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

In the hot seat:CORD Leader Raila Odinga

Drama in Kethi Kilonzo's tribunal hearing

Chinedu deportation saga

All this for a drug dealer!

What are the procedures of deportation in Kenya

3 foreigners arrested over recruitment racket

Shock as parliament evicts accredited journalists

How will we know what is happening, so much for transparency



Update related article there will be consequences Journalists tell MPs by Laban Wanambisi

Parts of Nairobi to experience water shortage for 4 days

This does not surprise me. When I was last home, every week, the taps ran dry for several days.I cannot remember a visit in the past ten years, where there has not been water shortages. No warning, to the point that you just take it as normal, frustrating as it is.Your water bill comes in, no reduction in charges, yet there have been many days when you have not had water.Where is the logic? They want their money, but you don't get a normal service.

Things have not changed at all.Surprisingly, they are now telling people to stock up. I can see our area is listed in the places that will be affected. Same ole, same ole.Have just spoken to my family, and they tell me that this is a joke, as normally they don't have water six days of the week, yet receive a bill for 9000 kenya shillings.

Don't get me started on the power cuts. Hopefully Kidero can sort this stuff out.

Matatu goes digital

Great stuff Vincent Swaleh. My only concern is the crooks who will target passengers for their Smartphones,Tablets,Netbooks and Laptops. People get robbed on British Rail trains here, but it tends to be out of rush hour, and on carriages that are not full. There is an increase in the snatch and grab of Smartphones here, by guys on bikes as you are talking on your phone. I wonder how many more Matatu owners will follow suit.

Open letter to Raila Odinga don't accept errand boy job by Makau Mutua

This was an article that  I missed  last week with all that was going on and agree  with the Professor.

Quotes from the article below.

No one wants to be described as an “ex so-and-so”. It’s like being called an “ex-husband” or an “ex-wife”. It’s got a bad ring to it.

That’s why I won’t call you an “ex-Prime Minister”. You are much larger than the positions you’ve held. If truth be told, your identity transcends any single state office in Kenya.

Today I want to address some unsettling rumours. They are two-pronged, but amount to the same darn thing

This is their gist – that you should “quit politics” and become an international “errand boy” for the Kenyan state. I’ve heard many cockamamie plots, but none trumps this doozy. You can’t – and shouldn’t – quit politics. This is why.

First, consider the source of the dastardly concoction. It’s been mooted by your opponents who are dying to bury you politically. Ask yourself this question – why are your political assassins so eager to knock you out of the ring?

The answer is staring you in the face – they know that for more than two decades you’ve been the centre of gravity of Kenya’s political left. They believe they can kill the left if they dispatch you from politics.

The Kanu nomenkatura that won the March 4 elections would then triumph completely and rule – as former President Daniel arap Moi “prophesied” – for another 100 years.

They believe you have no heir apparent in Kenya’s progressive politics.

Think about it. Ever since independence in 1964, the Kenyan state has been in the grasp of a rightist, conservative political elite. Your own father – the late opposition doyen Jaramogi Oginga Odinga – was for long the symbol of the left.

But we all know what happened: the rightist faction under Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and later President Moi “neutralised” him.

He was persecuted and haunted into oblivion. You inherited his mantle, and have become a worthy “Jaramogist” yourself.

But, and this is the failure of the left, there isn’t an obvious Jaramogist to take over from you. That’s why you must stay in the field of battle – for now. The choice of whether, and when, to abandon politics isn’t yours.

Second, Cord is going to splinter into inchoate pieces if you abandon ship. The party – such as Kenyan parties are wont to be – revolves around you. Cord elected officials will head for the exits as soon as you dump it.

No one in the party – not in the Legislature or the county governors – has the wherewithal to lead the Kenyan left.

Leaving Cord will be tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Remember Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” taken from the poem “The Second Coming” by W. B Yates. Your departure would be a betrayal. To paraphrase the poem, the “centre won’t hold because mere anarchy will be unleashed upon the world”. This is your historical burden.

You might be the best president Kenya never had. We don’t know how your life’s story will end, or unfold from here going forward. I know you’ve been in the trenches for long.

You’ve got up every time they have knocked you down. You aren’t perfect as you – and we – know only too well. You have stumbled several times.

Progressive instincts

But I am most impressed by your progressive instincts. You led the country in getting rid of Kanu, and you played an outsize role in giving us the new Constitution.

But you’ve been thwarted in your journey to State House every time. Perhaps you are destined to be John the Baptist. If so, find and nurture Kenya’s next “political Jesus”.

Third, I’ve heard that the Jubilee government wants you to be a “Kofi Annan”. That’s hogwash. For one, the Kenyatta regime doesn’t have the international legitimacy to confer on you such a hallowed status.

Mr Annan wasn’t appointed as a “statesman” by any government. He’s an international elder because, as UN Secretary-General, he was widely admired and respected.

There are only a handful of former political greats – like Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama – who occupy such lofty perches.

How would you acquire such a status as an appointee of a head of state who is indicted for crimes against humanity? This is a poisoned chalice from which you shouldn’t drink. It’s a fool’s errand – an “appointment” to “nowhere”.

Fourth, don’t cut the legs from under yourself. I know the traumatic events of March 4 – with the finality of the Supreme Court decision on the election petition – weigh heavily on you. That’s true for all men and women of conscience. Your future isn’t like instant coffee – take the time to map it out. Life, as you know, isn’t a sprint, but a marathon.

What’s up today could be down tomorrow. That’s the single most important enduring lesson of history. The Book of Mathew in 20:16 says that “so the first will be last, and the last will be first”. The struggle for the freedom of the downtrodden hasn’t been in vain. That’s why you must hang in there.

Finally, don’t listen to those who want to read your “political eulogy”. Some people even say that you can’t run for President in five years because you are too old. That’s also baloney. Mr Kibaki was 71 when he was first elected to State House in 2002.

He was re-elected for a final five-year term at 76 and retired this year at 81. You should plan on running in 2017. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – who is about your age – is touted as the leading nominee for the Democratic Party in 2016.

Damn the question of age.

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

Open letter to Raila Odinga don't accept errand boy job by Makau Mutua

RIP Jimmy Owino

I have just seen this. I used to watch you play on Saturday afternoons, when you were playing for Mwamba.Those were the days. I will always remember you joking, and making everyone smile. My thoughts and prayers go out to your family and friends.RIP Jimmy.

Uhuru and Ruto named in TJRC report

Kenya's president has received a long-awaited report that names him and his deputy as being among those suspected of planning and financing the country's 2007-08 post-election violence, in which more than 1,000 people died.
Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto already face trial at the international criminal court (ICC) for crimes against humanity on charges related to the election violence, in which 600,000 were evicted from their homes, but local attempts to prosecute the two have never taken off.
The Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission report did not recommend prosecution for the two, as they already faced the action at the ICC.
Kenyatta's family members – especially his father, the founding president, Jomo Kenyatta – are named in the report as having presided over a government responsible for numerous human rights violations and illegal allocation of land.
The government-funded report, which was years in the making, finds that Kenya's second and third presidents, Daniel Arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, headed governments that were responsible for massacres, economic crimes and grand corruption, among other violations.
Kenya's state security agencies, particularly the police and army, have been the main perpetrators of human rights violations including massacres, enforced disappearances, torture and sexual violence, the report says.
The commission said that during the period it was mandated to investigate, from 12 December 1963 to February 2008, the state adopted economic and other policies that resulted in the economic marginalisation of five key regions in the country.
Women, girls and minority groups have been the subject of state-sanctioned, systematic discrimination in all spheres of their life, according to the commission; and despite the special status accorded to children in Kenyan society, they have been subjected to atrocities including killings, physical assault and sexual violence.
The report recommended that parliament set up a legal infrastructure to help victims of historical injustices get reparations, including financial compensation, public apologies and commemoration.
The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission was formed from a wider effort to establish the truth behind historical violations that are partly blamed for the 2007-08 violence. That was sparked by a dispute over who had won the December 2007 presidential election.
A 2008 government commission found historical injustices such as unequal land distribution partly responsible for the violence. The new report reinforced those findings, saying historical grievances over land are the single most important driver of conflicts and ethnic tension in Kenya.
The issue of land in Kenya remains divisive. Commissioners were split about changes made in the land chapter of the report before it was presented to the president.
Ronald Slye, a University of Seattle professor and one of three international commissioners working for the Kenyan commission, said he had declined to sign the chapter because he disapproved of the changes. Judge Gertrude Chawatama, from Zambia, another international commissioner, also left the chapter on land unsigned.
Kenyan media reported that the commission had been under pressure from powerful individuals in and out of government to edit out sections of the report implicating certain people in illegal land allocations.
The report said between 1964 and 1966 one-sixth of European settlers' land that had been intended for settlement of landless and land-scarce Kenyans had been sold cheaply to Jomo Kenyatta and his wife, Ngina, his children and others. Jomo Kenyatta himself appears to have benefited immensely from irregular allocations of land that should have gone to those who had lost land to Arab and British colonisers, the report said.
"President Kenyatta's direct engagement in irregular land allocations compromised his position to prevent or remedy similar cases of land-grabbing by his close associates," the report said.
In 2011, Forbes magazine listed Uhuru Kenyatta, 51, as the wealthiest Kenyan, worth at least $500m (£332m), although he was dropped from a later list because his personal wealth was hard to separate from his family's wealth.
The report said the elder Kenyatta, who held office from 1963 to 1978, had run a government that failed to remove the repressive state structures established by the British colonial government, and which used those laws to perpetrate human rights violations.
Human rights had been further violated by the creation of the one-party state by the Moi administration, resulting in severe repression of political dissent, intimidation and control of the media, it said. The commission report also blamed the media for allowing violations to occur with little public scrutiny.
Kibaki is accused of presiding over a regime that oversaw killings.
Kenyatta, who received the report late on Tuesday, said the government would take the recommendations seriously. He said addressing the causes and effects of past injustices would contribute to national unity, reconciliation and healing, and would enable Kenyans to move forward with a renewed sense of nationhood.
The commission, formed in August 2009, was supposed to have taken two years to complete its work. It said that, despite challenges, it had managed to collect more than 40,000 statements, more than any other truth commission in the world.

Quotes from Kenyan president accused of backing post election violence that killed 1000

Related articles

Former current police bosses named in TRJC report

Probe Moi,Biwott over Ouko death says TRJC

TRJ Futile efforts to hand over report to Kenyatta

Mutula's requiem mass

RIP Mutula Kilonzo.

What a moving service.

Outrage as Kenyan president invited to Britain despite facing war crimes trial for causing a thousand deaths

 I thought there was restriction on travel for ICC indictees,with regard to International law. I wonder whether Bashir has an invitation too.

Some quotes from the article the newly elected president of Kenya has been invited to Britain for a visit despite being due to stand trial for war crimes linked to a thousand deaths.

It will be his first trip to a Western capital since his election in March. Britain and other countries said before his victory that, if he won, they would only have 'essential contacts' with him because of the court case.
'Kenya is a vital partner on Somalia and we judge our contact according to the issue concerned,' a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said.
Kenya was playing a crucial role in stabilising neighbouring Somalia and housing refugees, he added.
A source close to the Kenyan presidency and a diplomat both said Kenyatta was likely to travel to the meeting, which aims to build international support for Somalia, where Kenyan troops have battled Islamist militants.
The move reflected the West's desire to keep Kenya as a stable ally at the expense of other principles, Kenyan rights activist GeorgeMorara said.
'It is a U-turn in the UK and the Western world's approach to the whole issue of impunity,' Morara said.

The British spokesman said the decision to invite Kenyatta was taken in part because the president had committed to cooperating with the court in The Hague.
Britain's high commissioner (ambassador) to Kenya, Christian Turner, whose remarks about essential contacts had angered Kenyatta's backers in the former British colony, offered the invitation during a meeting with him on Wednesday.
After the election result, Western diplomats had privately indicated that they would take a pragmatic or 'flexible' approach in assessing the level of contacts with Kenyatta, 51.
As well as concerns about alienating an ally, Western powers are wary of jeopardising trade ties with east Africa's biggest economy and worry the diplomatic wrangle could open the way for China and other Asian states to extend their influence.

Update related article President Kenyatta to join Somalia talks in London

Mutula Kilonzo eulogised by MPs

I like the comment that the last MP on this clip has made regarding other MPs who have died in mysterious circumstances, and how Kenyans were left not knowing what happened.He says  we hope in this instance we know the truth.This is repeated in the clip below by other MPs.

MPs pay tribute to Mutula Kilonzo

President names 12 more cabinet nominees

Related articles:

Ngilu, Balala back as cabinet

Profiles of Cabinet secretary nominees

MPs criticise Uhuru's cabinet 

Update related articles

President,Deputy have failed ethnic diversity test in cabinet nominees

Secrets of how the cabinet was picked

Ngilu, Balala nomination spark off debate


Update related articles:Uhuru and Ruto wouldn't lie to us would they 

What Balala return means to coast

Supreme court releases its ruling

The Supreme court released its ruling today, for what it is worth. It will be available to the public in booklets.

Raila Odinga says stop saying sorry

I heard that lots of people were going round to Raila's house to say Pole, after the results were announced. His response was that they should not be mourning, as noone has died. Damn right!

Here is a quote from Raila that I got from the Standard

“Do not tell me sorry for what happened, I do not wish to hear this. When a cooking stick breaks, do you stop preparing your meal? Certainly not! And that is why we want to state that we have enough work to do,” said Raila.

Relevant article: Raila declines Uhuru's job offer and vows to soldier on

An excerpt below

“We all know what happened, but we want to say that is over, we did not want to bring bloodshed again and that is why we are looking ahead,” he said.  Wetangula warned against picking political rejects from Western for Cabinet slots saying this would not resonate with people’s wishes. He accused some leaders from Western of angling for appointments into the Cabinet saying they were selfish and had sold out the community. "

I am no fan of Martha Karua, but have to agree with the point she makes on this video.


Update: Relevant article An ode to a fallen general by Peter Wanyoni

An excerpt below

In recent times, young politicians and some Kenyans crawling on social  media barely out of their napkins have taken Raila’s defeat in the recent elections as an opportunity to hurl insults at him.
They conveniently forget that the very structures over which they lord, the very country that they now bestride with noisy tweets and Facebook posts and many of the freedoms they enjoy, would never have been possible without the sacrifice of Raila Odinga and his contemporaries.
DEMOCRACY
These men and women endured years behind bars, banged up in detention without trial, to birth the openness and the democracy that we now take for granted, and in whose free air the new political class now hold forth with their salt-in-the-wound rubbing. In so doing, they come to resemble Chinua Achebe’s unwise little bird eneke-nti-oba, who so far forgot himself after a heavy meal that he challenged his personal god to a fight.
Raila is a yardstick against which to measure the performances of our new crop of politicians. He made mistakes — like everyone else  — but his virtues far outweighed these. It is this very standard against which we will now judge the fortitude, the fitness-for-purpose, of our new leaders. 
They have not begun on a good footing, letting their followers humiliate Raila in ways that are decidedly un-African.

Like Achebe said, those who mock Raila should remember that he whose palm nuts have been cracked for them by benevolent spirits, should not forget to be humble.
Thank the man for his selflessness and service, and let him be.