Author: NLM Correspondent

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…

Anthony Kpandu took a delegation from his party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), to China last year to train with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Kpandu is in charge of special working groups at the general secretariat for the SPLM, the liberation movement turned government party that helped South Sudan gain independence from Sudan in 2011. Wearing a button that says, “I love SPLM,” a paisley tie, and a loose tan jacket, he reminisces about his trip to China in detail, down to every day’s itinerary. They visited the Central Party School in Beijing, toured industrial zones, drank various…

Calestous Juma, the towering Kenyan scholar of technology and development, died on Dec. 15 at the age of 64 in Boston, Massachusetts. Juma, who was a faculty professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, was known for his work on innovation, and how that intersected with sectors including agriculture, education, health, and economic prosperity. As a prolific and luminary academic, he combined rigorous evidence with intellectual diligence, producing work that ennobled him to many people across the world. Throughout his books and essays, he dissected complex systems and ideas to reveal the unknown or argue for the unconventional. And in a continent where the…

TOURISTS have long been drawn to Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya by its steep cliffs, plentiful zebras and spectacular canyons. Recently there is a new attraction; a spa set amid the cliffs, with a huge pool heated by the energy stored in the Earth’s crust. Curiously, it is not run by a tourist company, but by KenGen, the national electricity generator. It abuts the Olkaria geothermal power plants, from which plumes of steam pour into the sky. Since 1982 four power stations have opened here; a fifth is being built and work on a sixth will begin soon. Energy…

The last twelve months have been a confusing time for African democracy. We have seen coups that didn’t look like coups and elections that didn’t look like elections. In this sense, it was a year of illusions. As in 2016, the broad trend is clear: with a number of notable exceptions, the gains made in the early 1990s are under threat from governments with little commitment to plural politics. It’s true that 2017 provided further evidence of the danger of democratic backsliding. But it also saw powerful presidents suffer embarrassing setbacks in a number of countries. So what lessons does 2017 have to…

By Kenyatta Otieno Chinua Achebe, in his book The Trouble with Nigeria, quotes an unknown political scientist from South East Nigeria who said Nigeria has an Igbo problem. There is no love lost between the Igbo of Anambra and Imo States, and the federal government of Nigeria. Since the 1970 collapse of Biafra’s attempt to secede, it appears Nigeria never solved the problems that led to the fall out. The Igbo have had a marriage of convenience with the other two dominant tribes – the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani and the government as a new push for secession is taking shape.…

Duplicate problems, different responses The United States and Venezuela traded harsh words after President Nicolas Maduro said that parties that boycotted last month’s mayoral elections would be banned from future elections. A ruling party bigwig said this reflected the government’s belief in multiparty democracy, a position that refreshes memory on the calls to make voting mandatory witnessed in the wake of low voter turnout that marred President Uhuru Kenyatta’s fresh presidential elections win. Something for Judiciary to learn from our neighbours down south While the Supreme Court has been lauded for its independence from the way it handled the recently…

Kenya’s Tana River Basin, a major source of hydroelectric power, food and fresh water, may see its annual rainfall increase as much as 43 percent by the end of the century because of climate change, scientists said last month. The river basin, stretching from the centre to the east of the country, is home to 8 million people. It supplies 70 per cent of Kenya’s hydro-power, and 80 percent of Nairobi’s drinking water, according to UN Environment. Scientists say the Tana River Basin, which has experienced drought over the past few years, is likely to get wetter this century, although…

By Prof. John Harbeson As devoted as I am to the proposition that democracy is an indispensable value well worth pursuing as an end in itself, at the same time I am also increasingly convinced of a less well-established proposition that to be sustainable democratic practices must prove to be essential to realising other equally important objectives.  In any country, but especially in still relatively new states, democracy must over time, in both fact and appearance, lead to stronger personal and collective security, state stability, and discernible social and economic progress at the level of individuals and families as well…