dispersed ethnic group in the country. It will be an exercise of managing the end of the post-colonial state that will be as messy as he and his advisors decide it should be.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-132364/kenyas-soft-insurgency#sthash.kskNgJgJ.dpuf

Some weeks ago a Cabinet Secretary tried to address belligerent mourners at a funeral in Kisii and was shouted down even when forced to revert to his native tongue in an attempt to calm them.
Government officials who tried to address members of the Maasai community who’d been evicted from their homes in Naivasha met a similarly hostile reception and were forced to beat a hasty retreat. This was followed not long after by a by-election in Makueni in what was Eastern Province, where a CORD candidate who had campaigned for merely four days and won over 90 percent of the vote pulverized the ruling Jubilee party’s candidate.
All this transpired as the government and our Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) went back and forth in an increasingly acrimonious negotiation over salaries. Eventually, it took the intervention of the Deputy President and President themselves to work out a solution which nevertheless left a bitter taste in the mouth when teachers realized the government had deducted the days they had been on strike from their July salaries.
This was eventually sorted out and the salaries paid in full in August. Curiously, one of the ‘conditions’ of the deal was that the teachers support the Jubilee government’s ambitious school computerization programme – not a sign of confidence.
I spent a week in Western Province recently. Mainly listening to groups of citizens of all ages as they analyzed their condition and the general Kenyan one as well. I was particularly keen on visiting friends in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia where episodes of criminality and violence against individuals and families had seemingly escalated dramatically since the election in March.
People I knew had lost their lives in the spate of insecurity that is ongoing to this day. Indeed, as I left a gang raided Kumukuywa Market in Bungoma North and killed one administration policeman and injured another. The officers were reportedly responding to calls for help by villagers who were under attack by the gang.
This violent incident was merely the latest of many since the election that have turned the lives of many Kenyans from Trans Nzoia, through Bungoma and into Busia Counties upside down. More than the violence itself and the succession of funerals it has caused, the apparent helplessness of the security forces in the face of it has been the most confusing and disconcerting. It has done much to undermine already low confidence in the security services and administration generally.
“LET THE AIRPORT BURN!”
Then a week and half ago the arrivals terminal of the region’s main transport hub, our Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) burnt down. I was late in catching up with this shocking news. The fire happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi in 1998 so unsurprisingly initial speculation was that they’d struck again.
Such ideas were quickly set aside, however, as it became clear the cause may have been very domestic and the response hugely embarrassing in its ineptitude. What struck me, however, was when I raised the issue with individuals who don’t support (some don’t even recognize) the Jubilee government as ‘theirs’. The attitude was, “Let it burn! Let them learn!” The them here being very much the Jubilee administration and more specifically when pressed, them being Gikuyus first and Kalenjins second. This depth of polarization astounded me.
When the Ufundi Cooperative House collapsed as a result of the 1998 attack on the US Embassy I remember the way Kenyans rallied together in one of the most inspiring moments of national unity and pride in decades. Even President Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Raila Odinga, Charity Ngilu and Kijana Wamalwa temporarily set aside their political differences and in a tremendously shrewd and unifying move – all visited the site of the collapse together.
The current atmosphere most certainly doesn’t seem to allow for such episodes of nation-building displays of leadership. This should be of considerable concern to all of us all. This is especially the case, when one considers the fact that the divisive ICC process kicks off next month with the start of William Ruto’s case.
I was struck this week by the number of questions put to me about what this case would mean if it emerges that some of the over 40 witnesses the Chief Prosecutor has lined up against him are Gikuyu or Luo etc… This disconcerted quizzing is caused primarily by the fact that, in my opinion, in an effort to ‘keep the peace’ and play down the ICC cases as interrupters of national events, supporters of the President and Deputy President and elements of the media have played up the fact that with every witness who falls by the wayside, the cases will collapse.
So much so that in some parts of the country there are those who believe such a collapse to be inevitable. It may very well be. I don’t know. On the other hand it may very well not be the case. Then what? Similarly, with regard to the Makueni by-election, the comportment of area residents that I have spoken to changes immediately you gently enquire into why the community voted so overwhelmingly against the government; for it was more a vote against than for anybody or anything; it was a demonstration of feelings collectively and deeply held. One voter told me, “In Makueni we could have elected a dog as Senator to teach them a lesson!” In the same vein Kisii acquaintances I ask about the fate of government officials who found themselves on the receiving end of epithets at the funeral last month are more likely than not to respond saying the incident filled them with pride and satisfaction.
This attitude “We need to show them” emerges out of a narrative among many non-Gikuyus that ‘the Gikuyu are the problem’. Prior to the elections there was much talk of the ‘consequences’ of electing individuals who are defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) especially from the international community.
These have not materialized in a manner that Kenyans feel or take seriously. Indeed, the more profound consequences have emerged out of the toxic narrative of ‘the tyranny of numbers’, which essentially holds that the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru plus one other large community and a pliant electoral body have elections sown up in perpetuity.
A soft insurgency has grown out of this that has gained a currency so compelling that in entire swathes of the country – especially in Eastern, Western, Coast and Nyanza – one can ask if there exists in coherent form any legitimate and functional central authority in Kenya. For indeed, it is the central authority of the regime that has suffered the most dramatic attrition as a result of the accompanying process of devolution. Among the security services, one senses an almost existential discombobulation on the part of forces – the provincial administration and police in particular - that are at sea in this new order. It almost makes one conclude that it shan’t be long before the Counties – which are political units in which wananchi have most vested their ownership and legitimacy, make a robust claim to the provision of security at the County level too.
In some of these areas, Gikuyu traders have already started to complain of a ‘cold war’ on the business front, for example, with non-Gikuyu customers opting to take their business elsewhere.
Regimes whose legitimacy is questioned by certain communities and in certain parts of the country are not new to Kenya. During the Moi era, especially after the reintroduction of political pluralism, much of Central Province and other parts of the country inhabited by the Gikuyu community effectively ‘checked out’ and turned their backs to the regime. The provincial administration in these areas treaded carefully in the understanding that they were in politically hostile territory. A similar fate has befallen the Kenyatta presidency this time around. There are parts of the country where people can’t utter the words: “Rais Uhuru Kenyatta”. This ‘belligerent’ turning of backs to the administration is, however, received on the ground by the President’s backers with a similarly belligerent – “mta do?!”
UHURU HAS THE ANSWER
These two belligerent narratives are bound to clash. The ICC process may kick them off. What’s clear is that they don’t have a technical fix, only a political one. President Kenyatta has the instruments and wits to appreciate this and act on it. He really doesn’t have an option, as the machinery doesn’t exist to protect his tribesmen from opprobria directed against the most dispersed ethnic group in the country. It will be an exercise of managing the end of the post-colonial state that will be as messy as he and his advisors decide it should be.
- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-132364/kenyas-soft-insurgency#sthash.kskNgJgJ.dpuf

Jomo Kenyatta International airport fire

First Pattni's shops are destroyed , then there is no fuel at the Airport, and now a fire. What next?



From flower to beans: How  Kenya's aiport fire could destabilise economy.

Eyewitness no plan to deal with Nairobi airport fire

JKIA closed after fire destroys arrival terminal

Update related article: It is tragic to reopen airport with the same managers in charge of safety