You Missed This

• Kumekucha Awards for Citizen Journalism

  Posted: December 31, 2009, 9:00 pm by Taabu

  The first decade of the new millennium is gone. And gone with it too is the prophesied meltdown that never was in 2000. The vanishing decade also ushered in the so-called citizen journalism that saw the birth of our own Kumekucha.
  
  True, a blog is nothing but just that a blog, an online diary if you like. But again there are blogs and there is Kumekucha. This is not only a political blog that trail blazed while others followed, but readers visit this blog so as to have a true feeling of Kenya’s political pulse. And the opinions are both varied and acidic as they come.
  
  As we welcome the second decade of the millennium, pioneer writers of this blog deserve accolades. First comes Chris with his no-holds-barred insights. The BOSS has rubbed many regulars and newbies the wrong way. And true to the adage that only fools don’t change their minds, he has modified his political takes based on dynamics while retaining history as his principal anchor. Wapi Oscar?
  
  Acid and vitriol
  Next comes Phil, the indefatigable. Like him hate him Phil’s passion and steadfastness to advance and defend his course is a case study of political fidelity. That picture would be incomplete without mentioning Derek (aka Deroo) as Phil’s checkmate on the political chessboard. Derek and Vikii’s eloquence in articulating their respective political stands is passion personified.
  
  The rainbow politics in Kumekucha would be the poorer without mentioning both UrXlnc and Sam Okello with their often controversial pitches. And yes, one and only Luke with his tongue firmly stuck in his cheek.
  
  Then comes the girls who stuck their heads to disabuse the male folk of political naivity. The potent mix of PKW, Ciku Msa, Sayra and Mrembo would often leave the men scampering for political safety like headless chicken. This lot provided the much needed reality check when the political kitchen became too hot.
  
  The past few months wouldn’t have been the same at this blog without the intellectual rigour and vigour of our own Mwarangethe. His singular obsession and articulation of matters wealth and land is a thesis superlatively written and defended.
  
  Reclaim Kenya
  The KK citizen journalism awards would be biased and insensitive without mentioning the numerous anonymouses whose wits and vitriol spiced and enriched the blog.
  
  This is therefore to wish all of you a happy NEW YEAR for making this blog such a success. KK's clones never grew wings or the feathers froze. You have provided a steady pedestal for even better political discourse in the new decade.
  
  Phew! Gone is the cursed decade when we almost collectively stewed in our own blood and incoming is the defining year when Kenyans either reclaim their country from scoundrels or kiss the bottom of abyss-self destruction.
  
  Happy new year once more folks.Kumekucha

  
  

• Semi-permanent cosmetics in Africa?

  Posted: December 30, 2009, 4:25 am by Chris

  The Nyatiti is a wonderful musical instrument that is perfect for singing praises and honouring somebody and it is my African instrument of choice to honour the kind of Kenyans I meet and feel proud to be a Kenyan. On the other hand the drum can be used for many things. Drums are beaten before some executions which is what I wish I could do to some of the Kenyans I meet, but for now drums of protest will do. Welcome to Kumekucha’s column that puts personalities, faces and real life incidents into nationals of the great sleeping giant nation called Kenya. Every Tuesday or Wednesday only here in the most popular blog on Kenyan news and politics.
  
  Semi-permanent Cosmetics in Africa
  
  Have you ever heard of semi-permanent cosmetics? Can you imagine waking up with make up for a long time to come? Say 3 to 4 years? Imagine the time you would save. The sheer convenience…
  
  Well thanks to a very innovative young Kenyan called Jared H. Babu a micropigmentologist, this service is now available in Kenya. And you can hardly find it anywhere else in Africa outside South Africa.
  
  The story of how he came across this business is telling.
  
  It all started when he got an opportunity to travel to the United States with a relative who wanted him to study the finer details of a product that he had secured a distributorship for. It was for bullet proof car tyres. So while Jared was in Los Angeles studying the finer details of the car tyre that can withstand any automatic weapon bullets without getting deflated, he decided that he would keep his eyes open for a woman’s product that would do well back home in Kenya. Now this is very interesting because we all know that when most Kenyans land in Western countries they are solely focused on how they can stay on (mostly as illegal immigrants) and look for a job to get rich on. This young guy was instead looking for business opportunities to take back home with him.
  
  He found it in semi-permanent make-up and trained for a year and a half to graduate as a certified permanent cosmetic professional. He now offers this service to enthusiastic ladies dropping in at his premises at Old Mutual Building on Kimathi Street. He can be reached on +254 722-691272. Or email:- tattooingwithstyle@gmail.com
  
  Join me in playing a nice Nyatiti tune to honour this innovative Kenyan whose every effort should be greatly encouraged.
  
  
  Are poor people fools?
  
  When people talk, they will always let slip their real feelings and prejudices. A rather fascinating comment appeared in this blog that reflects the feelings thoughts and beliefs of many privileged Kenyans. They referred to the poor people of Kenya a some kind of idiots who don’t have the slightest clue.
  
  Now this is a very widely held belief in Kenya amongst the political class. They believe that poor people are fools. I once heard this view expressed by a rich man’s kid who said something I will never forget. He posed the question; why don’t those poverty stricken Kibera guys just come into town and use their brains and hassle and make money just like everybody else? I laughed bitterly at this great naivety displayed. But after a while I realized that I was no better than this guy. I was assuming that everybody has been privileged enough like I have been to live virtually everywhere in Kenya amongst the stinking rich and also amongst the most desperate folks you have ever met.
  
  Let me answer the rich kid’s question because know that there are multitudes reading this who would pose the same question. In many cases the Kibera folks have NOT had the same opportunities as many of us have had. And I am not talking about education only. There is the even more important thing called exposure. Of course folks like this rich kid’s dad are to blame. They have gotten rich stealing from the poor, like a vast majority of Kenyans. The recent scandal in the Ministry of education where the government is scrambling to do damage control is a perfect example of this.
  
  Little wonder that recently while showing somebody around some leafy suburbs of Nairobi I remarked; “And this is where the thieves live.”
  
  Join me will you, in beating drums of protest at those Kenyans who believe that poor people are poor because they are stupid. Who is more stupid here?Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 11

  Posted: December 29, 2009, 7:36 am by kumekucha

  Mystery of the bloodbath under Kibaki
  
  
  One of the big mysteries of the Kibaki administration has to do with the ugly unprecedented post election violence of January 2008 shortly after the presidential elections results were announced.
  
  Now everybody knows that it was President Daniel Arap Moi who literally invented tribal clashes. His motive for doing this was to speed up the fulfillment of his prophecy to Kenyans in 1991; “Multi-party itawachoma.” (multiparty politics will burn you to ashes.) Moi in bowing to pressure and allowing the re-introduction of multi-party democracy in Kenya in 1991 had bitterly warned Kenyans that it was not good for them, Lakini mtoto akililia wembe mpe (But if a child cries to be given a razor, give it to them so that they cut themselves and learn their lesson the hard way.)
  
  There is overwhelming evidence (including the one given by former powerful minister of State in the office of the president under Moi, Burudi Nabwera) that the president was deeply involved in formenting and establishing regular tribal clashes in the Rift Valley. Nabwera toild shocked Kenyans through a press statement that Moi personally imported bows and arrows into the country from a certain Asian nation. These crude weapons were then distributed on the ground and the people provoked to “remove the enemy.”
  
  I happened to be in Nakuru (playing rugby) during the height of the tribal clashes under the Moi regime in 1992 and I bumped into a friend of mine whom I had not seen for many years. He worked for the airforce and flew helicopters. We caught up on a lot of things over a few drinks and then I suddenly asked him what his mission in the Rift Valley was all about. I will never forget the look on the poor guy’s face. This chap was actually a great friend of mine and we had no secrets between us. But that day he looked aside avoided eye contact and said that his mission was top secret and there was no way he could discuss it with me. A chill went up my spine watching him squirm in his seat. He behaved in the right way not telling me anything. But his squirming spoke volumes.
  
  Anyway back to what I was saying. By the time Kibaki took over as president, Moi had fine-tuned his tribal clashes game in the Rift Valley. Remember that these so-called clashes only emerged just before a general elections ONLY.
  
  Any fool in Kenya had this information and the great mystery on my mind to date is did Kibaki guess what the consequences of a stolen election would be on the ground that Moi had cultivated in the Rift valley for a number of years? Did the intelligence community and security forces in the country not guess what would happen in the Rift Valley? I ask this because even the response by the government initially mainly focused in Kisumu while parts of the Rift Valley went up in flames. In fact things got so bad that it was the Kenya Army which was sent into the Rift Valley together with the GSU. That is very telling because this has never happened before in the history of the country. That a civilian problem necessitated the sending in of the military. Not only that. What was the Ugandan military doing in Kisumu and Eldoret?
  
  I would like to give President Kibaki the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did not guess that there would be any serious problem in the Rift Valley because I don’t want to believe that he did not care. But it is strange how the president would not have a clue when ordinary folks like me knew and cringed when the election results were announced.
  
  Somebody somewhere has to answer for all the unnecessary deaths, rapes and maiming of innocent Kenyans that went down. I don’t want to believe for one minute that all those fellow Kenyans died in vain.
  
  Meanwhile the scene inside State House shortly after the troubles in the Rift Valley erupted is interesting and rather instructive.
  
  It is said that the president took the first few calls from the then secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The calls were calling for his urgent action because the international community was very concerned about what was happening in Kenya. It is said that the president was rather casual and saw no need for concern or panic assuring Ms Rice that things were under control. And yet it was obvious that they were not.
  
  Shortly after that, the president stopped taking the calls even as Ms Rice desperately tried to reach him again.
  
  Admittedly, here the president cannot take all the blame. He received lots of help from the Bush administration to rig the 2007 elections and this must have been one of the reasons why the calls annoyed him. If you are short of evidence to point to Americans fully backing Kibaki in his evil deeds, then ask yourself why the World Bank was still doing deals with Kibaki’s Finance Minister Amos Kimunya in late Decemeber when intelligence reports on the ground were saying that at the very least it would be a close election. More accurate reports pointed to a Raila Odinga win by a landslide.
  
  And then also remember that the Americans were the first and only Western nation to congratulate Kibaki on his re-election. They later quickly withdrew this congratulatory message. Don’t ask me how one withdraws a congratulatory message because I also have no idea how it is done.
  
  American had many reasons not to want a Raila Odinga win at all costs. One of them was the suspect secret funding of ODM from certain Arab nations linked to terrorism. But as usual the Yankies greatly underestimated the cost that would have to be paid on the ground in terms of the innocent blood of Kenyans being poured for them to fulfill their desires.
  
  (To be continued)
  
  Dark secrets of the presidency will continue on Thursday right through to the end of the holidays. However it will be interrupted tomorrow by my weekly column Drums and Nyatiti. Meanwhile I take this opportunity to thank all those wonderful Kumekucha readers who sent me messages of goodwill over the Christmas period. I was very touched reading each and every one of them. Thank you very much my brothers and sisters.
  
  Part 9
  
  Part 10
  
  Part 11
  
  Part 12Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 10

  Posted: December 27, 2009, 9:36 am by Chris

  Proud Makerere Don
  
  Despite being President Moi’s Vice President for 10 long years, it is rather obvious that Mwai Kibaki learnt very little or nothing from his long stint as VP. Very much unlike Moi before him.
  
  One thing that was always very clear during Kibaki’s campaign for the presidency was that he thought of Moi as an uneducated fool who ran a government full of fellow illiterates who had never gone to school and there was therefore nothing to learn from him. This is the arrogant attitude that Kibaki carried with him to State House in January 2003. This was further confirmed by an insistence on CVs before any public appointments would be made. There was no doubt that the idea here was to catch people who had no university education since this appears to have been the minimum bench mark that Kibaki had set in his early months as president of Kenya. Not only that, the president had his preferences in Universities with UK universities and Makerere being at the top of his list.
  
  The speech Kibaki made at Uhuru park on being sworn in as president was even more telling. He clearly emphasized that the era of road side directives and appointments was over.
  
  Again one his close aides, Kiraitu Murungi put it even more bluntly when he arrogantly said in a speech;
  
  “We want Moi to retire to his Kabarak home and look after his goats and we will show him how a government should be run.”
  
  What must have been going through Kibaki’s mind was that he was taking over from illiterates who knew nothing and with his credentials and those he would appoint the whole mess would be magically wiped out literally overnight. It was a very simplistic view which the president no doubt regrets to this day.
  
  In retrospect Kibaki had a lot of grand ideas for Kenya. But historians will record that virtually all of them had one thing in common they reeked of great naivety. I was at a meeting at Ufungamano house, Nairobi where Kibaki was addressing Christian professionals and he emphasized that the tax which was then being collected by the Moi government was more than enough to run government and take a lot of services to the people. In the same meeting Kibaki took time to emphasize to his audience that he lived in Muthaiga had lived there for a very long time. In all my years of following politics in Kenya I have never heard another leader emphasize their residence. You be the judge of what that was all about but in my book there is an overwhelming stench of pride and arrogance here.
  
  It is one thing to seek to be a reformist but one needs to understand the system that they are seeking to change much more deeply than Mwai Kibaki understood the Moi prtesidency.
  
  How could somebody be in government so long and even be Vice president for a decade and still be so naïve? I will leave that one for historians to answer but my opinion supported by a lot of evidence is that the problem is the man’s arrogance. The truth of the matter is that the more arrogant you are in this life the less you end up learning. And it does not matter if the knowledge is staring you right in the face.
  
  Granted, people all over the world approach high office with many grand expectations that are usually quickly deflected by the cold reality on the ground. In other words the job always looks much easier than it really is. Still having said this it is obvious that Mwai Kibaki was an extreme case of a very naïve person who had to make way too many adjustments even to be able to have a stable administration.
  
  This is the reason why very early during his administration a sizeable number of Kenyans were predicting that he would not make it to 2007 when the next general elections were due.
  
  Even more dangerous was the man’s way of dealing with any crisis. I have a theory that a contributing factor to this attitude had to do with his first marriage. On countless occasions Kibaki got locked out of his own house at night by his wife Lucy, leaving his bodyguards and minders in an awkward position. To deal with his wife Kibaki’s approach was always to ignore the crisis at hand and pretend that all was well. He would sleep in the uncomfortable environment of the car and would then behave like nothing had happened the next morning.
  
  This attitude clearly seeped into the former Makerere don’s personal management style when it came to making decisions and here there are many instances that clearly illustrate this.
  
  Indeed this attitude proved to be fatal.
  
  I will give just two examples.
  
  Had Kibaki dealt with the crisis over the memorandum of understanding and Raila Odinga more swiftly and decisively he would have quickly gained an upper hand over Raila Odinga. Instead he let the problem simmer until it became a major crisis that almost brought his administration to its’ knees. In any case it led to unnecessarily high tension in the country that climaxed with the referendum and prepared the ground for the post election violence of early 2008.
  
  An even deadlier case was the beginning of the post election violence when intelligence reports came in clearly showing that the country was burning and yet there was unprecedented indecisiveness on the part of the executive. This wavering cost many Kenyan lives that would have otherwise been saved. To make matters worse the whole situation had been provoked by Mwai Kibaki himself in the first place. He did this by leaving it very late in the election to rig the presidential vote (more dithering on his part) and this made his actions rather obvious to the majority of Kenyans. This is something that the ICC and Moreno Ocampo should look into more deeply as they seek to punish the main perpetrators of Kenya’s worst election-related violence ever. They should also look deeply into the Raila Odinga brand of politics shortly after the 2003 elections.
  
  Any manager will tell you that there are some decisions that if left too late weaken the impact of any move one may end up making later. The most recent example is the crisis at the Ministry of education where billions in donor funds has been embezzled. Even if Kibaki ends up firing the Education minister and the PS later, the impact will be almost zero now after all the pressure that has been brought to bear on his government.
  
  Good managers will also tell you that on many occasions swift decisive action even when the wrong decision has been taken is much better than indecision.
  
  This is the crux of the problem with President Mwai Kibaki’s leadership. And when you combine this with the unfolding political reality where there is a fierce struggle over the Kibaki succession, it is a recipe for disaster and unprecedented disaster for Kenya.
  
  (To be continued)
  
  Part 9
  
  Part 10
  
  Part 11
  
  Part 12Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 9

  Posted: December 27, 2009, 9:31 am by Chris

  Professor Kimya
  
  
  Apology: I take this opportunity to apologize to all my readers for failing to make a post yesterday as I had earlier promised. It was due to unforeseen and indeed unavoidable circumstances. To partly make up for this, this weekend special posts will extend to Tuesday.
  
  
  It has to be the most fascinating incident in the history of politics in Kenya. And it all happened at Kasarani Stadium sometime in March 2002. The occasion was a special Kanu national delegates conference called to pick the party’s presidential candidate for the elections later that year.
  
  The meeting had created great excitement because everybody knew that Moi was not going to run again in 2002. And still most folks were putting their money on Kanu and so whoever was elected the Kanu presidential candidate on this particular day would without doubt end up as president. Or so they assumed. The reason was that senior political analysts knew that Moi always fixed the elections and he was bound to rig it in favour of the Kanu candidate.
  
  And so with this kind of knowledge in mind the stakes were bound to be pretty high. And they were.
  
  It is also important to note that prior to this historical Kanu delegates conference a number of people had been promised the presidency by Moi.
  
  Raila Odinga had merged his party NDP (National Democratic party) with Kanu after being assured by Moi that he would the party’s chosen one for the presidency.
  
  Kalonzo Musyoka after years of faithfully serving Moi had also been assured that the presidency was his for the taking.
  
  Long serving Vice President Professor George Saitoti had also been assured that he would be the next president of Kenya. And what was more is that Saitoti had a precedent to support his bid for the presidency. After all Moi had been faithful to Kenyatta and had ended up ascending to the presidency. And Saitoti was more than faithful to Moi. It was almost amusing at public meetings whenever Moi mentioned Saitoti’s name, he would spring up to his feet at such lightning speed like a high school student vigorously campaigning to be appointed head boy. Saitoti knew how this pleased Moi a man who had never seen the four corners of an A-level classroom let alone a university lecture hall. It pleased Moi to no end that this extremely educated “professor” would jump up like something had bitten him, the minute he mentioned his name.
  
  Still Saitoti had made sure not to take any chances and had spent a small fortune the previous night canvassing delegates from all over the country to vote for him. He assumed that the whole thing would be put to the vote.
  
  Now the fascinating incident happened when moments after the delegate’s conference started Saitoti realized that his name was not even in contention for the party’s presidential candidate. Instead Uhuru Kenyatta was the sole candidate for the nomination. George just lost it then. Others would say that he went berserk. The good mathematic professor started shouting all over the place. His loud voice attracted the attention of President Moi who quickl barked a command; “professor Kimya” (roughly translated this means, “shut up professor”).
  
  Saitoti ignored his master’s command and continued to make plenty of noise throwing his hands all over the place. Moi had to repeat his stern command and the third time he did so stood up and gave Saitoti the kind of look that young folks like calling “daggers”. Saitoti finally quieted down and sat meekly on his seat.
  
  Now all this had taken place with TV cameras rolling. And the clip got through the “self censors” at the KTN TV station that evening and was aired. Kenyans stared at it in fascination. Most folks had never seen anything like this before. Not in the carefully choreographed Kenyan politics everybody was accustomed to. Especially where the president was involved.
  
  Actually the incident highlighted the desperate power struggle that had been going on for the presidency which had started as early as after the 1997 presidential elections when everybody knew that Moi was not going to stand again for president. Some of those desperate for the presidency had even figured out Moi’s biggest challenge in leaving the presidency and had spent fortunes reassuring his Kalenjin community on the ground that all would be well with them if they became president after Moi. I am of course talking about people like Kalonzo Musyoka and Raila Odinga.
  
  Moi’s challenge was to leave the presidency and stay out of prison and still have the vast fortune he had accumulated as president intact. Some of his close advisors advised him against leaving the presidency and put considerable pressure on him to stay on at all costs. They even created viable plans that would have allowed him to almost legitimately stay on in power. But once again Moi was too clever for most folks. He had made up his mind to leave the presidency and had carefully devised an exit strategy that would keep the country together and allow him at the very least a quite retirement. In doing so he took most of his opponents and many Kenyans completely by surprise.
  
  Even more surprising was Moi’s choice for successor. He had settled on the rookie Uhuru Kenyatta son of Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta. Actually his choice was not surprising if you understood that above all else Moi wanted to protect his wealth. Uhuru had inherited a lot of grabbed property from his father (the first president of Kenya). In wanting Uhuru to be his successor Moi was sure that whatever happened Uhuru would not come after him without badly exposing himself and his family. It was as simple as that.
  
  Moi’s plan would have succeeded except for one small detail that went badly wrong. Moi assumed that in the same way that the Kiambu mafia had been forced to accept him as president after Kenyatta’s death, there was little that other pretenders to the throne would do to stop Uhuru Kenyatta. The mistake made here was to fail to recognize the fact that a lot had changed since 1978 (24 years earlier). And even when George Saitoti defected to the opposition shortly after the Kasarani incident, Moi ignored the move as being of inconsequential. And indeed in a way it was. Saitoti has always struggled to win back his parliamentary seat in Kajiado let alone having any kind of national support that one could speak of. But what actually changed the whole equation was the defection much earlier of Raila Odinga. The man had the organizational ability to turn tables on Moi as he was to prove.
  
  Most analysts believe that Moi had grown a little too overconfident for his own good and this too was a major contributing factor to the big defeat he was to suffer in 2002.
  
  All eyes remained focused firmly on Kanu and few Kenyans paid attention to the developments in the opposition. After all many had already written the Kenyan opposition off. They had failed to unite and agree on one candidate since the advent of multiparty politics in 1992. Most people including Moi himself were sure that the greedy lot who all wanted to become president would never agree on a single candidate for president. Again this assumption was correct except for one little incident that happened at Uhuru Park when Raila Odinga stood up to address the mammoth crowd that had gathered. Everybody was wondering who the candidate for the star studded opposition line up would be. Many expected it to be George Saitoti others even thought it would be Raila Odinga himself. Moi’s think tanks (he had several) were busy mapping out a strategy for either of these front runner candidates. After all everybody knew that Kenyans would never accept another Kikuyu for the presidency and in fact saw a great weakness in Kanu’s presidential nomination. The Kikuyu’s had the numbers but one needed the other 41 tribes as well. All signs within Kanu were that Moi was preparing to take on a non-kikuyu candidate on behalf of his protégé. It is important to note here that although Saitoti is a Kikuyu (his real name is George Njuguna Kinuthia and he changed to it to Saitoti to facilitate higher education at a time when the colonial government would never have approved a Kikuyu for higher education out of the country).
  
  The Kenyan opposition in the run up the 2002 elections showed a resolve to get their act together this time round from very early on. Three significant opposition parties led by the late Michael Kijana Wamalwa, Charity Ngilu and Mwai Kibaki had merged and indicated that they were determined to field one opposition candidate to face Kanu. Still they were clearly not strong enough to topple the formidable Kanu political machine. When the Kanu rebels led by Raila Odinga and George Saitoti joined them, things changed. Still it looked like the whole game plan would collapse the minute they would have to name a single opposition candidate amongst them. This looked even more unlikely with characters like Raila and George Saitoti. Moody Awori, William Ole Ntimama and others now in the mix.
  
  All that changed with a single statement from Raila on that memorable day in Uhuru Park, Nairobi. Raila captured the mood of the crowd perfectly. Having been outsmarted many times before by Moi Raila was very determined and focused on defeating Moi at all costs. His single statement: “Kibaki tosha” changed everything. Thus history repeated itself. Just as his father had stood up at the Legco to pour praise on Kenyatta in the 1950s and demand for his release before independence and had by doing this handed over the presidency to Kenyatta when he was not even in contention, raila had dome a similar thing for Kibaki. Raila’s statement offered Kibaki as the compromise candidate in the “star-studded field” and made all the difference. But Raila had not chosen Kibaki by accident. It was a shrewd move to neutralize the influential Kikuyu vote by splitting it between the two Kikuyu candidates. The good unintentional thing here was that the presidential elections was de-tribalized, which was critical for such a sensitive election but postponed the problem for much later in 2007.
  
  Simeon Nyachae who had expected to make a strong bid for the presidency left Uhuru Park in a huff and mounted a solo bid for the presidency which predictably went nowhere. But the other main contenders realized that it was impossible for them to contest Raila’s “Kibaki tosha statement and quickly cooled their heels.
  
  And so that is how Mwai Kibaki became the third president of Kenya. For the first time in history Kenya had a popularly elected president who had been elected in a competitive atmosphere.
  
  Few would have imagined that his election was the beginning of major problems and that Moi’s steady but firm (and at times dictatorial) hand on the leadership of the country would be sourly missed.
  
  To be continued.
  
  Part 9
  
  Part 10
  
  Part 11
  
  Part 12Kumekucha

  
  

• Making quick cash for Christmas: Kumekucha’s Nyatiti and drums weekly (every Tuesday or Wednesday)

  Posted: December 22, 2009, 4:33 am by Chris

  The Nyatiti is a wonderful musical instrument that is perfect for singing praises and honouring somebody and it is my African instrument of choice to honour the kind of Kenyans I meet and feel proud to be a Kenyan. On the other hand the drum can be used for many things. Drums are beaten before some executions which is what I wish I could do to some of the Kenyans I meet, but for now drums of protest will do. Welcome to Kumekucha’s brand new column that puts personalities, faces and real life incidents into nationals of the great sleeping giant of a nation called Kenya. Every Tuesday or Wednesday only here in the most popular blog on Kenyan news and politics.
  
  
  Ingenious city council askaris making money for Christmas
  If you did not know it, City Council askaris these days arrest wananchi very frequently and not just hawkers. Many of them carry a special card that tell you (in case you did not know) that a city council askari can arrest you and get you locked up in cells pending your appearance in court. For a long time now they simply wait for you to spit on the pavement and quickly approach you and arrest you for the offence under the numerous city by-laws which are dreamt up of frequently and implemented by individuals at the city house of corruption.
  
  But Nairobians have become wise and it is very difficult these days to catch people littering or emptying their dirty saliva on the streets. And so the clever moneymakers have dreamt up a brilliant new strategy. Now you can imagine the hustle and bustle that Kenyans are going through doing last minute Christmas shopping and errands. The city council has constructed certain barriers and rails to stop people from crossing busy roads at certain places. Some people have the habit of jumping over these railings to avoid the slow moving crowds on the city pavements.
  
  City council askaris simply wait for you to do this and before you know it you have been arrested and bundled into a lorry to be transported to dirty stinking police cells where you will rub shoulders with carjackers and child rapists amongst other hardened criminals. But actually this is not the point of the whole exercise and only a handful get to the cells. The whole idea is to generate cash. A Kumekucha informant who was arrested yesterday stood at a distance after his release and observed something really fascinating. NOT everybody who jumped the railing was being arrested. Schoolboys are notorious for this and the askaris in plain clothes were ignoring them. Midddle aged folks and people who looked like thye had a lot of cash in their pockets were promptly being arrested. You can guess why. So that they remove a hefty bribe of Kshs 1,000 or 2,000 to avoid the police cells. In a space of about 10 minutes the Kumekucha informant saw at least 5 people being arrested. That is 30 every hour and a staggering 240 on a good busy day like yesterday. Multiply that by an average of Kshs 1,500 and what do you get? Kshs 360,000. Enough money to make Christmas very merry for quite a number of city council askaris, don’t you think?
  
  Beat drums of protest with me at the corrupt and rotten system that is Kenya.
  
  
  Can Aids be cured?
  I remember the days, during Moi’s presidency, when Kenyans used to say that Aids was Kanu propaganda. Now we all know somebody who is suffering from this terrible disease that has no cure. Or does it?
  
  A Kumekucha informant was referred to a herbal clinic in town which has got a record of literally bringing people back from the dead. Aids patients in the last terrible stages of the disease and too weak to even walk on their own have been brought to this clinic and given herbal treatment and within a very short time have recovered their health. Incidentally the same clinic also has herbal treatment for dental problems including turning brown teeth into white in no time at all.
  
  Everybody knows that herbs work and so join me in playing the Nyatiti for the rise of herbal treatment in Kenya.
  
  
  What are your plans for 2010?
  As we head to the end of the year, this is a good time for reflection. You need to analyze what your weaknesses and shortfalls of 2009 were and find a way to improve in 2010 so that the coming year is much better for you.
  
  A publishing company based in Nairobi is offering a wonderful package of 9 books at only Kshs 1,350.
  
  The 9 books are;
  
  1. Time Management
  2. Sterling Success
  3. Business Tips (265 of them)
  4. The power of concentration
  5. Public speaking
  6. Power to change your life
  7. How to study
  8. The cure for ageing
  9. The ABC of investing
  
  I have browsed through the books and started reading some of them and they are great. Get these wonderful self help books for yourself.
  
  I now play the Nyatiti in praise of this company and all those other small and medium sized companies out there in Kenya doing innovative things. These guys are the real engine of the Kenyan economy.
  
  Breaking News: Blog claims that Jimmy Kibaki will run for Kieni seatKumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 8

  Posted: December 21, 2009, 8:01 am by kumekucha

  The darkest and most dangerous secrets of Moi’s administration
  The truth is that Robert Ouko did not lose his life only because of the careless comment by the Americans. Actually the American incident triggered something that was already in the works. Ouko actually died because of a woman.
  
  Moi did not live in State House with a wife. Indeed he had abandoned Lena Moi years before in the late sixties (this is another long story that I will tell towards the end of this post). For such a powerful man to have NO wife in State House is asking for trouble. Trouble of the woman kind. Wives protect their husbands from more dangers than men will ever admit or even realize in 100 years. And Moi was after all only human and not a demi-god (if you half-believed some of the songs that were being sang in his praise). What started as an exercise to boost Moi’s self confidence and help him settle into the presidency escalated dangerously and hopelessly out of control. In fact at one time one of his cabinet ministers Peter Oloo Aringo from Nyanza (then a minister of education) stood up in public and called Moi “The prince of peace”. Those who have read the good book are aware of the fact that Jesus Christ is referred to as the Prince of Peace.
  
  And so you can be sure that Moi was vulnerable to all sorts of advances from women who came into contact with him. One such woman was a Swiss national who originally hailed from Germany by the name Marianne Brinner. Ms Brinner had actually had an affair for some years with Njoroge Mungai a member of Kenyatta’s deadly inner cabinet. Things went sour in the relationship when Mungai asked Ms Brinner to marry him in a traditional African ceremony (since Mungai was already married in church.) Brinner took counsel from the Germany embassy in Nairobi where she was told that it would be a deadly error to get married to Njoroge Mungai a man who was deeply involved in the politics locally. That was sound advice for somebody who understands Kenyan politics but Mr Mungai took it personally as some kind of rejection from Brinner. And so he never lost any opportunity to make her feel jealous by arriving at functions with all kinds of stunning looking young ladies at his side. Brinner decided that she needed to exact some long-lasting revenge and looked around for the person who would make Mungai feel most jealous if she started an affair with them. By the way all this information about Brinner’s motives is from her own confessions to this writer and she even once had a blog where she announced it all to the world. Ms Brinner’s eyes landed and rested on Daniel arap Moi who at the time was president of the republic of Kenya. They say that if a man wants a woman chances are high that he will fail, BUT if a woman wants a man, God help the man!!
  
  And so a secret love affair between Moi and Brinner commenced. It is instructive to note that neither ended the affair. It was in fact Nicholas Biwott who organized for Brinner to be deported from the country without Moi’s knowledge. Moi was angry but later realized that Brinner would have been murdered if he insisted on her returning. Biwott’s motivation as you may have guessed was that he did not want any competition when it came to influencing the president and Brinner had already demonstrated that she was capable of getting a lot of donor help for Kenya which was corruption and kick-back free. The very opposite of what Biwott had in mind.
  
  Before Brinner was deported, Biwott warned her several times. But the really unfortunate incident came when Biwott launched an illegal prostitute’s ring in Mombasa and Moi only later discovered what was going on. The scheming Biwott knew Moi was very angry and was going to end his highly lucrative operation in Mombasa and so he organized for one of his best Ugandan sex goddesses to visit State House and the president. And so by getting Moi involved, the crafty Biwott bought insurance to ensure that his illegal business in Mombasa that mainly targeted American sailors was safe. Biwott also made sure that Brinner heard about this little caper and that is how the unfortunate chain of events that led to the murder of Ouko was launched.
  
  Brinner became very close to Robert Ouko and shared this information with Ouko and somehow Biwott became aware of the fact that Ouko knew the kind of secret that Moi did not want to get out at all costs. And so when clashes between Biwott and Ouko intensified, Ouko’s assassination was just a matter of time.
  
  On the day Ouko died, Biwott had informed the president that Ouko was planning to leave the country and then tell the whole world the story of corruption in Moi’s government as well as the saga about Ugandan women visiting State house. Actually it was true that Ouko was planning to quietly slip out of the country through Uganda and trusted a fellow Luo Hezekiah Oyugi to help him in doing so. Moi was livid and ordered Ouko to be picked up. One of the people who picked up Ouko was Oyugi and the foreign minister though he was being assisted to flee. Instead he ended up in the hands of security personnel taking instructions from Biwott. Biwott ordered them to interrogate and beat him up. By the time Ouko was brought before Moi at State House, Nakuru, he was in very bad shape. Moi ordered Prof Sam “100 million education fund disappearance” Ongeri (who is a medical doctor) to examine him. Ongeri advised that unless he was taken to hospital pronto he could easily die. Clearly it was going to be a big embarrassment to have a foreign affairs minister in such a sorry state in hospital, but Moi would have preferred that to having the man’s life ended. That was when Biwott took a revolver from one of the policemen on the scene and shot Ouko in the presence of Moi. Moi was dumbfounded.
  
  Political assassinations were not really Moi’s style (although a few happened in his watch they were nothing when you compare them to the ones that happened under Kenyatta). And that is why those who know Moi well have always found it difficult to believe that he had anything to do with the Ouko murder. But now you know exactly what happened. You be the judge of how responsible Moi was in the whole affair.
  
  Let me wrap up this weekend’s post with the sad Lena Moi story. Lena was a simple Kalenjin woman who refused to change who she was. Let me elaborate that a little. When Mama Ngina was married to Kenyatta she had long and traditionally severed ears hanging beyond her shoulders. She actually had to go for a very expensive surgical procedure to restore her ears to normal. She took to her new role well and was trained to be a sophisticated wife of a president. Seeing Mama Ngina a few years into the Kenyatta presidency you would not have believed that she was the simple woman from the village that Kenyatta had married. Lena Moi on the other hand was a very different kettle of fish. She never fitted into public life and the result was that she embarrassed Moi many times during state functions.
  
  Things came to a head one day during a dance at State House. Moi was still VP then and had been having an affair with a Kikuyu policewoman for sometime. She had been invited to the state function and since Lena did not dance, Moi unwittingly took to the floor with his [policewoman girlfriend. Now Lena had already been informed about the affair and when she saw her husband on the dance floor with the said woman, all hell broke loose. President Kenyatta quickly saw what was happening and tried to save the situation by asking Lena for a dance. Lena stubbornly refused. Now you don’t refuse a dance with the president of the republic of Kenya. You just don’t.
  
  What irked Moi even more was the fact that the Kiambu mafia had a field day trading jokes about the whole affair and making great fun of the VP. It was too much for Moi. He took Lena to one of his farms and abandoned her there. He supported her financially but never went to see her again until shortly before her death around 2005 when he was no longer president.
  
  Interview with Marianne Briner (Plus her pic) on information that cost Dr Ouko his life
  
  (To be continued next weekend.
  Don’t miss the shattering climax of this red hot series where we dig into Moi’s last years in power and the blundering Kibaki years that followed which caused unprecedented bloodshed in the country. We also reveal how and why Moi launched the tribal clashes that culminated in the 2008 blood bath in the Rift Valley. Do go upcountry for Christmas if you must but make sure you carry a phone that is web enabled. That way you will have much more hot politics to discuss over the holiday with your extended family.)
  
  Part 5
  
  Part 6
  
  Part 7
  
  Part 8Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 7

  Posted: December 20, 2009, 9:22 am by Chris

  A New Moi is born
  After the bloody botched 1982 coup, Moi completely changed.
  
  Time magazine had reported during the week of the coup that Daniel had survived the lion’s den referring to Moi. Indeed he had and clearly he was not taking any more chances after that.
  
  But first Moi quickly “divorced” two of his three wives, the Kikuyu ones of course. Namely Charles Njonjo and GG Kariuki. He then went on to dismantle every centre of influence and key contact that was ever linked to Njonjo. But not before destroying the man politically in public by instituting what must be the only successful commission of enquiry in the history of Kenya. In this particular commission the report was not allowed to gather dust in State House. Barely a few weeks after the end of the enquiry Moi acted on it and pardoned Njonjo. But the damage had been done and his mission accomplished. To his credit in forgiving Njonjo Moi must have realized that there was a lot he had to thank the man for. Including the fact that he helped him survive the tumultuous 12 years he went through as Kenyatta’s VP.
  
  Moi then exercised his immense executive powers and called for a snap election in 1983 where he was careful to ensure that no Njonjo man came back to parliament. Parliamentary elections in a few constituencies had to be rigged but generally it was a very easy mission because the Kenyan public was very much outraged at the sheer arrogance of Charles Njonjo and in many parts of the country was not prepared to vote for anybody who had had any links to the man.
  
  And so you can now understand why Nicholas Biwott became so powerful during the Moi post-1982 era. Actually he remained the only close confidant to the president and proceeded to use his position to amass the kind of fortune that left all corrupt senior officials before him looking like jokers. One of the very early “cash cows” engineered by Biwott was the Turkwell Gorge project. Much has been written and said about this hydro electric project. An engineer closely linked to it once jokingly told me that it was “a great project” because Kenyans were going to show the world how to generate hydro electric power from sand. In the end the ecosystem of a large area was changed and many ordinary folks were left without water so that some waters could be diverted to run the Turkwell Gorge turbines.
  
  But back to Moi, the man truly started to follow in the steps of Kenyatta (early in his presidency Moi had promised to follow the Nyayo—which is Swahili for footsteps—of Kenyatta). Just like Kenyatta had made all his decisions with the nightmare of a military coup hanging over his head, Moi now started to rule in much the same manner.
  
  Some insiders insist that a close confidant and friend of Moi for many years called Mukaru Nganga summarized and simplified the famous political book by Machiavelli called The Prince. They add that Moi went everywhere with summary and frequently consulted it as he ruled Kenya with an iron Machiavellian hand. The man became a master of the game and christened himself the professor of politics.
  
  Where Kenyatta had been old and sickly, Moi was still relatively young and extremely healthy. One of the reasons why Kenyans immediately felt a difference in leadership when Kibaki took over was because of Moi’s routine. Moi would get out of bed at 4 am and religiously start the day by reading all the 3 daily newspapers at the time. Coupled with the intelligence reports he received regularly and the numerous ordinary folks he kept contact with, it was a lot more difficult for the kitchen cabinet to mislead Moi as Kenyatta’s close aides had often done to him.
  
  By the time Moi was settling down to breakfast at about 6 he had a fairly good grasp of what was going on in his area of jurisdiction.
  
  To understand this better it is useful to go back to 1958 and the days of the first African leaders to be elected to the Legco. Moi had been a teacher and reluctantly agreed to go into politics. As the representative for the vast Rift Valley region, he took his job very seriously. He would travel constantly all over the Rift Valley actively seeing to the welfare of the people who had elected him. As president we see exactly the same trait and he traveled to every inch and corner of the country and also kept himself very well informed on exactly what was going on.
  
  But many times over confidence leads to arrogance and arrogance inevitably leads to terrible mistakes. As Moi looks back at his presidency today there is no doubt one thing that keeps coming back to haunt him. One regret that he has that troubles him greatly. And that is the murder of his foreign affairs minister Robert John Ouko. The story of Ouko is how something very petty can escalate and cause murder to be committed. The good book tells us that the very first murder in the human race happened when Kane was jealous of his brother Abel after his sacrifice was favoured by God over his. In other words the motive of that murder was jealousy. Did you know that to date that is still the leading motive for most murders?
  
  The whole Ouko affair started on a trip to the US after a careless comment by the Americans that Ouko would have made a much better president than the blundering heavy-accented Moi. That comment made Moi very angry and it was that anger that set in motion a chain of events that led to the gruesome murder of a spineless politician who was absolutely no threat to anybody. Read exclusive Kumekucha interview with John Troon who investigated the Ouko murder and got so close to the truth that an attempt was made on his life.
  
  
  Part 5
  
  Part 6
  
  Part 7
  
  Part 8
  
  Due to unavoidable circumstances I will be posting part 8 of this weekend special on Monday morning (Kenyan time). Sorry folks, big emergency.Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 6

  Posted: December 20, 2009, 6:13 am by Chris

  Not President for 12 hours
  One key nagging question remains unanswered and a closely guarded state secret. Who was the mastermind behind the August 1st 1982 botched coup?
  
  For the first time, I shall attempt to answer that key question and clear the mystery which has been hanging since that fateful August day. Before you hear what I have to say I suggest that you read this earlier Kumekucha post on the 1982 coup for some fascinating basic details first.
  
  To answer the question that I have started this post with, we need to look for key suspects first.
  
  The Kiambu mafia? Yes. They were still very much around and still whispering amongst themselves that Moi’s presidency was a passing cloud. They were also still scheming but were doing it very quietly. Admittedly, this group of ruthless thugs had realized that with Kenyatta dead, it was a totally different ball game and all their venom was gone. Although the group qualifies as suspects the truth is that they were still running around aimlessly like a chicken that has just been beheaded. They were hardly capable of pulling off such a daring scheme as a military coup.
  
  Charles Njonjo? Yes. He was most responsible for putting Moi in power. However he was still a very ambitious man who wanted nothing short of the presidency for himself. There is evidence that he had started getting impatient with the pressure the president was receiving from his kinsmen. Assuming that Njonjo wanted the presidency how would he have gone about it? Constitutionally he could NOT remove Moi from office. However in the unfortunate incident of a coup that ended with Moi dead, it was possible for him to take charge in the chaos on an interim basis and then simply repeat some of the moves he had pulled off to get Moi confirmed as president. I am afraid that if one examines the politics of the day carefully, Njonjo emerges as a prime suspect despite his many denials over the years.
  
  There are several reasons that point to Njonjo.
  
  He was Moi’s chief advisor on security matters at the time and prior to August 1st 1982, rumours had been going around for days in Nairobi that a military coup was in the works. Did this information reach the streets and fail to reach Moi? That is extremely unlikely. So why did Moi not take this information seriously and at the very least leave the country? The only plausible answer to that is that his advisors must have reassured him that all was well. The intention was to make sure that Moi did not escape.
  
  Secondly it is standard procedure that when you crush a coup you MUST ensure that you have dealt with the chief architect. The only way to effectively kill a snake is to crush the head. Now don’t tell me it was the most senior private Hezekiah Ochuka. There was no way such a junior officer could plot a successful coup in Kenya at the time. In any case I will tell you in a moment how he got involved.
  
  Thirdly Moi’s actions in the months and years after the coup point to Njonjo as the main culprit. First there was a commission of enquiry into the conduct of Njonjo where all links to the 1982 coup were carefully avoided.
  
  After that came the snap 1983 polls that was mainly designed to get rid of the vast and wide Njonjo influence in national politics.
  
  The coup would have been successful, there is no doubt about that, except for one small detail that went wrong. Those who plotted it did not keep things quiet enough. The result was that word got out and then the great Kenyan disease took over. Some people somewhere got greedy and launched a coup to pre-empt the better organized coup by Njonjo and company which was to have taken place a few days later. The assumption that the organizers of the pre-emptive coup made was that since most of the military had given the Njonjo coup a nod, they would join in their pre-emptive one believing that it was the same coup brought forward. By the time they realized what was really happening it would be too late. Ad so who was the main mastermind behind the pre-emptive coup? Evidence suggests that it was a group of radicals mainly hailing from the Luo community and Raila Odinga was amongst them. In fact analysts suspect he may have been one of the key people behind the daring plan that almost worked.
  
  Ordinarily military coups do not involve civilians but the August 1982 was a very unique one and this is probably another reason why it did not work. Civilians hardly have the discipline of military people. Apart from Raila and others the botched coup also involved students of Nairobi University.
  
  The other thing that went wrong was the fact that the Air force was used without incorporating any other unit of the Armed forces and without appreciating the “politics” in the military. Generally Air force soldiers are much better educated folks than the rest of the military for obvious reasons and over the years this has given them a superiority complex that has really irked the rest of the military. And so you can imagine the reaction when the rest of the military heard that the coup had been executed by the cocky air force chaps. They just could not take it lying down. That had to be one of the great motivating factors for the rest of the army to decide not to join in the Air force-led coup.
  
  And that was the key decision that changed everything. The army stormed the city centre and went into KBC to gleefully deal with the cocky air force chaps who had taken it over and allowed University students to go on air on national radio to announce that the dictatorial regime of Moi had come to an end. Incidentally the use of the word dictatorial was laughable because we have already seen in this series what kind of president Moi was. However there is a useful aside I cannot resist getting into here. Yesterday the Daily Nation carried an engrossing piece about how Moi used to have fighter jets escort his aircraft whenever he was coming back into the country. Actually this was not Moi’s idea but the idea of his closest aides and more specifically his three wives. The trio was trying very hard to get Moi to settle into the presidency and realize just how much power he wielded. In any case the story about the jet fighter escort has been confirmed by one of Moi’s mistresses and I will get into that later in this series.
  
  By the end of the day August 1st 1982 many bodies were strewn on the streets in Nairobi and Moi was giving a press conference on national TV to thank the loyal military for the good work they had done. Once again fate had decreed that Moi would be transported back to Nairobi hidden away for his own safety. It is believed that Moi was brought back to Nairobi inside a stuffy tank and surrounded by heavily armed soldiers in an operation that was code named by the military, Operation Maji Machafu. This is Swahili for “dirty or contaminated water.”
  
  Senior private Hezekiah Ochuka who had been chosen by the coup plotters to front the take over fled to Tanzania where he was later arrested and returned to Kenya. A court martial quickly found him guilty and he became one of the very few Kenyans who actually went to the gallows during Moi’s 24 years in power. At least Ochuka went to the grave proud of the fact that he was president of Kenya for 30 chaotic minutes. Sadly the key players of the pre-emptive coup and the main coup all went scott free. That’s the sad story of justice in Kenya for you.
  
  
  
  Part 5
  
  Part 6
  
  Part 7
  
  Part 8Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 5

  Posted: December 19, 2009, 2:56 am by Chris

  Strange presidency
  What is the difference between a novel and a movie? Well, a novel tells or narrates and a movie shows. That is why a boring movie is the one where there is too much narrative (telling) and a fascinating one is where you know the characters by what you see them doing. Basically you understand the story from seeing. This is why making silent movies (without sound) is an ideal way to train a budding film maker.
  
  The following eye witness account of an incident involving President Daniel arap Moi somewhere in Machakos in 1979 is worth recounting here because it “shows: a lot and is a fabulous way to commence this weekend’s posts.
  
  Moi had take over the reigns of power on August 22nd 1978 and had been confirmed as president of Kenya before the end of the stipulated 3 months period on October 10th 1978. Early in his presidency Moi had launched a massive campaign for reforestation and soil conservation in the country. He had even gone as far as forming a special permanent presidential commission on soil conservation and had appointed Kisii politician and former Nyaribari Chache legislator Zephania Anyieni to chair it.
  
  On this particular morning the president was somewhere in Machakos helping build gabion reinforcements to protect the already badly eroded hill side. The exercise involved a long line of people passing along heavy stones which ended up in the president’s hands and he would toss them into the wire mesh. There were a couple of other people at the end of the line throwing the stones in. A large crowd had gathered to witness this curious site. Until then Kenyans were used to a laid back president who was greatly feared and rarely seen in public. Now they had a president who worked in the hot sun with ordinary folk. The exercise continued for at least 2 hours from 11 until almost 1 pm. By this time the hot Ukambani sun was beating down ferociously on the president and his large and extremely dark frame was drenched in sweat. Yet he showed no signs of quitting.
  
  Kenyans at that time knew very little about Moi apart from the fact that he was the Vice president who spoke with a strong Kalenjin accent. We shall discuss later the implication of this accent and the image it portrayed in the minds of Kenyans. For now the point I wanted to make is that very few would have known about Moi’s extremely harsh upbringing meant that he would walk for many kilometers going to school with a heavy suitcase (really just a metal box suitcase) on his head. The walk would take him over 5 hours. Just try and picture that.
  
  And so standing under the extremely hot Ukambani sun tossing big stones around was no big deal. And he would have continued for many more hours except that something happened that hot afternoon.
  
  Some of the stones being passed had sharp edges jutting out of them and while lifting one, Moi cut his fingers and blood started flowing out. What followed was pandemonium. The president’s security detail quickly surrounded him and somebody started barking instructions as policemen rapidly spoke into their two way radio. It seemed that the president’s entire motorcade did not have a first aid kit (at least in those days). Within minutes an ambulance arrived on the scene at high speed with sirens blaring. The president received some first aid and was quickly ushered into his limousine and whisked away.
  
  The president’s security detail is supposed to protect his Excellency at all times but they do like to dramatize things a little sometimes, mainly for effect and that day they succeeded big time.
  
  But the main point here is that Kenya had a very different kind of president and he would not have been more of a contrast to his predecessor. Kenyatta was commanding authoritative and a big bully sometimes. Moi was reserved humble and almost ashamed to be president.
  
  I can hear you asking me how Kenyatta was a bully sometimes. I will give you an example. The old man was fond of calling security meetings involving police bosses from all over the country. He would usually call them for a serious dressing down whenever crime seemed to escalate. On one such meeting he started the proceedings by saying: “I called you all here on very short notice deliberately to see who would fail to come.” After the old man had finished his dressing down of the top cops, a sumptuous lunch would be served and then he would take a photograph with them and bid them goodbye. Those were some of the things that made him very endearing to people despite his ruthlessness and that of his close lieutenants.
  
  But back to Moi. The new president still rode in his limousine with his “3 wives” namely Charles Njonjo, GG Kariuki and Nicholas Biwott. Some analysts believe that these were the real presidents of Kenya in those days and no executive decisions were made without this council of elders. Moi was still terrified of the Kikuyu and in particular the Kiambu mafia and insiders say that he spent many months thinking of ways of neutralizing them or at least keeping them in check. At that time there were no political detainees in the country because Moi had released all of them and it was clear that he greatly detested Kenyatta’s strong arm tactics of ruling and was looking for a different way to rule, if he survived that is.
  
  One of the early ingenious schemes that the new president was advised to follow (it is not clear by whom) was to appoint his people (meaning people he could trust) to be deputies in major institutions he wanted to keep a close eye on, especially in the security forces. It was a very quite way f spreading his influence. The deputy head of any institution is bound to be very much aware of what is going on within the institution. Later this tactic was modified and the deputies were always members of the president’s Kalenjin community. But this was after the failed coup of 1982 when as I have said before a new and very different Moi emerged. But in those early days Moi still kept Kenyatta’s appointees more or less in place, changing only the Police commissioner amongst a few others. You can read about the fascinating way in which Bernard Hinga was removed from police commissioner by Moi HERE in an earlier Kumekucha post.
  
  For this reason Moi relied a lot on the AG whom he inherited from Kenyatta and the man most responsible for his ascension to the presidency, one Charles Mugane Njonjo. But already there was pressure from his Kalenjin community and the elders within the community to the effect that he was too trusting of Njonjo. After all Njonjo was a Kikuyu and it was known that they could not be trusted. There is evidence that some of the pressure was coming from one of his “3 wives” who also hailed from the president’s Kalenjin community. Namely a man called Nicholas Kipyator Biwott. Biwott had worked for Kenya’s first agriculture minister Bruce Mackenzie as a personal assistant and had as a result gained numerous useful contacts. Mackenzie was actually a spy and operative for at least two different foreign powers. The Israelis dreaded Mossad and the British Mi6. The connection with the Israeli’s seemed to have rubbed off on Biwott and not only did he end up getting married to an Israeli woman but Biwott’s personal security detail is and has always been mostly Israeli. Interestingly there is plenty of clear evidence to suggest that Biwott also used personnel from that country for his dirty jobs locally like getting people killed. Many different sources concur that the killings of people involved with the Ouko assassination was fulfilled mainly with help from his Israeli security personnel.
  
  It is instructive that Bruce Mackenzie did not die a natural death but was actually assassinated during the Kenyatta presidency and when he was no longer in the cabinet. He went to visit Uganda’s president then, Idi Amin Dada in Entebbe on a trip in which the two were supposed to mend fences. Mackenzie was well received and Idi Amin gave him a gift of some sculpture which he carried back to the plane with him. The gift actually contained explosives which went off when the small plane was in the air coming back to Nairobi, killing Mackenzie. It was clear that the man greatly underestimated Idi Amin and paid for it with his life.
  
  Despite the pressure Moi did not act at all. He remained a quiet humble president who still had no political detainees.
  
  As the year 1982 reached the midway mark, Moi started receiving a lot of reports from the intelligence community about heightened political activity in the country. But his closest advisor on security matters, one Charles Mugane Njonjo reassured him that all was well. After all what could people do apart from make noise and harmless political plots? The presidency was powerful enough to easily deal with any such threats as Njonjo had already displayed many times before. And so Moi ignored his Kalenjin kin and some people say, even his own instincts.
  
  Indeed it is not too difficult to believe that Moi’s instincts had helped him survive the 12 horrendous years as Vice president. If there is something about Moi’s character that few can argue about, then it is his ability to survive. His instinct appear to have been key in this. And so it is safe to assume that his instincts must have been screaming at him that a storm was brewing in the horizon. A storm that would seek to take his life and in any event one that would cause a lot of Kenyan blood to be spill.
  
  To be continued: In the next post I discuss untold secrets of the 1982 coup
  
  
  Part 5
  
  Part 6
  
  Part 7
  
  Part 8Kumekucha

  
  

• FPE Funds: Vultures Mauling Carcass Kenya

  Posted: December 17, 2009, 6:00 pm by Taabu

  The hyenas have struck at the Ministry of Education by looting donor funds meant for free primary education. The heartless wolves won't care less even if their selfish acts will see more than 8 million children drop out of school.
  
  That the government has been used as a cash cow by fraudulent civil servants is not legendary. But seeing senior officers at the ministry's headquarters squander money meant for the poorest is cannibalism taken too far.
  
  Well, the thieves may have just bitten more than they can chew. And Kibaki is livid with rage at their audacity to steal such large amount organizing and attending phantom seminars and conferences. You can only imagine how many such evil schemes these fraudsters successfully executed without being caught.
  
  Leaves you asking where are our values as a country and society if we can chuck out food from a starving Kenyan? No superlative constitution can legislate human values. No wonder these officials have no qualms formulating policies for public schools while sending their own kids to private schools.
  
  Begging thieves
  Add this obtuse heartlessness to government officials stealing bags of maize and beans meant to feed the starving in Rift Valley and you get what constitutes our warped sense of financial success - HELL FOR LEATHER.
  
  We are such shameless begging thieves. It had to take donor UK's actions of withholding further funding before the so-called leaders react. So much for hollow sovereignty and flag independence.
  
  And true to our unique template Professor Ongeri and Mutahi won't take personal or official responsibility. Welcome to Kenya where everything goes.
  
  
  
  Special announcement: Cancel all your dates this weekend that will keep you far from the web. Chris continous with his groundbreaking series; Dark secrets of the Kenyan presidency. If you thought the Kenyatta secrets were hot then you will faint when you read the Moi ones starting tomorrow.
  More good news for regular visitors to Kumekucha. Starting Tuesday Chris will launch a new business and social series to highlight heroic deeds and unique stuff Kenyans are doing all over the world. He will focus on the small man who hardly has a chance of ever getting major media coverage. There is a lot Kenyans are doing quietly from a great herbal service that has a track record for saving lives of people suffering from Aids to a small publishing company that has launched a very useful stimulus package that will make 2010 a great year for anybody who gets these 9 books and practices everything in them. Much more to look forward to only here in Kumekucha.Kumekucha

  
  

• The mess ODM is going to get us into

  Posted: December 15, 2009, 12:42 am by kumekucha

  I have been talking to quite a number of “horseless” (don’t belong to any political party or tribe, at least in their thinking) free thinkers in recent times and I have to admit a lot of what they are saying has started making a lot of sense to me.
  
  Currently the ODM and PNU arms of government are trying to reach common ground over controversial parts of the constitution. ODM wants both a president and Prime Minister with no clear final authority. They want a powerful parliament that will be more or less the final authority.
  
  For starters such a system of government will NOT work. It has NEVER worked anywhere else in the world. It is really bizarre that a country where the current constitution has not worked is confident that a hybrid system will work. HOW????
  
  Have you ever heard of any organization that has no clear hierarchy of authority? Can you imagine a company with a figurehead managing director and a powerful general manager? Where does the buck stop? When the board demands an explanation the MD will just shift blame to the GM and vice versa and nothing will ever get done because nobody is accountable.
  
  In other words our current grand coalition government system is much better because although we have two principals we all know who the real boss is don’t we? Still the truth is that they have had lots of problems. Now you try and imagine a constitution that has given both equal powers? Chaos!!!
  
  Secondly if you were a rich millionaire and wanted to bribe your way through the system, which system is easier to compromise? A powerful president or an entire parliament? Now before you rush to draw your conclusions let me warn you that you have to be a Kenyan who understands our system well to answer this question correctly. To an outsider the answer is obviously one individual, the president. To Kenyans who know better and have carefully observed what has been going on behind the scenes with both the last parliament and the current one, the answer is different. Firstly a president is very difficult to access. On the other hand parliament is sooooo easy to access. All you need to do is show them the money. If you doubt what I am saying just do your careful investigations and find out how Ruto defeated a censure motion against him. Secondly it is much easier to nail a president who was compromised than it is to nail an entire parliament that was bribed.
  
  Let me cut to the chase. The international community is convinced that all we need in Kenya is a brand new constitution. They have spent millions to sell this idea to the Kenyan public and the result is that today the ordinary mwananchi on the ground now believes that all their problems will disappear magically and overnight if a new constitution is enacted. Do you guys know that when Kenya got her independence most Kenyans were sure that they would move from Korogocho to Muthaiga right away and many things would be free? I kid you not. The donor community had better start allocating cash for dealing with the dangerous hopelessness Kenyans will end up with after the passing of a new constitution assuming that one is passed.
  
  The bottom line is that the ruling class in Kenya is already designing ways to beat the new system. So in fact things will be a lot worse if a new constitution is enacted.
  
  My suggestions is that if we must have a new constitution, then retain a powerful president and get rid of the Prime Minister nonsense. Reduce the powers of the president if you must by getting parliament to approve key appointments and big decisions. Otherwise what is best for Kenya is to retain the status quo. It is our best bet for dealing with the ruling class.
  
  
  P.S. For democracy to prosper we have to deal with poverty first. Democracy cannot come before we have dealt with poverty. Read history. It did Not happen in Britain and it certainly did NOT happen in America. So what makes you think it will happen in Kenya? Carefully examine the great emerging economies of today like Singapore. They did it with a strong benevolent dictator ready to make tough decisions. How the hell do you make the kind of tough decisions we need in Kenya with democracy and a bloated system of government where nobody has the final authority?Kumekucha

  
  

• Apolitical Gema Backs Raila: Smart or Suicide?

  Posted: December 15, 2009, 2:00 pm by Taabu

  Folks, it is time for RE-INVENTION. Old wine are out in full force searching for new bottles: from non-political Karume-led Gema to reformist YK92.
  
  The Jewish folklore of fattening a goat before eventually slaughtering couldn't have been more apt. But again in politics only interests are permanent and nothing else is.
  
  We surely live in interesting political times. And history must be the richer for it as it beckons to repeat itself and resoundingly so.
  
  Bishop Dr. Lawi Imathiu should have asked EXPERTS here at Kumekucha to know that his kite won't fly. He would have been promptly reminded of the sophisticated political mindset of the same people whose interests he claims to advance. No brainer.
  
  Interesting time indeed when a tribal grouping DENOUNCES tribalism. The whole thing leaves you wondering whether we are ushering in a new dawn or staring at a mirage.
  
  Well, the dye is cast and EXCITABLE experts can join the party in bashing and gloating in equal measure. Just take your pick.Kumekucha

  
  

• I knew this day was coming.

  Posted: December 14, 2009, 11:44 pm by Sam Okello

  I knew this day was coming.
  
  I came back to Kenya about eight months ago intent on laying groundwork for a political run. With a couple of friends, I went to Rarieda and surveyed the landscape. For my run, things looked pretty good and my friends abroad urged me to go for it. I thought I would until this past Sunday.
  
  On Sunday, after deep introspection, I decided to go in an entirely different direction. Since my first love has always been books, it was easy for me to decide to work for my church as a book man in a territory that will comprise the nations in East and Central Africa.
  
  This will mark my last posting on this authoritative blog. I thank Chris, Phil, Sayra, Taabu and all the friends who have put up with me over the period I've been here. Indeed, I thank Chris for graciously inviting me to be one of the contributors. I have enjoyed every moment of it. I will read Kumekucha everyday and know that every Kenyan who wants to know what is going on around will too.
  
  For those who may have been offended by anything I said while here, I ask your forgiveness. We are all human and prone to mistakes. But I ask that together we pray for our nation. I'm encouraged by the unity that seems to have taken root and hope this will sustain deep into the future. What we have to avoid like a plague is those politicians who still want our top consideration for electing them to be some crude tribal arithmetic that meshes into a formula called KKK. Men of that ilk have nothing to offer this nation other than doom.
  
  And though my good friend Chris believes Raila will fade before 2012, I want to predict today that Mr. Odinga will be this nation's next President and he will be the best President this nation will have ever had. Just like Chris asked us to hold him to his words, I say hold me to mine.
  
  It pains me to say good bye, folks, but that it has to be.
  
  I love you all and God bless Kenya!
  
  Sam Okello
  Sahel Publishing
  South Bend, London, Nairobi
  www.sahelpublishing.netKumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 4

  Posted: December 13, 2009, 11:40 am by kumekucha

  Moi's fears
  Sometimes a writer starts off intending to write some brief piece but then it suddenly takes on a life of its’ own and writes itself into a lengthy prose, almost a book sometimes. This is exactly what has happened with my weekend special this weekend.
  
  For that reason I will continue with part 5, 6, 7 and 8 next weekend.
  
  For now let me wind up this weekend’s excitement with this last piece for this particular weekend.
  
  That first cabinet meeting after Kenyatta’s death which was held on August 22nd 1978 was a very fascinating affair to say the least. During Kenyatta’s presidency the entire cabinet would usually assemble and wait for the president to arrive for the meeting. Conversation around the table would usually be in Kikuyu during this wait. This forced Moi who was Nilote to learn the Bantu tongue of the Kikuyus. Many times the cabinet would wait in vain for Kenyatta only to be told that he was not coming usually due to health reasons.
  
  On this day of August 22nd 1978 all the cabinet members were there and this time they were waiting for somebody who had been one of them only the day before and somebody whom they had always derided. Moi did not keep the cabinet waiting and came in shortly after they were all there, accompanied by AG Charles Njonjo. All eyes were on him as he sat at the head of the table where Kenyatta used to sit. Moi’s eyes were red and he looked like he had been crying. For a brief moment members of the presidential press unit were allowed inside to take photographs which they did and left.
  
  Moi had a difficult task ahead of him. Njonjo made it easy by making it almost unnecessary for him to speak although he was chairing that historic cabinet meeting. The main agenda for the day were the arrangements of the state funeral for Kenyatta the following weekend. Still Moi felt overwhelmed by the challenges ahead of him. The current constitution says that in the event of the death of the president, the vice president will take over for a period of 3 months pending elections for a new president. Three months is a long time and Moi must have had his uncertainties over ever retaining the presidency. More so if you take into consideration the curious incident with Njonjo which I recounted in the last post.
  
  Moi avoided eye contact with most of those seated in the cabinet room with him. Amongst them were people who had plotted his murder only a few hours earlier to ensure that he would never rise to the presidency.
  Dr Njoroge Mungai known to his fellow Kiambu mafia members as "Mr Fix it."
  
  The two men he must have feared most on that table were Dr. Njoroge Mungai and Mbiyu Koinange. Both were very powerful and influential members of the Kiambu Mafia. Both had no doubt thought about this day many times over the years but not in their wildest nightmares did they ever picture Daniel arap Moi seated at Kenyatta’s usual chair in the cabinet room. Moi’s fears were not unfounded. It is widfely believed that both men went behind Kenyatta’s back and ordered the hit on Tom Mboya in July 1969. It is said that Kenyatta was livid after he found out what they had done but there was obviously nothing he could do about it. The two individuals were said to be very ambitious and determined that the presidency would fall into their hands on Kenyatta’s death. At one point Njoroge Mungai is said to have bluntly asked Kenyatta to name him as his successor.
  
  The foreign press was even speculating that the real “matata” (political chaos and violence) would start after the funeral and when the presidential elections were announced. It was expected that a member of the Kiambu mafia would stand for the presidency against Moi. Others remembered Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who was also known to be interested in the presidency. Indeed Odinga had turned up to view Kenyatta’s body at State house and with cameras from the local and international press rolling, he had proceeded to utter many words in Dholuo over the body while waving his fly whisk. Those who did not understand the language speculated that he was thanking the gods for the death of a man he had lifted to the presidency only to be dumbed later by the same ungrateful man. For these reasons there was a lot of tension in the country.
  Mbiyu Koinange the powerful minister of State and most respected member of the Kiambu mafia.
  
  Nobody would have guessed that at the end there would be no election because nobody opposed Moi and he was confirmed as the next president of Kenya. So where did all these pretenders to the throne disappear to?
  
  It is not clear exactly what happened but an interesting meeting of the Kiambu mafia shortly after Kenyatta’s death, attended by Kamba politician Paul Ngei may give us a few pointers.
  
  It is said that most members of the Kiambu mafia felt that Moi was not a threat and there was no hurry for them to make a move because he was simply “a passing cloud.” Paul Ngei strongly disagreed with them and told them that the presidency was a very powerful seat and if they allowed Moi to be president even for a couple of weeks, they would never be able to remove him. It is not clear what Ngei was suggesting that the Kiambu mafia do to remove Moi because whatever it was it would have been unconstitutional. Not that the Kiambu mafia were not known for ignoring the constitution in their quest for the presidency.
  
  To the Kiambu mafia anybody else as interim president would have been a threat but surely not Moi of all people. The man who had succumbed to so much humiliation including a search of his very private parts by a mere assistant commissioner of police when he was VP. The guy did not even speak English too well and this is what had forced some members of the Kiambu mafia to take over proceedings from him during those foreign trips. They had been ashamed of Moi. The man did not even look intelligent at all and some felt that Kenya was being painted in a bad picture with such a man as Vice president and leader of the Kenyan delegation. (You have to understand that throughout his presidency Kenyatta never boarded an aircraft and so Moi had to represent him in all foreign trips where the president was required to attend. Those were a lot of trips even in those days.) In other words what Ngei was saying about Moi being a threat was laughable to most members of the Kiambu mafia and those who thought they knew Moi well.
  
  When you take this information and consider it along the bitter power struggle that was going on amongst Kenyatta’s insiders it all points to the fact that this decision by the Kiambu mafia to take their time and accept Moi as the sole compromise candidate for interim president is what dealt a death blow to the ambitions of many for the presidency. The role of AG Charles Njonjo in helping the president to quickly settle down and consolidate his position is yet another major reason.
  
  In the end Paul Ngei’s words were to prove to be very prophetic indeed.
  
  In this context it is easy to understand why so many political analysts divide the Moi presidency very neatly into two. Just like his predecessor, Moi started with very high ideals and determined to make a difference. Admittedly Moi’s honeymoon lasted a lot longer than Kenyattas’. It lasted a whole 3 years as opposed to the few months Kenyatta had before he started having nightmares of him and his family being executed in some firing squad after a successful coup in Kenya. This nightmare took over and guided his every decision as president from that point onwards. Exactly the same thing happened to Moi only that in his case he faced a real coup.
  
  To be continued next weekend.
  
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 3

  Posted: December 13, 2009, 5:23 am by kumekucha

  The suffering of Moi
  After Jaramogi Oginga Odinga resigned from the Kenyatta administration (actually he was forced out without being told directly to leave by political frustration and pressure masterminded by one Tom Mboya) Kenyatta appointed Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi vice president.
  
  Kenya’s second Vice President was a fascinating character and it is sad that too little has been written about him (partly due to the fact that the man kept his mouth firmly shut until his death in 1990 at the age of 79.) It is said that he was the offspring of a Goan trader and a Maasai mother but spent the first 16 years of his life in India. After that he traveled the world extensively and at one time worked in London as press and tourist officer in the Moroccan embassy.
  
  Kenya's short serving second Vice President, Joseph Murumbi.
  
  Mystery has always surrounded Murumbi’s sudden resignation on August 31st 1966 after serving as VP for only 15 months. The truth is revealed in this earlier exclusive Kumekucha post.
  
  To understand the whole scenario better, picture a typical Kenyan today in the Diaspora who gets a chance to get involved in the politics of their motherland after years of working abroad. That kind of person is bound to be extremely patriotic and eager to do good for their country. They are also likely to be very idealist in their approach. Now you can begin to understand the disillusionment he must have encountered as VP to a president who was surrounded by bloodthirsty selfish individuals who were amassing land and wealth like there was no tomorrow. But the final straw for Murumbi was probably the discovery that his close friend Pio Gama Pinto had been murdered by the Kiambu mafia. Lawyer Pheroze Nowrojee agrees and says; "The assassination of Pinto illustrated to Murumbi the shocking extent to which the new government had departed from its promises. His feeling, evidently, was that these were not the values for which so many had suffered, and his departure was effectively only a matter of time."
  
  Pinto was assassinated on February 25th 1965 and Murumbi was not VP at the time. So what is meant here is that Murumbi was already disillusioned with the Kenyatta government before his appointment as VP and probably thought that he would change things as the “second in command”. It is also possible that Murumbi would not have known for sure who ordered the hit on Pinto until he had served several months as Vice President where he was bound to come across a lot more privileged information than an ordinary minister would ordinarily have access to.
  
  After Murumbi, Daniel arap Moi was appointed in late 1966. How the Moi appointment was decided on is rather fascinating. Powerful AG Charles Njonjo was traveling in the presidential limousine with President Kenyatta somewhere close to Nakuru. Njonjo was making suggestions of possible VPs and Kenyatta was dismissing them one by one. Names like Tom Mboya rolled off Njonjo’s mouth but it was obvious why such a person would not be appointed. Kenyatta had learnt his lesson with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and basically what he was looking for was a non-threatening (to the presidency) person who would also be a political asset. When Njonjo’s top choices ran out he started mentioning the names of everybody and anybody he could think of and each time Kenyatta shook his head. When he mentioned Moi, Kenyatta hesitated for a few seconds and then smiled and nodded his head in agreement. In the months and years to follow Moi helped Kenyatta to settle many Kikuyus in the Rift Valley amongst his Kalenjin community after their prime land in central province had been taken over by Kenyatta and his close associates. So in that respect he was a great asset to Kenyatta in planting the seeds for the terrible tribal clashes that were to come later and long after Kenyatta’s death.
  
  But being VP was not easy for Moi. Indeed several times he even complained to Kenyatta about the harassment he was suffering. Kenyatta did nothing. There were even times when Moi would lead a Kenyan delegation to some conference abroad but end up being totally ignored and taking orders from others in the delegation who were in reality much more powerful than he was. Like Dr. Njoroge Mungai.
  
  But the abuse did not stop there. In one very humiliating incident, Moi returned from a foreign trip to be cornered by James Mungai, assistant commissioner of police in charge of Rift valley province based in Nakuru where Kenyatta spent most of his time. Mungai was related to Kenyatta. Read more about James Mungai and how he lives today in this earlier Kumekucha post.
  
  Mungai told Moi that he suspected that he had come back into the country with guns to overthrow Kenyatta and so he was subjected to the kind of search that only prison inmates have to go through. What that means is that somebody is stripped naked and that place down there where inmates hide all kinds of stuff is searched thoroughly. It is said that Moi felt that this was too much and complained directly to Kenyatta. Kenyatta answered by asking a question. Who is the minister in charge of the police? (At that time Moi had the home affairs docket and the police was under that minsitry. Moi himself later transferred the police to the office of the president when he took over power.) Moi replied that he was the minister in charge of the police and that was the end of that conversation.
  
  Moi went through many humiliating experiences as Vice president. To his credit he weathered the storm and managed to remain humble and persevering. And although he came very close to resigning on one or two occasions, he held on to the post until Kenyatta’s death in August 22nd 1978.
  
  Interestingly until the last minute, Moi did not have any ambitions for the presidency of Kenya despite being VP for so long. In fact one of the compelling factors that convinced him to hold onto the post with the suffering that went with it was the fact that he knew too much and it was clear that the Kiambu mafia would not be comfortable with him out of government considering how much he knew. It was likely that on his resignation from government, he would have either died or just disappeared without trace as was the norm.
  
  I am personally convinced that there was divine intervention in Moi’s survival and ascension to the presidency. Sample the following.
  
  There was a paramilitary group formed called the Ngoroko. This unit was set up after the change-the-constitution bid by the Kiambi mafia failed. The Ngoroko’s mission was simple. On the death of Kenyatta they were supposed to wipe out all opposition to one of the members of the Kiambu mafia taking over the presidency. It was obvious that on Kenyatta’s death orders would be relayed to the paramilitary group through Mbiyu Koinange who was always at the president’s side at a key member of the Kiambu mafia. Koinange was a minister of state in the office of the president. Now on the night that Kenyatta died in Mombasa, Koinange was away on business in Nairobi. He had flown out that very evening. That is the first time he was not at the president’s side in 20 years. Absolutely amazing. Still word leaked out somehow that Kenyatta was dead and roadblocks were set up near Nakuru because it was known that Moi was at his farm near Nakuru. It was critical that Moi got back to Nairobi to summon a cabinet meeting and for AG Charles Njonjo to ensure that the constitution was followed to the letter. Moi abandoned his official car and instead was bundled into the boot of a very old Peugeot 404 that he used to use around the farm. That is how he got past a deadly Ngoroko roadblock and made it back to Nairobi. For those who know what an old Peugeot 404 looks like, it is a car with a rather large boot. Still Moi is a very tall man and it must have been very uncomfortable traveling most of the way back to Nairobi inside that boot.
  
  Again it is said that after the first cabinet meeting, Moi was terrified and confided in Njonjo that he did not feel that he was able to step into Kenyatta’s shoes. Hawa wa-Kikuyu wataniua (these Kikuyus will kill me) Moi is said to have told Njonjo in Kiswahili whilst almost in tears. Njonjo quietly explained that he would stand by his side and help him settle into the presidency and would ensure that he was protected from any would-be assassins. Moi reluctantly accepted and in many ways this explains the power that Njonjo wielded in the early Moi years where he would ride in the presidential limousine with Moi and GG Kariuki and Nicholas Biwott practically all the time. At one point people would mockingly refer to the three politicians as Moi’s three wives.
  
  Amazingly on taking over power Kenya’s second president was ready to forgive all this suffering that he had gone through. But something dramatic would happen that would completely change his approach to the presidency and begin a reign of terror in Kenya that almost rivaled the Kenyatta days.
  
  To be continued. In the next post More amazing facts about the presidency.
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 2

  Posted: December 12, 2009, 11:42 am by kumekucha

  Bloodthirsty inner circle
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  Those who surrounded President Kenyatta were determined that the presidency of Kenya would forever remain only amongst them. Something like the royal family in the United Kingdom. There were confident enough that they were smart enough to pull this off. They saw that wisdom and experience to run the country could only be found amongst their midst and could hardly be found anywhere else in the country.
  
  At one point they even went as far as administering oaths to the effect that the presidency would never cross the River Chania to other Kikuyus in neighbouring Nyeri or even Muranga. The presidency was firmly in the hands of Kiambu Kikuyus and that is why the president’s inner circle were often referred to as the Kiambu mafia.
  
  Admittedly the Kiambu mafia deserved that tag much more than the Mount Kenya mafia that was to emerge much later during the Kibaki presidency. These characters were absolutely ruthless and many times acted in ways that suggested that apart from being power hungry, they were also very blood thirsty. It seemed that they were always itching for an opportunity to kill somebody. It was soon clear than anybody who dared to oppose Kenyatta would almost certainly end up dead. And it seemed that Kenyatta had ears everywhere so that people were terrified of even saying anything against him even in the privacy of their bedrooms.
  
  Many times folks would have a private conversation in whispers in some corner of a seedy bar that was well out of the way and the next week they would be detained without trial or even worse go missing without trace. In those days families of persons who went missing had very zero options. It was unthinkable to go to court and prevail on the government to produce anybody. That was just plain suicide.
  
  To further spread fear amongst the people, murders by the inner Kenyatta circle were executed in a manner that was straight out of some horror movie. It was not enough for the person to be killed but on many occasions their private parts would be cut off and stuffed into their mouths. This is exactly what happened with the JM assassination and a few others. If a person did not get shot, this was the “signature” that would confirm to the observant exactly who had carried out the execution.
  
  In the early days there were plenty of people brave and stupid enough to satisfy the blood thirstiness of the Kiambu mafia but as the years wore on fewer people were willing to take the chance of even speaking evil against the Kenyatta administration in private or even daring to question anything that his government did.
  
  A Kenyan well known to this writer took a trip to the UK in the mid 70s and while watching British TV discovered that the Observer newspaper had that morning published an article about one of the members of the first family. They quietly slipped out of their hotel carefully looking over their shoulders several times and purchased a copy of the newspaper from an outlet that was some distance from the hotel. They returned to their hotel room and carefully locked the door to read the article that described in great detail a business that first lady Mama Ngina was involved in of mining and then exporting precious stones mainly from the Taita Taveta area. The article revealed that the first lady was already one of the wealthiest people in the country. Hardly a seditious article on the first family, but on finishing reading the piece with his heart thumping violently against his chest, the man burnt the newspaper and flushed the ashes down the toilet. That was the fear that Kenyans felt in those days and it did not matter that one was thousands of miles away from home in London.
  
  In this kind of scenario the attitude of Kenyatta’s inner circle was hardly surprising. They behaved as if they were gods. It seemed they could even hear what Kenyans were whispering in the privacy of their bedrooms. One interesting incident occurred in the early 70s that illustrates this point.
  
  Jomo Kenyatta’s speeches were boringly predictable. He would always warn people from playing around with the valuable Uhuru which had been won by bloodshed. And he then he would often congratulate the ordinary Kenyans on their continued hard work and love for their country. He would often pepper his Kiswahili speeches by suddenly breaking into Kikuyu vernacular.
  
  So Kenyans were shocked one day when in his speech the president said that it had come to his attention that some people were saying that he was incapable of fathering children. These people claimed that when the colonialists had detained him they had tortured him to such an extent that he had lost his manhood and ability to sire children. There was shocked silence at first with many conservative Kenyans embarrassed that the president would even talk about such things in public.
  
  Kenyatta went on to castigate the people spreading such lies about him and said that any Kenyan who doubted his manhood should go ahead and ask Mama Ngina (the president’s fourth and last wife who was seated right there at the dais a few short paces from where Kenyatta was making his speech. She was visibly shaken and very embarrassed (wouldn’t you be?). Were the rumours true? Was Kenyatta bluffing? Or was it all untrue? It is difficult to tell and we will probably never know.
  
  And so those close to the president started plotting on how they would inherit the presidency from a man who was still very much alive. Admittedly by this time it was clear to those close to him that the president would not last for much longer. He regularly slipped in and out of commas and it was clear that his health was rapidly failing. Of course nobody would dare discuss the president’s health in public. But those close to Kenyatta knew what was happening. And so a curious power struggle which would in the end hand over the presidency to Daniel arap Moi on a silver platter started. At the height of this power struggle a group of Kiambu politician including Njenga Karume, Kihika Kimani and others started a campaign to have the constitution changed so that in the event of the president dying or being incapacitated; power would not automatically go to the Vice President pending elections. The idea was to ensure that when Kenyatta died (and it was now obvious that it would happen very soon) it would be easier for one of them to take over power constitutionally.
  
  The power struggle was intense and pitted mainly those very close and some of them related to the president against another group led by powerful Attorney general (who was literally running the country then) Charles Mugane Njonjo. Mwai Kibaki was one of the chief characters in Njonjo’s camp on this one. This in itself was curious because the two individuals hardly agreed on anything else and their personal squabbles have even been visible during the Kibaki presidency.
  
  Interestingly a few days after Kenyatta died in August 1978, Time magazine listed one of the front runners to take over the presidency as being Njoroge Mungai (the president’s nephew and personal physician who was also a legislator for a long time until he lost his Dagoretti seat to one Dr Johnstone Muthiora. Muthiora was promptly assassinated by the Kiambu mafia, his main crime being deposing Mungai from the Dagoretti seat. It is widely believed that while he was in admitted at Nairobi hospital a lethal injection was administered on him). The other person mentioned in the Time article was Mbiyu Koinange.
  
  In his last days Kenyatta would slip in and out of consciousness for days on end and many times would look like he had lost it and was not even aware of his surroundings. But on a few occasions he would make statements to those surrounding him that would display his sharp crisp mind was still very much alert and around. On one such occasion he dismissed those fighting for a change of the constitution to block Moi from ascending to power with one simple Kikuyu proverb. The proverb says that somebody who wants to rope a cow does NOT show the cow the rope. The Kikuyu proverb simply meant that the change-the-constitution group was going about their mission in a very unwise way because they were making their intentions rather obvious to their target Daniel arap Moi.
  
  See earlier Kumekucha article on the character of Kenyatta
  
  To be continued. In the next post: Dramatic behind the scenes events that brought Moi to power.
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4
  Kumekucha

  
  

• Dark secrets of the presidency Part 1

  Posted: December 12, 2009, 5:34 am by kumekucha

  Kumekucha Weekend Special
  
  I have been to State House Nairobi. Once.
  
  It is such an anticlimax this revered house on the hill. The sacrifices, the murders, the killings and all the crazy things Kenyans have done in the name of getting to live at this address, you would have thought that it would be a much grander place than what you end up seeing. Alas the red carpet is clean and well maintained but it is rather old. In fact the whole place looks like it needs an interior designer badly.
  
  In the 46 years of independence only three men have called this place their official residence and held the office of President of the republic of Kenya. Johnstone Kamau (aka Jomo Kenyatta) for 15 years, Daniel Torotich arap Moi for 24 years and the rest of the years Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki. Interestingly whatever happens Kibaki will be the man who has occupied that office for the shortest time and yet history will record that his presidency has caused the most damage. This weekend we shall try to understand these three men better because in understanding them we will understand our beloved country much better. Trust me on that and hold me to account for it when we finish our journey late Sunday evening. We shall dig into their true characters and reveal many secrets in their lives.
  
  So lets start from the beginning shall we.
  
  Violent struggle has happened in Kenya several times through its short history but it has never worked out too well or even proved to be effective. More recently the saba saba riots that hit the country in the 1990s were quickly crashed by security forces. In the end change came to Kenya mainly as a result of pressure from the International community.
  
  Still many Kenyans cling to the mirage that our independence was won from a violent freedom struggle. Very romantic but NOT true. Yes the gallant Mau Mau warriors spread terror in everybody. Indeed they inspired others in far away lands most notably Nelson Mandela which led to the formation of the armed wing of the ANC in South Africa. You have all heard of the Umkonto We Sizwe (spear of the Nation). Indeed the influence of the Mau mau spread as far away as the streets of New York where at least one notoriously violent street gang called itself the Mau Mau. But back home it was ineffective in winning independence for Kenya. The Mau mau uprising reached its’ height in 1952 and was quickly crashed. Mainly because it was about one tribe’s fight for their land rights. Actually the Kikuyu were joined by other neighboring tribes like the Merus. The leader of the Mau mau, a man called Dedan Kimathi was executed at Kamiti prison on February 18th 1957. By that time the Kikuyu uprising had been well and truly crashed.
  
  The statistics of the Mau mau struggle tell an even more interesting story. The Mau Mau rebels killed over two thousand African Kenyan civilians, but killed only 32 European settlers and fewer than 200 British soldiers during the 8 years of the uprising. The British in turn killed 20,000 Mau Mau rebels in combat, hanged over 1000 suspected Mau Mau supporters, and interned more than 70,000 Kikuyu civilians for years in brutal detention camps on suspicion of providing material support for the uprising. Actually some researchers say that the true number of Kikuyus who were held or detained during that period was closer to one million. Read more details on this HERE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedan_Kimathi.
  
  The man who was to later become Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta always had a frosty relationship with the Mau mau. They threatened his life several times and then he ended up on trial trying to prove to a compromised court his innocence and the fact that he had no links with Mau mau. The chief witness in that sham of a trial Rawson Macharia admitted only in recent years that he had given false evidence against Kenyatta. In all likelihood Kenyatta was not a violent man at heart and did not believe in violent means and yet when he became president he worked hard to glorify the Mau mau as the chief freedom fighters of Kenya and always emphasized that independence was won with a violent resistance. We shall understand later what his motivation for this may have been.
  
  But for now it is important to appreciate the circumstances under which Jomo Kenyatta ended up as the first president of Kenya. This is important because to date every single man who has ended up as president of Kenya has done so as a compromise candidate. We wait to see what will happen in 2012 but in all likelihood history will duplicate itself once again.
  
  In the run up to independence Jomo Kenyatta was rotting away in detention without a hope of ever getting back to politics. The white settlers government officials swore in public that that would never happen. The two front runners for president were Jaramogi Oginga Odinga who firmly believed that he should be president by virtue of his age over the other front runner Tom Mboya who was barely in his twenties. Sensing defeat, Odinga decided to fix his main opponent politically by demanding the release of the forgotten Jomo Kenyatta. That decision set in motion a chain of events that handed over the presidency on a silver platter to Kenyatta. Indeed when he was receiving the instruments of power on June 1963, Kenyatta still looked dazed and unbelieving. Like he wanted to pinch himself to convince himself that all these wonderful things were suddenly happening to him after years of struggle and very hard times which had been set off by false accusations against him in 1952 that put him in jail. Kenyatta’s words on that day perfectly capture the mood and his personal feelings. He did not start by saying that it was a great day for Kenyans. Instead he said; “Today is the happiest day of my life.”
  
  I have closely studied the first years of the Kenyatta administration and read many accounts and watched many clips. All of them paint only one picture. That there was a mood of constant celebration in the corridors of power in those early months. More like the ancient court of Kings where every day was a day of celebration and entertainment, unless of course there was a problem. Kenyatta loved traditional dances and alcoholic drinks flowed freely from the State House bar to the kitchen cabinet and their regular visitors. Kenyatta loved to trade stories with his brother-in-law Mbiyu Koinange (brother to his first wife Grace Wahu) about the good old days when they were younger.
  
  Evidence suggests that Kenyatta entered office with high ideals and a genuine determination to make good. But the honey moon was quickly and rudely brought to an end as crisis after crisis hit the infant administration. There was the scary army mutiny at Lanet in 1964 just a few months into the Kenyatta administration. There were numerous coups in other African countries most notably Nigeria. Closer to home there was the extremely bloody coup and revolution in neighbouring Zanzibar.
  
  It soon became very clear that there were plenty of threats to the presidency which had to be addressed immediately. Kenyatta started by appointing close relatives and village mates to sensitive positions in the security forces. Later after the assassination of Tom Mboya the Kenyatta administration launched secret oath-taking amongst those same senior officials in the security forces.
  
  Then the threat that all three men have faced early in their presidency also quickly emerged for Kenyatta. The dominant economic force at independence was the small group of white settlers who had chosen to stay. The president’s close advisors correctly identified this small group as a potential threat to the presidency. In such a poor country as Kenya, money can do a lot of damage in any political cause. These settlers were the financiers of KADU which was the main political opposition to Jomo Kenyatta’s KANU. These settlers had never really trusted Jomo Kenyatta and it would only be natural for them to jump at the first chance at a change of guard.
  
  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Kenyatta’s early years in State house were chiefly occupied with neutralizing these threats. We shall now see exactly how that was done, sometimes pretty ruthlessly.
  
  To be continued: In the next post; Was Kenyatta capable of siring children after detention?
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• Deadly political games

  Posted: December 11, 2009, 5:19 am by kumekucha

  I can confirm to my readers that the following two incidences in political posturing have actually taken place in the very recent past.
  
  Evictees from the Mau were never forcibly evicted in an inhuman way as William Ruto wants Kenyans to believe. Actually as the deadline to leave was approaching people were carefully instructed to leave the Mau and camp not too far off by the roadsides. The rains were pouring at the time and it was expected that they would continue for a while further heightening the misery of those who had been forced to leave the Mau and creating an uproar with the public. It was all a very carefully orchestrated thing and I can authoritatively report that cash was used to create this situation purely for political gain. What went slightly wrong was that the rains suddenly stopped and of course William Ruto had underestimated the intelligence of the Kenyan public and their ability to grasp the real issues concerning the Mau. Still Ruto achieved his objective of causing the Prime Minister to be extremely unpopular amongst the Kalenjin community and in effect to drive home the final nail in the ODM coffin. Despite what the PM and ODM high command are saying, the honeymoon is definitely over and ODM has been reduced to a shell of its’ previous self. A Luo party with pockets of small support from a few other places. Bottom line ODM is no longer the formidable national political movement it was in the run up to the 2007 elections.
  
  Second scenario; The so-called show-of-strength-ODM meeting in Mombasa was actually a very well stage-managed affair with people being ferried mainly from different parts of the Coast province to attend the Raila rally. Organizers were very careful to downplay the huge Luo population at the Coast who are naturally diehard ODM supporters. Raila’s pointman and chief financier and organizer in all this, one Ali Hassan Joho legislator for Kisauni, Mombasa. The whole idea was to show the press that the party still has widespread support from all over the country. But does it? An interesting question I want to ask and answer. What motivated Mr Joho to spend millions of his own cash on a ship that everybody knows is sinking? The only plausible answer is that he wants to rapidly enhance his own national political profile with the 2012 general elections firmly in mind. This man wants to be the man to do business with for any presidential candidate who wants the Coast vote. That presidential candidate he does business with, winning is not important. This is an extremely lucrative business all on its’ own without the political intricacies.
  
  These two incidences should not surprise anybody who understands Kenyan politics where appearances are everything.Kumekucha

  
  

• What Njenga Karume left out of his biography

  Posted: December 10, 2009, 6:02 pm by Chris

  
  Everybody has skeletons in their closets. Everybody!!! I am talking about those dark little secrets that one would never dare tell.
  
  So to be fair to one Njenga Karume, it is a wonderful thing that he has made the brave (and rare in Africa) move to write a biography. There is no doubt that he has gotten an excellent ghostwriter and probably the best book editor that money can buy to bring out a very well written book. Perhaps the best written biography ever in these shores. Not bad for a man who hardly got any formal education to speak of.
  
  What this man has done should be encouraged as much as possible amongst other Kenyans and indeed Africans across the continent.
  
  Having said that, it is also worth noting that Njenga Karume is one of the most controversial Kenyans still around who has straddled the twin arenas of big business and big politics for a very long time indeed. The man knows a lot and I dare add has also done a lot, both good and bad.
  
  Although he was not a member proper, of Kenyatta’s inner kitchen cabinet, Karume knows enough to shed much more light on some of Kenya’s big mysteries, like the murders of Tom Mboya and JM Kariuki. Not to mention the disappearance without trace of one Kungu Karumba. I am not surprised that he has steered clear of some of these very sensitive topics. After all some of the chief murderers who participated in these crimes are still very much alive. And besides even where they have passed on, those murders have helped retain the status quo and a system that has helped Mr Karume rake in billions over the years.
  
  Still I have to admit that there were quite a number of shocks for me in the Karume book. For instance everybody knew that the man had access to President Jomo Kenyatta but I was surprised at the ease with which the man could just pick up the phone and talk or leave a message for a president who would disappear from the public for weeks on end and would regularly slip in and out of comas. Indeed Mr Karume’s honesty in many instances is very refreshing and will make this biography a hot seller for many years to come.
  
  I went to school with one of Njenga Karume’s sons (he was a couple of years ahead of me) and one incident stands out in my mind that illustrated just how wealthy the man was especially in those days (early 80s). The younger Karume was pretty popular in school and everybody knew that it was his dad’s wealth and influence that had gotten him to the national school and not his academic prowess. But what he lacked in academics he more than made up for on the social scene. This chap would “borrow” his dad’s cars and paint the town red with his friends and girls from Kenya High School. One day he was involved in an accident that badly damaged the Mercedes Benz car he was using. The young lad was terrified of his dad and could not dare bring back the badly dented car and so it was towed away to some garage where the repair bill proved to be too high even for the crazy pocket money the young Karume used to receive. And so it was stuck there for quite some time. It took Njenga Karume months to realize that one of his personal cars was missing.
  
  One of the things that has been left out of the Njenga Karume biography is his extremely dodgy beginning where it is said that some of the activities he got involved in in the early days to raise capital for his businesses was stealing car tyres.
  
  Secondly although Karume’s ability to use his political contacts to profit hugely on the business front comes out very clearly in the book, one curious deal made possible by then Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki is missing from the book.
  
  Mwai Kibaki leaked out a small part of his budget proposals a few days earlier which he knew would greatly profit Mr Karume. The price of beer was set to rise by 10 cents (roughly the equivalent of Kshs 2 today). I have to admit that there are many businessmen who would have gotten this same information and done very little if anything with it, but not Mr Karume. The man started working his phones and through his beer distribution business, placed a colossal and unprecedented order for beers. In those days he had a huge depot for storing the stuff so storage was not a problem. Naturally the huge order was being paid for at the “old prices” that is minus the 10 cents. Mr Karume then postponed making any deliveries for a day or two (another name for that is hoarding) until after the budget was read. The result was that he made a fortune from this insider trading transaction. Karume and Kibaki have remained friends for years except that brief moment prior to the 2002 presidential elections when Karume’s business empire faced some serious cash flow problems and he ditched Kibaki and the party he (Karume) himself had formed and financed to back Uhuru Kenyatta for the presidency. To his dismay he ended up with the losing horse but was quickly back in Mwai Kibaki’s fold shortly after Narc started crumbling. The two men have too many secrets they share to remain separated for long.
  
  Read this previous Kumekucha article on a dirty deal that Njenga Karume executed.
  
  
  Kumekucha Chris will be back this weekend with his controversial Weekend special. This time he digs into the dirty secrets of the presidency. Don't miss it. Cancel all your weekend dates stay away from the beaches if you must, at the very least make adjustments... he promises you will NOT regret it. This Saturday and Sunday only here in Kumekucha.Kumekucha

  
  

• Draft Constitution: The Curse of Two Parties

  Posted: December 10, 2009, 6:00 pm by Taabu

  One week to go and the discussion on the so-called harmonized (conflicting) draft constitution has refused to leave the station. The whole noble task of drafting a constitution for posterity has been reduced to the never-ending PNU-ODM political wars.
  
  You can never built anything sustainable premised on FEAR. Chapter 12 of the draft on executive has proved to the most contentious. Each political side is determined to have her cake and est it. Unfortunately, the truth is that none of the parties is right on either the presidential or parliamentary system of governance.
  
  While Moi frustrated the search for a new constitution for selfish reasons to consolidate his powers, the present political leadership are no better. No wonder the key players inadvertently let it out that the struggle was not to make Kenya better but to remove Moi and inherit his powers. Meanwhile Kenyans remain stuck in the middle suffocating from impunity.
  
  The whole country is held hostage by the political class. Despite being overtly political, the average Kenyan will fall to the gimmicks of these scoundrels and miss yet another opportunity to re-invent Kenya.
  
  Only a third neutral force devoid of the present brinkmanship can make us realize the dream of a new constitution. And there promptly comes the question, who will offer this selfless leadership. There must be such a Kenyan out there, who is s/he, ANYONE?Kumekucha

  
  

• Reforms: More Visa Bans Coming Soon

  Posted: December 9, 2009, 6:00 pm by Taabu

  While Amos Wako re-invents his poisonous smile smarting from the US visa ban, more politicians are lined up for the next round of ban. And the present grandstanding and brinkmanship on the draft constitution won't have been godsend. Forget the empty abroad-is-not-heaven chorus. The bans hits the mighty hard where it hurts most.
  
  Calling learned politicians ignorant may sound disrespectful but what else can you term a bunch of people whose vision never extends past the present leadership? Add to that the obnoxious obsession with TRIBE and you get a recipe to make a superb idiot.
  
  But these leaders are not alone. The have good company in equally-schooled Kenyans who mouth superlatives with no intention of walking the talk. Hypocrisy must be our collective forte. Look no further than the predictable propensity to chest thumb while supporting political turf wars at the expense of weighty national issues.
  
  Kenyans appear to have been weaned on LEADERLESSNESS so mush so that any trace of tough decision is fast reduced into cheap grandstanding and partisan warfare. In the meantime nothing moves and Kenya remains the worst for it all.
  
  No wonder the so-called international community have refused to buy into our national lies. Annan and co will never leave us stew in our own blood again and the EU and US visa bans are coming soon and furious.Kumekucha

  
  

• The Curse of A+O+O: Lovely Bedfellows

  Posted: December 7, 2009, 5:00 pm by Taabu

  Hail the king and his sidekick for true triumph. Fighting him is akin to cutting fig tree with a razor blade.
  
  The last laugh is surely the longest, loudest and sweetest. Don't spoil the party with all those stale draft constitution debate. Forget about LEADERSHIP, politics is all about triumph here and now. And the winner is........................(NOT KENYANS).
  
  So in appreciation let us all expose our post-molars please and applaud the brave worriors of democracy. One, two, three ............Kumekucha

  
  

• The great Luo political Kitendawili Part 4

  Posted: December 6, 2009, 12:34 pm by Chris

  What does the future hold?
  
  Now we have to wrap this up quickly because the weekend is over already.
  
  We have said a lot of things about our Luo brothers. Many of the things I have taken courage to speak about, nobody has dared to utter in public before. The whole intention was for us to understand this community that I love so much better. When you understand something and especially its’ past, the future becomes clearer.
  
  Why don’ we go back to that entertainment spot in Kisumu city before I summarize the political future of the Luo community?
  
  The man seated next to me on the table was alone. I noticed that he had greeted several ladies and one had even stopped by at his table for a brief chat. Clearly he preferred his own company. But still it was easy to start chatting to him and I found that I could pop the question I had in mind much quicker than I had earlier anticipated.
  
  “Do you think Raila Odinga has a political future?” I asked.
  
  “I thought that was pretty obvious. This has to be the end for ODM and him,” he said after taking a long sip of his cold beer.
  
  “Most people in this city will not agree with you.”
  
  “I know. Let me tell you something. We Luos are very optimistic people. We will gladly look for possibilities in an impossible situation. The truth is that we do not have the discipline to plan and end up getting what we really want. You know I have just been transferred from Mombasa where I had two bosses a Kikuyu and a Luo. The Luo drove a big car and the Kikuyu drove one of those small Toyotas from Dubai. It even smoked and we used to laugh at him a lot from behind his back. There were many other differences. The Kikuyu man lived in Ganjoni in some dirty flats, and the Luo lived in up market Nyali. Now there was some restructuring recently and both of them lost their jobs. The Kikuyu stayed on and is doing very well with several plots in Mombasa and some small businesses. My fellow Luo is now in Nairobi and desperately looking for a job. One man was optimistic and did nothing to work towards his goals, the other was focused and didn’t care that people were laughing at him. Now look who is laughing? You see what I mean? Don’t get me wrong. Kikuyus have their weaknesses but the difference is that they have the discipline and we don’t. Pure and simple.”
  
  I could not believe what I was hearing from this man and promised myself that his words would make it to my post (which they have).
  
  So lets warp this up by looking into the future. In my humble view I think all indications are pointing towards the following future for the Luo community in Kenyan politics.
  
  Firstly, like it or not, they will remain an important political influence in Kenya but will sadly continue to suffer from bad decisions made by leaders that the community follows blindly. The really sad thing here is that in my view our Luo brothers and sisters are amongst the most brilliant Kenyans. I know one or two specialist surgeons now based in the USA who are known the world over and hail from Kenya and the Luo community. (Interestingly the Luo always seem to do very well as far away from home as possible.)
  
  The biggest weakness in the Luo community is the tendency for many of their leaders to make reckless decisions on the spur of the moment based on emotions more than anything else. You can be reckless but think things through. Sadly these leaders hardly ever think things through and it is not for lack of intellect. We have seen this in the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and more recently in Raila Odinga. Future Luo leaders will do well to make a huge effort to ignore their emotions and work towards being more calm, cold and calculating if they are to make major breakthroughs in politics.
  
  It is important that the Odinga spell which has stradled and suffocated the community for so long, is broken. Many of my Luo friends agree that as difficult as this may seem, it is the only way forward for this community that possesses just too much untapped potential.
  
  Sadly all indications at the moment are that in 2007 the community will find itself irrelevant and spectators in the unfolding of the new political order and the emergence of the third and last liberation. The only way that they will remain in the centre of things is if Raila Odinga survives to win the presidency. This is very unlikely and if you asked me to be blunt, out of question.
  
  In my personal view Kenya will be fully healed the day a son of Luo Nyanza is elected to the presidency with votes from a large cross section of the country. For now it seems like a distant pipe dream but personally I see it happening much sooner than most people think. Possibly in the next 20 years or so. My hope hinges on an emerging new generation who are determined to make a clean break with the past.
  
  A good beginning for the healing of Kenya is for the other Kenyan brothers across the country from the 41 other tribes to realize the great injustices that have been committed against these Kenyans and to publicly apologize to the community for them and open a new chapter.
  
  Good job Chris my brother. You have had a long love affair with the Luo, you should have been one. But your work is all vanity. In the final analysis you lie, the Luo are beyond redemption.
  
  I hope I have provided at least some answers to the big Luo political puzzle which you must have realized by now is a mystery that can hardly be solved by a few controversial posts one slow weekend.
  
  As I pen off, let me take this opportunity to thank all you wonderful guys out there who kept me company through this weekend. I saw you all in my blog site stats right up to the long minutes you spent here and the links you clicked through to. I hope this was as enjoyable and enlightening for you as it was for me.
  
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• The great Luo political Kitendawili Part 3

  Posted: December 6, 2009, 3:49 am by Chris

  
  Magical powers?
  
  Sometime in 1969 Jomo Kenyatta was settling in for a sumptuous lunch at the PCs house in Kakamega (Western Kenya). One police officer based in the town at the time who had to coordinate the president’s security on this particular day was extremely surprised when the president rose to leave just 5 minutes later. He had hardly touched his soup (which was the first of several courses). The president was leaving for Kisumu in what would be his last trip to that town even though he would continue to president of those who lived there along with the rest of Kenya for another 9 years.
  
  Jaramogi, Kenyatta and Mboya shortly before independence.
  
  That police officer (now long retired) still remembers the events of that day as if it was yesterday and as he hurried to get into one of the police cars to escort the president to the border of Kakamega and Kisumu, he was worried. It was obvious that the president was in a very bad mood. Constitutionally all who work for the government work “at the pleasure of the president.” In simple terms what this means is that a president in a bad mood could simply not like your face and decide that it no longer pleased him for you to serve the government of Kenya. (President Moi once sacked a police officer by telephoning the Police commissioner while he was about 2 hours away from Nakuru and saying: Sitaki kuona hio nyagau nikifika Nakuru roughy translated it means; I don’t want to see that animal when I arrive in Nakuru.)
  
  The cars left without any incident and as the officer handed over he felt a great sense of relief and at the same time dread for his colleagues serving in Kisumu who had the daunting task of taking care of the president in very hostile territory.
  
  Every Kenyan who cared to read newspapers at the time knew that there was a lot of tension in the country after Vice President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga had resigned in a huff to form his own political party called Kenya People’s Union. The assassination of Tom Mboya earlier that year in July had made things worse and one wondered what the president expected going through Kisumu and Luo Nyanza in his motorcade.
  
  The fears of that policeman had on that fateful day were not unfounded. A few hours later dozens of innocent people lay dead their bodies strewn all over the place. To this day the exact number of people who died on that day is still a closely guarded government secret.
  
  Details are scanty as to what exactly happened on that sunny afternoon of late 1969. According to my source who was on the ground on that day, on arriving in Kisumu Kenyatta and his aides were confronted by a very angry Oginga Odinga who had some angry words for Jomo. Wikipedia actually says that the two hurled abuses at each other. An interesting photo that I had hoped to publish here today but did not find on time, shows Oginga talking angrily to a calm Kenyatta who was surrounded by his aides who appeared to be carefully listening to Odinga senior.
  
  There was a chaotic public meeting after that where President Kenyatta dwelt on insulting Oginga Odinga and the Luo community. At one point he said that the Luo were lazy and could not cultivate land like others and instead just wanted free hand outs. Fascinatingly as Kenyatta made his speech, Oginga who was seated not too far was replying to his accusations and sometime the microphone Kenyatta was using picked some of Odinga’s words. The other highlight of Kenyatta’s abusive speech was when he said in Swahili that his government would crush Odinga and his followers until they were “powder”. Don’t say I didn’t warn you he said to Odinga.
  
  All through the meeting there were shouts of Ndume which means “bull” and was the slogan for the then recently registered Oginga political party called Kenya People’s Union (KPU).
  
  What happened next is not clear. However impeccable sources from a member of the security forces present on that day insist that the following happened;
  
  The crowd had been very hostile throughout the entire proceedings and the presidential guards were extremely nervous. Suddenly a chair was hurled from the crowd in the direction of Jomo Kenyatta. It was a harmless missile because one of the guards easily caught it in mid air before it could hit Kenyatta. It was then that an order was issued for the guards to open fire.
  
  Time magazine reported in their issue later that week that at least 9 people were killed and 70 wounded (read the full TIME article). My source says that they counted no less than 50 bodies of women children toddlers and men as well.
  
  In retrospect the problem that day was more of a personal issue between Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga. Some would say a clash of political ideologies. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Luo people and Odinga senior should NOT have dragged his people into his spat with Kenyatta and the government. It is instructive to note that these were the early beginnings of politicians using tribal politics to enhance their personal interests and political ambitions. Odinga sold the idea to his people that the government of Kenyatta was finishing Luos.
  
  Admittedly what also raised the tensions very high was the move by the Kenyatta administration shortly after the assassination of Mboya to resume Mau mau oath taking only this time those taking the oath swore their allegiance to Jomo Kenyatta. All this was coupled with the fact that the man convicted of firing the fatal revolver shots that had slain Mboya one Nahashon Njenga, was a Kikuyu. And so it was easy to sell the idea to the Luo community that the Kikuyus were “finishing them.”
  
  Kenyatta toured many parts of the country until his death, but never Kisumu again. KPU was banned for “attempting to overthrow the lawful and constitutional government of the Republic of Kenya.” All 8 of it’s MPs as well as Oginga Odinga himself were picked up two days later by the dreaded Special branch police and detained without trial.
  
  This is how the deep hatred between the Luo and Kikuyu communities was launched. By the sad and chaotic events of that day in Kisumu. The Kenyatta government went on to actively encourage and promote the stereotype views many Kikuyus still have concerning Luos to this day. This includes the view that Luos are cowardly boys at best because their culture does not allow for circumcision. Of course the fact that the Luo rite of passage for men of having 6 of their front teeth literally knocked out was much more painful than circumcision was totally ignored. And besides the Luo may be many things but they are certainly NOT cowards.
  
  It is no secret that the Luo have always been led by leaders with magical powers. Right through the days of heroes like Luanda Magere. In fact Wikipedia the online encyclopedia says of Jaramogi;
  
  His (Oginga odinga) efforts earned him admiration and recognition among the Luo, who revered him as Ker (spiritual leader) – a position previously held by the fabled ancestral Luo chief, Ramogi Ajwang, who reigned 400 years before him. Vowing to uphold the ideals of Ramogi Ajwang, Odinga became known as Jaramogi (meaning son of Ramogi).
  
  During Oginga Odinga’s long years away from politics, the Luo believe that he was protected and kept alive only by his magical powers. One particular incident during the Moi era stands out. Wary of Jaramogi’s increasing political activities at the time in backing opposition to Moi’s government by insisting on the repel of the famous section 2 (a) of the constitution which made Kenya a dejure one party state, government agents embarked on a mission to plant guns on Odinga’s farm in Nyanza. The idea was f0r the guns to be later “discovered” and used as “evidence” that Oginga was planning an “armed rebellion” against the “democratically elected government of Kenya.” The mission was done in the dead of the night but the Luo believe that Oginga Odinga’s magical powers enabled him “to see” what was being planned. He is said to have woken up and confronted the government agents by simply asking them what they thought they were doing.
  
  These magical powers it is believed were passed on to Jaramogi’s son, Raila Odinga. Indeed this belief spread to many other communities countrywide who voted for Raila in 2007. In late 2007 I met a Giriama man in Mombasa when I was doing one of my many political surveys on the ground. He told me that he would vote for Odinga because he admired his magical powers which are the only thing that had kept him alive and enabled him to escape assassination when it was clear that he would win the presidency from Mwai Kibaki.
  
  The controversial truth is that to this day many of our Luo brothers believe that it is impossible for Raila to be felled in politics. Reading some of the comments in this blog that display of only blind faith and no substance in support of the Prime Minister, is easy to detect.
  
  Back at the entertainment spot in Kisumu, I ignored the dashing smile from the stunner and decided to pick a conversation with a man seated next to me on the table who I had been observing for sometime. I wanted to ask him what he though about Raila’s political future. To be honest I was not prepared for what he was going to tell me. It shocked me a great deal knowing what I already knew.
  
  Why were you shocked at the honesty of that man, Chris. We Luo people are brutally honest when you catch us at an unguarded moment or when we are in a good mood. But it means nothing, we never walk our talk.
  
  
  ...To be continued. Don’t miss the fourth and final part of this riveting series
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• The great Luo political Kitendawili Part 2

  Posted: December 5, 2009, 9:35 am by Chris

  A weakness for women?
  
  I can’t remember the last time a woman tried to pick me up but then the world seems to have changed a lot and the hunted I am told have become full fledged hunters. Besides this one was a great looker as I said earlier and the way she carried herself she seemed fully aware of the fact. Still I found it difficult to believe that she was not a prostitute.
  
  Right then I realized that there are a lot of similarities between the Kamba (the tribe my father hails from. My mother was Bukusu Luhya) and the Luos. One of those similarities is that both tribes are rather promiscuous. If Kamba men and women are referred to as the legendary sex athletes in bed then it can be said of Luo men that they never saw a voluminous behind of a woman that they did not want to gawk and “salivate” at and Luo women never saw a strong good looking man and did not want to sample right away. Stereotypes of course but fairly common.
  
  Why lie Chris, I have always told you that when it comes to sex the Luo are in a class of their own. You Kambas should just accept second spot roho safi. In the days before I met Jesus I would pick a prostitute in the CBD and walk with her all the way to my hall at the Nairobi University with a hard on. I think back and am shocked at myself and what I was capable of. What sexual anointing I had in those days. It was obviously from My Luo ancestry.
  
  Many people don’t know it but during the Moi administration there are many instances where the then president tamed Luo political allies and perceived political threats hailing from the tribe using women. To Moi a seductress was always more effective when dealing with the Luo than just cash only.
  
  Even legend seems to support this widely held view. The story is told of how the Nandi finally defeated the legendary Luo leader Luanda Magere using a weakness that they saw in the Luo early. It is said that Luanda Magere was a very tough warrior who possessed magical powers so that a spear or knife could not penetrate his skin. Because of this, long before the colonialists arrived, the Luo were easily able to subdue the Nandi using their great warrior. The crafty Nandi however called for a truce and held a beauty contest to choose the most beautiful young Kalenjin girl who was given to the great Luo warrior and leader as a gift to cement the peace between the two communities. Luanda was delighted at this “gift” because it is said that the young Kalenjin girl was a real stunner. And like most present day Luos who are said to have a “weakness” where women are concerned, he saw no danger at all in having a wife from the fold of his enemies.
  
  Peace reigned between the two communities for sometime until one day the great warrior got sick and he gave instructions to his youngest wife as to what needed to be done. It involved cutting his shadow with a razor to draw blood, which she did and Luanda recovered. Shortly after that incident she asked her husband for permission to visit her parents which she had no problem obtaining being such a dazzling beauty who charmed the fierce warrior immensely. She was sent with many gifts and on arriving in Nandi country, narrated what had happened when her Luo husband, Magere had fallen sick. The Nandi promptly declared war on the Luo and somebody simply speared the shadow of Luanda Magere, killing him instantly and winning the battle for the Nandi.
  
  Many stories have been told about prominent Luo politicians and the mipango za kando (mistresses) that they have had. Tom Mboya was a notorious lady’s man. Robert Ouko the slain former minister of foreign affairs at the time of his death had a mistress and this fascinating fact came through during the commission of enquiry into his death. But the really fascinating thing here was how some policeman were so determined to sell the suicide theory trying to convince intelligent Kenyans that Ouko may have committed suicide because he had Aids from his mistress. Then of course there are many fascinating tales (some truth others pure fiction) about the escapades of both Odinga senior and Raila.
  
  My apologies folks, that smiling Luo beauty made me digress a little but then this a weekend is it not? But back to serious business now.
  
  It is widely known that the Luo migrated into East Africa from a place in Sudan called Bahr-el-Ghazal. But few talk of where they arrived from when they settled in Bahr-el-Ghazal. My research shows that they actually originated from far in the Western part of Africa in present day Nigeria. There are also unconfirmed reports that give some very fascinating information to the effect that the reason the early Luos left Nigeria was because of a very serious quarrel between two brothers, Uthieno and Gillo. Gillo was killed in the ensuing fight between the brothers. It is said that Uthieno killed him in a jealous rage. Uthieno is the father of modern day Luos in East Africa.
  
  This web site seems to confirm some of these facts although the version here is a little different at one point 3 brothers are mentioned. The general facts are however similar in many ways. This murder theory about Uthieno is just the thing the conspiracy theorists need and true to form one told me that when you murder a person a curse falls on your children’s children and can be carried for many generations. In other words it never ends. This could neatly explain all the tragedy’s misfortunes and raw deal in Kenyan politics. But then most Kumekucha readers don’t believe in such mumbo jumbo.
  
  …To be continued. One of the issues I will discuss in my next post is the magical powers of all Luo leaders.
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• The great Luo political Kitendawili Part 1

  Posted: December 4, 2009, 1:17 am by Chris

  Kitendawili is the Swahili word for puzzle. Indeed the most prominent Luo political personality currently, Prime Minister Raila Odinga loves to use these Swahili puzzles to get his points across at public rallies.
  
  But political analysts are agonizing over what I will call the Luo puzzle.
  
  Consider the following.
  
  No other Kenyan community has gotten so close to the presidency and still come up short. In the run up to independence the two front runners to be the first president of Kenya were both Luos. Namely Tom Mboya and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. If it was another community the two would have sat together and sewn up the deal easily. Instead a vicious struggle between the two ensued that handed over the presidency to another community and Jomo Kenyatta. But all was not lost. Oginga Odinga was appointed the Vice President and Kenyatta was rapidly aging. All he had to do was to sit tight for a few years and he would have easily become president after all Daniel arap Moi did it after him. If there were any slip ups then the young flamboyant Mboya (who was already being hailed by the Western media as a President in waiting) would have taken over. Again the community blew it. Oginga ended up in political oblivion and Mboya died shortly after finishing Oginga politically. Then came 1982 and finally the community had one of it’s own at the helm of power, albeit for about 30 minutes. Some insist the coup of August 1st caused senior private Hezekiah Ochuka to be president of Kenya but for brief chaotic 30 minutes. It is worth noting that many (including this blogger) are convinced that such a junior officer of the air force would have been incapable of acting on his own and there were other bigger names behind him. There is of course the still unique case of one Master sergeant Samuel Doe of Liberia who carried out a successful coup in the 80s and ruled that troubled country for some years.
  
  Then came the most astounding and astonishing event yet in the history of the Luo community and the presidency. In the 2007 presidential race, Raila Odinga won the presidency by a landslide (according to Kumekucha estimates). The elections were stolen and the worst that should have happened is that Mr Odinga would have remained out of government and waited for the next elections. Instead a power sharing arrangement (where the winner received bread crumbs in terms of power from the loser of those elections) was mooted to keep peace in the country. As you read this the writing is clearly on the wall for Raila’s political future and whatever the ODM diehards say, it will be easier for a hungry Tana crocodile to ignore the soft supple flesh of a child bathing at the shores and swim away than it will be for Mr Raila Odinga to ever live in State House as the president of Kenya.
  
  What the hell is wrong?
  
  I once heard this long shot theory of how the community has been cursed never to rise to the presidency. But that particular theory was blown sky high when the son of a Kenyan Luo, Barack Hussein Obama rose to the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth. Or was it? (I will discuss this very controversial point in more detail later on this weekend).
  
  And so that is the big Luo political kitendawili.
  
  I have had the privilege of getting to know the Luo very well. Ironically I was born in Kisumu (now Kisumu City) and over the years fate has kept me close to the community and that interesting city by some amazing twists including the fact that the best friend I ever had (the late G) was a Luo. And so I am in a unique position to talk about the community from a neutral point of view. Indeed from this point I will punctuate my prose with bold comments of what good old G would have said to some of the most controversial statements I will make here. Rest in peace my dear brother.
  
  Chris, you are one melodramatic Kenyan. Now you want to elevate me to saintly status. Vanity my friend, you know my views on that, there is only one who can be worshiped. Secondly you have brains. The Luo will skin you alive for what you want to do here, we like to keep some truths unspoken.
  
  I sat at this Luo entertainment spot in Kisumu and listened to the sad beat of popular Tony Nyadundo. The dance floor was packed with gyrating revelers many of them sweating profusely and with their eyes closed. It was as if they were hungrily drinking in the sadness. Enjoying it and all the tragedy and bad luck that has befallen this community. A friend recently said of the community “they always seem to have this great sadness hanging over them.”
  
  I will be lying if I say I was not enjoy the Tony Nyadundo music and the sadness with them, although I was not on the dance floor yet. I was still seated reflecting on this humid city that has always appeared from the blue at very critical points of my life. My parents were traveling when they had to hurriedly stop over in Kisumu for me to be born. I met my wife of 20 years in Kisumu about 20 years later. Then when I was down and out and a hopeless alcoholic I met G (who called Kisumu his home town). And now at a critical point of Kenya’s political history, I am taking my readers back to this place. This place where I hope to pick the answers they wait for to help them solve the big Luo political puzzle.
  
  But my thoughts are interrupted by a great looking young girl who passes my table and flashes a big smile at me whose meaning is obvious.
  
  …To be continued later today.
  
  
  Part 1
  
  Part 2
  
  Part 3
  
  Part 4Kumekucha

  
  

• Raila Vs Ruto Political Duel: Raila Fast Digging His Political Grave!

  Posted: December 3, 2009, 9:47 pm by Chris

  See also most recent article by Chris: Why Ruto will win the war against Raila
  Some of the things Kumekucha is reading: Annonymous comment costs employee his job
  
  By Guest Writer
  
  In the height of post-election violence, William Ruto and Najib Balala were key ODM figures who fought the Raila’s mass action war of “stolen” presidency like their own personal fight and the TV images of the two fleeing in Nairobi streets from mean-looking GSU officers lobbing tear-gas at them are still fresh in my mind. The two men were ready to die for Raila. Remember Balala even shed tears when he stepped down for Raila during ODM presidential nomination at Kasarani. That’s as far as the marriage of convenience lasted.
  
  The unfolding drama and imminent fall out in ODM was not unexpected but I could not imagine Raila falling out with Ruto and Balala. The fall out best explains how Kenya politics is fluid. Raila largely owes his position and the powers he enjoys to Ruto and Balala. Apart from vigorously campaigning for Raila in the 2007 General Elections, Ruto and Balala took charge of Raila’s mass action call and rallied ODM supporters and their affiliate tribes to civil disobedience to protest Kibaki’s controversial win. The fall out is a big lesson to other politicians and tribes – never fight another man’s war or kill in their name.
  
  If Raila called for the mass action and only Luos heeded his call, Kenyans wouldn’t have been subjected to PEV or violence would have been minimal and of little consequence. But Ruto’s powerbase, the Rift Valley, was the main battle zone for PEV and the tragic and barbaric events in the province were what put Kenya on the international radar. Without Ruto and Balala and the Rift Valley primitive slaughter, Raila would have reluctantly settled for the humble position of the Official Opposition Leader. But thanks to the blood of innocent Kenyans, Raila landed on the prime post he is now using to flex his muscles against the foot soldiers and lieutenants who killed and uprooted innocent from their homes and businesses in his name.
  
  Ruto and Balala are the equivalent of Martha Karua, who toppled the scale against Raila on the finishing line and ensured Kibaki got a controversial second term. Without Karua, Kibaki would have kissed goodbye to the presidency. The Krieger Report told us neither Kibaki nor Raila could stake a high moral ground and claim they legally won. ODM and PNU fiddled with election results in their strongholds. Kibaki and Raila loyalists can fume with that assertion but that’s the reality. For that, Raila and Kibaki equally share the blame in 2008 PEV.
  
  The seeds of hatred were sowed by Kibaki when he refused to honour a pre-election MoU with Raila when he came to power in 2002. Kibaki added fuel to the fire when he started weeding out key Kalenjins from his new Administration. Kalenjins regarded the presidency to be synonymous to Moi and as if State House was their property. They were bitter loosing power to a Kikuyu. Ruto and Kalenjins would be consigned to the political dustbin were it not for Kibaki’s poor judgment in politics.
  
  After the fall out with Kibaki over dishonoured MoU, Raila’s only option was to team up with Kibaki’s enemies and that’s how Kalenjins and leaders who had looted state coffers or had criminal records (some murderers for their roles in 1992 and 1997 tribal clashes), and killers likes of Ole Ntimama, got a new lifeline. Raila and his new-found allies saw the best way to fight Kibaki was to pour petrol to the fire of hatred, which he had lit with the dishonoured MoU. The birth of ODM after the 2005 referendum was based on pure hatred towards Mt Kenya folks and revenge against Kibaki. Thanks to Kibaki’s failures and fall out with Raila, Moi today looks like a saint despite his many dark evils in his 24-year rule.
  
  ODM big guns and their supporters held divergent personal and political ideologies and their marriage was only for convenience but not driven by desire to bring genuine change and reforms in Kenya. These were strange bedfellows. ODM was meant to replace Kibaki’s eating club with new or re-packaged thieves and looters. But the revenge against Kibaki and by extent his tribe, the Kikuyus, was the temporary glue that brought political conmen, looters, murderers and graft lords together. The glue held up to the 2007 Presidential elections and Kenya went to elections in a charged and polluted environment. The ODM unity of purpose – to kick out Kibaki from State House – was what made Raila’s mass action call work. Sooner or later, party time and honeymoon was going to be over for Raila and his ODM.
  
  Unknown to Ruto and Balala, Koffi Annan was pushing for ceasefire and a Grand Coalition Government without revealing his true intentions. He wanted to bring peace but ensure killers were punished. In fact, Raila and ODM were the ones who wanted Annan and the international to intervene claiming they had been robbed of the presidency by Kibaki. Kibaki and his allies were content after retaining the presidency and they didn’t want Annan to come in.
  
  Raila and ODM got an upper hand and Kibaki conceded to share power. The man ODM saw as their saviour had a trick up his sleeve – unleashing the ICC and Ocampo after the PEV dust settled. Ruto and his ODM thought the PEV issue ended as soon as Kibaki and Raila signed a peace deal. How mistaken they were! To the disbelief of Ruto, Balala and others who suspect their names were in the Waki envelope, Raila backed trial of PEV suspects. This is after Raila had equated the PEV killers to freedom fighters! What a betrayal from the mass action general.
  
  Raila looked at 2007 General Election as the end of the world – it was a do or die. He forgot he could loose and vie another day. His mass action call gave birth to mass murder and Kikuyus suffered the most. Raila realised the folly of his mass action call and warmed up to Kikuyus and to the larger Mt Kenya people after he invited Kibaki to his Bondo home. He now enjoys a good working relationship with Kibaki.
  
  When relations improved, Kibaki cleverly pushed the explosive Mau eviction issue to Raila and the PM enthusiastically took it up hoping to win an image of a national and international leader. Raila has received a huge sarcastic backing from Mt Kenya folks on the Mau issue – but that will remain as far as Mau forest is concerned. In public, Mt Kenya folks displaying their “support” to Raila in regard to Mau, while in private laughing as Raila’s burns the bridges that propelled him to where he is today. Doubt this? Read comments on Daily Nation website everyday and guess who are cheering on Raila.
  
  In evicting Kalenjins from Mau, Raila is stepping on the toes of murders, thieves, looters and land grabbers who had played a key role in his 2007 presidential campaign and what he is today. The current fall out was inevitable. Mt Kenya are arguing Raila is unknowingly revenging on them for what Kalenjins did to their Gema kinsmen in 2008. What a better way to get revenge for Kikuyus killed and uprooted from RV? By using their 2007 hero, Raila!
  
  Those who wish away Kikuyus to play a major role in any election are doomed. Kikuyus have the numbers and they vote to preserve their selfish interests – to protect their wealth. In this regard, even if a Kikuyu doesn’t vie for the top seat in 2012 to avoid a repeat of the backlash of 2007, the community will play a big role in deciding Kenya’s next CEO. If no Kikuyu garners for the top seat, Raila’s campaign will be largely deflated as he will not have the ammunitions he had in 2007, rallying other tribes against Mt Kenya folks. Raila’s political future will be doomed.
  
  Unlike Luos who openly express their anger and thoughts and you can easily read their mind and next move, Kikuyus are the opposite. Luos may have celebrated too early that they managed to drive a final nail in the coffin of the frosty relations between Kikuyus and Kalenjins – stemming from land in Rift Valley. Kikuyus in Rift Valley may never mend fences with Kalenjins. But Kikuyus in Central Province and elsewhere have nothing to loose in mending fences with Kalenjins as long as that will place them in leadership or the next Government. Furthermore, Kikuyus and Kalenjins have a lot at stake – land in Rift Valley. What have Luos to offer Kikuyus? Kikuyus can bury their past grudges as long as Kalenjins are willing to accommodate them in RV.
  
  In this regard, Raila made the 2007 General Election look like a personal battle against Kikuyus and majority of Kikuyus believe they would not have fallen victims and suffered so much due to PEV were it not for Raila. Even before 2007, majority of Kikuyus openly said they couldn’t vote for a Luo, more so Raila. Raila’s tribal and hatred politics that led to PEV permanently burnt his political bridges with Mt Kenya folks. Raila may have toned down his hard politics on Kibaki to please Mt Kenya folks, but they are unlikely to ever forgive him for the PEV.
  
  From the look of things, Ocampo is unlikely to go after Kibaki and Raila. Kibaki loses nothing since he is doing his last term. If Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta are both indicted by Ocampo over PEV and leave Raila, Kikuyus and Kalenjins will be united by a common purpose as happened in the recent Mau evictees fund-raising. The common enemy for the two tribes will be Raila and they will never forgive him for his mass action call that gave birth to PEV and took their sons to Hague.
  
  In such a scenario, the person who will be smiling all the way to the bank and likely to reap is one Kalonzo Musyoka. He’ll tell Kikuyus: “I rushed to boost Kibaki from Raila on slot after the disputed polls and you retained the presidency.” He’ll turn to Kalenjins and tell them: ”I warned you about Raila. Look at what he has done with you with Mau and with Ruto.” The Mau eviction and PEV trials were the turning point of Raila and Kalenjins and only a divine intervention can save Raila from the imminent tsunami he faces in 20120 and beyond.
  
  Raila mistakenly believes if Hague takes Uhuru and Ruto, his ambitions to rule Kenya are home and sealed. I bet Raila will die like his father before he rules Kenya. The best Raila and his father managed is a step away from the throne. It is very unlikely Kibaki will back Raila in 2012 and Kikuyus are very unlikely to vote for Raila come rain come sunshine – even with Kibaki’s backing.
  
  Lacking a better strategy to tame the Ruto-Balala axis, Raila has resorted to laughable theatrics by challenging them to quit the Cabinet. That’s a very cowardly challenge. If you are an employer and your employee openly defies you, do you keep daring him to quit or you sack him? A rogue employee looses nothing clinging on and making trouble from within. Ruto and Balala have equally hit back and said they did not fear being sacked.
  
  Raila’s frequent challenge to Ruto & Co to quit shows he has no moral courage to fire the group. He would be digging deeper his political grave. Raila is playing holistic politics. Didn’t the same Raila rock Kibaki’s Govt from within in Narc and after becoming PM? I believe Ruto and Balala have psychologically set their minds Hague is real. They must have decided even if they went to Hague, they’ll sink the political ambitions of the thankless general they fought for.
  
  Raila is fast digging his political grave and if I was him, I would do all I can to win back the Ruto-Balala axis, to win their tribesmen and women. Due to his greed for power, Raila is fast digging his political grave while being cheered by his enemies and his blind supporters. Let’s wait and see if the powerful Kikuyu block with vote for him in 2012.
  
  Kibaki in his first term evicted settlers from Mau forest. Raila ganged up with Ruto and his allies denouncing Kibaki and introducing hate and tribal politics. They used Mau evictions as ammunition against Kibaki in 2005 referendum. When campaigning 2007 presidential elections, Raila and allies perfected hate politics and again used Mau to settle scores with Kibaki and assured settlers they wouldn’t be evicted. Raila scored political mileage and won Kalenjin votes. Ruto and allies perfecting what their master taught them.
  
  Kibaki has last laugh as Raila’s hate politics returns to haunt him. Kibaki is playing clever. He agreed to a truce with Raila and allows him to flex his muscle and exercise his perceived and illusionary powers (Kibaki retains all executive powers) as he sits back to enjoy his former enemies fighting each other and their general.
  
  If Hague prunes Ruto and Uhuru from Kenya’s political map, I encourage doubting Thomases and Raila’s blind ardent follows to keep a copy of this story as a historical reference. I love this show. Who would have expected a fall out after all the chest-thumping in ODM in the run up to 2007.
  
  
  P.S. And on the CoE constitution, I share Moi’s stand and concerns. Kenya should have one CEO, pure presidential and system. The CEO’s power should be drastically watered down and checked by strong judiciary and parliament. All appointments must be endorsed by Parliament to curb tribalism and nepotism. Two centres of power will put Kenya permanently on tension due to power struggle between president and PM, driving away investors and tourists. Two centres of power will spell doom for the future survival of Kenya. Raila and his like-minded shud should seek our mandate if they want to rule but not grab power through back door.
  
  Kumekucha Weekend Special is back!! Don't miss the most controversial posts here in a long time this Saturday and Sunday. Topic; The Big Luo political kitendawili. Chris is truly BACK!!!
  
  Kumekucha

  
  

• Kumekucha changes his position: Why Ruto will fell Raila

  Posted: December 3, 2009, 2:56 am by Chris

  I have no problem with constructive criticism. Most people think that I concede too easily and too quickly at the earliest sign that I have been proved wrong. If you ask me most people never want to be proved wrong and can argue for hours just to maintain appearances and an image of never being wrong. That is really sad because learning becomes almost impossible with such a kindergarten attitude.
  
  Anyway I am writing this post to change my position on the ongoing Raila/Ruto war. Earlier I said that I believed that Ruto will go down first. Now I am writing to say that Raila will go down first.
  
  I used history to write my last post and somebody challenged me with the same history to prove me wrong. I have dug deep into my history books and I have no option but to agree with them. I firmly believe that history always repeats itself; I have seen it happen too many times.
  
  Let me give you the historical facts and arguments presented to me.
  
  On 26th June 1958 Oginga Odinga (father to Raila Odinga) made his famous “Kenyatta tosha” move in parliament (Legco). He did this by doing what was then “unthinkable”. In a speech he later referred to as “his bombshell in the house” he said that those convicted in Kapenguria were “still the real political leaders” of Africans in Kenya. He singled out Jomo Kenyatta and compared him to Makarios, the then exiled leader of Cyprus. Makarios was a religious leader and it was obvious that Odinga was elevating Kenyatta to almost godly status. The colonial government did not mince any words and governor Sir Evelyn Baring made it clear that the government had no intention of allowing Kenyatta to return to active politics even if he were released. But the political impact on the ground was huge (just as Odinga had intended) and Raila’s dad had set in motion a chain of events that would give the presidency to Kenyatta on a silver platter.
  
  It was clear what had motivated Odinga senior. It was his deep hatred for the much younger Luo called Tom Mboya who had outsmarted him at every turn. He could not stand the idea of watching the young upstart climb to power and loathed the idea so much that he preferred a Kikuyu to his own tribes-mate.
  
  More importantly in retrospect, Odinga launched tribal politics in Kenya for the first time. He chose Kenyatta because Kenyatta was a Kikuyu and he knew that the bedrock of Mboya’s support in his Nairobi constituency were the Kikuyu. Odinga senior was to play this tribal card again and again in his political battles against Mboya who firmly remained a nationalist to the bitter end.
  
  My critic says that Odinga seniors’ motivation was exactly the same as that of Raila in rejecting Uhuru Kenyatta as the presidential candidate for Kanu in 2002. Raila chose Mwai Kibaki not because he liked him but to frustrate the youngster Uhuru from ascending to the presidency. Like his dad he could not bear to see the youngster rise to power above him while he watched. Hence the “Kibaki tosha” statement that gave the presidency on a silver platter to the Kikuyu once again and this time round to one Mwai Kibaki.
  
  Back to Odinga senior; the relationship with Kenyatta was warm and cordial at first and he was even appointed Kenya’s first Vice president. However Jaramogi Oginga Odinga quickly got disillusioned and frustrated by the Kenyatta administration of thieves who never saw any prime land they did not want to grab. The Kenyatta administration was quick to identify Odinga and the Luo community as a serious threat and many lives were saved and chaos averted because of this wisdom in Kenyatta and his close advisors.
  
  Mwai Kibaki took a much longer time to realize that Raila was a threat after the initial honeymoon had ended. As late as a few months to the presidential elections of 2007 many Kibaki advisors were saying that Kenyans would never elect “an Luo Kihehe (uncircumcised)” to the presidency. This lack of foresight is what led to the chaos and blood shed that will be the Kibaki legacy long after he is gone.
  
  Kenyatta identified Tom Mboya as the man he would use to neutralize the Odinga threat. Kibaki has identified Ruto as the man to use to neutralize the Raila threat to him and his administration. Mboya won and so will Ruto.
  
  Jaramogi Oginga Odinga remained very powerful and influential amongst the Luo people but was powerless because he had been forced out of mainstream national politics. I now believe that exactly the same thing will happen with Raila. He will remain very influential in Luo Nyanza politics but will fade out of national politics.
  
  Mboya was killed and elevated to cult status as a result of his death. I believe Ruto will be removed from the scene and end up in some prison cell which will elevate him to cult status amongst the Kalenjin. It is not too dfficult to imagine the Kalenjin talking about Ruto in the same awed tones as they still talk about their military hero and leader Koitalel arap Samoei. Ironically one of Ruto’s names is Samoei. Read all about this amazing Kalenjin secrets in my earlier post. Read This one first.
  
  Away from history there are some telling pointers on the ground that point to a Raila downfall in the very near future.
  
  For starters he has made the same mistake Mwai Kibaki made in 2005 in thinking that he would still win the referendum for a new constitution he had crafted with Wako, with the big landowners of Kenya on the opposing side. Have you ever wondered why the Kenyattas, Mois etc were so firmly against the new constitution (redrafted by Wako)? It was the simple matter of what that draft had to say about land policy and a truth and reconciliation commission. In simple language passing that new constitution in 2005 would have meant that the Kenyattas Mois etc would have ended up losing their vast tracts of land (and thus wealth).
  
  If Raila sees the Mau evictions to their logical end, one of the biggest losers (apart from William Ruto himself) will be former president Daniel arap Moi and his sons. The Kenyattas are very worried because after Mau other parcels of land countrywide are sure to follow. While it is important for Kenya and Kenyans that Raila wins this gallant fight, the political reality is that he cannot. He is already a marked man. Give the powerful landowners of Kenya a few weeks and their money will have done its work and gathered enough votes in parliament to easily pass a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister. But before that the president will appoint a new leader of government business in the house and Raila will no longer have the clout in the house to reject the appointment this time.
  
  Folks ODM is dead and no matter what Steadman polls say, Raila is no longer the formidable national political figure he was in 2007. If you can’t hear what I am saying, then please try and read my lips ODM IS DEAD AND BURIED!!!Kumekucha

  
  

• K-Whatever Alliance: Will it Survive the Coming Tsunami?

  Posted: December 1, 2009, 9:54 am by Phil

  Why Matiba and Rubia Are Disgusted By Some MPs of the 10th Parliament
  
  One thing I always admired in Kenneth Matiba was his slogan kuuga na gwika. Loosely translated from his native language, this means walking the talk. Matiba, then a throughly frustrated cabinet minister in late eighties courtesy of the then KANU Organising Secretary, quit the then ruling party KANU in a huff – something that was unheard of in those days of single party dictatorship. Matiba and Charles Rubia went on to create an alliance that campaigned for repeal of section 2a of the constitution, and this eventually led to their painful detention without trial. But ultimately, Moi, then strongly supported by some leaders still at the scene today, finally caved in to the pressure that these two gallant Kenyans started and allowed multi-party democracy in Kenya. In the earlier years, when most of the current chest thumping Rift Valley MPs were still enjoying free Nyayo milk at primary school, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the late George Moseti Anyona and many others had also tried to register their own political parties but they also ended up in detention courtesy of fimbo ya Nyayo.
  
  Many other patriotic Kenyans have walked the talk or kuuga na gwika like Matiba would put it. This list cannot be complete without one Raila Odinga – who was incidentally also detained without trial for the umpteenth time - after he was joined by Matiba and Rubia to champion calls for multi-party democracy in the late eighties. Later on, Raila Odinga also quit the then leading opposition party FORD-K in 1997 to little known National Development and six months later run for president emerging 4th in an election that was rigged in favour of Moi and KANU. Kuuga na gwika!
  
  The freedom of speech that many Kenyans now enjoy is owed to the efforts of these Kenyans who at one time or another put their lives on the line to fight the Moi autocracy.
  
  The current pretenders to the throne masquerading as provincial representatives of Central, Rift Valley, Coast and Lower Eastern, pale in comparison when put on under the same microscope with the likes of Matiba, Anyona or Odinga. Charles Rubia must be exhausted at switching off TV channels and shaking his head in disgust whenever the press cameras go to a funeral in Rift Valley. The current crop of Rift Valley MPs are certainly no match for a lady who was elected as the first woman MP from Rift Valley and who was known as Chelagat Mutai. This lady was among those who dared to challenge the Kenyatta regime when the president’s word was law. We dearly miss this gallant daughter of Kenya! These current MPs have completely abused the freedom of speech that those of us who have walked the painful road of democratizing this country laboured for.
  
  Today, although the politics of Kenya has evolved from what it was in the KANU era, it is still not apparent to the Panafric Hotel party goers that politics is now issue driven. Luckily, even a village peasant in rural Kenya knows this and this is why some of them are lining up to voluntarily return irregular MAU title deeds and also register the Mau secretariat. Some rookie MPs are refusing to accept this obviously acting at the behest of their status quo benefactors.
  
  These MPs led an assembly at Panafric Hotel under the guise of raising funds as aid and humanitarian assistance to Mau Forest IDPs. But because many Kenyans do know that most of those who were at that so called future high table, including the convenor of the fund raiser, are themselves owners of huge tracts of illegally acquired land, some of which they have sold on to unsuspecting members of the public. In reality, the fundraiser was itself a total failure when looked at from a political angle. No wonder Moi is asking them to go back to KANU and take lessons on how to play premiership politics!
  
  To add insult to injury, a quick follow-up of the of the Panafric fundraiser with successive public rallies in Lugari and Kwale to drum up support for the new K-whatever alliance ended disastrously when they were totally snubbed by the locals leaders and wananchi. Clonning the ODM Pentagon is no easy task especially if you omit the well known common denominator that brings the mwananchi to his rallies and his party.
  
  Ironically during the same weekend, the Prime Minister was addressing a massive rally in Kibera's Kamukunji grounds in which he dared the land grabbers of yesteryears to quit the government if they were men enough. The prime minister was inferring to a situation where ministers unanimously adopt government policy today only to run back to funerals tomorrow to disown the same policies they helped create and adopt! Political observers also took note that the PM could be re-constituting yet another history making politburo when he declared that yet another tsunami is coming to wipe all the trash into the sea. Older Kumekucha bloggers know that in politics timing is everything and the time comes, it will be revealed here very promptly. Watch this space!
  
  Despite all the disgust, the Rt Hon PM still found time to share a drink with us patriotic citizens at the popular Birongo Square (Nairobi West) after watching the Harambee Stars versus Zambia game. It was indeed a candid sitting in which we told the PM to keep up the efforts at reclaiming our valued water tower! Clearly the PM ridding on the back of huge public support judging by the pandemonium he caused at the busy shopping center.
  
  The last one week has been a very humbling experience for the so called future leaders. The message they have received from churches, mosques, FM call-in programs, newspapers and other public forums is that they are now deemed to be promoters of impunity, betrayers of the Kenyan dream and a liability to the reform process that is already underway. In fact, the MAU land baron’s threats to introduce an ill-advised motion of no confidence against the prime minister has apparently suffered a painful still-birth after it received no support, even from the same crowd that gathered at Panafric. Suddenly, some Rift Valley MPs find themselves very lonely and very afraid. I think they will be totally shocked at what will happen to their already declared presidential candidate come 2012.
  
  When the rest of country is brainstorming the all important Harmonised Darft Constitution, it is truly sad that some sections of society want to treat us to useless KANU era theatrics. It churns one’s stomach when we see that these are the same characters who are serving as Kenya’s VPs, DPMs, and Ministers.
  
  Shindwe kabisa hiyo pepo mbaya.Kumekucha

  
  

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

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

The end of the fish cakes