Musalia, the alphabet and the mirror
It has been two weeks, but it must feel like two long years for one Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi. The last time I checked some of the more popular Kenyan social media sites, the invectives and cruel jokes...
View ArticleOf heartbeats, sneezes and the stars
This is the year of heartbeats, sneezes and the stars. It is the year of anxiety and uncertainty. Which means it is also the year of ecstasy – potentially. There are many moments that will quicken your...
View ArticleOf Pots, Politics and Paradox
If Ngong Road could speak, it would, as I found out the other day, speak the language of pots, politics and paradox. Here is the little story –a microcosm, and hopefully a parable of life in Kenya...
View ArticleOf Bulletproof Vests And Mindsets
I have written many times –sometimes with barely suppressed disdain, sometimes with dispassion, but always with intensity of conviction - on the topic of national leadership. I have mourned the loss of...
View ArticleThe March To March Madness
Are we on the march to madness in March? Will there be chaos and violence on March 4 and soon after the result is announced? After the chaos of the political primaries, these questions have taken on...
View ArticleCats And Dogs At Top Job Debate
Shs! Keep your voice down. Do not let the contestants know about this letter until after the presidential debate, scheduled for Monday February 11. The reflections and questions in this letter are only...
View ArticleWest's Dilemma Over Uhuru, Ruto
Now that this is going down to the wire, the country must now reckon with the prospect of a Jubilee coalition win. And in that reckoning, it is down to meanings. In his statement on Kenya’s elections,...
View ArticlePanic Scenarios After March 4
It is only one week to the historic elections. It is panic time, big time – evidently. The dial on the panic barometer is off the charts – for some. This week I had a chance to discuss the coming...
View ArticleHistory In A Parallel Universe
It is March 2018. Somewhere in a parallel universe, in a country also called Kenya, an historic election was held exactly five years ago. It was a time of great anxiety - and great promise. New leaders...
View ArticleChallenges Facing The New President
On the whole issue of elections results management, I have a strong urge right now to – as the idiom goes – ‘blow a gasket’. But before I blow my top, let me spare a kind thought to the hardworking...
View ArticleUhuru Kenyatta Swearing-In Speech
It is the day after Uhuru Kenyatta took the oath of office as the Fourth President of the Republic of Kenya. There is excited talk about what many say was a stirring inauguration address. The media is...
View ArticleRaila's Inner Dialogue
We have always known that there is a degenerate - even anarchist - streak in the Kenyan entrepreneurial character. But I must say I was floored by what my taxi driver, a chap with a sinful smile,...
View ArticleChallenges Beyond Court Ruling
By the time you read this, the Supreme Court will either have rendered (unlikely) or about to render (likely) its decision on the case challenging IEBC’s announcement of Hon Uhuru Kenyatta as the...
View ArticleICC A Foreign Dance And Domestic Bore
There is a complicated foreign tap dance that is breaking new ground in diplomatic jazz. It involves linguistic improvisation in response to an irritating question: How do you deal with two people who...
View ArticleThe Window Of Oppurtunity
It is said that human attention span - the amount of time a person can concentrate on a task without being distracted - is about 20 minutes, 40 minutes if you really stretch it. If this is true, the...
View ArticleKenya's Fly In The Soup Challenge
For 50 years, Kenya’s branding challenge has remained remarkably the same: how to diminish - to insignificance - the ugly in the beautiful. Or, to use a more graphic, if somewhat revolting metaphor,...
View ArticleWill Cabinet Meet Expectations?
"I will act swiftly to end the scourge of corruption. Corruption makes our country less attractive as an investment destination. It limits access to much needed services, stifles efficiency and eats...
View ArticleMutula Kilonzo: A Reflection On Life
In one translation of my favourite Mao Tse Tung’s poem, Ch’ang-sha, the poet observes and asks: In the waste's dreariness brooding, I ask the blue space without bonds: Who masters fate's rise and...
View ArticleMPs Greed And Citizen Apathy
It is going, going, gone... Well, almost. I am talking about the resistance against blackmail by their Excellencies, their Highnesses (or is it their altitudes), Most Honourable Members of the 11 th...
View ArticleJustice Is Blind, But Not Deaf!
The law is an ass. Justice is blind, but not deaf! Two pieces of news these past few days reminded me of these expressions. There was the back-to-back news that Kamlesh Pattni, he of the Goldenberg...
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