Author: NLM Correspondent

“Laws”, wrote the French novelist Honoré de Balzac, “are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.” In the law’s bestiary, there are few greater insects than the state. There is a school of thought that holds that the state is not only the greatest insect but also the most poisonous one. The state of the doctrine has been described as “profoundly unclear”, while Professor Nelson calls the doctrine “fuzzy at best”. Seidman describes the doctrine as living a “secret life”. The doctrine does not come to the public on its own; like a…

By Bernard Boy The drums of war could, subtly, be nigh in the Rift Valley, well ahead of the 2022 succession polls. This, at least, according to authoritative sentiments of respected political leaders well versed with the region’s ethno-political dynamics and history, in the wake of the fresh intricacies of the Mau Complex evictions that have since, once again, assumed a political dimension. Sample this. The scene is Sagoo, Narok South, on June 24, 2018, where Deputy President William Ruto orders the eviction of those living beyond the tea buffer zone created in 2015 by the Jubilee administration. This affects…

By Emeka-Mayaka Gekara It is a rare spectacle. It is the kind of thing you would not imagine in the House of Commons, US senate or even the Kenyan Parliament. The fighters, as they call themselves, attend the South African Parliament adorned in red hats, overalls, berets, domestic workers’ uniforms and head wrappings, otherwise known as doeks. This is in stark contrast with their competitors who dress in crisp suits or flowing dresses. The choice of dressing by the members of the Economic Freedom Fighters is calculated to reflect the much-criticised idealism that they embrace. They have packaged themselves as…

BY Alfred Mosoti When the winds of change wept cross Africa in early 1990s, many Kenyans allied to the then opposition believed the new system would finally emancipate them from post-independence tyrants, thereby bringing a paradigm shift in governance. Their hopes were further elevated when Section 2A of the old constitution was repealed transforming the country into a multi-party state, and enabling opposition parties – Ford-Kenya, Ford-Asili, Democratic Party (DP) and others) – to compete with the then ruling party Kanu, in the 1992 General election and subsequent polls. After Kanu won, the opposition assumed a watchdog role, putting the…

BY Kenyatta Otieno The Jubilee Coalition can be likened to a duck – tranquil above the water even as its webbed feet furiously row beneath the surface. Built on the premise of avoiding a repeat of the 2008 post-election clashes, it has lived up to its mandate, but only just. UhuRuto won the 2013 elections in an aura of bromance and cordiality. Unlike the 2008 National Accord-created coalition government between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki that was plagued by squabbles, Jubilee’s has been peaceful. Uhuru Kenyatta even handed over power temporarily to William Ruto to skirt around the legal provision…

By Yasin Arkan Mzee, It is not your fault. You did not fail to lead. You had no thought. You did not fail to protect. You had no dominion. You are not a child of two worlds; colonialism and post-colonialism, pre-World War II and post-World War II. You are child of no world. You are silent because you are lost. How can you become what you do not know? Who knows what a Kikuyu was? Was like? So that you could be Kikuyu? What does interring 1.5 million members of a primitive agrarian tribe do to its memory? It sears…

Uhuru’s timely bone for Mungatana President Uhuru Kenyatta has come to the rescue of former Garsen MP Danson Mungatana following the intervention of a governor from the Coast. Friends say Mungatana who unsuccessfully ran for Tana River governor was on the “verge of destitution.” The former assistant minister has landed a job at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) following a nomination by President Kenyatta. Mungatana has been job-hunting for some time now. In October 2017, he went job-hunting in Meru County where he was shortlisted for the position of chief legal officer. He failed. He then…

Mboya is an Advocate and with extensive experience in international treaties and agreements. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science & History), LLB, Masters in International Studies (Diplomacy & International Relations), Diploma in Law from Kenya School of Law, Post Graduate Diploma in Human Rights from the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague) and Security Studies from the National Defence College Nairobi. HIGHLIGHT: Leading class-action suit against KPLC for extorting consumers IGNOMINY: Infamous spat with Evans Kidero Between 1999 and 2001, he worked as a Legal Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where he was a State Counsel…

About 41 government-funded projects, worth some Sh1.93 billion, are likely to stall owing to the drastic cuts in budgetary allocations to the fourth arm of Government, Chief Justice David Maraga has warned. Further, the CJ said in a statement, there is an imminent expiry of the Judicial Performance Improvement Project (JPIP), the Sh11.5 billion World Bank loan facility through which many Judiciary projects have been funded. Lamenting the cuts, Maraga noted that out Sh31.2 billion requested in the current financial year, out of which Sh19.8 billion was to go to recurrent budget, Sh11.4 billion (Comprising GoK funding of Sh8.5 billion…

The Nairobi County government last month attached land belonging to retirees of the Kenya Railways Corporation over unpaid land rates, sending the former employees into a spin. But the 18-acre Muthurwa estate has already been acquired by the Kenya Urban Roads Authority for the development of a major elevated road. The project, it says, is only a piece in a larger plan to restructure the city, to ease access. Hundreds of families who live in the estate have been given notice to vacate of be evicted forcefully Sh8.5B Amount the county government is claiming in unpaid rates from the Railways…