Author: NLM Correspondent

By Kelvin Njuguna Mugwe The happenings in the political scene in Kenya after the August 8 election have been historic, to say the least. Political hype has never been as divisive yet as interesting and intriguing as it is now. From the nullification of a presidential election, a first in Africa, to the intensive, bareknuckle and character assassination motivated campaigns, the political temperatures have never been higher. The two protagonists, Jubilee and Nasa, having both undergone a seesaw of emotions, have reverted to exceptional chest thumping and hubris. The Nasa brigade has been drawing inspiration from the presidential nullification, which…

By Kenyatta Otieno Immediately IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati announced Uhuru Kenyatta as president elect on August 11, several things happened. Jubilee Party strongholds went into celebration frenzy as NASA strongholds reacted in two ways. One side went into a silent sulky mood while the Luo dominated areas burst into protests, which was met by the full force of police brutality. Raila Odinga and Nasa maintained that they were not going to court but promised to give a way forward on August 15. Come that day Raila announced that they are going to court to give Supreme Court a chance to…

By Peter Wanyonyi Back in 1929, at the height of British colonial oppression in Kenya, the Kikuyu Central Association sent Jomo Kenyatta abroad to lobby for Kikuyu land rights and restitution. It was felt that, given the denial of rights to Black people to express themselves in British colonial Kenya, there was only one place in the world that would tolerate and, in fact, welcome and embrace the ideals of free speech and open debate to the extent needed to push African land rights to the fore of British colonial debate. That place was, quite ironically, Britain – the colonial…

By Ali Abdi The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. From time to time, lawyers and judges have tried to define what constitutes fairness. Like defining an elephant, it is not easy to do, although fairness in practice has the elephantine quality of being easy to recognise. As a result of these efforts, a word in common usage has acquired the trapping of legalism: “acting fairly” has become “acting in accordance with the rules of natural justice,” and on occasion has been dressed up with Latin tags… as…

By Yasin Arkan He has realised Delilah’s deceit, borne of the Paradox of Democracy – her promise to be true to him, while she was there all the while to serve the established elite order. Delilah, like Democracy, is devious. She subdued Raila the man and his masses with promise. She became his quest, but her heart and title, power and prestige, both cold and hard remained the possession of the Philistine elites. Now, vindictive and blind with rage, Samson will use Delilah, her sweet “freedom of speech”, completely unrestricted “freedom of assembly and association” to find his way to…

By Kwamchetsi Makokha Barring a miracle, it seemed that Justus Kariuki Mate, the Speaker of the County Assembly of Embu, was going to start October of 2014 in jail. A three-judge High Court bench in Kerugoya had ruled on April 16, 2014 that Mate and the Clerk to the Embu County Assembly, Jim Kauma, were in contempt of court and summoned them for sentencing. Court of Appeal judges Alnashir Visram, Martha Koome and Otieno Odek sitting in Nyeri on September 30, 2014 upheld that decision and ordered the pair to present themselves at Kerugoya on October 6, 2014 for sentencing.…

By Shadrack Muyesu The Supreme Court’s decision in Raila Odinga vs. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission & 3 Others (2013) eKLR has been widely criticised as being in error and lacking in jurisprudential value. As such, 2017 was always going to be an opportunity for it to clarify or restate its position. 2013 In 2013, the Court restrained itself from interfering with the will of the electorate, to find that Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and William Samoei Ruto were validly elected and declared president and deputy president respectively. The Court also found the election to have been conducted in a…

By Andrew K. Tanui The events at the Independent and Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), one of the Kenya’s ten constitutional commissions, continues to bring into focus the architecture of the governance framework of these independent institutions as well as the intentions of the drafters of the Constitution. A closer look at some of these constitutional commissions shows evidence of infightings between the Secretariat and its Commissioners as to their specific roles. Similar cases have been reported at the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the National Police Service Commission (NPSC), the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and the National Gender and…

By David Matende It is now universally accepted that Kenya’s media engaged in the most blatant partisan reporting ever during the campaigns for the August 8 election. But as unprofessional as this might have been, it may not have influenced how people voted, with studies from elsewhere showing that getting something on the agenda is not the same as changing people’s positions As the country prepares for a repeat of the presidential election on October 26, it is important to reflect on the election reporting lessons learnt from the pre-August 8 election campaign. The Daily Nation, particularly, distinguished itself for…

By Kenyatta Otieno Ngugi wa Thiong’o realised late in life that dropping the name James was not enough in his attempt to break the chains of mental colonisation. In his book Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, Ngugi tells the world that he will not write in English again. Ngugi was talking about Africans (writers) clearing their minds and worldview of biases of Western culture. I will shift his view to Western democracy as prescribed by the West, to emerging African states. From what is happening in Kenya, democracy is a necessary evil at its best…