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• The Demise of Stillborn Grand Opposition

  Posted: July 15, 2008, 8:56 pm by Taabu

  The mooted Grand Opposition is staring its demise even before deliver thanks to tried and tested TRIBAL wars. The self acknowledged ambitious Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba is a marked man. The unanimity that claimed Kimunya’s head is no more and every MP has regrouped into their respective safe TRIBAL BLOCKS. Hitherto active supporters of are finding new bearing in their fellow tribesmen. Ababu must have overestimated his resolve and enthusiasm to be consistently vigilant. He has been told that Uhuru is untouchable and he must never make the mistake of assuming that Jomo Jr. is political feather weight Kimunya.
  
  Only in Kenya do whistle blowers promptly acquire tribal tags that relegate them from the hunter to the hunted. The zeal exhibited by MPs Jamleck, Mbau and company betrays their timidity (or was it steadfastness?) during Kimunya’s censor motion in parliament. The law being an ass must be applied to the letter. ECK has proved Uhuru broke the law and only latent support of impunity can make you look the other way and back the DPM. You cannot break the same law you swore to uphold.
  
  Security in number is a lame and laughable defence when caught pants down. More over two wrongs never made a right. Let Kajwang carry his won cross -no need to organize rally in Mbita or having Nyanza Mps cover his back. And if he is proven culpable he must grace the same shame, RESIGN. Reducing Ababu’s resolve to show consistency in seeking good governance and accountability to shoe size only goes to what length our petty politics has degenerated by readily trivializing weight national issues.
  
  Rotten fish syndrome
  Impunity is a cancer that gnaws at the heart of good governance and must be fought with every tool available. Uhuru’s nomination of 13 PNU councillors instead of the legal 7 while truncating ODM’s 12 to 11 is the height of political arrogance that can only be supported by incurably disingenuous apologists. an abomination in reflection to good governance. Exceeding the number stipulated in law is not discretion as UK want us to believe by declaring that he did nothing wrong. As discredited as it is, the same ECK that declared Uhuru winner of Gatundu South seat must be respected. You don’t respect the law by trashing it and becoming an authority unto yourself to nominate cronies outside the ECK list.
  
  Reminding Ababu that Uhuru is no Kimunya is to suffer the curse of unlawful monarchy. The truth be told Uhuru was only the bidding of his boss. What do you expect from a desperate prince waiting for coronation when his duly-elected king breaks the laws of the land by openly stealing an election? The fish rots from the head and no attempt at trying to deep fry the body will salvage the stench. Meanwhile it will be a waste of valuable time to seek a vote of no confidence in Uhuru. The best way forward is a shame impunity by degazzeting the excess councillors. Ababu must soldier on in showing new leadership that is chronically missing among the dinosaurs. He may be unpopular right now but he must know he is speaking for the silent majority out here.

• Ministers Should Carry Their Own Crosses

  Posted: July 15, 2008, 4:40 am by Shiko-Msa

  Also published today: Why The Constantly Blundering NSIS Is A Big Danger To Kenya Part 2

  So Jamlek Kamau (MP for Kigumo) feels that Uhuru Kenyatta is the wrong number for Ababu Namwamba to point fingers at. And that he should concentrate his energies on his Budalangi constituency. So who in the eyes of Kamau is the right number? Who is it that can have himself toyed with while others are left alone without investigation I wonder?

  Any leader’s responsibility is to his constituents and the country as a whole. If for instance Ababu Namwaba comes across a case that needs clarification in parliament, the repairing of dykes will not stop in Budalangi just because the member looked into national matters. The idea of fellow MPs rallying support for ministers under investigation is sending the wrong message because it’s not a question of friendship here - just a minister who may or may not have broken the law. However complex our laws may be, it all boils to whether Uhuru or Kajwang' or Kimunya rubbished them or not. The case of errant ministers is that simple. Laws are made to be followed however small or negligible they may be in the eyes of the big guys. If Uhuru is guilty of irregular nomination of councilors let him carry his own cross. If he’s not guilty then he has nothing to fear or to be publicly supported about. The government I believe has mechanisms to determine such cases.

  I’d not be surprised to see Uhuru going for some constituency love next if the storm gets thicker. And that’s the other point. Constituents too should desist from rallying blind support for MPs who are under investigation. If we are to mend this country, we cannot start by dancing around a corrupt minister just so our constituency can have a flag. We have to start crushing impunity from the constituency level and gladly let our MPs crash to the ground in disgrace if they’re found guilty of corruption or abuse of office.

  Elius Mbau of Maragwa also in his defense for Uhuru had the audacity to say that any action taken by a government leader should be respected because the leaders are duly elected. Is he suggesting that we respect ministers’ decisions regardless of whether they’re right of wrong? That is the kind of balderdash that Kenya does not need now or ever. Is that not where abuse of office stems from? Ministers feeling that they can do anything just because?

  And those speaking of witch hunting, of what use is the grand coalition if we cannot tackle grand corruption without fear of upsetting the balance?

• Why The Constantly Blundering NSIS Is A Big Danger To Kenya Part 2

  Posted: July 15, 2008, 2:58 am by chris

  There is an old Chinese proverb that says: “ask the youth, they know everything.”

  This proverb is rather appropriate in describing many political commentors in Kenya at the moment. They have no interest in history and yet they love to be authoritative in passing judgment over various issues based on what they see as their intellectual capacity. Between yesterday and today I have gotten a pretty good idea of what some of them think whenever I indulge in this topic of the NSIS. Some of them even believe that I usually hurriedly sit down to base my writing on “ghosts and shadows” that do not exist. If indeed that was my style here, I highly doubt if we would have now been approaching 2 million hits in this popular political site. Indeed we are even witnessing an interesting trend where daily newspapers and entire media houses are frequently making great efforts to copy as much as they possibly can from Kumekucha.

  But to be fair, yesterday was also the day I got an email from Central province from this lady who said in part; “I have read Kumekucha without fail for long time now and I can confidently say that what you write is the truth.”

  What touched me most about this email was that as wars of a tribal nature rage in the country (and I am told even in Western capitals where Kenyans live) this Kenyan who happens to belong to the house of Mumbi was able to make her own fair judgement on Kumekucha.

  I dare add that one of the reasons why the old dinosaurs are still in power in Kenya today is because the younger people of Kenya have chosen to accept things at face value. Nobody is really interested in thinking outside the box. I urge you folks never to take things at face value. Even here in Kumekucha. Hint: if you have time, take a look at yesterday’s comments (for Part 1 of this article) and see if you see a pattern. I can assure you that things are NOT what they seem to be. Secondly some nasty commentators suddenly went quiet. Why? Anyway am sure re-grouping may be happening even now, but please let us be ready this time round folks.

  There are some pertinent questions regular readers of this blog must ask themselves and not be in a hurry to answer. Why is it that this blog always seems to be under attack? Why not other blogs and sites? Who would benefit most if this blog shuts down? Who would want to keep away regular sober commentators from Kumekucha as much as possible and why? Who would be terrified at the thought of most readers irrespective of their tribe or political inclination uniting here in Kumekucha for a common cause? Would this be important enough for them to spend as much resources as possible to stop this unity from ever happening?

  Sorry folks I cannot answer those questions for you. There are some questions in this life that nobody can answer for you, you just need to find the answers for yourself no matter how long it takes.

  During the election chaos early this year, the CEO of Safaricom Michael Joseph was put under considerable pressure to shut down the cell phone company’s popular sms service. Read the whole Economist article HERE. To his credit Mr Joseph (a tough native of South Africa) did not crumble under that pressure. Still that did not stop a number of Kenyans being charged with incitement based on the sms messages they sent from their phones (the cases are still going on). The extent to which the NSIS monitor most cell phone communications is unknown to many Kenyans.

  To be fair to our intelligence service, the impact that the cell phone and the World Wide Web have had on Kenyan politics is much more considerable than most people seem to realize and it has been virtually unstoppable. Indeed experts have now identified improved communications between citizens of the planet as one of the reasons why the whole world seems to be suddenly spinning out of control virtually everywhere. But still there is no way to justify any effort to spend valuable money and resources trying to stop the unstoppable. And yet this is exactly what the NSIS has been doing and fortunes in taxpayer’s funds have been directed towards the effort of controlling mobile phone communications and the web.

  Contrast this scenario with what is happening in neighboring Tanzania. The intelligence network in that country is second to none in the whole of Africa and yet their budget is nowhere near being as large as that of the NSIS. Admittedly Tanzania has benefited greatly from the “majumba kumi” (10 houses) system set up by founding father president Julius Nyerere. Under the system every 10 households has an officially recognized leader who reports everything to the authorities. Especially foreigners or strangers who have moved into the neighborhood recently, even if they are mere guests in one of the 10 houses under their jurisdiction. The result is that nobody in Tanzania “coughs” without the authorities knowing. Bear in mind that Tanzania is an administrator’s nightmare. It is a huge country, almost the size of Kenya and Uganda put together.

  Recently the Tanzanian government has been increasingly concerned about Kenyans exporting crime into their country and has developed a very elaborate system for keeping an eye on Kenyans that involves the use of beautiful Tanzanian women agents whom they know most Kenyans have a weakness for. What you may not want to tell the immigration officer at the border, you will surely tell a beautiful girl who is falling all over you after a few drinks. They also have a sophisticated high-tech system being installed at the border that monitors the entry into the country of all traffic from Kenya using technology that involves photographing you at the border. But I digress. My point here is that the Tanzanians are known in the international intelligence community as people who insist on doing things in their own way. But oh my do they get results!!

  It all has a lot to do with the fact that the intelligence system in that country, unlike in Kenya, was set up “giraffe style” where wise founding fathers clearly had a long term view in mind. As a result skills have even been passed down in a deliberate and orderly manner.

  No comparison to poor Kenya where the Special Branch was reduced to a personal intelligence service for State House in last year’s general elections while all other projects remained under-funded and almost abandoned. The results of this can clearly be seen as the nation stands now on the brink of disaster.

  Another huge difference between Kenya and Tanzanian intelligence is the tribal issue.

  Oh yes, I can hear you sigh. Take heart, I too have sighed, but deeper than you have. Impeccable sources have confirmed to me that the NSIS has been torn right down the middle by tribalism in recent times. Trouble seems to have started when current Director General, Michael Gichagi took over. In fact other sources albeit less reliable, tell me that this could be the reason why the Kenyan intelligence ship is leaking more terribly that the famous Titanic ever did. Shockingly, there was a point in the run up to last year’s ill-fated general elections when reports were circulating on the web purporting to be NSIS research on the popularity levels of the two main presidential candidates. The scary thing here is not whether or not the allegations were true but the very thought that it was possible for such a confidential piece of information to be leaked from our national intelligence service and be widely distributed amongst Kenyans on the web. That fact alone tells you that it is in the best interests of the country to dismantle the NSIS as we know it today and start over.

  P.S. Somebody has suggested that the idea of switching from the “British way” of doing intelligence, which was what the old Special branch was, to the American system which was the structure used in setting up the NSIS was a big mistake and has totally failed. Indeed American things do not export too well to Africa. They never have. But clearly all experts I have spoken to are unanimous in agreeing on one thing—namely the fact that the NSIS is a mess.

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

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

The end of the fish cakes