BY KELVN NJUGUNA MUGWE On August 12 2016, thousands of Kenyans, largely from the Kikuyu community, thronged the Kasarani Stadium to attend the commemoration of one John Njogu wa Njoroge, then a renowned host of a popular Kikuyu station Kameme Fm. Among those in attendance were Central Kenya Members of Parliament. Surrounded by fellow cheerful tribesmen, three of the politicians allegedly made utterances in their native Kikuyu tongue that were tantamount to despicable hate speech. The three were the often-reckless Moses Kuria, the combative Ferdinand Waititu and Bahati constituency legislator Kimani Ngunjiri. Moses Kuria allegedly called for the assassination of…
Author: NLM Correspondent
By Shadrack Muyesu Through a petition (No. 399 of 2016), lawyer Gitobu Imanyara moved to court to challenge the constitutionality or otherwise of the provisions of Section 10 (2) of The Elections (Amendments) Act, 2016. This section provides, “The Commission shall, upon the request of a political party, conduct and supervise the nomination of candidates by the political party for presidential, parliamentary or county elections in accordance with Article 88 of the Constitution.” The petitioner also sought orders on the Constitutionality or otherwise of financing political party primaries from the exchequer, the Constitutionality or otherwise of the time frames set for the…
BY ALFA FEMI Auditor-General Edward Ouko’s recent and ongoing misfortunes are because actors in the Executive want to stop him from revealing of two high-profile scandals that government does not want exposed. Details have emerged about how senior members of the Executive hatched the plot to impeach the Auditor-General as a result of the “major scandals” he is investigating regarding excesses in government. Sources close to those behind the push to have Ouko ousted disclose that the idea was to keep the man – who has been at the centre of unearthing massive wastage and rip-off of public resources –…
Even in the posher restaurants in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the world’s newest country, the menus are printed on cheap paper. It is not worth having more expensive ones when they have to be updated every few weeks. Thanks to an inflation rate that touched more than 50% a month at one point last year (the conventional definition of hyperinflation, though price rises have since eased off a bit), even a modest meal costs a brick-sized bundle of currency. Over the past year, the value of the South Sudanese pound has collapsed. It used to take 30 to…
By Kenyatta Otieno Last month, I wrote how building the SGR when Kenyans and their livestock are dying due to lack of food, makes no sense. Even the clashes in our semi-arid regions are more about resources – which translates to sustenance – than politics. Politics comes in because we believe that political power is our only gateway to resources. In this regard, shoot-to-kill is not a quick fix solution; it is not even a solution in the first place. Let us consider Israel. The Jews who docked in Jaffa in Palestine from 1880s in the Aliyah immigrations from Europe…
By Fuad Abdirahman 10 years ago, the United Nations Security Council authorised the deployment of a peacekeeping mission in support of then Somalia’s Transitory Federal Institutions (TFIs). Initially, the mission was given a mandate of only six months, but a decade later because of several but necessary extensions, according to both Amisom and the Kenya Defence Forces. At the time of deploying the troops, their duty was to “to support a national reconciliation congress and submit a report within 60 days on a possible United Nations Peacekeeping Mission.” Part of the Amisom (African Mission in Somalia) role in Somalia was to…
By Martin Nyakundi o’Barimo The prosecutor occupies the most critical position in the criminal justice system in Kenya, both in the evidential and public interest tests. Much as the Judiciary may expand and increase the number of court officers, the judicial officers will still be waiting in the courts for the prosecutor to coordinate conveyance of suspects to court and to prove his case as required by the law – beyond reasonable doubt. However, the role of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions has been put under a strict public microscope owing to very unsatisfactory and gigantic record of number of…
By Leonard Wanyama Any political observer who believes that Peter Kenneth is a goody two shoes is immensely naïve. This is a very likely mistake analysts and the general Nairobi public might make in the examination of his gubernatorial ambitions within the county. For one, it is absolutely strange and astonishing how an individual who got only 1 per cent of the city’s votes – 15,662 to be precise – when he was gunning for the presidency in 2013 believes that he is the best bet for the position of governor. The man he is currently challenging, Dr Evans Kidero,…
ISAAC SWILA Is Wiper party leader Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka in a scheme to “hand” President Uhuru Kenyatta another five years in power? This is the question on the lips of many NASA supporters as daggers get drawn and parties ready themselves for the mother of all political battles in August this year. According to observers, Kalonzo’s bold move last month to submit his presidential nomination papers to his Wiper Democratic Movement party, has triggered uncertainty in the National Super Alliance (Nasa), with many fearing that his mind is all but made up on going it alone. What had been billed…
A cap on commercial lending rates by the government last year has hurt its own ability to raise funds in the local debt market as it struggles to keep yields below the maximum threshold. And the Central Bank has cancelled three auctions of Treasury bills and bonds this year, after investors pushed up yields towards or past the 14 per cent, where the commercial cap stands. “They are in a bit of a straitjacket and something will have to give,” said a senior fixed-income trader, referring to the cancelled auctions. The cap was introduced in September last year. It limits…