Author: NLM Correspondent

Using the inflexible category of tribe to allocate positions of power to elites is dangerous and can easily lead to those elites disadvantaged by numerical inferiority withdrawing from the democratic process and resorting to non-democratic means to contest for power. Okwaro Oscar Plato As expected, the outcome of the 2013 General Election was determined to a large extent by the tribal factor. Candidates who did not pitch their campaigns on tribal support miserably lost out to those who had the backing of their tribes. Although people may say that everywhere people vote for one of their own and cite examples…

By Newton Arori Perturbed that the government had declared a public holiday tied to Pope Francis’s visit, the chair of atheists in Kenya Harrison Mumia, in November 2015, moved to court seeking to have the holiday annulled. He contended that the holiday was unconstitutional, citing provisions in the supreme law to the effect that Kenya is a secular state, and as such, religious events should be kept out of the public sphere.  The matter was never decided by the court due to some technicalities. It nonetheless evokes the old and controversial question of separation of religion and the state. This…

I recently had what I want to believe was an interesting conversation with somebody, an important constituent from one of the counties – actually, a teacher. I describe the teacher as important because of their influence; either to persuade and/or dissuade others. Teachers are opinion leaders. My teacher-friend told me how she is impressed with her area Member of Parliament. According to her, unlike the Woman Representative, the MP has worked so hard to serve wananchi through various “development” projects. By virtue of her profession, it did not escape her attention that the MP gives cash rewards of up to…

DR Tom Odhiambo There is no doubt that devolution was worth having. Previously sleepy village towns seem to be thriving. A journey to different parts of Kenya reveals changes that would not have been imaginable under the “centralised” governance of the last decade. There are enough signs that the devolution of government has gone beyond the Constitution. On the ground, in mashinani at the least, for the very first time many Kenyans see, feel, argue with, and most importantly, participate in the life of their government, even if it is merely at the local level. Kenyans must protect and cultivate…

Prof Makau Mutua 2014 was a very bad year for Africa and Africana Studies. The large communities of scholars that study and explore the worlds of Africa and the African Diaspora lost two intellectual giants. The first to go, on January10, while on a family visit to Mexico City, was Joel Barkan, formerly a professor at the University of Iowa, but at the time of his passing a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Then on October 12, Ali Mazrui, another giant, departed while at his home in Vestal, New York, outside Binghamton University.…

63pc of respondents said content-led marketing is an innovative way for advertisers to reach audiences, brand engagement and perception heightened by transparency, integration and a premium environment BBC StoryWorks, the content marketing arm of BBC Advertising, is pioneering new ways of understanding the emotional impact of content-led marketing by measuring consumers’ subconscious reaction to campaigns on BBC.com. In a study titled “The Science of Engagement”, its in-house insight team, in partnership with facial coding experts CrowdEmotion, combined traditional research metrics with facial coding to understand how brands can use content-led marketing to effectively engage with consumers. BBC Advertising plans to…

By Oscar Onyango The purpose of insurance is to neutralise or mitigate the fear of financial ruin. In Kenya, the youth form the majority of the population, and therefore for insurance market players to ignore this important segment amounts to self robbery of huge financial returns and is no doubt a slow poison on the future health of insurance market. The brutal honesty is that the future survival of the insurance market is highly dependent on the approach given to the market presented by this youthful population. With competition from the numerous bank products targeting the youth, insurance market players…

Elsie Oyoo Each petroleum sector functions within an environment called a petroleum regime. At the top of this regime stands the constitution of that country. The relevant petroleum laws, policies and regulations come in at the second level, and after these, the petroleum contract features with the various sub-contracts that depend on it.  Only these contracts can deal with the finer issues that may arise between the State and the International Oil Companies (IOCs) during exploration. These contracts, especially the petroleum contracts, form an integral part of exploration. The petroleum contract is deemed the most important of the various agreements…

Simon Nzioka Article 11(1) of International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) provides for the right to adequate standard of living, which includes the right to adequate housing. This article provides imperative obligations upon state parties to ICESCR, yet they are barely observed in relation to development initiatives. Often, states, in finding land for the installation of housing facilities, cause displacement of vulnerable people in the society – most of the time against their will – resulting in forced evictions to pave way to these installations. These displacements result to massive violations of the individual’s rights in particular…

Ranier Fsadni, writing about Bloggers and their sources in the “Times of Malta” on January 21, raised an important issue, in the realm of media law, which needs to be addressed legislatively. He refers to the question of confidentiality of journalistic sources. Without being unnecessarily legalistic in this short contribution, the gist of all these past contributions is to the tenor that the press laws need updating, not only in relation to the protection of journalistic sources but in other aspects too, such as the need to repeal the provision in the law related to criminal libel and concomitantly increasing…