Author: NLM Correspondent

By Shadrack Muyesu The Nasa fraternity has moved to court to challenge the re- election of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the recently concluded General Election. Their petition is anchored on three limbs: one, that the independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission acted illegally and irregularly in the collation, tallying, verification and transmission of the presidential election result; second, that the election was conducted fraudulently by the Commission and; that the 3rd Respondent, the President-elect, conducted his campaigns in breach of election guidelines. On the face of it, Nasa restrained itself from pursuing a matter that has characterised their allegations thus far,…

By Hon. Lee G Muthoga “Governments must be kept awakened to the needs of the people. Only an opposition can do that” – Daniel arap Moi, 1964 “Premature introduction of multiparties will lead to civil unrest and its disastrous consequences” – Daniel arap Moi, 1991 in ‘African Demos’, Vol. 2 The two contradictory statements above that are attributed to retired President Daniel Moi clearly show the perils of opposition politics, not only in Kenya but in Africa and other emerging democracies around the world as well. As chairman of Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) before it dissolved and merged into…

For some forty years or so, the man known as the “dean of political activism” – a phrase coined by his former political adviser, Miguna Miguna – Raila Amollo Odinga has, like a colossus, dominated the Kenyan political scene. Most of this time has been spent in the trenches, and in detention, and his street battles with the oppressive and autocratic Kanu regime over the ages are robustly documented in Kenya’s history. His style of governance is so fundamentally different, some argue, that it is the reason State institutions, the ones that wield real power such as NIS and the…

By Kenyatta Otieno I believe there were glaring anomalies in the tallying process of presidential vote by IEBC. However, that does not exonerate Nasa, Raila Odinga and his campaign team from incompetence during this election period. At the core of it is Raila’s belief that the devil is in the systems and structures of governance and not the people. Prior to the August 8 elections, the Coalition of Reforms and Democracy (Cord), the precursor to Nasa, had pushed for reforms in IEBC. New commissioners were appointed and the law amended to improve efficiency in our electoral system. What Raila forgot…

By Arkan Yasin The poor plebeian people of Kenya are the real losers of last month’s election. They who, time and time again, are worked in to a political fervour of religious proportions by elites, with the same old promise of “freedom” from the terror of grinding poverty and all manner of ills, that were created by the self-same elites and their imperial sponsors in the first place. They put in all that effort only to find themselves not only more exposed to more evils but also with a heavier yoke around their necks than they had going in to…

By Newton Arori Malicious prosecution refers to the filing of a lawsuit without sufficient evidence or for an improper purpose, such as to harass or defame the person being sued. The suit may be civil or criminal in nature. Generally the tort of malicious prosecution exists to guard against an abuse of the court process. The Supreme Court of Canada in Nelles vs. Ontario (1989) 2 SCR 170 set out the elements of malicious prosecution in the following words: “…The prosecution must have been initiated by the defendant, the prosecution must have been terminated in favour of the plaintiff, (and)…

By Omwanza Ombati and Moses Chelang’a if there is a jurisdiction that the Justices of the Supreme Court of Kenya curses, it is the court’s exclusive original jurisdiction to hear and determine presidential election petitions. It is both legal and political. In a highly divided country, the Court will be doomed whichever way it rules. Former Chief Justice Dr Willy Mutunga, conscious of the impact of “political jurisdiction” on the courts, expressed his frustrations in a public forum that courts ought not handle election disputes, and instead politicians should “deal with their own shit” elsewhere. In his dissenting opinion in…

40 years ago, China, the second largest economy in the world today, used to be undeveloped and poor. The country had remained closed to the world and, as a result, its economy was paying the price. A big chunk of its population lived in poverty. No one thought the country could turn around and become what it is today. But things changed when Deng Xiaoping took over. In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping helped the nation by opening up in terms of trade and new technologies that saw the economy start adopting western ideas, which led to an increase in…

It is well enough that people do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. – Henry Ford By Antony Mutunga Long before the existence of governmental monetary authorities and financial institutions, the people used to save up their valuables by depositing them with the goldsmiths who would then issue them notes. In time, these notes turned into a medium of exchange and people would exchange them for the commodities they needed. As time went by, the goldsmiths who stored the valuables for a storage fee became…

For years, Nairobi has been the cradle of technological innovation in Kenya, and the centre of the country’s thriving tech ecosystem, famously known as Silicon Savannah. Most of the innovation spaces, incubation centres, accelerators, and maker labs were also concentrated in the capital—making Nairobi an attractive spot for both technologists and investors. Some innovation spaces, such as the iHub, which was founded in 2010, have launched as many as 170 start-ups. But over the last few years, tech hubs have sprouted up in other Kenyan cities and towns, including Mombasa (SwahiliBox), Kisumu (LakeHub), Eldoret (Dlab Hub), Voi (Sote Hub), Machakos (Ubunifu), and Nyeri (Mt. Kenya…