Author: NLM Correspondent

More than 130 new hubs have opened in Africa over the last two years, and there are still not enough. Many hubs get financial and technical support from foundations as well as tech and telco corporates among others. Recently, Facebook and Google have both rolled out significant new centres, with NG_Hub and Launchpad respectively in Lagos, Nigeria. Google last month announced the opening of an Artificial Intelligence Centre in Accra, Ghana. There are promises of more to come elsewhere. The “tech hub” label includes a wide range of very different types of operations. Many, perhaps most, are community centres in…

After fighting the longest war in its history, the US stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How could this be possible? How could the world’s sole superpower have battled continuously for more than 16 years – deploying more than 100,000 troops at the conflict’s peak, sacrificing the lives of nearly 2,300 soldiers, spending more than $1tn (Sh100 trillion) on its military operations, lavishing a record Sh10 trillion more on “nation-building”, helping fund and train an army of 350,000 Afghan allies – and still not be able to pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations? So dismal is…

By Kenyatta Otieno William Ruto, the former Christian Union leader who once led university student delegations to see former President Moi, is facing the political battle of his life. In 1992, he got in with the infamous Youth for KANU (YK’92), cutting his political teeth under Cyrus Jirongo, whose outfit played extremely dirty to help Moi win the first multiparty elections. Ruto then helped one William Saina rig out Reuben Chesire during 1992 KANU nominations for Eldoret North Constituency. He would later beat Chesire, who was Moi’s preferred candidate in 1997, to clinch the seat. Afterwards, he had a brief…

By Kevin Motaroki Those with an interest in politics – active or passing – understand the hierarchy of interests in a system of government; nine and half times out of ten, the system wins. And they learn to live with that circumstance, gleaning the best out of that half chance while at it. If they are lucky, they earn a place and become pseudo stakeholders. William Ruto is a master at this game – betraying and grabbing half chances. He properly thrives in it, which is how he has become the billionaire Deputy President he is today. He has lived…

By George Omuholo Will Kenya’s self-styled hustler, William Ruto, survive the shark-infested waters that are Kenya’s political landscape, to become the county’s fifth President in 2022? That the race to the Big House on the Hill has begun is not in doubt. This is despite political top cats every often petitioning everybody else “to stop doing politics and focus, instead, on development.” The plea is itself at once a contradiction and a misnomer. It is political abracadabra that only brings out the leaven of hypocrisy, for there can be no separating politics from development. By its very nature, social and…

By Tioko Ekiru Emmanuel The scale of deadly attacks reported from Kapedo village, Turkana East every year is shocking, horrible and terrible. From time to time, Kapedo has been in the headlines as the subject of national platform. The main intention of the ruthless bandits patrolling this region is to convert it into a “no man’s land,” and, “a major hotspot of violence.” The merciless killing of school going children among other civilians at Ameyan, Baringo County, is not something new in these remote, ungoverned jungles. It demonstrates seemingly unstable age we live in today. In November 2014, twenty-one police…

By Payton Mathau The announcement by Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i mid last month that contraband sugar seized in various parts of the country contained huge amounts of poisonous heavy metals has elicited a huge debate and caused panic amongst consumers. In the days following, thousands of bags of Brazilian sugar were seized around the country in what appeared to be a synchronised operation by security agents, mainly in Kitui, Webuye, Kakamega, Homa Bay, Kajiado, Ruiru and Mombasa, among other towns. “It is shocking what we are doing to our country. The level of criminality in this syndicate is mind-boggling.…

By Peter Wanyonyi As East Africa’s finance ministers simultaneously presented their countries’ 2018/19 budgets on June 14, a common theme emerged across the region: not a single country in the region can fund its own budget fully. The member states of the EAC, like their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, are living way beyond their means. Traditionally, this has meant having to go with cap in hand to Western big-brother begging fora like the Paris Club, and making the case for loans from the lending institutions of the west, such as the IMF and the World Bank. Those organisations, however, lend…

By Payton Mathau The sale and transfer of a 300-acre property in the Githurai 44 area has come under scrutiny from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) after it emerged that transaction was irregular. Detectives from DCI headquarters are probing the transfer of the multi-billion shilling land sale, which had been registered to Miaraho Ltd, a company associated with a former provincial commissioner but whose directors changed mysteriously to individuals who were nine and fourteen years old at the time of registration. The property has since changed hands and been transferred to an estate developer involved in other land controversies.…

By Edwin Musonye An important tenet in democratic governance is allowing public participation in decision-making. Our constitution recognises this and encourages citizens to exercise this civic liberty. Despite some progress achieved, there is need to entrench the practice further. This can be done through adopting a tradition of preparing green papers and white papers before embarking on a policy or law-making processes. This means that proponents of ideas need to be sensitised on the importance of producing pilot information of their proposed viewpoints. Green papers announce government proposals on particular issues and are meant for general discussion. These come in…