Category Archives: Kenya

more on the kcse: PB-Riruta 1st, Mang’u 4th nationally

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Many thanks to the Nation. The newspaper reporters tabulated the mean scores of several schools and came up with a tentative list of the top schools in the country in last years KCSE exams. Top of the (unofficial) list  is Preciosu Blood-Riruta. In second place is Starehe Boys Centre. Alliance Boys is third. Mang’u High School, last year’s best performing school is in fourth place with a mean of 10.2350, a drop from the school’s leading average of 11.2634 (out of 12) last year. The other leading schools according to the Nation’s tally were Kenya High, Moi Girls Eldoret, Bahati Girls, Maseno School, Strathmore and Nairobi School respectively. Among the top ten schools, only one, Strathmore, is a day school. Four of them are girl schools and none is a mixed school.

As pointed out by Prof. Ongeri (edcuation minister), this year’s performance was less than ideal. The pass rate, those with C+ and above (hence technically qualified for university) was 24%. Only 0.27% scored straight As. 34 percent scored Ds and Es.Yes, 34%!!!

The minister for education blamed the poor performance on last year’s post-election violence and the strikes that affected several schools during the mock exams season.

I say this is hiding from the truth. The fact of the matter is education in Kenya continues to be grossly under-funded. I know this for a fact because even in my high school – a well regarded National School – the PTA had to step in through fundraisers to pay for improvements of the facilities and extra motivation allowances for teachers. You can only imagine what other schools without such enterprising PTAs have to contend with.

My question to the minister is: who should we hold accountable when a whole 76% of high school students cannot score C+s in the KCSE ??????

And here is a piece by Philip Ochieng’ on the Kenyan education system….

President Kibaki: “I have only one wife”

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President Kibaki made a rare show by holding a press conference to dispel rumours that he has a second wife or mistress. With the first lady Lucy Kibaki by his side, the president pleaded with the media to stop peddling what he termed as “uongo” (lies) about his involvement with another woman. He warned that anyone continuing to spread “such lies” would see him in court. After the president made his remarks the stunned members of the press seemed unable to ask any questions. Mrs. Kibaki then had a tearful outburst, calling out Paul Muite, among others. Yesterday Mr. Muite said that the government’s raid on the Standard three years ago was to prevent the newspaper from running a story about the president’s alleged second family. Mr. Muite has refused to either retract his comments or apologise to the first family.

wambui2_2The woman in the middle of the controversy is one Mary Wambui (left), popularly known as a “Narc-Kenya activist.” Ms. Wambui first came onto the national stage after president Kibaki’s election victory in 2002. Back then the media started to inquire about her relationship with the president when a 24 hour security detail was sent to her house.

I commend the president for his bravery on this matter. Whatever his involvement is/was with Ms. Wambui, I am glad that he came out and unequivocally denied that he had more than one wife. The first lady – and by extension the women of Kenya – deserve respect and the rumours about the president’s mistress have not helped that cause. I hope this denunciation of mistresses does not just end with the president but permeates across Kenyan society. I say it is time Kenyan men closed all those “nyumba ndogos”. Kenyan women deserve better.

KCSE results reveal a drop in performance

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The (Kenyan) minister of education, Prof. Sam Ongeri, released the 2008 KCSE results today. This year’s results announcement was different in that it did not include the ranking of schools. Only students were ranked, with Mark Maugo and Velma Mukhongo emerging as the top boy and girl respectively. The top girl was fourth overall.The rankings also included lists of best students per subject.

The minister also noted a drop in performance, possibly related to the numerous strikes that rocked several schools mid last year. There were 460 fewer irregularities this year than there were last year.

While I appreciate the minister’s attempts to remove unhealthy competition among high schools, I still think that the ranking gave schools an incentive to make sure that ALL their students succeed. Now that only students are being ranked, we may end up with a case whereby schools only concentrate on their best students who will make it to the top ten lists of subjects nationally and forget about those at the bottom of the class. I think the media should do its job and find out which schools did better, to give parents a sense of where they ought to send their kids and to expose poor performers.

Competition breeds excellence, bwana Minister. And in any case you can’t erase the disparities between the ‘big schools’ as we know them and the smaller ones. The former still remain better funded and attract the best teachers. What the government should have done is not eliminate the rankings, but instead strive at improving all schools in the long run so that they can all compete fairly. Eliminating the ranking will not solve the problem, it is a shameful attempt to hide from the problem of inequality among Kenyan schools.

is it really that bad?

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I just read a piece by Jeffrey Gettleman, the sensationalist East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times. From reading the piece one gets the impression that Kenya is nothing but a dystopia: There is corruption everywhere, ten million people face starvation and everyone seems to be a victim of the violence that rocked the country last year. To some extent Mr. Gettleman’s assessment is accurate and it would do us some good if our politicians read some of his work – the sensationalism might just embarass them enough to have them change their ways and start acting in the interest of Kenyans.

But are things really that bad? Are we really on the verge of total collapse as a nation state? I don’t think so. Yes, ours is probably one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Crime may be high in Nairobi and other urban centres. And it is true that millions of Kenya are currently dependent on government food aid. But these phenomena are not unique to Kenya. Other countries have or have had similar problems in their history without necessarily becoming failed states.

I say we stop all the negativity. Yes we can and should criticize the government and our politicians when they do things against our interests. But we should never buy into the idea that we are a society on the brink of collapse, as some journalists out there would want us to believe. Even in the midst of our woes Kenya is seeing some important progress – not just economically but also politically. No one can dispute the fact that the Kenyan parliament has become a stronger institution (and a better check to the executive) than it used to be. The private sector continues to grow and the Kenyan civil society remains strong and committed to its duty to point out the government’s failings whenever necessary.

I am not saying that things are not bad. They are, big time. What I am saying is that they are not too bad to be fixed.

how do we force them to resign?

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Tomorrow’s Sunday Nation opinion pieces are full of complaints against the ever growing culture of impunity among the ruling class in Kenya. We have become a nation in which cabinet ministers remain in office even when suspected of having ordered the killing of Kenyans a year ago, or turning a blind eye when public corporations were being looted by their cronies. The police chief, the Attorney General and the justice minister still remain in office even after a UN-sanctioned report blamed them for allowing extra-judicial killings to take place in Kenya. The entire judiciary is one giant sty filled with corrupt judges and officials. Everybody knows this but no one wants to do anything.

This may seem naive, but I am kind of surprised that Hussein Ali and Amos Wako are still in office. Especially Amos Wako. He is the man who is responsible for most of the rot in the judiciary. Under Moi he did nothing as the former president and his friends bastardized the judiciary. Kibaki probably kept him on on the request of Moi so as to protect himself and his friends against potential law suits. I say it is time Amos Wako went. He has been Attorney General for far too long with very little to show for it. During his tenure corruption has ballooned like no one’s business but with very few people ever being brought to court.

And about our corrupt cabinet ministers…. Where is the supposedly vibrant Kenyan civil society? I think it is time they took Philip Ochieng’s advice and started agitating for the sacking of certain people implicated in the many scandals that have rocked the country in the last several months.

quick hits…..

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This is total nonsense. Kenyan politicians never cease to surprise me. Why would we want a foreigner heading our electoral commission? And this coming from our own Prime Minister? Where is your Kenyan pride, Prime Minister Odinga? Are you saying that out of almost 40 million men and women we cannot find one individual who is sober-minded and impartial enough to be trusted with the job of being chairman of the interim ECK? We expect more nationalism than this from you Mr. Odinga. Your statement sends a most ominous message – that all Kenyans are myopic, conceited tribalists who cannot be trusted with the running of an institution like the ECK. And that is just sad. And about foreigners… don’t get me started. It is my hope that when you thought about foreigners you meant someone from one of the 54 countries on the continent, because otherwise I would be doubly mad at you.

Finally, the Kenyan police’s bad habits have been brought to light:
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, arbitrary or summary executions, Mr. Philip Alston, has carried out investigations and found the Kenyan police and justice system guilty of summarily executing suspected criminals – mostly in Eastern Nairobi and the surrounding areas. The envoy’s report recommends the sacking of Attorney General Amos Wako and Police Commissioner Hussein Ali. I second this recommendation. This report exposes the government’s failure to maintain a functioning society in poor areas of the country and its attempts to cover up its failure and the rot that is the justice system by killing people without a trial. The crime problem in Eastern Nairobi and the surrounding areas is one of poverty and poor planning on the part of the government.

Poverty alleviating measures – like vocational training or micro-credit schemes – could be of help to the thousands of youth in this part of the country who find themselves without any alternative but to engage in crime for a living. The government could also reduce the crime rate by keeping young kids in school. Most of the thugs terrorizing residents of Eastern Nairobi are primary school and high school drop outs. Investing in schools and programs that keep teens in school could be the way forward. A more controversial plan could also be an attempt to have families be more responsible for how their children turn out. We cannot ignore the fact that poor parenting leads to social problems like crime, unwanted teenage pregnancies and the like. Public education on parenting might sound crass and too paternalistic to some but it might just be what some families need.

I am glad that the international community is paying attention to this problem. A lot of young Kenyans (mostly criminals, and suspected members of the murderous Mingiki sect) have been killed without being accorded due trial. Although most of them might have been guilty of robbery with violence, or murder (crimes deserving capital punishment according to Kenyan law) we are not Somalia or the Congo. We have laws and a court system. I hope Kibaki and Raila will carefully review the recommendations of the report and do something.

ruto saga continues….

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Today’s Nation quotes a Steadman poll that found that a majority of Kenyans want the Agriculture minister, William Ruto, out of office pending investigations into what really happened with the government’s strategic maize reserve at the National Cereals and Produce Board. Given the accusations and counter-accusations flying around regarding the maize scandal it is hard to establish who is telling the truth. Last week Ruto survived a censure motion in parliament when 119 of his colleagues voted in his support, against a mere 22 against him. But the fact that more than half of those polled want him out should signal to the minister that may be it is time he stepped aside to clear his name before resuming duties as a cabinet minister.

Plus this story is not going away any time soon. Today’s Nation also has a story about Jirongo’s denial of Karua’s (Justice Minister) supposed proposition to Ruto regarding the 2012 elections. The Lugari MP (Cyrus Jirongo) insists that his mediation between Karua and Ruto at his house in Muthaiga had nothing to do with a 2012 political deal between the two ministers but was an effort to try and find ways of resettling IDPs back in the Rift Valley, Ruto’s backyard. But if Jirongo is to be believed, Ruto demanded that any talks with Karua were contingent on the Judiciary dropping a land case in which he is implicated.

And so Ruto continues to be entangled in one scandle after another and it seems like the more he defends himself the more his detractors come out with even more damaging allegations. I think that for the sake of the coalition government’s cohesiveness and to avoid unncessary distractions it is imperative that Ruto steps aside – like the majority of Kenyans want. If he gets cleared he can return to the cabinet but if not he should be kept out of the cabinet.

And ethnicity should not be part of this. There is nothing that grants William Ruto an entitlement to the leadership of the communities residing in the Rift Valley province – just like Mudavadi or Raila are not entitled in Western or Nyanza respectively. This maneno of running back to ethnicity when politicians find themselves in trouble should be put to an end. Let every man carry his own cross.

transparent budget making

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The Nation’s Editorial has a piece against the idea of MPs managing the budget. I am a bit ambivalent on this one. On the one hand I am apprehensive about the idea of men like Maina Kamanda and Jakoyo Midiwo and Chirau Makwere deciding on what the government should be doing with tax payers’ money. These men (and quite frankly almost the entire lot in parliament) have proven to be myopic populists who will stop at nothing to gain short term political capital. If this plan goes through, we can expect pork-laden budgets and beyond-means-spending.

That said, I don’t think the idea itself is bad. What could be better than to take the power to allocate national resources from conceited bureaucrats at treasury? For far too long we have allowed the Finance Minister and State House to use the allocation of national resources as a political tool for patronage and for narrow tribal interests. Spreading this role to the entire legistlature may bring us a more equitable distribution of national resources for the good of all Kenyans.

That’s my two cents on this.

revisiting the conflict in Darfur

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Today I sat in at a conference on Darfur at my school. The conference was well attended, the keynote speaker being Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.  There were the usual talking heads from the UN and a myriad NGOs that are involved in one way or the other with the effort to stop the barbarous madness that is going on in Darfur. I was impressed by the fact that even though the global powers that be do not seem interested in providing any meaningful solutions to the conflict there still are people out there who are determined to do the little that they can to try and make a difference.

But I was also disappointed. Nearly all the panelists were foreigners, let’s say non-AU citizens. Now I do not mean to discriminate here. Darfur is a major problem and I know that Darfuris will be the first to tell you that all they want is an end to their hell-on-earth, regardless of where help to that end comes from. But even after fully appreciating this fact, I was still a bit unsettled by the fact that what I was seeing there is what is prevalent throughout the continent, not just with cases of armed conflict, but in other areas as well – poverty reduction, HIV and AIDS, malaria and what not. It is always the foreigners who seem to care more about the plight of the poor Africans than the Africans themselves (and their leaders of course). Why was there only one panelist from Sudan? Aren’t there Sudanese experts on Darfur, people who oppose al-Bashir’s genocidal policies and who can articulate their concerns at such conferences?

darfur_aerialForgive my digression. Anyway, the fact is that more than two million human beings have been displaced from their homes and their lives disrupted in unimaginable ways. More than 200,000 are dead. And nobody in Khartoum seems to give a rat’s behind.

Meanwhile the AU (the regional body that should be having Darfur, Somali and the DRC at the top of the agenda) just elected that clown, Muamar Gaddafi, as its president. The rather colourful Libyan dictator followed his election with a quick reminder of the true nature of African leaders – by saying that democracy was to blame for the crises in Africa. He is so full of horse manure. How is it not clear to people like this man that self-determination is the way of the future? How does he not get the fact that the days for rulers like him (and Mugabe, Al-Bashir, Obiang, and the whole brood of failures) on the continent of Africa are numbered?

getting to the bottom of the maize scandal

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So it turns out that Ababu Namwamba’s sensational claim in parliament that first lady Lucy Kibaki was linked to a company that illegal traded in maize for Kenya’s starving millions was based on false documents. And the same is also true of Bonny Khalwale’s accusations of agriculture minister William Ruto. Whether this is the truth or not we may never know. Kenyan politicians have a going price and retractions of statements (true and otherwise) have been made before. And why accuse the first lady and a whole cabinet minister with false documents? Messrs Namwamba and Khalwale are not village idiots. They must have known what they were talking about. For now I shall remain skeptical of these retractions and say that where there is smoke there is fire. If Mr. Ruto wants to clear his name he should tell us who traded in the maize, it is his ministry after all. And if the president wants his wife’s name cleared he should also tell us the truth. Everyone high up in government must know who these thieves are.

Millions of Kenyans face starvation if they don’t get relief food and so it galls me when I read that people are stealing the same relief food and being allowed to get away with it. Since when did we come to accept that Kenyan lives – no matter how poor our citizens may be – are worth sacrificing so that an already filthy rich cabal of thieves can continue enriching themselves? Where is the anger in the media, in the church, on the streets and among the civil society? Do we realise what we are doing to ourselves? Kenyans are dying!!!

Does it cease to be a crime just because someone who speaks your language did it? Does it cease to be a crime when it is Kibaki and not Raila or Ruto and not Michuki or vise versa? I don’t think so.

We need the truth NOW.

Kenyan accidents: time to come up with a response strategy

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fireA fire gutted down Nakumatt Downtown, killing more than 40 people. Then there was the tanker blast in Molo that killed more than 110. In both instances the reaction was mediocre. Utterly shameful. I read that it took the firefighters more than an hour to respond to the oil tanker blast in Molo. Molo town does not have any means to respond to fire emergencies. What we have learned in the last one week is that Kenyan authorities are not ready to react decisively in case of emergencies to save lives. Even the handling of the Nakumatt fire, right in the middle of Nairobi, was juvenile at best.

The tanker blast in particular should be of grave concern. Some time back a similar thing happened on the Kisumu-Busia highway, killing dozens of people. my questions are: was the tanker overspeeding? what was the condition of the road? what is the ministry of transport going to do about this?

We can’t just bury the dead and hope that this never happens again. It was not an act of God as some clowns are running around claiming. This was human error. Bad roads, poor maintenance or overspeeding may have caused the tanker to skid off the road. Inexplicable stupidity and mind-numbing poverty caused the locals to rush to the site of an accident filled with petrol fumes. People caused this to happen and people can put measures in place to ensure it never happens again.

Looking at the larger picture, this seems to be a very bad time for Kenya. The boat that is Kenya keeps getting more and more holes – corruption, food shortage, political instability and many others. I keep wondering just how patient we Kenyans are. In other places and in other times things would be so different. When are we going to chase these little men who govern us out of town?

read more on the maize scandal

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I just read this interesting post by Ory on Kenyanpundit.com. According to the post, there seems to be evidence that people high up in ODM may be implicated in the maize scandal that has rocked the country, even as millions of Kenyans continue to live on wild fruits and dug up roots (are we in 200,000 BC????).

It makes you wonder whether we really need the coalition government. As things stand, it seems like these clowns running the country know that they can get away with everything because no one wants to break up the coalition government. Martha Karua (the Justice Minister) herself admitted that ODM and PNU politicians would rather remain in the coalition than seek a fresh mandate from wananchi. Raila and Kibaki should be bolder than they are being and face those stealing from Kenyans, be they big men or not. The two of them can garner enough support from their bases (I don’t mean just central and Nyanza but rather their supporters from across the country) to run the country without having to compromise on issues of corruption and incompetence. Kibaki can make a name for himself as the man who saved Kenya and put it on the right path. And Raila can earn some political capital that he will need for the 2012 election. I am not a die hard fan of either man, but I think right now they are Kenya’s best hope.

somalia: may be we should give the Islamists a try?

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Before the US decided to use Ethiopia to invade Somalia, the southern portion of the failed state – including the capital Mogadishu – was largely run by a group calling itself the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU was into strict Sharia Law, something that did not go well with most of the secular warlords (who were simply out to make a profit from the chaos that is Somalia) and most of the West (read the US). Financed to some extent by Eritrea, (to Ethiopia’s chagrin) the ICU called for a Jihad against the Ethiopian government for colluding with the infidel Americans. Ethiopia’s involvement in Somalia was partly motivated by the Islamist group’s support of the cause for the liberation of the Ogaden, a region of Ethiopia inhabited by ethnic Somalis and which has been the poster-child for irredentist dreams of Somali governments and warlords alike.

And so when the ICU seemed to be gaining too much power than the Ethiopians and Americans would have liked, a decision was made to take them out. It also emerged that the ICU was sympathetic to terrorist elements – inluding the plotters of the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya (more than 200 Kenyans were killed in the attack in Nairobi) and Tanzania. Beginning in July of 2006 Ethiopian troops started moving into Somalia to take out the Islamists – and for some time they succeeded, even enabling the installation of the Somali transitional government in the sleepy town of Baidoa.

But now the Ethiopians have decided to pull out and the Islamists are back. As soon as Ethiopia withdrew, the ICU overran Baidoa and vowed to reinstate Sharia Law. This latest turn of events proves that the ICU is not a mere rag-tag group of bandits. They seem to mean serious business and perhaps it is time the international community took them seriously. Yes they have supported terrorists, but that can be changed by a stroke of a pen on a cheque book. They support the terrorists because the terrorists fund them. I am sure they can be co-opted into the global force for good in exchange for their restoration of order in Somalia.

And about Sharia Law, why should the US and the rest of the international community complain so much while it is the norm in Arabia and the gulf? What makes it different when the Somalis do it? I am all for respect for human rights and all, but I think it is imperative that global do-gooders (and all of us who believe in sensible liberalism) realize that justice is political and therefore should be pursued with regard to the particularities of the societies involved. A realistic approach to Somalia ought to allow the Islamic Courts to be if they can guarantee order and some semblance of  a state in exchange for some cash and a promise not to fund or harbour terrorists. America and Ethiopia must accept the fact that the ICU has some street credibility among Somalis. This is no time for ideological struggles. Somalis have suffered enough.

a misdirected cabinet…

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So the president just announced a cabinet reshuffle in which he appointed Uhuru Kenyatta to be Minister of Finance. Many in the Kenyan media think that the president made this decision with his succession in mind. Hon. Kenyatta has now occupied the pole position among the wider PNU hopefuls in the ever intensifying Kibaki succession saga.

Me thinks that all this is a bucket of horse manure. Firstly, Uhuru Kenyatta will not be elected president in 2012. Martha Karua or George Saitoti have a better chance. Secondly, why appoint Uhuru to be Finance Minister? What credentials does he have to enable him serve in such a vital ministry? Thirdly, are all government actions forever going to be informed by 2012 political calculations?

As I have indicated before, I think that Amos Kimunya should have remained as Finance Minister. Among the current members of the cabinet he was the most qualified for that position. I like his business mentality and he seemed to be doing a pretty good job before the taint of corruption dragged him down. He may have been corrupt (which one of our leaders isn’t?) but he was the best man we could ever have, under the circumstances, at treasury. Kibaki should have restored him at treasury instead of politicizing the economic management of the country by appointing a hopelessly unqualiffied presidential hopeful.

food shortage in Kenya

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Food shortage continues to plague several parts of rural Kenya. This inspite of the Kenyan government’s public promises  to contain the crisis. The whole affair has been a sham. Firstly, the government officials charged with distributing cheap maize the rural and urban poor have been involved in corrupt scandals intended to defraud the government and the Kenyan people of millions of shillings. Secondly, the government does not seem to have a coherent long term plan to tackle the problem. Why is it that we are having a food shortage? Is it because people did not farm last year or is there some other reasons? And why didn’t anyone in government see this coming and plan for it in advance?

It is sad that so far no head has rolled yet. None of those suspected to have been involved in the scandals have been brought to justice – despite promises from several members of parliament. It is likely that people high up in the coalition government may have been involved hence the need to shield them for the sake of the coalition. I say this is a bucket of horse manure. This is total dung because we cannot continue to sacrifice the lives of innocent Kenyans just to keep a bunch of kleptocrats in high office. For too long Kenyan politics have lacked accountability. Justice should never be compromised for the sake of political expediency.

And where is the Kenyan media while all this is going on? What are their names? The names do not have to appear on the front pages of the Nation or the Standard. Just leak them online. Wikileaks is a good place to start. If our politicians do not want to willingly be transparent we should force them to do just that. That’s the least they could do for us for the obscene amounts of money we pay them every month.