Author: NLM Correspondent

Shadrack Muyesu The signs are there for those who seek them to find. After August 8, Uhuru Kenyatta will still be President. If history is of any instruction, Raila Amollo Odinga will take to the streets, his followers in tow, but they will be no match to mean looking GSU officers with their armoured personal carriers, littering the streets of Nairobi like ants on an anthill. Like previous times, opposition politicians will be unrelenting in their clamour for reform; but with government adamant and their eyes gradually opening to a future without their patron, one by one, they will fall…

The election of Mohammed Abdullahi Farmajo offers the country’s international partners a new opportunity to step up efforts in advancing peace and stability in Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa. Yet the hopes of a stable future for war-torn Somalia may be short-lived if the fraught regional dynamic, in particular the mistrust felt by regional powers, are not effectively unaddressed. Farmajo’s near-landslide election victory on 8 February is without parallel. Although the eruptions of joy across the Somali-speaking Horn and the shared jubilation of citizens and soldiers in Mogadishu is rightly giving way to more sober assessments, the view…

By Tom Odhiambo It seems that in many countries today, the church and State are not as close as they were a few centuries ago. Unless one is talking about a theocracy, as in Iran, Yemen, Sudan or the Vatican, for example; many states describe themselves as secular. In many countries, the church is involved in government largely for ceremonial reasons. Church leaders may be asked to say a prayer during State functions, or they may be advisors to government. But even where the church is separate from the State, as in Kenya, the men (and women) of God still…

LThe school near the GP practice where I work held an internet safety evening recently, subtitled “How to Keep Your Child Safe Online”. It was in the school hall, hosted by police officers, and explained the role of something called the “Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre”. The blurb on the leaflet promised parents of children between five and 11 would learn more about the dangers of the internet, and in particular, social media. I’m not sure when it became normal for kids to have to cope with malicious online messages, and be savvy about paedophiles masquerading as peers. In…

By David Matende A while back, a local newspaper published an article written by Tee Ngugi, in which he criticised writer Wole Soyinka’s generation of intellectuals for propagating a flawed nationalistic ideology for Africa. The ideology entailed revitalising African traditional values and making them the basis for Africa’s future social, political and economic development, as opposed to the values imposed on Africans by Europeans. According to the writer, this attempt at “decolonisng the mind”, promoted by intellectuals, who include writers of the “Makerere generation“, has come to a futile end half a century later. I assume that on Tee’s list…

Mobile technology and data science company, Tala, which is working to change the way credit scoring and financial services work around the world, announced last month it had raised more than $30 million (Sh3 billion) in Series B financing, led by IVP and joined by Ribbit Capital. Additional participants include existing investors Lowercase Capital, Data Collective, Collaborative Fund and Female Founders Fund (F3). Tala’s new round of funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand into new markets, and build its internal team. As part of the financing, Jules Maltz from IVP has joined Tala’s Board of Directors. “By…

East African customs authorities have adopted an electronic system to track lorries travelling between Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to speed up journeys. The trackers will allow officials and traders to monitor trucks travelling to and from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. A device will be attached to vehicles and is intended to help prevent hijacks and goods being tampered with. Uganda, which pioneered the project, says journey times could be cut from three-and-a-half days to just 36 hours. Detours detected The geo-mapping, known as the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking (RECT), will apply to the main road stretching from Mombasa port…

Kenya Power has announced plans to start importing cheaper, clean and reliable electricity from Ethiopia, saying the move will help it reduce cost of electricity as well as accelerate its goal of connecting over 1.5 million Kenyans to the national grid by 2020. “We are in plans to commence importation of cheaper and clean energy from our neighboring Ethiopia to boost the manufacturing sector and connect more Kenyans to the national grid,” said Eng. Mungai, General Manager and Business Strategy of Kenya Power. Kenya Association of Manufacturers has lauded the move saying cheap, reliable energy will lure more foreign and…

By Leonard Wanyama For all the youth, women and constituency development funds allocated over the course of recent years, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have performed dismally as an agency of sustainable development in Kenya. Competition from cheap imports and high costs – be they of energy or other kinds – have contributed to making success difficult for many small businesses in the country. Indeed, despite the fact that there is relative ease in the registration or starting of entrepreneurial exploits, it seems the environment makes it very difficult to maintain operations in the provision of goods and services…

By Olukoye Michael “The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law” – Jeremy Bentham As per the Sexual Offences Act (herein the Act), Kenya, rape is termed to have been committed when a person, intentionally and unlawfully commits, an act that causes penetration with his or her genital organs. Such penetration has to have been obtained under duress or lack of consent thereof. Thus the actus reus is non-consensual penetration. In most cases, the victim is female. However, this paper seeks to interrogate whether, in the case where the victim is male and the perpetrator female,…