Author: NLM Correspondent

By Kenyatta Otieno I grew up in the former Western Province. I first learned the Idakho dialect in Ikolomani then Tiriki in Kaimosi and Maragoli during my time in high school. Later, in my quest to understand Luhyas, I realised that they might not be a tribe after all. This was after travelling to Kakamega as an adult and listening to West FM broadcast their breakfast show in Kiswahili. At a deeper level, the languages of the eighteen sub tribes have similarities even where its members may not understand each other. Last year, Cotu Secretary General Francis Atwoli came up…

Shadrack Muyesu International Humanitarian Law was supposed to inject much needed morality into the element of war. But, on the evidence of matters, IHL has so far failed in this quest. Why? Some blame the text in IHL instruments, some the lack of goodwill in implementing otherwise decent laws, and yet others the insensitivity of humanitarian law to emerging realities. But who is right? The IHL regime is complex, hazy and no doubt backward in light of everyday innovation. However, erroneous interpretation and application of IHL as it is presents a far greater stumbling block in the clamour for moral…

BALBINA, a woman from Mombasa, Kenya’s main coastal city, remembers fetching her neighbour Abdullah’s body from a police station. “It wasn’t so terrible,” says Balbina (not her real name). Surprisingly, “there was not even any blood.” The wound was hidden at the back of his head; his face was serene. He was killed by police, in what they claimed (but she does not believe) was a shoot-out. “Abdullah did wrong. He went to Somalia, maybe he killed innocent people.” But he deserved justice, she says, not to be shot in the back of the head without a trial. Such stories…

Alpha Femi Auditor General Edward Ouko is no doubt a man under siege by forces determined to clip his powers and ensure he does not have the leeway to question massive plunder, when it happens, of public funds by State and county agencies. From a move by the National Assembly to amend the Public Audit Act and a petition in Parliament to remove him from office over allegations of abuse of office, the auditor general has chose not to take things lying down, and instead fight for his independence. Unlike in similar situations where the Office of the Attorney General…

Dr Charles  Khamala Disorderly doctors display a condition whose therapy is “four walls.” On January 5, 2017, Employment and Labour Relations Court Judge Helen Wasilwa rejected a Collective Bargaining Agreement purportedly signed between the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Board Union (KPMDU) and the Health Ministry in 2013 because “it is unregistered, invalid and hence unenforceable”. Thus, the “four walls” therapy was administered on January 10, 2016 to cure their continued defiance of her return-to-work order. The first problem is that KMPDU were initially dissatisfied with the government’s failure to implement its promised 300 per cent pay hike. However,…

NLM writer For the last eight months, the seven judges of the Supreme Court of Kenya have been unable to agree upon or elect their representative to the Judicial Service Commission of Kenya (JSC). Justice Dr Smokin Wanjala, who was the court’s representative for the last five years, is seeking a second term. So far no one has formally declared an interest in running against him – even as it is revealed that virtually everyone, save for the Chief Justice wants to run – yet no elections have been held for the last eight months. Multiple sources who spoke to the…

By David Wanjala Gullible. Cheap. Short sighted. Whatever you want to call it, the adjective will fit quite nicely in describing the perennial failure of political leadership in the “Luhya Nation” to rise to the occasion when it is most crucial. Masinde Muliro and Kijana Wamalwa, the doyens of Luhya politics, are the standard. In recent times, those who have stepped into the shoes of the two fallen heroes have utterly failed the people of Mulembe big time, with their antics, almost all of the time, only succeeding in providing comic relief. There is a former Member of Parliament from…

By Kenyatta Otieno Development is a monster. It is as big as an elephant but sometimes everyone is blind to it. Everyone tries to touch it from where he is and the interpretation you get comes in many shades, depending on level of education, exposure and political persuasion. I will draw back from this elephant and look at development from the eyes of a son of a peasant with big dreams. Jubilee Government (or the as our President says, Uhuru Kenyatta’s government) has been shouting about the Standard Gauge Railway, and other infrastructural developments, as their achievement in their first…

At Kifuku, a cattle ranch in Kenya, the dry-stone walls are reminiscent of England; by the farmhouse, a pair of boats sit on an artificial lake. The farm has, however, been anything but calm of late. Since September, dozens of cattle-ranchers, some with assault rifles, have driven their cattle onto the farm’s 8,000 acres (3,238 hectares) of grass. Buildings have been wrecked, staff beaten up and a police officer shot and injured. “We’re all extremely tired and frustrated and short-fused and scared,” says Maria Dodds, the owner. By February 12, relief had arrived, in the form of an armoured car…

The rise of cyber attacks in the region can be attributed to a shortage of experts to tackle sophisticated cyber crimes. According to the Cisco Annual Cybersecurity Report, 2017, organisations are having perennial challenges fighting cyber-crimes because they are not investing enough funds to contain cyber-attacks. Small or medium enterprises in East Africa have at least one or two of their systems fully exposed on the Internet, with the internal staff unaware of the vulnerability. The majority of organisations spend less than Sh500,000 annually on cyber security while some have no budget at all and do not train their staff…