Author: NLM Correspondent

By Newton Arori According to the Black’s Law Dictionary, an identification parade is a police identification procedure in which a criminal suspect and other physically similar persons are shown to the victim or a witness to determine whether the suspect can be identified as the perpetrator of the crime. An identification parade is held to enable an eyewitness to identify the suspect whom s/he allegedly saw. The history of identification parades is English and dates back as far as 1860 when they were instituted as metropolitan police order. The order required that “the police should place a suspect amongst his…

By Macharia Kaguru The entrenchment of corruption in Kenya has brought with it direct and indirect effects in all spheres of socio-economic development of the country. Put differently, corruption affects the proper running of the government, distorts the correct functioning of socio-economic institutions, hampers transparency and exploits the human person for selfish interest. In addition, corruption, especially within the public service and the government in general, renders respect for law and rules obsolete. Whilst Kenya has an elaborate anti-corruption regime, corruption is still deeply entrenched. In the 2015 global Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by Transparency International, Kenya scored 25…

By Newton Arori “Adverse possession allows a trespasser – a person guilty of a tort, or even a crime in the eyes of the law – to regain title to land which he has illegally possessed for 12 years. How 12 years of illegality can suddenly be converted to legal title is, logically and morally, baffling” – Justice Bhandari in State of Haryana vs. Mukesh Kumar & Others (2011) Adverse possession is a process by which the entire ownership of an estate is extinguished by lapse of time. For a claim of adverse possession to uphold in Kenya, it must…

Martin Nyakundi O’Barimo As Secretary General of Television Viewers and Radio Listeners Association of Kenya (TEVIRA), a consumer organisation that protects the interests of viewers of television and listeners of radio in Kenya, I often read the concerns of Kenyans on our ever-busy Facebook page. Among the many things that concern parents are the reports of rampant corruption, involvement of the youth in dangerous crime, alcohol and drug abuse, illegitimate sexual relations, delinquency generally, and gambling. Corruption, on its part, is threatening to lead to extinction of the poor and the powerless. This is because it ensures resources do not…

The Nyumba Kumi initiative, enabled by the adoption of a Digital Identity card and integrated into the larger Safaricom Surveillance Camera system, would be a powerful tool of control as it reaches in to all aspects of the individual’s life. That is to say, beyond movement, the Digital Identity Card would enable control of all social and economic transactions of individuals, society-wide. And this is no exaggeration; this is the vision as articulated by the Government of Kenya itself. To paint a picture, today many buildings and institutions are inaccessible without Identification Cards. The manual nature of the system makes…

By Arkan Yasin “L ‘etat c’est moi” – Louis XIV of France (1638 – 1715) “I am the State.” For the top honcho(s) as Safaricom, this would suffice as the standard “State of the Republic Address”. “As the information state replaces the bureaucratic welfare state, control over information creation, processing, flows, and use has become the most effective form of power – Braman, Sandra What does Safaricom’s over-arching dominance mean for citizens? Here is a real-life example that perfectly epitomises the answer to this question. During the 2007 post-election violence, the press quoted then CEO Michael Joseph as saying that…

A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC, by the African Investigative Publishing Collective (AIPC), of donor-funded development programmes in five extremely poor regions – of which two are post-conflict – in Africa, reveal that they have benefited mainly the rich. In north Uganda (post-Joseph Kony), Kinshasa in the DRC, Kibera Township in Nairobi, western Ivory Coast and northwest Cameroon, aid projects had all been captured by the elites, whilst the poor are no better off. In two out of five regions, they are actually poorer “You won’t find anyone talking to you about these programmes,”…

“The labelling of Kibera as “the biggest slum in Africa” is a slogan much used by the thousands of NGOs active in the area, with population figures quoted of around 1 million inhabitants. Whilst the Kibera Law Centre, the Kibera Foundation and “Kibera UK” all mention figures of around 1 million,  “Shining Hope for Communities” NGO thinks it is 1 million and a half. The fact of so many poor people vindicates the NGO activities and the projects and programmes: The more beneficiaries, the better. “But it is inappropriate to say that it is a reality” say Amelie Desgroppes and…

KENSUP implementers overlooked, either by design or oversight, the risk of corruption in the project. At the time the Soweto houses were being developed and allocated, in 2012, officials of the Economic Monitoring Unit (EMU), a department that investigates crime in state departments, discovered that 78 staff members of the National Housing Corporation (NHC) had allocated themselves 209 units in their projects countrywide, including Soweto. One staff member had allocated herself 7 units plus 14 to her relatives. Among the beneficiaries was also an assistant minister for Housing. The investigation exposed an unwritten law in NHC to the effect that…

By Ken Opala They had come, way back in the year 2000, to promise Lucianna Wanjiku, 58, that her mud shack in Soweto settlement in Kibera, Nairobi – often called “the greatest slum on earth” – would be rehabilitated. She would get a title deed to the piece of land on which her single-room was built, the government men had said. She had forked out Sh1, 000 (US$10) she had saved over five years as a down payment. They had written a number on her door, saying it corresponded to the title deed. Though the number has long since faded,…