Category Archives: Kenya

what an obama presidency could do for african leadership

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There is excitement in the air. All around the world and here in the US in particular everyone seems thrilled by the idea that tomorrow Barrack Obama, the son of a Kenyan man and a Kansan woman, will be sworn in to become the 44th president of the United States. I am excited too, partly because of my own political persuasion and partly because being a Kenyan this is a special moment when the son of a Kenyan becomes the most powerful man in the world. I am not big on identity politics but I simply could not let this one go.

Back to the topic of this post. As we await the arrival of the Obamas in the White House I cannot help but wonder how an Obama presidency will affect leadership on the continent of his father – Africa. Already in Europe and Israel we have seen candidates mimic Obama as they attempt to woo voters. I hope that the same enthusiasm for this man’s brand of politics and political organization spreads to Africa. I hope that an Obama presidency will plant the seeds for African leadership based on lasting ideals and ideologies and not myopic ethno-economic calculations.

So let us all make merry and be happy as the world begins a new chapter with a renewed America. And let us strive to imitate what is best about America – it’s resiliency and unique ability of self-regeneration and most of all its peoples belief in themselves, even when the odds seem longer than they can overcome.

a few stories that highlight just how bad things are for some people

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The BBC reports that women in Niger have a 1 in 7 chance of dying during childbirth. The report also mentioned that more than half of maternal deaths in poor countries occur in Africa. I have talked about this in the past but it still is saddening to see such statistics and know that there are real people, real human beings behind them. IRIN also has a slightly positive story on maternal mortality in Somalia.

Turning to the bizzare, The Economist reports that albinos in East Africa are facing constant threat of death in the hands of crazies out to harvest their body parts – to be used by witches. This is the 21st century? How do people still believe in things like this? The Economist may have hyped it a bit, but the mere fact that such crazy things are still happening in communities in East Africa is shocking, and quite frankly embarrassing for Africa. I think it is time governments stopped pretending that people don’t do such weird things and go ahead and outlaw certain practices – like witchcraft and the like. Of course this may be a problem if some law-makers believe in that stuff too. And I would not be surprised if it turned out that some do because we are led by a brood of half-baked adults without a scintilla of statesmanship but full of superstitious and anachronistic nonesense that they present as “traditions.”

And lastly, a positive story from Malawi. The authorities tthere have adopted the use of mobile phones to assist in data collection. This discovery might help improve the standards of data collection across Africa, a continent where planning has been seriously hampered because of unreliable data collection and record-keeping.

martha karua for president?

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You know, I have been thinking about the nature of African leadership over the years. For the most part the continent of Africa has produced two types of leaders. On the one hand have been the idealist intellectual visionaries, smart but completely detached from the realities on the ground. I think of great sons of the continent like Nkrumah and Nyerere and Senghor and Cabral. On the other hand have been the deranged half-wit dictators (the majority) who have run down the continent and made it the mess that it currently is. This camp comprises nearly all African leaders in history with a few exceptions.

Martha Karua, the Kenyan justice minister, fits neither camp. She is a strong-willed woman who shoots from the hip. She tells it like it is and seems to be the kind of politician who is never afraid to follow through on her beliefs. I am willing to speculate that if she could get elected she might be the leader Kenya has been waiting for – a radicalist who will shock us out of our stupor, bring in a new order and make us rethink who we are. She might also be a total disaster, but either way I think she has the potential to wake us all up. None of our current Big Men seems to possess the same qualities. Saitoti is a small man who was content being Moi’s stooge forever. Kibaki is an aloof intellectual who thinks that things just work out on their own and believes that the likes of Mutula Kilonzo, Murungi, Ruto and the rest know what they are doing. Raila is a populist. I used to like Ruto but his handling of the maize crisis has raised serious doubts. Mudavadi is a younger Kibaki. And Uhuru Kenyatta should never be president because deep down he is not a politician. Moi forced him into it. Martha Karua seems like the one who will demolish Kibera, Kangemi and Kawangware and build formal settlements in their stead. She seems like the one who will radicalise our constitution and provide a break from the reactionary politics that have shaped our history since 1991. And while she is at it she might even jail a few corrupt people, redefine gender relations in Kenya and bring some semblance of substance into our politics.

ps: I am not affiliated to any political party. Quite frankly, I have a beneath-the-ground opinion of nearly all our politicians, PNU and ODM and all their affiliates alike. I just find it interesting to put this proposition out there because many people have written Karua off because of her ethnicity and her stance after last year’s botched elections. But her faults aside, I think she could be the African Iron Lady. She is young, has no colonial and post-colonial hang ups and seems like she has the courage to make history.

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scandals in Kenya: can we please have some big names behind bars??

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Right now Kenya seems like the most corrupt place on the planet (sort of a hyperbole, but it’s close to that). There is the running scandal of the sale of the  Grand Regency Hotel , there is that involving cheap imported maize, there is the one with the Kenya Tourism Board and then there is the giant one involving Triton and the Kenya Pipeline Company – and of course many smaller ones that never make it to the national news.

I am quite frankly disappointed by the coalition government. These old men running our country seem to have no idea of what it means for people to have trust in their government. There has to be less embarrassing ways to steal from poor people! There has to be smarter ways! That these thieves choose to steal in broad daylight and so shamelessly means that they have nothing but contempt for the average Kenyans. And for that they deserve punishment. Someone needs to be jailed for life – without parole. And they should pay heavy fines too. We must make corruption as expensive to the corrupt as it can get.

The current saga has got me thinking. May be the Kenyan model of mass movement of the 1990s has failed. Kibaki and Raila are both mass movement leaders but they are failing Kenyans almost in the same way that Moi did. May we should try a bourgeois liberation movement. May be if the middle and upper classes get politically active enough our leaders will listen to them. Because as it is it is so easy for Nairobi to dupe the millions of Kenyans who live in the rural areas and the slums in the major cities. Kibera, Mukuru, Kangemi and others prove this fact. But I don’t think that the Kenyan middle class would be so easily duped. The problem is that as a political constituency they lack the numbers and the courage. Many would rather spend their time in the many hypermarkets around town than to agitate for real change. Some might even owe their status to the corrupt ruling class.

As yet Kenya does not have leaders from the middle class – or the upper class for that matter. The little men who parade as gods around the country do not have any affiliations to any given class. It is no wonder that they usually just fight for their selfish interests. They have never been middle or upper class (not in wealth, but in their thinking) and they are in more than a rush to discard their humble roots (invariably by stealing from the public). They do not care much for the middle class, and they keep duping the vast majority of poor Kenyans (by playing on ethnicity). May be we need class conscious movements (nothing Marxist, just classist) to articulate the interests of various classes. May be then we shall have stable political parties that are based on ideas and not fleeting personalities and ethnic alliances.

The most frustrating thing about all this – African politics in general and the Kenyan corruption scandals in particular – is that our leaders seem completely oblivious. In some other place the minister in charge of the KPC would have resigned already. Just a few weeks ago the Belgian government resigned because of a scandal in the financial sector. I am not advocating for a government resignation. I just hope that someone high up there gets to pay for his mistakes. That’s all.

go harambee stars!!

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So for those of us who are not keen fans of the Stars, they will be playing the hosts – the Uganda Cranes – in the finals of the Challenge Cup tonight (Tuesday). I am hoping that our football team manages to do what our rugby team has struggled to do in the recent past – to beat Uganda in their home ground. We all know what happened with the Elgon Cup. Last year we barely won after going into the second leg in Nairobi trailing by 17 points.

So go Stars! You make us all proud.

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in china they execute these kind of people

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This story has left me speechless. Millions of Kenyans are at risk of imminent starvation and in dire need of government help but the same government officials charged with helping them seem to be in to make a quick buck at the expense of the very same nearly starving Kenyans. I am reminded of the stories I read of Chinese officials being executed after being found guilty of corruption. I know Kenyans might have reservations when it comes to the death penalty but in such situations it is mightily tempting. How should we treat people who would rather have thousands of Kenyans starve if it meant that they’d make a few millions shillings? Do you jail them? will that really help?

The only problem is that if we were to punish all those involved in shady deals we’d probably have to get rid of the entire government. All of them. In all three branches.

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on the Kenyan Media

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Lately, the Kenyan press has been, with good reason, crying foul over the government’s decision to muzzle it. On this I was in complete agreement with them. I think that for society to remain healthy everyone should be allowed to express their beliefs, however unsettling they may be to sections of the same society. A free society must have a free press.

That said, I think the Kenyan media could do much better – if they tried. Being away from home, I mostly read the Nation and the Standard. I used to listen to radio online but stopped after I realized that the content is almost the same as any radio station over here. It is all American music, American gossip, American crap (Mobutu’s “Authenticity” was mostly horse manure, but his intentions had merit. We can never run away from the fact that every ‘culture’ has its owners). Even the accents of the presenters are no longer Kenyan (Nairobian, to be precise). The print media and television are just as bad. Foreign content predominates. I know we have made progress; and kudos to KTN and NTV for the local shows they have been airing. But these shows are not engaging enough. They do not seem to be geared towards educating the average Kenyan on their civil liberties and responsibilities. They do not come close to “Tushauriane”. And the newspapers. They are mostly sensationalist. The editorials lack the force that is needed in the editorials of major newspapers. Oh, and the Standard needs to shed its “gutter-press” image fast, just as the Nation needs to stop seeming like they lack a unity of purpose among their editorial staff.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and demand better from our media. We demand that they act as educators of Kenyans. They could dedicate an hour each week to talk about gender issues. Have middle class women (middle class for the simple reason that they probably practise what they would be preaching) talk about family planning, AIDS, marriage issues, Kenyan women’s needs and the like. Dedicate another hour to Kenyan men and on the same issues. It is only through the media that we can create a national consciousness and the attitudes that will help us advance as a nation. It is very sad that more than forty years after independence we still don’t have a national culture to speak of. The Kenyan media takes the biggest chunk of the blame for this.They have never engineered any meaningful national debates over any issue. Ethnicity, land, wealth distribution, family planning, AIDS, culture and the arts, language, and many others are areas in which they could focus (MEANINGFULLY) in order to help improve the condition of average Kenyans.

And while they are at it they should not allow themselves to be used by politicians. And speaking of politics, I think a 24 hour news channel would do us a lot of good. If Kenyans are reminded every half hour of what scam their leaders are involved in it might just push them over the edge and make them demand for better leadership. But who is going to fund it? Perhaps one of our few truly rich citizens. I say truly rich because most of the members of the Kenyan upper class belong to the “wabenzi” tradition. They get moderately rich, buy a benz and a house and then settle. Any further investment is usually in useless things like land in their “home areas” and other similarly dead-end investments. I could go on and on but this is a topic for a development economics piece that I hope to write some time soon…….

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why am I not surprised

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The idiot who came up with the idea of selling maize to Kenyans at two different prices should be fired. This person should be fired for two reasons. Firstly, because the plan he came up with does not make any economic sense. It is common sense that prices find their own level. You cannot have the same commodity being sold at different prices to different people – unless this was backed up by other illusions like product differentiation and the like. Selling plain maize at different prices was simply daft.

Secondly, this person gave the government an image problem. By admitting to the country that there are two classes of Kenyans, the poor and the rich, this person betrayed the government’s reluctance to even the playing field for all Kenyans. Give cheap food to the poor in the slums and rural areas so they don’t litter the streets with their protests and keep the normal prices at the hypermarkets around town. Two Kenyas for two classes of Kenyans.

That the whole thing has failed does not surprise me. I doubt if even he government officials implementing it thought it would succeed. But they did it anyway, because the egg-head politicians, drunk with vulgar populism said so. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

That Kenya cannot guarantee itself food security in the 21st century is a big shame. This is something that people did – in desert regions – 10,000 years ago. How hard can it be? And then to respond to the food shortage with such silly ideas?

I know my lament is in vain, for the most part at least. Nobody will take the blame for this mess. Just like nobody took the blame for the lack of planning that created the food shortage to begin with. We – a nation of nearly forty million – shall continue to be run like some village in the middle of some rainforest where the chief and his henchmen do (very badly) whatever they want and nobody raises a finger. It is a sad world we live in.

ps: it turns out that the government has engaged a reverse gear on the new (anti) Media Law. Kudos to the media for drumming up support from the public.

Kudos to Ghana

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The Ghanaian electoral commission announced Saturday that the opposition candidate John Atta-Mills had won the fiercely contested run-off election. After losing in the first round to incumbent candidate Nana-Akufo who did not get the 50% plus one vote required to win,  Atta-Mills came back to win by a mere 0.46% of the total votes cast in the run-off.

With the conclusion of this election Ghana has proven that it is indeed a constitutional democracy – at least according to political scientists. Twice it has exchanged power after elections without any chaos and this time round it was a tight election too. And it is the second time that an incumbent party lost an election and conceded defeat. It happened when Kufuor won his first term as Rawlings stepped down and it has happened again now that Kufuor is stepping down.

My hope now is that other countries in Africa will feel challenged to rise to Ghana’s level of sobriety (and beyond) when it comes to democratic politics. Ghana’s example of reasonably free and fair elections, contested by two stable major political parties contrasts sharply with the electoral processes of most other African nations. Kenya for instance sees the birth of a major political party (a coalition of greedy politicians to say the truth) every time there is a general election. We saw it with FORD in 1992, NARC in 2002 and PNU in 2007.

Back to Ghana, congratulations on this wonderful show and best wishes to Atta-Mills as he begins his work to develop the land of the Osagyefo.

Kibaki and the media bill

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Kenyan politicians are very myopic. Moi’s regime, while it had the air of invincibility, gave all power to the presidency. After 2002 the same people that had hoarded power in the executive were out complaining that the president had too much power. Before 2002, Kibaki and most of the clowns in the current government (ODM and PNU alike) spent a great deal of time out in the streets fighting for press freedom and freedom of assembly. This about turn therefore comes as a surprise (well not really, call me cynical but deep down I didn’t expect Kibaki, Raila and their loonies to be agents of change, we just needed them for the sake of peace).

So now we are going back to the days of a highly regulated media. Does anyone remember when Biwott kept winning cases against those he accused of defamation?

And the thing with this media bill is not only political. It has to do with economics as well. The growth of the Kenyan media has created jobs in broadcasting and advertising. Not to mention production companies and what not. Free speech should be encouraged at all costs. Truth will always win against untruths and therefore Kibaki and his men should not feel the need to guard truth by outlawing all untruths (at least this is the premise of the media bill).

are these guys serious?

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Quoting the Daily Nation, “Kenya will lease out 40,000 hectares (about 100,000 acres) of land to a Gulf state to grow food at a time when the country is facing serious food shortages.”

Like seriously? could we not just grow the food and then sell it to these people from the desert? Is it really worth it for a port at Lamu? Can we not get that money from somewhere else? How about a joint ownership venture with the government owning like 90%. Wouldn’t this be more beneficial to the tax payer?

You know, this story reminds of a concept about state formation: It is only those leaders who have at one time had to defend and fight for their borders that really care about them. It has only been forty years and Kenyan leaders have completely forgotten how the Mau Mau had to fight and die for national freedom. Yes they were no match for the mighy UK and yes the UK would have stayed if they really wanted (HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE), but the fact remains that they fought and died for their country. The same country that some half-baked rascals are now eagerly leasing away with alacrity. I am pissed off to the bones by this. We are facing a food shortage and instead of using our land to grow our food we are leasing it off for other people to grow their own food?? Like where does this even begin to make sense????

Why, Kibaki, why???

So what happens after we’ve parceled off most of Kenya to Qatar, China, India, UAE, the Saudis and just about anyone willing to pay the goons that we’ve entrusted with our political leadership? Are we gonna become squatters again? Are we gonna start being called “boy” again? Are we gonna revert to being nothing but farm workers and clerks again? And what kind of children will we be raising when all the bosses employing all the parents are from somewhere else? Are NOT Kenyan?? Now don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for an autarky by that statement. It just bothers me to think that we are risking a case where employment in the farms, in the factory, in the city all belong to foreigners. This will be a big dent to our national psyche. We need to make Kenyans feel like they can amount to something more than being the drivers of some Saudi tycoon.

And where exactly are the Kenyan millionaires? Can’t they afford to invest in such ventures? What are they waiting for? They could get government guarantees of whatever kind and have parliamentary oversight (these thieves to check on corruption?? – hey I know this is ludicrous but please allow me to dream for that is the only way to remain sane in moments like these) and grow food and feed Kenyans so we can stop reading and seeing those disturbing images of fellow Kenyans starving. How hard can it be? Am I delusional for thinking it can’t be that hard? I ask again, how hard can it be?

ps: The comedy that is Kenyan politics never ceases to make me laugh. So ODM, instead of holding proper elections just creates posts for everyone. As many vice presidents as there are serious contenders. As many secretaries as there are serious contenders and so on and so forth. Does anybody ever think of how this looks to someone who is just a little bit more curious and questioning than the very gullible proverbial Wanjiku?

And the PNU crowd. They elected a name that as a kid I thought was synonymous with “Vice President.” Can we get new faces and names please?

happy Jamuhuri Day!

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It has been 45 years since Kenya attained independence from the United Kingdom in 1963. In the 45 years we have avoided the descent to civil war that has blotted the histories of nearly all of Africa’s states. We nearly descended into chaos in 1982, 1991-2, 1997 and 2007-8 but we did not. The Kenyan people were able to stand firm against those who were pushing the country towards anarchy for their own selfish ends.

That said, we still have a long way to go. Sometimes I even wonder whether our biggest achievement as a nation thus far has been to merely maintain our borders as they are. Our economy is still largely 12th century or before that. Our politics is as tribal as it can get and our socio-cultural progress has been dismal to say the least. We are yet to forge an all-encompassing nationla consciousness. There is not yet a myth of Kenyanhood.

As we celebrate our independence from arbitrary rule by foreigners we should renew our vigilance against arbitrary rule by Kenyans. God bless Kenya!

ps: I think as a Jamuhuri day gift to all of us President Kibaki should veto the media bill just passed by parliament. Press freedom is the real test of a nation that claims to be a liberal democracy. We cease to be a true democracy when information is not easily shared. It is no secret that whoever contrlols information flow possesses power.

ghana does Africa proud, again

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It was the idealism of the founding fathers of the Gold Coast, now Ghana, that brought to reality the idea that African nations would one day become independent and be able to govern themselves. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of political independence,” Said the Osagyefo. Although in between things got bloody messy – with Nkrumah’s failed presidency and the ensuing chaos that lasted until Rawlings brought some semblance of calm and then handed over to the largely successful Kufuor – Ghana has re-emerged to be one of the few countries in Africa with  a functional pluralist liberal democracy.

With the elections over this past weekend, it seems likely that the incumbent party’s Akufo-Addo will win with more than 50% to obviate the need for a run-off. Regardless of the outcome, Ghana’s election was impressive, coming after the madness that marked the Nigerian, Kenyan and Zimbabwean elections. I am still not too happy with Ghana for its dismal performance on the modernizatin front. But I am happy that I am watching news which show that an African country held peaceful and fair elections and that there is no specter of violence and chaos as the country awaits the final results.

I hope that with the scheduled production of oil in the next few months Ghana will embark on a serious development plan to make it not just an exporter of cocoa but an industrialised nation in its own right.

And may this be a lesson to crazies who run elections in places like Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

ps: why are we being held hostage by Kivuitu and his gang? This is a group of men and women whose incompetence nearly plunged our country into civil war. If anything they deserve to be charged with gross negligence and slapped with heavy fines.

three cheers to Tutu

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Finally someone is saying something that can move things a bit in Zimbabwe. The Nobel laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has called for the arrest or forceful ouster of Mugabe if he does not resign ang go home – or wherever he wants. Right now Harare’s people are faced with a cholera epidemic in the wake of total economic collapse. You know we have come to think of Zimbabwe as a failed state but it was not that long ago – even though Rob’s madness had already began then – that this country had great prospects. Zimbabwe could have been great. It still can, if someone acts now.

Which reminds me of the other day in a class on International Aid that I am taking. We were talking about humanitarian intervention and international law. Repeatedly, respect for sovereignty came up as a reason to not intervene in places like Somalia, Chad, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, the DRC and all the other near failed states on the continent. Now I know there is no money to intervene in all these places. But we don’t need to. All we need is to set a precedent in one African country. A precedent that you cannot get away with killing or starving your own people. A precedent that you cannot get away with stealing your people’s money like Obiang’ and all the thieves in leadership positions are doing across the continent. Then everyone will think twice before they rig elections, kill innocent people or steal money out of state coffers.

Africans need to realise that they are in the only region of the world that still remains objectified. The only region that has not risen up to claim local agency in its history. Latin America, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa – all former colonies of Western Europe – have risen up to become actors in world history in their own right. The Chinese have a giant economy. South East Asia has considerable clout too. India has the atom bomb and massive amounts of top notch human resources. The Middle East is managing its oil and transforming the desert. Latin America is a middle income region by all means. And Western Europe and its off shoots continues to be ahead of everyone else – this is purely a historical accident and should not be imputed to anything else (read Jared Diamond).

Africa on the other hand remains to be the poster child of failure. Soon enough we shall be receiving aid from the Indians and the Mexicans and the Brazilians and may be some day even the Afghanis. Why don’t African leaders see what they are doing to the African people and their collective consciousness? Why don’t they see how detrimental to future generations of Africans their actions are? Why don’t they seem to mind the fact that when one says Africa or Africans the first things that come to people’s minds are Aids, Poverty, Hunger, Disease, and all manner of evils. Why?

The middle East has dictators. Pinochet was a dictator, but not a mindless buffoon like Samuel Doe, or Amin or Mugabe. Suharto was a corrupt thief, but not the moron that was Abacha. Why I ask. Why can’t any of our leaders, dictators or not get anything right? Why?

africa continues to be myopic and ready for the picking

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So I keep reading stories about foreign governments like China, the Gulf States and South Korea that are planning on buying millions of acres of Africa’s arable land in order to provide food security for their citizens. From what I gather, most African governments are eager to sell 100 year leases in order to make a quick buck and then for 100 years condemn their countrymen and women to being near-slaves to foreigners in their own countries. How more stupid can our leaders get?

As a continent, Africa is the most food insecure place on the planet. Millions depend on food aid, even in supposedly more developed countries like Ghana, Kenya and Senegal. Some countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and nearly all of the Francophone Sahel have never known food security for decades. They have been permanent recipients of aid from the US and the World Food Program. It makes you wonder why it is not these governments making deals with their fellow African countries to guarantee the continent some food security.

Food production is what propelled human civilization. Mesopotamia, the Indus-Gangetic Valley, the Nile Valley, were all organised with an aim of improving food production so as to free up talent for other more meaningful human endeavors. Africa, nearly 12,000 years later, still cannot afford to feed its own people. It is not a question of land or water. The great lakes regions can feed the entire continent and still have a surplus. With the exception of the South West African countries and the Sahelian states, all of Sub-Saharan African countries ought to be food-secure. The fact that they are not is simply and squarely because of poor leadership.

And now these same inadequate leaders want to sell the land to foreigners. I am assuming that when foreign governments buy land they’ll treat it like they do with their embassies – provide their own security and run the show by their own rules. I wonder how different this will be from an outright recolonization of the African continent by more developed and better run countries.

We are still in the woods. And we are screwed for the foreseeable future. Like it is not even funny anymore. Our Mugabes, Obiangs and Zenawis continue to fail us big time. How hard can it be to run a country? Like seriously.