Author: NLM Correspondent

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 Their hopes were further elevated when Section 2A of the old constitution was repealed transforming the country into a multi-party state, and enabling opposition parties – Ford-Kenya, Ford-Asili, Democratic Party (DP) and others) – to compete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…

The future of Kenya’s Early Oil Pilot Scheme (EOPS) is in limbo after Tullow Oil threatened to shut down its operations in the Lokichar, owing to a stalemate that has crippled production and transportation. Disputes on politics, security and resource-sharing between the community and the national government disrupted the shipment of crude from Lokichar to the refinery in Mombasa County on the Coast for more than three weeks after local leaders, Tullow Oil and officials from the central government failed to reach a deal to unlock the impasse. In a statement, Tullow said it is seeking the backing of the…

BY Fuad Abdirahman The head of the Somali region state in Ethiopia Abdi Mohamoud Omar recently acknowledged that his administration carried out killings on its own civilians at the request of Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and sought forgiveness, in the spirit of the “message of forgiveness” advanced by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Hundreds of his critics were detained and tortured in a secretive jail known as Jail Ogaden, most of whom were accused of having ties with the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist group which was founded in 1984. The group was recently removed from the terror watch…

By Richard Joseph A quarter-century after sub-Saharan Africa experienced an upsurge of democracy, a different and more complicated political era has dawned: the expansion of liberal democracy has slowed in the continent just as it has globally. Several forces are responsible for this dénouement: the rise of China; the entrenchment of illiberal systems; intensified and multiplying conflicts in the Middle East; authoritarian nationalism in Russia and other countries; the harmonizing of market economies with non-democratic governance; and jihadist and other intractable wars. The advance and retreat of democracy in Africa since the end of the Cold War have resulted in a new…