Author: NLM Correspondent

By Antony Mutunga As far as history dates, agriculture has propped up Africa’s economy – where the majority of its people lead rural, agrarian lives – in a way other sectors haven’t. In fact, the sector is the largest contributor to the continent’s gross domestic product – at 15 percent, according to the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development)-FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) Agricultural Outlook 2016-2025. The continent has vast tracts of arable land, most of them unfarmed. Tropical climates, which bring about long growing seasons, and a growing population that both provides a massive young…

BY KEN OPALA Two simultaneous happenings on the elections day are telling. First, in the deep of the night of August 8, hours after polling, IEBC started beaming “live” the presidential results. Unexpectedly, they were not accompanied by the statutory results forms. But that’s hardly all; the results showed a certain pattern that defied the uneven nature of Kenyan voters – they exhibited a consistent gap between top two contestants, Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta. In panic IEBC chairperson Wafula Chebukati hurriedly convened a stakeholders’ meeting at the National Tallying Centre (NTC), Nairobi, to seek answers from Safran about this…

BY KEN OPALA Elections, just like wars, are huge business. Unscrupulous individuals seize the confusion, disruptions and desperation during political determinations to make quick money. Sleaze circumvents order and corruption fuels electoral theft. Bureaucrats mandated with delivering credible elections get compromised in exchange for monetary rewards in form of tender manipulations. The scent for quick riches gives electoral management bureaucrats impetus to steal elections. Election 2017 exposed this shadowy intersection of politics, finance and electoral dishonesty. The Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, was desperate to be re-elected, Opposition leader Raila Odinga was surging in fame, and pollsters were predicting a race…

By Emeka-Mayaka Gekara There are feminists. And then there is Dr Stella Nyanzi. The online community describes her as “the only man standing in Uganda.” When officials attempted to lock the Makerere University researcher out of her office, she stripped naked in protest. Nyanzi caused so much ruckus that the university administration had no option but to re-open the office. The Ugandan activist’s manner of social protests have thrust her in trouble, but she remains unbowed and relentless despite hostility from the Yoweri Museveni regime. She is no doubt one Museveni’s most acerbic critics. She recently spent 33 days in…

By David Onjili In a liberal democracy, an Opposition exists to shadow government and provide alternative programme for official policy. For the past decade and half, this is what Raila Odinga has done, save for crafting a shadow government. But no more. For Raila, whose current job as the African Union High Representative for Infrastructure Development in Africa, keeps him busy with not just national but also international affairs, it is a welcome break from the trenches. Besides the job, his new found camaraderie with President Kenyatta under the ‘Building Bridges Initiative’ has left the country without an opposition leader.…

By Fuad Abdirahman The Constitution protects the right to free speech. This right is, however, not absolute as the same law goes back to prohibit defamation. The question recently has been how, in light of the foregoing, law enforcement should handle teenagers who confessed to engaging in exam malpractice and hurled insults at two cabinet sectaries. What’s their liability? Were their utterances defamatory? General public sentiment is that Government should not have involved itself. I mean, it’s a small matter of teenagers being teenagers. Besides, as already stated the young people have a constitutional right to free speech which, in…

By Antony Mutunga Soon after he was sworn in, in 2013, one of the first moves President Uhuru Kenyatta made was to appoint the Presidential Taskforce on Parastatal Reforms (PTPRs), which he mandated with interrogating policies on the management and governance of parastatals in the country, to identify how best they could contribute towards development and facilitate our nation’s economic transformation. The key finding of the taskforce was that there was a replication of functions amongst some institutions, and between parastatals and county governments. It also noted embedded corruption, and a reduction of the institutions from 263 to 187, through…

By Fuad Abdirahman For the first time, the government of Somalia has admitted that neighbouring Ethiopia violated its independence rights. President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo disclosed that the country has been under “naked direct and indirect interference” from Ethiopia, and revealed that in his first meeting with Hailemariam Desalegn, the former Ethiopian premier, he demanded an end to “their intrusive behaviour” in the internal affairs of Somalia. A buoyant Farmajo in December said he had worked out things with Prime Minister Mohamed Abiy and expressed confidence that “things have significantly improved” and that there would no longer be “meddling” from Ethiopia.…

Currently CEO of the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC), Prof Magoha is the immediate former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nairobi. He is also a one-time President of the Association of Medical Councils of Africa, Chairman of the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Board (KMPDB), and Chair of the Kenya Association of Urological Surgeons. He was born in 1952, and attended Starehe Boys Centre and Strathmore College where he completed his A-Levels. He studied Medicine at the University of Lagos in Nigeria and furthered his studies in Surgery and Urology at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, University College Hospital Ibadan, Royal…

HID Global, a worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions, today announced that its HID goID solution has been extended to provide an end-to-end system for deploying and managing a mobile citizen ID program. From issuance through verification, HID goID is backed by the same high security standards for data, communication and privacy protection that are used in today’s physical electronic ID (eID) programs. “This is a major step in delivering the full value of our goID solution, as we extend its capabilities for provisioning, updating and revoking mobile IDs to include the full range of citizen ID program functionality,” said…