Author: NLM Correspondent

In regard to the prevailing political temperatures and ‘rumours’ of Raila Odinga having plans to swear himself in as a the President of Kenya,  I agree  with the stand of  the US Bureau-cum-Department of African affairs, especially and specifically for its rejecting Raila Odinga’s  plan to take oath of office as President. I endorse the stand by this department to the political leadership in Kenya, and join them in calling for priority to be given to dialogue and compensation of the families of those people that lost lives during the election demonstrations. Indeed, it is a timely call and constructive…

My visit to the Coast this year coincided with two significant political as well as social eventualities – the first was the election of the new Council of Governors leadership at Diani Reef Hotel in Kwale County, and the second the recent people’s assembly events of governors Ali Hassan Joho of Mombasa County and Amason Kingi of Kilifi. The two held a conference at Kilifi where they discussed Swearing in of Raila Odinga and also touched on secession as an ideal solution to the ills of Kenya’s electoral politics. The key visitor was Raila Odinga. Their main idea is for…

By Shadrack Muyesu One of the great changes of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 was to ensure that the State was founded on popular sovereignty. By demanding that a president be not only popularly elected but also enjoy popularity in the majority of the regions, Article 138 guaranteed a president that was acceptable to most of the citizens. The law would have been good. Unfortunately, the drafters failed to specify the minimum percentage of votes to be cast against which the standard cited in Article 138 would be assessed. They also failed to base popular sovereignty against citizenship (instead they…

By Michael Olukoye The National Super Alliance, NASA, has been in the news in the recent past with plans to initiate a people driven government based on peoples’ assemblies. They state that national government has used instruments of power to subvert the will of the people through sham elections, necessitating the action. This article attempts an analysis as to whether the Constitution of Kenya contemplates such a form of governance. Interpretation of the Constitution of Kenya The High court of Kenya in Nairobi in the case of Institute for Social Accountability and Another vs. The National Assembly and 4 others…

Listening to him, it immediately becomes obvious he is a deep person – his unaffected intelligence, eloquence and astute knowledge on matters almost everything – a curious combination for a young person today. Even then, until you follow keenly for a while, you might mistake these talents as merely an occupational add-on by a young man only keen to make a quick dime in a difficult country. But Joel Okwemba is passionate and deeply so. He has identified a problem none of us thought existed; he has solution and, most importantly, a workable plan of how to bring his ideas…

IN 2014, Henrik Karlsson, a Swedish entrepreneur whose startup was failing, was lying in bed with a bankruptcy notice when the BBC called. The reporter had a scoop: on the eve of releasing a major report, the United Nation’s climate change panel appeared to be touting an untried technology as key to keeping planetary temperatures at safe levels. The technology went by the inelegant acronym BECCS, and Karlsson was apparently the only BECCS expert the reporter could find. Karlsson was amazed. The bankruptcy notice was for his BECCS startup, which he’d founded seven years earlier after an idea came to…

Over the past year, the humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has deteriorated at an alarming rate. IOM, the UN Migration Agency is appealing for $75 million (Sh7.6 billion) to urgently meet the growing needs of displaced Congolese and the communities hosting them in the eastern and south-central provinces of North and South Kivu, Tanganyika and the Kasai. In recent months, fighting has spread to parts of DRC that had not seen such violence since the 1994-2003 conflict, which claimed millions of lives. This and large-scale hostility between communities has led to the internal displacement of…

By Fwamba NC Fwamba and Mulialia Okumu “Now… my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food…” These chilling words are contained in Muammar Gaddafi’s last official speech before his bullet-proof vehicle was hit by a missile from a US Drone, allowing for a small bunch of “rebels” to capture and humiliate the Libyan leader before publicly executing him. These events marked the end of the beginning of the fast and deep descent of what was Africa’s…

By Yasin ArkAN What is corruption? Is it the young girl in Machakos praying that the Officer in-Charge of Station will finally deploy her brother, a Police Constable, to a route sufficiently rich in extortion to fund her second semester at the University of Nairobi? She has already lost one year. Is corruption the kickbacks the State employee extracts from suppliers to supplement his income which has been stretched to breaking point by a clan of dependants? What about paying extra to bump your loved one up a public hospital surgery waiting list? Or is corruption the transfer of taxes…

In early December, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement with the United States to increase energy access in Africa and to reduce the continent’s electricity deficiency through innovative solutions. The partnership was part of the $7 billion, five-year Power Africa project, started by the Obama administration. It’s aimed at creating 60 million new connections in Africa by 2030. The event was held less than a week after Netanyahu attended the inauguration of Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta—making it his third visit to Africa in just under two years. In July 2016, Netanyahu became the first Israeli prime minister to visit the…