Mme. Moderator.
(Hope I got it right)
I have to turn down that request.
Going through the whole employee lists of parastatals to take part in an ethnic baiting contest?
No thanks!
Plus should anyone feel discriminated against,there is always the opportunity to file a petition in court citing the constitutional 'violation' and discrimination contrary to the bill of rights.
Very good. This time you got that right. I hope it wasn't too difficult of a feat for you.
Now, have you seen the news relating to the fall out from the latest
KPA appointments? You must not have because surely if you had, you wouldn't be talking the way you are. And because of people like you and those who made those appointments;
Kenyans will do whatever it takes (within the law) to stop these sorts of outrages. And when
Kenyans get to those courts they will find that the
funk that had plagued them for years is gone. And then lets see what will happen. Hold tight, let's see which side the pendulum swings.
I assume you are familiar with what happened to Prof Maria Nzomo?
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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2011 A Kenyan Psychiatrist at 11:16 AM Finally, tribe is king in the
Kenyan public service By Lukoye Atwoli
Sunday Nation 13 November 2011 Last Wednesday, a parliamentary committee
made a decision that should have wide-
ranging repercussions across the governance
structures in this country. The parliamentary
Labour and Social Welfare Committee
reportedly rejected the nomination of Ms Winfred Lichuma to be the chair of the National
Gender and Equality Commission, and
questioned the grounds on which the selection
panel overlooked three others in making their
choice. Apparently, the panel rejected the top three
contenders on the grounds that their
nomination would skew the ethnic
composition of the commission and other
government organs, and run afoul of the
constitutional requirement for ethnic balance in state institutions. A point of concern was that their ethnicity was
determined by others, and none of them was
asked about their tribe during the interviews.
For instance, it was assumed that Prof Maria
Nzomo was Kikuyu despite having a mother
she considers to be Kikuyu and a father she considers to be Kamba. To further muddy the
waters, she is married to a person considered
to be Luhya. Another candidate, Dr Jane Dwasi, was rejected
allegedly because despite having Luhya
parentage, her father had moved to “Luoland”
and she now “prefers to be identified as a Luo”.
The selection panel allegedly decided not to
nominate her on the grounds that another of her “tribesmates” had already been appointed
to a senior post in another constitutional
commission. Serious concerns Two serious concerns emerge in this case. The
first regards the injustice of allowing others to
define an individual’s ethnicity using some
vague criteria. The examples of Prof Nzomo and Dr Dwasi
demonstrate the difficulty inherent in using a
vague social attribute to make decisions that
have a bearing on people’s lives and the
opportunities available to them. For no fault of
their own, and in spite of their obvious qualifications, they were stood over because it
was thought that their brilliance was
subordinate to the tribe they were boxed into
by some government functionary which, in any
case, turned out to be inaccurate. Ethnicity is a very complicated social construct,
and must be approached with great care. For
instance, a European student of mine was
scandalised to learn that children whose
parents hailed from different ethnic
communities were considered to belong to their father’s tribe. She felt that the only thing
the children shared with their father’s tribe was
the language. Their personalities and values
were so heavily influenced by their mother that
they should, for all intents and purposes, be
considered to share her ethnicity. The second concern is the relevance of tribe in
national decision-making. In a functioning
meritocracy, people take credit for their own
success, and accept responsibility for their
failures without excuses. In Kenya, it seems we
are moving towards a system where the fortunes of our tribesmates will determine how
far we go in securing public office. If one intends to apply for a senior post in
government, they must make sure that none of
their tribesmates apply for the same job. They
must further ensure that they find a way of
flaunting their ethnicity in a way that is obvious
to the interviewers, so that qualifications become secondary to that ethnic expression. Tribe has finally become the key qualification
for positions in the public service. Dr Lukoye Atwoli is secretary, Kenya Psychiatric
Association and lecturer, Moi University’s school
of medicine
www.lukoyeatwoli.com
has listed only one alleged kikuyu as being the CEO of Agricultural Society of Kenya
