Author: NLM Correspondent

By Antony Mutunga “That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended – civilisations are built up – excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and the cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin” – Clive Staples Lewis Living in a world that has, from time to time, fallen into ruination and bounced back after experiencing the likes of the World Wars, the Shoah (Holocaust), the Great Depression, the Global Financial Crisis and many others, one would tend to think that the world…

By Nadrat Mazrui After reading Rasna Warah’s UNsilenced on corruption in the UN – it was reviewed by Dr Tom Odhiambo in the November edition – I couldn’t help wondering: if the most eminent organisation in the world can be that compromised and corrupt, where exactly we are as Kenyans? Do we have anywhere to turn? Put differently, we always are complaining about the inherent corruption in our politicians but have we ever asked ourselves, why we are corrupt? Before you answer that, what really is corruption? When someone steals two cents that’s a robbery; when the thief has a…

By Sunday Memba “…Reckless outsourcing of investigations to NGOs with political agenda, a fixation with publicity over sound prosecutions and the overt use of the Court by European funders to maintain global influence puts the ICC’s long-term future at risk” – Toby Chadman Recent resolutions by some African States to withdraw from the International Criminal Court are a signal to the international community of states to wake up and smell the coffee. Now, it is a case of locking the stable door after the horse has already bolted. This article sets out to discuss whether the court can still sustain…

By Shadrack Muyesu Where constitutions allow, presidential pardons have always been a subject of controversy. Part of this has been blamed on the unfettered discretion regimes afford their presidents in exercising this power, and the thinking that the power of pardon significantly encroaches into the domain of the Judiciary. To highlight the extent of this discretion, the United States president has unlimited power to pardon any federal offence, which power can be exercised at any time and is not subject to judicial review or legislative control. This creates an unpredictable regime where one president can actively and consistently apply pardon…

By Kenyatta Otieno The alleged loss of Sh5 billion from the Ministry of Health was not news to me. After all, President Uhuru Kenyatta recently threw up his hands in surrender to graft cartels. The irony is that he did this right in State House, the seat of the most powerful office in Kenya. He blamed everybody else for not doing his or her job, hence his inability to arrest the vice. Two things have become malignant in the Kenyan social fabric – tribalism and corruption. The two symbiotically feed on each other; it is why a look at the…

By Prof. John Harbeson As I witness and begin to live through the political earthquake in the United States that started last month, which I find appalling and perhaps ominous, my thoughts to turn what it might mean for other regions of the world, and for Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa in particular. I begin to realise that the world into which former colonies have been introduced since their independence, and whose established norms they have been expected to embrace, may be on the cusp of a fundamental transformation. After a half century in which industrialised democracies have encouraged, aided, cajoled…

Education CS Fred Matiang’i has been consistent with his “Magufuli moments” and Kenyans are absolutely loving it. He does not have the rash abrasiveness of Joseph Nkaissery and Nelson Marwa, or the disturbing intrusiveness of Ezekiel Mutua and Joseph Kaimenyi; his is the demeanour of a loving but strict father. Dedication has seen him not only win over his fiercest critics in the teachers unions but also present a genuine hope that, for the first time in as long as anyone can remember, we are having credible national exams. Reclaiming moral uprightness in the education sector is a good starting…

BY DAVID ONJILI The national women soccer team Harambee Starlets have defied the odds and as they prepare for their maiden appearance at the continental soccer showpiece in Cameroon this November, the entire nation in typical Kenyan fashion has recognized and  are now happy to be associated with them. Success, indeed, has many fathers and failure none. Starlets have defied many perenial odds including lack of training facilities to qualify for the continental challenge. As such, they have earned their right to special mention. With current Football Kenya Federation under the youthful Nick Mwendwa, management has improved. The girls are…

By Kelvin Njuguna September of 2016 was the month when political parties made significant alignments and realignments in recent times. From the grand merger of affiliate parties of the Jubilee Coalition to form the Jubilee Party (JP) to the ten-year anniversary of the Orange Democratic Party (ODM); the tone for the August 2017 elections could not been better set. What the parties haven’t been able to articulate is whether these parties have faithfully fulfilled the requisite requirements of a political party as enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, and the Political Parties Act. Political parties in Kenya scandalously exist…

By David Matende There are early signs that the campaigns for next year’s poll will be a classical case of the theatre of the absurd – with the accompanying conflict, cliffhangers, hyperbole and irony. And media seem more than ready to amplify this tragic-comedy. In such a pathetic political theatre, rumour is often treated as fact and opinion passed around as news. They rolled it in mid September. If you recall, on Friday, September 16, newspapers and TVs had predicted that there was going to be a clash pitting Cord and Jubilee supporters at a Nairobi estate. The two main…