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• Breaking News: Rustlers Kill 25 in Baringo

  Posted: March 20, 2008, 8:32 am by Taabu

  Suspected Samburu cattle rustlers have killed at least 25 people around Lake Baringo (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7306597.stm). Villagers in Baringo district reported witnessing more that 200 Samburu raiders descended on the village on Wednesday evening firing indiscriminately before making away with hundred of animals.
  
  This Baring massacre may not be news in the typical Kenyan sense but it exposes the fragile nation that is Kenya. The fact that many Kenyans would readily term such a massacre as normal cattle rustling is akin to the police commissioner claiming an MP's death is normal robbery. We must have sunk very low morally and otherwise to treat loss of human life so casually.
  
  This incident is another apt wake up call for Kenya and her people to redefine and re-evaluate themselves as a people. The present political smiling from ear to ear amounts to nothing but patching a fatally tattered nation. A country that trivializes the security of her people is nothing but a geographical jungle hosting her citizens. The Saboat and Mungikis are not mere accidents. We must exterminate militias of any shade within our borders, no more no less.
  
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• Are You a Thankful Being?

  Posted: March 20, 2008, 5:55 am by ritch

  How vulnerable is Prime Minister Odinga?
  
  It beats me when people say one thing while in essence they mean something totally different: they say 'red' when they mean 'black'. This kind of vacillation is very evident especially in matters concerning the weather. When it's cold, they want it hot; when it's hot, they want it freezing! (Blue blistering b…!)
  
  The poem below, which I wrote on 5th of May 1997, was occasioned by this human response to the capricious quality of weather.
  
  God's Country
  
  The sun rises with renewed anger,
  With rage, it 'serves' its heat,
  To the life below;
  People cower,
  Plants shrink and droop –
  Heat by day, cold by night,
  Days turn to months.
  
  Plants, angered by this routine,
  Refuse to bear fruit,
  Making futile the efforts of man,
  To till, level and sow,
  On dry ground,
  Famine envelops the country
  
  Leaves turn brown and crispy,
  Shed they are, wanted no more,
  Plants wither and zap! disappear,
  People grow thin
  And, a ‘sun tan's’ a must.
  
  After months on end,
  Clouds sparsely gather,
  Becoming a big, black mass,
  They growl, declaring war on sun,
  Then they spit to the ground,
  Their hard-earned spittle.
  
  Plants less with anger,
  And full of bloom, sprout,
  Giving the country a green,
  Expanse of leafy mass,
  That promises fruit,
  To hungry beings.
  
  People gain weight,
  Eating the fruits of their labour;
  But then:
  Mud spoils their shoes,
  Colds cost their pay,
  The weather spoils their day,
  Is all thanks they have to God.
  
  P.S.:- I love good poetry. I also love to write poems, in addition to other forms of writing. PKW, I love your poem, The Road in Flamingo. Hilarious, it is. The imagery it encapsulates is overly fascinating.
  
  
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• How Vulnerable Is The Prime Minister?

  Posted: March 20, 2008, 4:09 am by chris

  There are some Kenyans who insist that politics in Kenya is now going to be pretty boring with a grand coalition and no opposition in parliament. Of course these naïve Kenyans have no idea what they are talking about.

  
  Already the people’s hero, Raila Odinga is sitting on what will shape up to be one of the hottest political seats ever created in these shores. As usual most Kenyans have failed to read the small print and would prefer to wait for a Tsunami before they scrutinize that all important section.

  
  One of the things that is bound to influence politics considerably and make any prime minister vulnerable is the fact that parliament needs only a simple majority to send the premier home. And don't forget that unlike a vote of no confidence on the president, it does not send the MPs back to the polls. In fact it can be done one lazy afternoon with 60 or so legislators in the house. And even with a full house, there are a lot of people in PNU who would vote with the Kalenjin community to remove the PM, yesterday. Yep. It is pretty easy to pass a vote of no confidence on the prime minister, meaning that poor Agwambo will feel the heat from day one. Still his supporters will tell you that the man is fireproof.
  

  
  Now let us take a purely hypothetical situation. Say the Kalenjin community in parliament for some reason are not happy with their arap Mibei, the PM. We all know that thanks to former president Moi’s wily ways, the Rift Valley has numerous MPs and most of them are from the sparsely populated Kalenjin community. What this means is that they would need to team up with a small party within PNU like Narc and they would be able to garner enough numbers to send the Prime Minister home. By the way Narc is also pretty jittery about the grand coalition and one man called Danston Mungatana keeps on making all sorts of noises at press conferences against it.

  
  Anyway, this little political reality about the PM is what will make the cabinet list of the grand calition the most interesting and titillating read for Kenyans since David Mailu’s After 4:30 novelette released in the 70s to feverish sales. Or since Robert Ludlum’s last edge-of-the-seat suspense thriller (you take your pick).

  
  A section of Kalenjin MPs have already said that the fairest thing would be for the ODM side of the grand coalition cabinet to have at least half the MPs from their community. And with good reason. Not only does this group have numerical power in parliament, but no other community contributed more and sacrificed more to partly reverse the stolen election of last December. In fact the contribution of the Kalenjin cannot be compared to that of all other communities put together. They are the reason why we now have a grand coalition government.

  
  So the first thing to look out for in the list (that could even be released today) is if their request has been fulfilled by Arap Mibei. If it has then it is only fair to expect the community to be the most powerful block in the 10^th parliament.

  
  If the request hasn’t been met, then you can expect some fireworks within ODM.

  
  However knowledgeable experts say that it will be impossible for arap Mibei to fulfill this particular request and what will most probably happen is that the cabinet will have a substantial representation from the Kalenjin community and Arap Mibei will then cut other deals with the community to appease them. The truth is that whatever ODM supporters say, the survival of the premier heavily depends on his treating the Kalenjin well.

  
  

  Which brings us to another thorny issue. What do you think the Prime Minister would do if he were to find a Kalenjin member of the cabinet involved in corruption. My dear readers I leave that question with you.

  P.S. Apparently my post of yesterday depicting the burning of Kenyans in Naivasha did not reveal my position clearly concerning George Saitoti’s planned prosecution of poll violence perpetrators. Let me make my stand and that of many Kenyans clear in one sentence. Prosecute everybody or prosecute nobody. And by everybody I mean Martha Karua, Kivuitu and cronies, Kabando wa Kabando, George Saitoti etc.
  

  
  Incidentally a poll carried out by KTN last night showed that 39% of Kenyans are for amnesty to all post election violence perpetrators. I am sure these are the Kenyans who understand that justice is always extremely selective in Kenya.

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  Horror from African Safari: Gory scene not fit for TV as lions fail to find their usual prey

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Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes