The Economist has a graph comparing politicians’ pay across the globe. After the new emoluments that parliament unanimously adopted last week, Kenya’s crop of thieves poles, and on this list the Prime Minister, would rank at the very top. Shame shame shame. Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and the Prime Minister himself are on record as being opposed to the new salary hikes. It remains to be seen how the Kenyan legislature will react.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been hospitalized, apparently due to fatigue. The 65 year-old Mr. Odinga has no publicly known health condition except for his eye problems that have seen him take several trips to Germany for treatment. His aides say that Mr. Odinga will be confined to bed rest for a few days.
Update: The Standard reports that Mr. Odinga has undergone minor surgery to ease pressure on his brain after a minor accident. The BBC says the same. The AP speculates that Mr. Odinga may be suffering from “hydrocephalus, a condition where excessive fluid builds up on the brain. If left untreated, symptoms of the condition include cognitive problems and difficulty walking.” It appears that Mr. Odinga hit his head recently and had to get a hole drilled into his skull to drain fluid that had built up too close to his brain as a result. His aides, doctor and sister in law (one Connie Sigei) insisted that the Prime Minister is in stable condition and will be back on his feet in a few days. Ms. Sigei added that she “brought him boiled maize and he ate it all, drank water and asked for more.”
Foreign Policy, in its July/August issue has 2010’s failed states index. The Continent has 12 of the top 20 worst performers on this index, with Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the DRC being in the top five respectively. Kenya is 13th on this index, performing worse than Niger, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, among other basket cases. The substantive meaning of the rankings aside (I’d rather be in Kenya than in Sierra Leone on any day), the index is a grim reminder of how badly governed the Continent is. The best ranked mainland African state is Ghana, at number 54. Mauritius leads the Continent at number 30, out of 177.
Also in the FP issue is an exposé of Bozize’s Central African Republic. I used to think that he was doing a relatively good job. Turns out he is full of bucket-loads of horse manure:
“Bozizé has fared no better than his predecessors, ruling a territory the size of Texas with a GDP significantly smaller than that of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.”
And don’t miss out on Ayittey’s ranking of the world’s worst dictators. Our good friend Rob is second only to the crazy guy who runs North Korea.
Lastly, I must say something about my favorite punching bag Idriss Deby’s Chad. Idriss Deby is a study in ineffectual leadership and is on the list of Africa’s many ‘wasted dictatorships.’ In 2006 he successfully conned his way out of the World Bank brokered plan to use revenue from the Chad-Cameroon pipeline to reduce poverty among his country’s extremely impoverished 10.3 million souls. He now uses most of Chad’s oil revenue to fund his poorly-run security forces that remain vulnerable to any rebel group that can land its hands on a technical. But with over 1.5 billion barrels in reserves and a world thirsty for oil, it appears that this Zaghawa “warrior” is here to stay, his incompetence notwithstanding.
The HDI numbers tell it all. The literacy rate in Chad is at a dismal 25%. Life expectancy stands at 48 years. 80% of Chadian’s live on less than a dollar a day. The growth rate of the economy, -1% last year, -0.2% in 2008 and 0.6% in 2007, cannot keep up with the population growth rate of more than 2% (despite a rather high infant mortality rate of 97 deaths/1000 live births) – which means that Chadians’ living standards will continue to decline into the foreseeable future. The bulk of Chadians (more than 80%) make do with subsistence agriculture. Oil, cotton, cattle and gum arabic are the country’s main export commodities.
sources: FP and The CIA World Factbook
The Daily Nation reports that the blasts at a “NO” rally in Uhuru Park, Nairobi were caused by grenades. This confirms Kenyans’ worst fear – that the explosions were not accidents but an organized attack on those opposed to the draft constitution. One hopes that Kenyan politicians will be sober-minded as the relevant authorities investigate this incident. The last thing we need is careless finger-pointing and sabre-rattling.
I hope that the president and his prime minister will follow on their promise to bring those responsible to book. This is a potentially dangerous attack on Kenya’s young and troubled democracy. Freedom of expression is one of the key pillars of civilized society. This is an attack on every Kenyan’s freedom of expression. Those opposed to the draft constitution should be allowed to do so openly and as loudly as they can, as long as they are within the limits of the law.
Politicians all over Kenya are currently on campaign mode for or against the draft constitution. The referendum on the new document will be held on the 4th of August this year. The main sources of division in the proposed constitution include land management, devolution of power from the centre, inclusion of Kadhi’s courts to adjudicate on Muslim family law and the existence of a loophole that could allow for the legalization of abortion.
Kenyans have the chance to vote in a new constitution come August 4th. The referendum vote has created a divide in Kenyan society, pitting clerics and politicians allied to William Ruto against Kenya’s wider political establishment. Kenya’s quasi-dyarchy fully backs the new document. The church opposes the document on the grounds that it allows for abortion and disproportionately favors Muslims by providing for Kadhi’s courts. William Ruto and his allies do not like the document because it will perpetuate the centralization of land management, something that is dear to the hearts of most of their constituents.
The new document is not perfect. But it’s infinitely better than the colonial constitution that we have had since independence. For one it provides for separation of powers. The president and his cabinet will no longer be members of parliament. It also gives parliament more teeth. The provision to channel funds to local governments is a brilliant idea. Corruption will make a dent on the funds, no doubt, but local elections should attenuate the effects of graft. I only hope that county governments will be allowed to compete with each other and experiment with policy.
If I were to make improvements to the document I would provide greater autonomy to major towns and cities. I would also stagger elections so that not all parliamentary elections coincide with presidential elections. I would have given supreme court judges lifetime security of tenure. Lastly, I would have granted Mr. Ruto his wish and decentralized the management of land – but set national minimum requirements with regard to land use and taxation, especially of idle land.
Following a petition by former MP Reuben Ndolo (of the “weka tire” infamy), Lady Justice Kaplana Rawal has nullified the election of Dick Wathika as Makadara MP in the 2007 general elections. Mr. Wathika becomes the 5th sitting MP since the chaotic 2007 vote to lose after an election petition in court. The 2007 elections were marred by irregularities that almost plunged Kenya, previously an oasis of peace in a turbulent part of the Continent, into civil war. 1300 people died before a power-sharing agreement was brokered between incumbent Mwai Kibaki and his challenger Raila Odinga. Given that most Kenyans voted “three piece”, the apparent widespread irregularities at the constituency level must be highly correlated with those of the presidential vote. Neither PNU nor ODM can claim innocence. The real culprit, however, is one Mr. Samuel Kivuitu. The former boss of the electoral commission presided over a sham election with a straight face and got away with it. Shame on him.
Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki has announced that he will resign and call snap elections. Mr. Kibaki cited wrangling within the cabinet and the failure to tackle corruption and poor governance as his main reasons for seeking a fresh mandate from Kenyans. It is unclear which party ticket the president will run on since his party, the PNU, has since disintegrated into its constituent coalition partners. The Prime Minister’s party, the ODM, are currently holding a meeting before issuing a statement in response to the president’s move.
Read more here
The events of Sunday morning exposed the illusion that Kibaki and Raila had decided to bury the hatchet and do what is right for the Republic. Earlier the Prime Minister had suspended Ministers William Ruto and Samuel Ongeri over graft in their respective ministries. But the President quickly followed with a press release saying that the Prime Minister had no authority to dismiss the two ministers. Both cited sections of the Constitution and National Reconciliation Accord that midwifed the formation of the Grand Coalition Government after post-election violence in early 2008.
It is clear that corruption and the fight against it is being politicized by the two principals. It is also clear that the constitutional amendments that created the position of the Prime Minister did a bad job of defining the powers of the Premier and separating these powers from the President’s. And that is just sad. Parliament must do something in order to avert a full blown constitutional crisis in the near future.
Prime Minister Odinga’s move to suspend Ongeri and Ruto, in my opinion, was ill-advised and reckless. Justice is political, and sometimes the means matter just as much as the end. Is it wise to risk wider instability in the country for short-term political gains? I don’t think so Mr. Odinga. There are better ways of dealing with both Ruto and Ongeri. President Kibaki reaction to the suspensions was equally sub-par. I still do not understand how two men in such high positions find it reasonable to communicate with each other over the media instead of meeting and hammering deals with each other in person. The two should know that their power-politics games in the media do nothing but drive wedges between Kenyans. To quote President Moi, these nonsensical games will not increase the number of sufurias in Wanjiku’s kitchen.
As usual, Mutahi Ngunyi has a provocative piece in the Sunday Nation. I am sort of sympathetic to his idea of ethnic suicide (by which he means dumping ethnic identities and what they stand for) – I was in Eldoret and Timboroa for two days this summer and saw with my own eyes the fruits of ethnic hatred. The short-term operationalization of the idea may be problematic though. To make Kenyans out of Luos and Kikuyus and Kalenjins will take time. Because of this the process of “ethnic suicide” ought to take place sub-consciously, for if it is “managed” the end results or the process itself may be nasty.
Gitau Warigi pours some cold water on Bethuel Kiplagat’s TJRC. I like his argument. I am always baffled by how much we spend on such useless commissions only to be rewarded with “classified reports” issued to the president. Philip Ochieng‘ has an interesting piece on ethnicity and politics in Kenya. I wonder how many politicians read his column… And Kwendo Opanga just gave me one more reason to think that Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka is as misguided as ever. This is not to say that the alternatives to Mr. Musyoka in the post-Kibaki dispensation are any better. Woe unto Wanjiku.
And in other news, is this legitimising crime or what?
Nairobi is currently playing host to delegates from all over the Continent and the US attending the 8th AGOA conference. I had time yesterday to listen to Sec. Clinton’s and President Kibaki’s speeches (President Kibaki, please fire your speech writers and hire a speech therapist). Despite the embarrassing delivery, President Kibaki’s speech struck the right tone. The US should open up more to African business and Kenyans (and Africans in general) should be quick to take advantage of the existing trade opportunities – even as they continue to tackle governance problems (which, contrary to Premier Odinga’s comments, is a major road block to African development).
I felt like Clinton’s comments were a bit too vague. It is high time the US stopped treating trade with Africa as something that only happens at the pleasure of Washington (for more on this see Aid Watch). The one thing that hit home in the speech was the call for an increase in intra-continental trade. The last time I checked this accounted for a paltry 10% of all trade on the Continent. Poor transcom infrastructure is to blame. But political risk (read deplorable governance) is also to blame. I hope the many African delegates present took this point seriously.
I don’t know what deliverables come out of such AGOA gatherings so I will wait till the end of the conference to comment on its relevance. For now I am happy that United Parcel Services (UPS) has pledged to buy staff uniforms from the Kenyan market.
Muthoni Wanyeki is my favorite weekly columnist with the East African, a regional weekly. This week she wrote a piece on the Kenyan government’s reluctance to prosecute perpetrators of the post-election violence of early 2008.
The Kenyan cabinet yesterday decided not to set up a local tribunal to try those who organized the targeted killings of people who spoke certain languages (but lived in the “wrong” places) after the bungled general elections of late 2007. Instead, in an effort to assuage the fears of a hostile parliament, the president and his cabinet decided to clean up the police force and the judiciary and have these organs try the said suspects. Yeah right.
My doubts of the cabinet’s intentions are premised on the fact that reforming the police force and the judiciary will not take a few months. The police force is the most corrupt institution in this country. Reforming it will take years. Same with the judiciary. If we are to wait for the police and judges to stop taking bribes and begin respecting the rule of law before we initiate the prosecution process then we might as well forget about the whole thing.
I remain deeply skeptical of President Kibaki’s commitment to making sure that those who organized the killing of more than 1300 Kenyans be brought to book. If he really means what he said yesterday then he should begin by firing Attorney General Amos Wako. This is a man who has been in that position through the tortures of the Moi era, the killings that preceded the 1997 general elections, and a myriad corruption scandals (including the mother of all, Goldenberg) without ever bringing any prominent player to book. Mr. Wako has been as effective as a parachute that deploys on the second bounce and should be shown the door, no questions asked.
It was always going to be difficult to bring the oafish ethnic chiefs masquerading as patriots to book. Yesterday was a stark reminder to all Kenyans that justice is political and that if change doesn’t come soon the powerful will continue doing what they want and leave the weak to suffer what they must.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has tabled in parliament a list of those who acquired land in the Mau based on their well-connectedness with the government. Top of the list are those closely associated with former president Moi – including his son and former Baringo Central MP Gideon. The task force on the Mau issued a report that claimed that 80% of the titles to the land in Mau were issued to undeserving people.
I like this dose of transparency from the Prime Minister (Although for good practice he should have made the list public as soon as he got it in order to allow for a more mature progression of the eviction debate). My hope now is that Kenyans will realise exactly what the interests of those against the government directive to conserve the forest are. Indeed if I had it my way, the millionaires who unlawfully acquired public land should be made to pay a fine.
The popular consensus seems to be that the government should compensate the regular “wananchi” who have titles and who unknowingly legally bought illegally acquired land. But the “wenyenchi” who grabbed public land should not be given a cent. Shame on them.
And on a different note, kudos to the Kenya Revenue Authority. I was surprised that I was able to get my pin number online. The first time I tried getting one I had to wait in line at Times Tower and left because the line did not move for the more than 45 minutes that I was there. My only problem now is that I can’t seem to be able to print my pin number certificate. Anyone with a clue?
Leaders are meant to lead – to set the agenda and make people believe that what is good for them is exactly what they need. On this count, Agriculture minister William Ruto has failed as a leader. On the issue of Mau Forest, he is increasingly sounding like a mad populist out to gain political mileage at the expense of millions of Kenyans – including those that he is purportedly protecting.
That deforestation in the Mau is causing the drying up of vital water sources – 12 rivers included – is no longer contested, not even by Mr. Ruto himself. I therefore do not understand why he is still against the eviction of those who illegally acquired land in the forest. The government has already agreed to compensate small holders (with title deeds) who were cheated into buying land in the forest. But wealthy Kenyans who acquired land in the Mau due to their connections to the Moi Administration should not be given a cent. In any case they should be investigated.
I say it is time that Mr. Ruto acted as a leader and made the case to his constituents that saving the Mau is in their best interest. This is the least he can do if he really aspires to be seen as a respectable national leader rather than an over-glorified tribal chief.
Two weekends ago I ventured into Siaya in Nyanza province of Kenya to visit family. On the way there, I saw for the first time the consequences of the violence that rocked the country early last year. More than a year later, whole families are still living in tents at the Molo junction. Many more have had to endure life in make shift houses, still unsure of whether they will be able to return home permanently.
But in Nairobi, the issue of resettlement of Kenya’s IDPs is on no one’s radar. The hot topic right now is which ethnic chief is on the list of suspected instigators of the post-election violence that killed more than 1300 Kenyans and displaced hundreds of thousands. The political class has completely forgotten about the people who did their dirty work or suffered the consequences of the same.
It is a shame that the mainstream media in Nairobi has bought into the distraction tactics of Kenya’s (very mediocre) ruling class. As much as we should know about and debate whether to try suspected plotters of the violence here at home or in the Hague, we should continue focusing attention on those that are still suffering in tents away from schools, hospitals and their farms. These Kenyans deserve better than they are currently getting from Nairobi.
kenopalo.com 