A very interesting post. I am particularly fascinated by the topic of devolution having worked for the CKRC in the run-up to the 2005 referendum and interacted closely with a leading expert on the issue Commissioner Mutakha Kangu. I agree fully that the issue of devolution is seen through the prism of tribe. Those in power are not keen on devolution as much as those outside it. Karl Marx observed that history repeats itself twice, the first time as a tragedy the second time as a farce. I fear that once again devolution which is geared towards fair sharing of resources will be jettisoned as it was at independence and replaced by it is our turn to eat by the few in power. This is the issue of tribalism we knew this people would not implement the constitution but we voted for them anyway. What mattered was saying to hell with 'raira' more than the future of the country.
probably this is not the best headline when one reads the contents. why do I say so?
The National and County Question or simply The National Question would have done as devolution is not only a Jubilee affair however much they may be current pretenders to the throne.
in practically every devolution experience, this contradiction haunts the process. at times, it leads to vacillations in devolution, as in Pakistan and Uganda; in others, this limits the level of devolution, as in China. while many countries, such as the United States, started with a set of states and then built a central government through a federal system, Kenya starts from a highly centralized system, then seeks to build up the local level. this form of devolution therefore relies on a contradiction because the center must willingly give up power to the local level.
and therein should lie the hypothesis question of your digital essay, if you are to permit me to critic it.
now if you equate central with what we knew as Mt. Kenya Mafia and much earlies as Kiambu Mafia then you can justify Jubilee and the National Question.
let me assume central is same as National and that the devolved units are the 47 Counties, so that we have The National and County Question. my take then would borrow heavily from the report done by World Bank and Australian government titled DEVOLUTION WITHOUT DISRUPTION Pathways to a successful new Kenya.
in it we note that in the 1990s the push for devolution started in earnest when it was clear that multiparty democracy was not yielding desired changes. The most notable were the Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATF) created through the LATF Act No 8 of 1998; the Road Maintenance Levy Fund, (RMLF) created through the Kenya Roads Act, 2007; the Rural Electrification Fund, created through the Energy Act of 2006; and, the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), created through the CDF Act of 2003. Despite these piecemeal efforts to address inequality in resource distribution, political tensions remained high and continued to fuel demands for more local autonomy.
the coalition government that came to being after the 2007 election was finally able to present a new constitutional draft, which was approved in 2010, with devolution at its core, as well as numerous checks and balances in the national government. this Constitution was approved by 67 percent of voters in a referendum, and officially promulgated on 27 August 2010. the Constitution establishes forty-seven county governments, which are based on the districts established by the Provinces and Districts Act of 1992. the guarantee of 15 percent of national revenues to be transferred to county governments on a purely unconditional basis, and the assignment of such major state functions in the areas of health and agriculture to county governments, go far beyond the historical precedent.
take for instance the Urban Areas and Cities Act. the current system of local authorities ceased to exist, and only urban areas with over 250,000 inhabitants will have corporate bodies to manage urban services. only five urban areas currently meet this threshold. in other urban areas with less than 250,000 residents, the executive responsibilities of local authorities will pass to County governments, although a town committee will be advising it. in both cases, County governments will be responsible for financing urban service delivery. effectively, the Urban Areas and Cities Act recentralizes urban service delivery for most urban areas; from local authorities to County governments. how are we to deal with such contradictions?
returning to the other possible hypothesis i.e. Jubilee and the National Question then one could start by reminding the Jubilants who were red carding the current Constitution and the watermelons that devolution featured prominently in voters’ decision to support the new Constitution, and this support will play a key role in the roll out of the county governments.
from the above one can say Governor Ruto meant Central as in Mt. Kenya/Kiambu Mafia is one government and the remaining 47 Counties are the other governments.
different interpretations of Schedule 4 of the Constitution lead to vastly different functions for County governments, with huge cost implications. while legislation will clarify some of these ambiguities, the process of devolution will show that other ambiguities remain. many officials, in this context of ambiguity, will seek to protect their authority (partly out of genuine concern for service delivery continuity and quality), and conflicts could arise in the process between these officials and others who feel that their constitutionally mandated responsibilities (and associated funding) are being denied.
for instance, the new Constitution does not directly address the problematic role of Provincial Administration vis-a-vis the new County governments, and instead, Article 17 stipulates that the national government has five years to restructure it “to accord with and respect the system of devolved government established under this Constitution.” the The National Government Co-ordination Act, 2013 cleverly (and one can add mischievously) sneaked in County Commissioners, their deputies and allows the Office of the President to add (load) more administrators to the County governments.
County governments lack a clear interest group which may represent them vis-a-vis other competing interests. in most decentralization processes, the decentralization process is to a local government that has been functioning previously; as such, the local governments have an established political and administrative leadership, who is eager to receive resources and responsibilities. Kenya is a quite unique case, in that there are few local actors who represent such a direct local interest. herein lies the exclamation of Governor Ruto that PS Karega was lording over them yet he is a tool of the National executive. if one stretches Central to mean Mt. Kenya/Kiambu Mafia then PS Karega represents the 48th Central government after the 47 County governments.
the political elite actually exploit the fact of Kenyan different ethnic identities to forward their political agendas and hence Governor Ruto can easily continue from where RAO left with the 41 against 1 in 2007.
it would be nice to know which hypothesis you intend so that ambiguity is reduced in this times of double speak.
taking The National and County Question or simply The National Question then the clear goal we can discuss is Equity which is a core objective of the new Constitution and devolution is seen as the main vehicle to achieve equalization.
however when you have Jubilee and the National Question clearly Equity is not important as Capital requires a pool or reserve of cheap labor. equalization cannot be its aim as it is the very antithesis of capital.
when clearer it would be easier to know where to aim at and build on or demolish, but ....
Post by Onyango Oloo on Apr 4, 2013 20:40:47 GMT 3
Mugabe and PODP:
Thank you very much for your interventions.
I very much enjoyed reading them.
On the issue of the title of the essay, this is what I have to say:
Jubilee is effectively the coalition in power.
Yes, we have one government with two levels-the national and the county ones.
But on both counts, Jubilee is dominant: they won the Presidency; they dominate the National Assembly and the Senate and have secured control of many County governments.
The March 4 elections were supposed to usher in a new constitutional dispensation.
Jubilee is saddled with the political, historical, administrative and bureaucratic task of implementing not just the structures, but imbue these with the spirit of the 2010 Constitution.
Will they be up to the task, is one of the questions I am posing in the essay.
As regards the terms " National Question", Marxists use it in a peculiarly unique ideological way as I have endeavoured to put across in my piece using historical examples. Many of the issues grouped under devolution touch on the National Question.
If I were to explain myself further, I would be on my way to completing another digital.
And I do not think that is prudent.
One of my friends likes to say that IF you have to "explain" why a particular joke is "funny" then it has already failed to meet and pass the "laugh" test. Onyango Oloo
Last Edit: Apr 4, 2013 23:22:39 GMT 3 by Onyango Oloo
Yes we have one government with two levels-the national and the county ones.
But on both counts, Jubilee is dominant: they won the Presidency; they dominate the National Assembly and the Senate and have secured control of many County governments.
The March 4 elections were supposed to usher in a new constitutional dispensation.
Jubilee is saddled with the political, historical, administrative and bureaucratic task of implementing not just the structures, but imbue them with the spirit of the 2010 Constitution. Will they be up to the task, is one of the questions I am posing in the essay.
Onyango Oloo
from your elaboration the hypothesis is....
The first steps by the Jubilee Coalition in their quest to assume power have confirmed our worst fears, that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are two politicians who lack nationalism and are out to build a government of two communities.
the Economic Report for Africa 2013, with the theme Making the Most of Africa’s Commodities: Industrializing for Growth, Jobs and Economic Transformation is the best starting point on the above 1st red high lights
key challenge, for Kenya and indeed Africa is how we can pursue more effective policies to accelerate and sustain high growth and make that growth more inclusive and equitable. African countries must use this global interest as springboard to achieving broad structural transformation based on the needs and priorities of Africans.
in East Africa, growth slipped to 5.6 per cent in 2012 from 6.3 per cent in 2011, although most countries performed well in 2012, marking a recovery in agriculture, vibrant domestic demand and expansion in services. Kenya’s growth rose to 4.8 per cent in 2012 from 4.4 per cent, aided by robust domestic demand, strong services, increased government expenditure and sound monetary policies.
so, how can Kenya in particular and Africa in general avoid marginalizing itself from the world economy and achieve inclusive economic growth? one can, argues that one answer lies in effective industrial policies and commodity-based industrialization, strengthening industrial linkages to the commodity sector.
beyond improving its trade and finance, Kenya in particular and Africa in general needs to provide job opportunities to a large and growing young population. these should be decent jobs, which it can achieve by enhancing productivity and competitiveness, strengthening domestic demand, diversifying into higher value added tradable goods and services, strengthening social capabilities, reforming labour market institutions and transforming social protection.
both national and county governments will succeed by having industrial policies designed for unskilled labour–intensive sectors, such as light manufacturing, what we call jua kali. this is supported by arguments that resource-processing industries are generally capital or skills intensive, or both. it has been estimated that manufacturing industries employ on average 26 per cent more labour per unit of output than resource-based manufacturing. resource processing would therefore require two factors of production fairly scarce in most county governments—capital and skilled labour. this would be a great opportunity to cash on national government set up public universities and accompanying diploma and certificate colleges.
for example in 2010, the world’s largest exporter of tea was Kenya, which ranked third in global tea production (10 per cent). it remains confined to exporting bulk tea and adds little value through, for example, packaging, blending, manufacturing ready-to-drink beverages or niche marketing, unlike Sri Lanka we can learn from India and hence have county and national government doing what India did. after independence, India extended its control over tea production and marketing by relocating tea auction centres to the country and partly shifting plantation ownership to Indian companies. Tata Tea started as a joint venture with a British plantation, but was later under total control of the Tata Group. after investing in tea production, the company soon moved into packaging and instant tea manufacturing. Tata consolidated its presence in the domestic market and exported to ex-communist countries and regional markets, as well as expanding production into Sri Lanka.
for the 2nd red high light
the Transition Authority (TA) chairman, one Wamwangi is a walking disaster in waiting. the TA has been established under the Transition to Devolved Government (TTDG) Act, to facilitate and coordinate the transition. to do this effectively, the TA needs to be properly resourced to carry out its functions. funds need to be provided immediately for them to set up internal operations, including staff and infrastructure. staff will be needed at the national level as well as in the counties, where tasks such as taking stock of assets and liabilities will be intensive. the Transition Authority will also need power and authority to compel national ministries to follow its directives with regards to function assignment. but the one man show of Wamwangi does dot reflect the above. the fact that TA Chairman could issue a directive and the Government spokesman rubbishes it shows you where power is
TA's window of opportunity for a thorough and transparent function assignment process to start closed; the added constraint being that Parliament will be dissolved 60 days before the elections. given the short time frame, and in order to be effective, the TA should use the resources and work through institutions such as the Commission for Revenue Allocation, Kenya Institute of for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) and the now dissolved Task Force on Devolved Government (TFDG), but from what hears and sees the TA chairman is a one man show not ready to trust anyone from outside Gema communities.
Kenya’s devolution follows international practice when it comes to the intergovernmental division of responsibilities. the functions assigned to the national level relate mainly to policy and standard setting, and the provision of public goods such as national security and macroeconomic policy. on the other hand, county level functions are mainly focused on policy implementation and local service delivery such as primary health care, urban service delivery, trade licensing and crop husbandry.
what happens when misunderstandings occur as we witnessed PORK talking of unitary government while Governor Ruto sees 48 governments, with central being one and 47 counties being the other? one way to resolve these outstanding questions is through a well-structured, inclusive process of assigning functions according to a common set of principles. a process of clarifying function assignments has two dimensions: (i) the analytical process of unbundling functions to their constituent components (activities); and, (ii) the principles or criteria that guide decisions about where to allocate activities when the Constitution is not clear about which level of government is responsible.
the consultative process through which these decisions are made is also important hence it is not helping when central government guys (Ag Githu tries to rephrase PORKS statement; Wamwangi rushes to Githae to have Treasury release funds to the Governors; Cheserem of CRA protests that county governments should have been allocated 30 billion and not the 9 billion PS Kinyua has released).
devolution will succeed or fail through service delivery. international best practice shows that successful devolution requires a framework outlining a well defined and consultative process for formulating and defining functions. if how outgoing PORK addressed the Governors yesterday is the way the ICC indicted PORK will address them your guess is as good as mine as concerns how devolution will succeed or fail through service delivery.
the Transition Authority will also need power and authority to compel national ministries to follow its directives with regards to function assignment. although the TTDG Act section 8(1) indicates that the TA will have “all powers necessary for the proper performance of its functions”, this does not necessarily give it the teeth it needs.
from what we have seen so far is Wamwangi the one man show and chairman of TA able to bite?
You have deepened the discussion to another dimension.
I think all of us would truly profit by reading and re-reading your nuggets of wisdom above.
Very much appreciated.
Onyango Oloo
I will leave Podp for the moment. I asked a friend of mine for a second reading. Unfortunately his head spun off the rails too, so looks like I will stop my habitual weekend binge spree, that with clear head I nib at Podp's nuggets to reasonable metabolic results of the mind.
But on an earlier note: Understanding the historical evolution of the Kenyan state into a centralised monster remains a key clue to her destiny. At one time the KANU state even banned by law, the gathering of 5 or more people in the republic, while the average family dinner was statistically an 8 seater. This was a pathological level of central control, an obsession that needed a clear political explanation.
There was thus need for total control of the population, to control their minds to have only sanctioned thoughts, and the rulers were fomenting in pathological paranoia, in which they were forced to criminalise normal family life!
Yes indeed, sedition would be the talk on the family table!
So why all these?
A government, essentially being the custodian of an economic order, these kind of repression is what the ideological mandarins thought necessary to ensure the continuity of the economic order they practiced. And truly they were bankrupt of ideas.
But what economic order was that forcing them into this madness? Primitive accumulation. Capitalist primitive accumulation I would say. For the select breed in control of the state, and those orbiting in their constellation.
I thus see Devolution as an attempt to deconstruct this trend. To diffuse the tensions antagonisms that would lead to the explosion of the centralised, monopolist monster. Devolution is essentially a safety valve. It buys time.
That does not necessarily mean with the people as beneficiaries. It could simply mean the intra-class warfare within the comprador bourgeoisie, often pitting factions of tribal coalitions in desperate formations, continues by other means in other settings, but the class perpetuates itself. Having gained a new lease of life by decentralising the tensions.
That is devolution as a gimmick to hoodwink those expropriated without relief, those lower ranks without the possibility of a class upgrade [--the opportunity to be upward mobile and join the nyapara looting class].
There is therefore, I think a double bottom to the current contradiction between the county governors and the central state. 1. The inter-class war-fare we have talked about, and which Oloo highlighted in his digital. 2.The dynamic of democratisation to include hitherto marginalised sectors.
In number 2, democratisation is not so much defined as freedom in the sense of voting, but more in the sense of a chance to set priorities in ones locality, and oversee them. The people taking their fate into own hands as it were. This, of course is a possibility where the whole petit bourgeoisie class will instinctively gang against, until a third force emerges, and forces them to acknowledge it as a way out of the class stalemate and national impasse.
The national impasse which already has seen the dilution of the promulgated constitution by treacherous bills agreed by the GCG cabinet; the impasse which has already seen the Supreme court become part of the fray and no longer aloft as a credible arbiter to all sides; the impasse which reveals that even a body like the IEBC charged with elections, is inadequate as an organisational form given the contradictions of the country: a raft as an organisational institute to sail a dam, is okay, but to sail the high seas, it is inadequate and doomed. ---Isack and his IEBC cohorts are crew of a raft atop the angry and turbulent politics of Kenya, trying to tame the storms by witchcraft! Lost before they left the shore.
I consider the dysfunctional relationship between Raila and Kibaki in the GCG too, as a symptom emanating from the inadequacy of the apparatus forged to navigate the radical situation. The radical situation of violent political conflict, issuing from real grievance on the ground. The GCG as an instrument of resolution, a hopelessly weak response.
It is with this --thesis of inadequate institutional structures and organisationaly inferior coping mechanisms-- that leads me to think of the Uhuruto union as inherently unstable.
As Oloo now points out, they have lurched into their first crisis. I ask What conflict resolution modality will they unveil?
That will be the eye opener. Of their ideological caliber.
Kibaki can afford impunity: nonsense and pumbavu, he dismisses the dissenters. But he is going home, and wont be dealing with the real fall-outs. With Raila waiting for a chance to be mischievous to boot.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
A government, essentially being the custodian of an economic order, these kind of repression is what the ideological mandarins thought necessary to ensure the continuity of the economic order they practiced. And truly they were bankrupt of ideas.
But what economic order was that forcing them into this madness? Primitive accumulation. Capitalist primitive accumulation I would say. For the select breed in control of the state, and those orbiting in their constellation.
I thus see Devolution as an attempt to deconstruct this trend. To diffuse the tensions antagonisms that would lead to the explosion of the centralised, monopolist monster. Devolution is essentially a safety valve. It buys time.
That does not necessarily mean with the people as beneficiaries. It could simply mean the intra-class warfare within the comprador bourgeoisie, often pitting factions of tribal coalitions in desperate formations, continues by other means in other settings, but the class perpetuates itself. Having gained a new lease of life by decentralising the tensions.
That is devolution as a gimmick to hoodwink those expropriated without relief, those lower ranks without the possibility of a class upgrade
[/i] [--the opportunity to be upward mobile and join the nyapara looting class].
There is therefore, I think a double bottom to the current contradiction between the county governors and the central state. 1. The inter-class war-fare we have talked about, and which Oloo highlighted in his digital. 2.The dynamic of democratisation to include hitherto marginalised sectors.
I consider the dysfunctional relationship between Raila and Kibaki in the GCG too, as a symptom emanating from the inadequacy of the apparatus forged to navigate the radical situation. The radical situation of violent political conflict, issuing from real grievance on the ground. The GCG as an instrument of resolution, a hopelessly weak response. [/quote]
it's a strategic mistake to flatten the politics of all other actors into a single exploitative neoliberalism, that, at most 'talks left, walks right' as we have seen with our ‘reformers ‘(RAO-Ka Loser axis).
let me use Patrick Bond, known in radical circles as a political economist, and has written "Looting Africa" to summarize how global capital and its comprador elites within Africa have systematically plundered and ruined the continent before and after independence. in Looting Africa, Patrick Bond basically updates Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
unlike Rodney’s ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, Bond’s ‘Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation ‘ in a nutshell says capitalism in most African countries has witnessed the emergence of excessively powerful ruling elites with incomes derived from financial-parasitical accumulation. initially it appears Rodney and Bond shows how the EU loots Africa. the European Commission admitted that 70% of the EU's aid-for-trade programme was `support for the private sector'. the EU imposes trade liberalization and privatization, stripping Africa of what little industry it has. trade liberalization has cost sub-Saharan Africa $272 billion since 1986, because local producers now sell less than they did before trade was liberalized.
in 2005, the G8 wrote off about 1% of Third world debt, $40 billion. third world debt, $580 billion in 1980, had soared to $2.4 trillion in 2002. since 1980, the Third World's working classes have paid $4.6 trillion - the equivalent of 50 Marshall Plans - to the First World's capitalists.
Bond is somewhat vacillating and vague about possible solutions though, fixing some hope on radical NGOs and World Social Forums, but without explaining anything much in detail. it is also a pity that immigration from Africa to elsewhere, in particular Europe, is not addressed in the book.
labor migration is a key resource loss. 20,000 skilled workers leave Africa every year. Bond shows that the remittances sent home do not compensate for the loss of the skilled labor. yet he then writes, "The progressive position on migration has always been to maintain support for the `globalization of people' (while opposing the `globalization of capital') and in the process to oppose border controls and arduous immigration restrictions." this position is self-contradictory, both supporting and opposing `globalization', i.e. capitalism. further, the evidence shows that unlimited migration weakens the working classes in the countries that lose the skilled labor and in the countries that receive it. combine this with the massive theft of African production by local dictators and foreign multinationals, the extreme monoculture production of many African nations, and the unfair trade practices in agriculture on the part of Western nations (in particular the EU), and you have a recipe for disaster. China's recent involvement in Africa is portrayed no more sympathetically. China cuts deals with exploitative rulers and uses Chinese workers on projects like oil refineries. Bond also emphasizes the collaboration of African elites in the neoliberal plunder--South Africa economically exploits its neighbors, while NEPAD locks Africa into neoliberalism.
what is Bond's solution? he approvingly cites a vast array of NGOs, charities, campaigns, initiatives, solidarity groups, web resources, networks, forums and projects - which are splinter groups of activists, all single-issue, all tunnel-vision. these are a mirror image of the ruling class's institutions - IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, G8 Summits and World Summits (18 between 2001 and 2005). the ultra-left, like the ruling class, focuses on internationalism, turning away from the hard work of developing class struggles for national sovereignty and progress.
so one of the reasons we need to stop looking at RAO and ilk for a way out is because
‘The Left in Kenya no longer opposes the neo-colonial state, it is part of the neo-colonial state; the Kenyan Left does not fight imperialism and exploitation of poor nations, it is part of the comprador and works to facilitate that exploitation; the Kenyan Left no longer questions neo-liberalism and what traditional Leftists would regard as the instruments of international subjugation such as the IMF, WTO, the World Bank, the ICC and so on, they are instruments of these institutions; the Kenyan Left is not fighting to lead the people to freedom but rather deeper into the dark embrace of imperial slavery; the Kenyan Left has new heroes and they are not Mao Tse-tung or Thomas Sankara, it is Johnnie Carson, or the French ambassador or the British and Dutch ambassador and Western journalists with more prejudice than genuine understanding of Africa.
The Left has learnt all the bad manners of the old establishment: Primitive accumulation, electoral dishonesty, nepotism and moral ambivalence, intellectual debauchery and brutality. The Left didn’t just lose an election; it lost its reason to exist.’
so back to the topic Jubilee and the National Question. how does one reconcile one's future with ICC indicted PORK to be and his deputy PORK also an indictee? please do not take us back to RAO as at most 'talks left, walks right'
REFERENDUM: WILLIAM RUTO WORKS SOME MAGIC, BUT THERE IS ANOTHER RUTTO
First, a disclaimer: I am not entirely sure this post passes in this thread, but i reckon here is where the CLEAVAGES between the national and the regional as it would tend to plague in Chupilee with respect to financial devolution was first hinted at. So I will shoot.
Jubilee's Uhuruto was visibly shaken when their own horde of governors came up with a referendum idea of their own, and a national momentum gathered to unite it with other one of CORD championed by the bogeyman Raila Odinga, to which the likes of Peter Kenneth and Martha Karua had hooked rides.
In panic, it was amazing to see the desperate empty-headedness of the Jubilee think-tanks in action. One of the loony ideas they came up with to neutralise Raila was to insert a would-be specific RAILA AGE-CAP CLAUSE. And it was publicly announced too --yawa! It eventually sunk into the minds of even the sheepy-est of these sleeping creeps we call Mpigs, that a referendum wholly bent toward BLOCKING RAILA was as good as a public admission that the elections were rigged in 2013 too to block a Raila presidency. And this was a quixotic toying with a political bomb not yet wholly diffused in the national psyche.
Jubilee strategists had to go back to their boardrooms. And do more expensive thinking than drinking. Obviously their Governors had to be persuaded to abandon the referendum bandwagon. His Royal Highness the Muthamaki himself was hauled out. And when you use your biggest gun to persuade your own troops, you are problems, some will recognise.
''O your Highness, the Tyrant of Numbers, we have a problem sir!'' pleaded the Luo :Dpin-up boy Onyango Oloo. He is brainy alright, but his historical role sometimes makes him more of a toy: a deer tolerated in a cannibal's den. A series of know-your-place meetings were quickly arranged.
The push by county chiefs for a referendum was dealt a blow after governors allied to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) announced they had abandoned the mission. Succumbing to pressure from the President, seven TNA governors opted out of the push to amend the Constitution through a referendum vote and instead said they would seek alternative ways to have their demands addressed.
The ruling party’s governors appeared to have cowed under pressure from the Jubilee leadership, which has vowed to block the referendum claiming the county chiefs were only players in a game whose master is CORD leader Raila Odinga.
Succumbing to pressure from President. Thinking of the President as a powerful man …. and keeper of their fortunes … Some were quick on the take, others had reluctant souls. More about that later.
Jubilee plots to cripple governors' Pesa Mashinani referendum
By ROSELYNE OBALA Updated Friday, August 22nd 2014 at 23:01 GMT +3 0 inShare
NAIROBI, KENYA: The Jubilee coalition was Friday lobbying MCAs ahead of their summit in Nairobi today in the latest effort to scuttle a referendum push by governors. This came barely two days after prevailing upon 18 of the county bosses to opt out. Politicians who spoke to The Standard on Saturday said Jubilee had tasked four key leaders to lobby the MCAs, who are seen as key in determining whether the push goes ahead or falters. Under the County Assemblies Forum (CAF), about 2,200 MCAs from across the country and the 47 county speakers will attend the summit at the Bomas of Kenya to take a common position on the matter. Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/pulse/article/2000132383/jubilee-plots-to-cripple-governors-referendum
But in the beginning, not everybody in Jubilee was on board the drop the referendum chorus. This obvious TNA/URP split was too glaring a canyon. It could not be let exist. William Ruto with characteristic vigour, did his all behind the scenes to have the URP fellas suck up to TNA. And the results are evident, most of the URP governors are now reluctantly denouncing the referendum. The chairman of the caucus of governors, Isaac Rutto, a URP heavyweight who is behind the referendum, looks isolated now in the internal politics of the said party and region. But may be his safety valve is that he is a man on the ground, and the grassroots may be singing a different tune from the one dictated from far-off Nairobi with her court intrigues.
More Jubilee-allied governors, this time from URP, have abandoned the quest for the referendum apparently bowing to pressure from the ruling coalition. Seven United Republican Party (URP) county chiefs accompanied by their Kanu, New Ford Kenya and PDP colleagues reportedly met Deputy President William Ruto on Wednesday evening. The Standard has established that governors Ali Roba (Mandera), Jackson Mandago (Uasin gishu), Alex Tolgos (Elgeyo/Marakwet), Benjamin Cheboi (Baringo), Moses Lenolkulal (Samburu), Ken Lusaka (Bungoma), Okoth Obado (Migori), Samuel Tunai (Narok) and Simon Kitalei (West Pokot) resolved to bolt out of the referendum crusade after the meeting with Ruto in Karen. Their decision came hours after nine governors allied to President Uhuru Kenyatta's The National Alliance party (TNA) publicly declared they were withdrawing from the push for a plebiscite. Asked whether he supported the campaigns for a referendum, Tunai replied: "I haven't been party to the referendum push. I don't support the referendum bid."
A Ruto versus Rutto it becomes, unless the one with two Ts throws in the towel too!
More governors reject push for referendum By ROSELYNE OBALA Updated Thursday, August 21st 2014 at 22:00 GMT +3 0 inShare
"We are not going to give others political mileage. Ours was issue-based but as things stand at the national level, it is not proper. Our agenda is not a political cause for political party groupings. We have to look at the bigger picture, we cannot have two referendum," he said.
He urged his colleagues to abandon the referendum crusade. Mr Lusaka argued that there is total confusion in regards to the push for a national vote to change the Constitution, drifting away from the devolution issues raised. "We are losing focus. The referendum timing is not right. It is my personal conviction that we bolt out of the exercise," he said. Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/pulse/article/2000132223/more-governors-reject-push-for-referendum?pageNo=2
continued shortly.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
First we had the NDP [new democratic party] candidate Kiare Kamere abdicating from the Gatundu south constituency race. He, Kamere, did not want to embarrass the President who comes from this constituency.
As far excuses go in political practice, this is one of the lowest points. There is always the other honourable side too, which can be summarised like this: let the people O_odecide. Between denying the people of that constituency their right to choice, and embarrassing the president, the healthier alternative is self-explanatory. –-Self explanatory, if you are engaged in a rational environment, where they do not rig elections for instance. Kenyan politics may not be the place to search for such a head-using option. We are a young nation, of tender structures, like weak heads may be.
The problem now for Uhuru Kenyatta, is that this ''embarassment'' could be interpreted as having been the inevitable defeat of the TNA candidate, the hate-monger Kamau Kuria. Without this act of ''induced'' magnanimity from Kamere, Uhuru's party would loose his former seat in his birth turf. (May be as a fall-out from the ODM-like nomination process.)
So, what were the terms of the abdication? The buy-off premium that saved the prezzo's face? Strong arm tactics? Guaranteed chicanery like we already saw at the TNA nominational phase? We will get to know in due course ... like the other time on how the Mpig who sponsored the motion to impeach Anne Waiguru dissappeared (to South Africa?) on the eve of moving the vote! --Genya!
Meanwhile we can muse the tyranny of numbers is that tenuous even closer to home. It remains a dangerous premise to base any solid policy. It needs an invisible hand behind the scenes to prop it up.
AND THAT INVISIBLE HAND has been kept busy, you know, like a fire brigade in a burning city. Like in the rush to quit the referendum horse.
He adds, “He was isolated at home and he read the writing on the wall. He will now have a lot of goodwill to pursue development of Nyeri.” Kega together with six colleagues in Nyeri - five also in the TNA, and a Narc member– had threatened to make things difficult for Gachagua for taking a prominent position in the Pesa Mashinani campaign. Gachagua was perceived as a Jubilee governors who had dangerously bared his neck on the issue.
Threatened to make life difficult? We call that intimidation, leading to a mind change under duress. It is the kind of thing that makes a sworn statement be invalid in court. But to call a spade a spade that you have to think a bit about what you see! Performing those two tasks is not easy, so let us go with the official version of events. Mellowed like your lover in your willing arms, highly agreeable to the next course of events, our respective governors during this meeting.
Kenya: The National Alliance ( TNA) Governors mellowed and agreed to withdraw from the Pesa Mashinani referendum push following talks with top party officials and Members of Parliament. MPs, who attended the meeting at Weston Hotel, said the governors acknowledged it would be needless to pursue the referendum, if the MPs could help push their agenda for more resources from the national government through legislation. Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000132453/why-tna-governors-abandoned-push-for-national-referendum
Tetu Mpig Ndung'u Gethenji is tired of sideshows. He serves the truth cold: 'they had dropped the push since they had to be in line with the party leader President Uhuru Kenyatta,” Kabogo of Kiambu needs a sugar coat. He searched souls first. Take a look.
Most vocal
According to insiders in the TNA meeting, Kabogo was the most vocal of the governor’s in the attendance, but he also appeared ::)apologetic for hooking up with the Pesa Mashinani crusade.
“He talked of having souls searched and decided to quit. He also disowned the governor’s council saying he had been elected in the Pesa Mashinani steering committee while in absentia,” said an MP who did not wish to be named. Tetu MP Ndung’u Gethenji, like Leshoomo said nobody compelled the governors to drop their push. “They attended the meeting as party members, and announced they had dropped the push since they had to be in line with the party leader President Uhuru Kenyatta,” said Gethenji.
That is my man, Kabogo. My soul too occasionally gets lost –looking too long at the curves of other peoples wives for instance, before a search of souls brings me home, like the dog on a leash I am. Since I wear that ring of bondage, which demands fidelity.
Some will know how much of a struggle it is keeping such vows of loyalty. Kabogo of Kiambu is not alone. But he should be ware to be a doubting Thomas in a Muthamaki court even if the heart can be acknowledgebabley, humanly weak.
At the launch of their steering committee in Nairobi last week, Gachagua took a prominent role making the keynote remarks which prompted an immediate condemnation by the seven Nyeri MPs aligned to the Jubilee coalition.
No autonomy of souls in power games. His earlier voracious dalliance with the referendum movement led to panic in his home party. The result was that we had a flurry of panicky activities behind the scenes, to have ALL the Jubilee affiliated governors boycott the referendum. There was already the ugly risk earlier, when the first boycott wave counted only TNA governors, meaning URP fellas were still on the referendum. Thanx to the Samoei, that now appears sorted.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
Post by jakaswanga on Sept 24, 2014 23:05:47 GMT 3
EVERYBODY AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION
In my opinion, all these wears and tears we are witnessing on the surface as intra-, extra-, and interparty bickering, can be filed under the national question, as in the forensic digital by Onyango Oloo. But it is not just jubilee wrestling with the national question, it is a general crisis of politics Kenya.
A similar incident occurred in Makueni county on Tuesday where Governor Kivutha Kibwana’s chief of staff, his bodyguard and county sergeant at Arms were among five people shot following a melee within the Makueni county assembly chamber. The council condemned the incidents saying that the chief of staff are the mainstay and driving engine of the referendum push by governors. “ Any attack on a chief of staff is an attack on the governor.” the council stated. - See more at: www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-191129/we-will-not-be-cowed-violence-governors#sthash.F5RoGZgk.dpuf
Here is an example of an ugly ripple from Nandi county, the heartland of the Deputy President's URP.
The party also asked URP, a partner in the ruling Jubilee Coalition, to apologise to Kenyans over Monday’s attack on a Nandi County official when rival groups clashed during a campaign for the referendum. Nandi County chief of staff Simon Kosgey was admitted to hospital with head injuries after the confrontation between supporters of Governor Cleophas Langat and a group opposed to the referendum to determine whether more money from the national Budget should be allocated to counties.
There is strife within URP at home; and there is in Nakuru a concerted attempt by the governor Mbugua to ban the other referendum. There are two referenda in the offing actually. One under the organisation of the opposition party CORD, the other, dubbed pesa mashinani, is being pushed by the caucus of governors. But there is not consensus within any group. Even in the President's TNA, the silence is an uneasy calm.
To do away with the divisive tyranny of numbers and its potential to institutionalise politics of grievances in our political culture, I want to propose that we go the Mexican way. Our presidents will be elected to serve for a fixed term of six years non-renewable. Kenya will also be divided into eight presidential electoral regions along the lines of the former provinces. No presidential electoral region shall succeed itself in electing a president
We could say this is Anyang' Nyong'o on the national question, sub topic state office of the presidency.
I think the underlying assumption of Nyong'o here, is the maintenance of the presidency as a powerful instrument of patronage, a bastion of accumulation. That is, patron at whose auspices massive graft is indulged and largesse dispensed to the advantage of his constituency [eg ethnic coterie], coalitional hangers-on and sycophants. Rotation then would strive to solve the fierce competition which can be summarised as the mentality of ''it is our turn to eat''. (This being the overriding voter motivation, aka ethnicism).
The protocol of rotation then strives to make sure everybody () gets his turn at looting the treasury. But before the pre-programmed wheel of fortune stops by, your region maintains a discipline quiet in the queue.
I find this an amusing proposition. Nyong'o says his take is the Mexican one he saw during the long one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party of Mexico.
Personally I would rather a total demystification of the presidency. A stripping. That is the reduction of its influence, cutting it down to size. This means a proliferation of independent merit institutions which out rule presidential appointments –-patronage, clientelism and rewarding of cronies. Some will remember the days when Universities were headed by a Vice Chancellor, why? Because the title chancellor was reserved for the President of the republic! (that is simply for the mystique, to inflate the rating of the office of President. Modernity would dictate the presidency have no business whatsoever being the chancellor! –-what for in god's fwaking name!
Oops! Our universities are still headed on the spot by VICE chancellors! –-children of daddy Prezzo!) And think about the title His Excellency. Does it not ring a joke, calling any African Mpig honourable, and president excellent. (Take a look at how their excellencies are handling the Ebola crisis in West Africa!) AN OLD TALE, LIKE OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES.
This business now called Mashinani versus the central government –-as an aspect of devolution, is an echo of Majimboism. The same fundamental contradiction re-appearing in a new guise. But cut through the facial mask, reveal the old harlot.
Arap Moi, if I remember correctly, was not always KANU. He started off as KADU. And what was KADU ideology? One myth was, it was a colonial orchestration to throw a spanner in the wheels of the popular KANU. Her psychological constituency was the paranoia of the smaller tribes, that unless they banded together and sought a looser, much more federal Kenya, the bigger tribes would swamp them and, forever, they would be under the Gikuyu-Luo axis of hegemony. The Scottish governor scaremongered people like Ronald Ngala with a prospective voucher of the presidency of Kenya for the next half a century. It went: Kenyatta, 10 yrs. Odinga, 10 yrs. Kiano, 10 years Mboya, 10 yrs Mboya hands over to another Kikuyu, the Kikuyu runs his decade and passes the button back to a Luo! AD-INFINITUM!
Totally awful nonsense of course, but in 1963 KANU was a bastion of Gikuyu and Luo super political talents. It made some lesser ethnic groups very nervous. But wonder of wonder, it would be KANU which would get most nervous eventually, and gun for the ONE PARTY STATE. In a flash of insight, it became clear to the new power constellation within KANU, that if the multi-party system endured, next election Majimboism would win.
My father when I engaged him as I often did, told me what he remembered. It was a quote from a man named Wasonga Sijeyo from the Gem of Siaya. The drive toward one-partysm looked stupid to Sijeyo. He said in dholuo: ''Koro iriwo ondiegi gi rombe e abila achiel. Donge biro hadhre ndi! to ot olor kuma ji ditonyie onge. Gini biro thung'o ng'uechji kaka od ang'ech! Thoo, Ooyo!!'' –--Hyenas and sheep are all being herded into one pen/kraal. Predators will run amok in an enclosure without an escape route. This thing will suffocate us, like jails do! Nay, away with it!''
That was Sijeyo's visionary denunciation of the drive toward the UNITY of the one-party state in 1963 or so. So when hardly two years later Jaramogi had had enough of the joint kraal of predators and prey and was launching KPU, Sijeyo would be one of the first out, though he would annoy Jaramogi tremendously with a sneer. ''ndalo ma ne ikwerou ni Kenya ohewo chama achiel, to loch-nanga mar Jalup Rais nodino wiu. Tinde oteng' lwetu mogo, ng'wech uduogo e multiparty kendo -Jowa!'' –--''When you were being told one party is too narrow for Kenya, the fat oil of the vice presidency soiled your vision. Now you lost the butter on the bread, you are back to multiparty! –-World of little wonders!''
Okay, when people like Nyong'o were negotiating entry into the GCG, they would not listen to the refuseniks to APPOINTMENTS. Now they have lost fat, they want rotations. Though actually the once muted idea that a Kikuyu could not replace Kibaki, had embedded within it, the notion of rotational presidency, albeit limited.
NB: Apart from Nyong'os example of Mexico, I remember Yugoslavia too, after Tito, adopted a rotational presidency. This to neutralise the permanent majority of the Serbo-Croats. The others like Slovenes, Albanians (Kosovorians), Montenigros, and Bosnian Muslims, were permanently in fear of eternal domination by the big brothers. These tensions, mismanaged by incompetent upstarts, tore the union to bits. A good lesson for those who want to learn.
Nyong'o's message is therefore more of a symptom than a solution. A symptom that the presidency –-even under the new constitution, has not been ripped of its mystique, is still mythical and holding sway with impunity over the electorate. The old imperial presidency is proving more resilient that was thought. Perhaps the resiliency, like Bonapartism, is based on objective material conditions –-like the level of social differentiations due to labour activity still being relatively primitive!?
The state of the art constitution was a statement of intent for Kenya. A dream for later. Like the constitution of the young USA stated all men are born equal before the law and God, but it would be a slave-holding society for the next 200 years. No, nothing wrong with the constitution, just that it is far ahead of its time.
May be one or two fierce civil wars to go before it is taken seriously! Or some hot rod to set Kenya on a turbo dash forwards, a short-cut formula.
No easy options.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
When Onyango Oloo wrote this, I am proud to remember I told myself that is a story to tab. And tab I did. I could not find a tabloid angle, and that scared me. Worse was that Mwai Kibaki was being obviously stupid. I have a habit of scaring when obviously clever men become obviously stupid in public, and I couldn't find any evidence Kibaki was drunk when he disparaged
What we are witnessing is pure nonsense with those obsessed with power in the newly created structures in the constitution.
Kibaki then went on to declare Kenya a UNITARY STATE, devolution mavi ya kuku! (The IMF-dictated financial bill which confined Governors to mere appendages of the Super Devolution Ministry then cemented that ahistoric arrogance)
Onyango Oloo went for it.
Thursday, April 04, 2013 Jubilee and the National Question in Kenya
A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo
Even before it has been sworn in to formally assume office, the incoming Jubilee regime has lurched into its first crisis.
Press reports over the last few days detail a clash between the County Governors and the mandarins from Harambee Avenue.
On the face of it, the tensions are around releasing funds to the 47 counties to jump start operations for the new devolved units of administration and power.
Amazingly, some blinkered supporters of Uhuruto have, in their outbursts online, blithely reduced the governors complaints to quibbling and carping over the privilege of flying flags in their limousines.
This attempt to trivialize such a key issue is a worrying and warning sign of things to come, especially as these sentiments were echoed by none other than the outgoing president Mwai Kibaki himself when he was in Naivasha:
Now we have MASHINANANI DEVELOPMENT PARTY OF KENYA, SPEARHEADED BY NON OTHER THAN ISAAC RUTTO. ---The other Rutto who was the first chair of the caucus of governors.
There is of course also Mandeleo ChapChap too headed by Alfred Mutua. Mutua is a chameleon, but he was caught in a rare moment of clarity as Oloo quoted in this piece.
The government froze accounts of municipalities and other council accounts yet they have not sent the money to us. He said the county interim officials were supposed to work until the governors were sworn in but they were still carrying out their duties a week later. We are been shortchanged by having these officers here in the counties while their duties are similar to what we are mandated to do, said Dr. Mutua. Mutua, who was speaking on behalf of his colleagues, warned they would not work with the officers deployed from the central government if their mandate is not be explained to them. On the issue of flags, Mutua said governors had resolved to fly the Kenyan flag, adding like Cabinet ministers and ambassadors, they had the mandate to fly the flag.
it would appear these pertinent issues remained pertinent. The cleavage solidified into a gorge.
RIFT VALLEYPARTYB SONU TANU,KERICHO JAN.3RDCAPTIONEmurua Dikirr member of the national assembly Johana Ngeno and Bomet governor Isaac Ruto during a consultative meeting at Exortic Hotel in the outskirts of Kericho town in Kericho County on Saturday. The two leaders who included some 60 former councilors agreed to sell policies of the newly formed Mashinani Development Party of Kenya(MDP)Picture by SONU TANU.END
BOMET Governor Isaac Rutto has urged politicians used and dumped by Jubilee to join the Mashinani Development Party he formed in September.Meeting Kipsigis professionals and former councillors in Kericho town on Saturday, he dismissed the Jubilee Party unveiled last month.Jubilee had the best manifesto on devolution but the alliance founders failed to implement it, Rutto said.
What development miracles are they going to perform with the newly formed party?Also present was Emurua Dikirr MP Johana Ngeno.Rutto was elected on a URP ticket. URP is one of the parties affiliated to the Jubilee alliance that are now dissolving.The governor said Jubilee Partys founders did not announce a manifesto.
Rutto urged Mashinani leaders not to confine their talks to the 2017 and 2022 general elections without addressing how Jubilee members are being forced to join the new party.He said the partys founders did not consult affiliate parties.Rutto said Jubilee Party cannot fight poverty and tribalism after the poor performance of its leaders. The governor said the state should increase county allocations to 45 per cent of national resources. Ngeno said some leaders are causing tribal tensions between the Masaai and the Kipsigis.We will not allow any politics that will divide the two communities, he said.
The meeting discussed the former councillors push for pension.Former Kipkelion councillor Zablon Cheruiyot said MPs will be voted out if they dont support them.
Another Alfred called Keter (Nandi Mpig) recently had an interesting take on the new party to be formed after the dissolution of URP and TNA.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
AS THE NATION DISSOLVES AWAY UNDER JUBILEE'S WATCH, KENYANS PONDER THE OPTIONS WITH HUMOUR!
I have spent a humorous day today on the email circuit. David Ndii with his LET US DIVORCE song seems to have thrown red meat into a pond of pyranhas. While the mentally irrelevant are calling for his arrest and dismissal from the Agha Khan business paper, the rest of social media Kenya are having a field day letting their imaginations fly. And what a sense of humour. My Gikuyu attorney pulled a fast one on me with glee.
'We are going Switzerland', he proudly wrote to me. 'I am in the constitutional writing team. Specially for you, I am inserting a clause allowing Lake people married to Gema women to apply for citizenship upfront. I am thinking as soon as we, the most industrious segment of the Kenyan population, separate and get busy building Switzerland in Mount Kenya, Museveni will extend his border all the way to Kericho and Kissii. Luoland will be some irrelevant minority inside Greater Uganda. Perhaps you lake people want to negotiate a military alliance with powerful Mount Kenya republic?
As a man who has diligently taken care of your interests for long, I want to personally save you the fate of Uganda citizenship. Being a Ugandan is worse than being a 2nd class Kenyan citizen! At the same time, the line of refugees camping outside Mount Kenya Switzerland will be longer than those yearning to enter the Eurozone from Turker, and the early bird catches the worm. We will build a wall to ward unwanteds off --like Israel does, the USA at the Mexico border, and the two Koreas. We will call it the Great Wall of Mount Kenya, to keep off barbarians who used to be the other Kenyans!'
NB: Equity Bank, like Swiss Banks, is, purely business, opening a special section for Luo governors to hide their loot!'
I responded. ''That is excellent of you to think kindly of me. But over here at Kavirondo, we are going Singapore. Of course after wiping off the mafia organisation called ODM. We have already dispatched a top envoy to the USA, and we are sure Brother Obama will have a cold frown to keep Museveni in his hole, and curb his territorial expansionist drift. A task force is working on a plan to have Bondo Technical University become the MIT of Africa and Maseno the Yale. We are moving from exporting fish and cheap labour to exporting brainy and quality labour. That is our niche to be, lakeside here at the Singaporean Kavirondo republic!''
In the afternoon a correspondent asked. What are you guys gonna do with us Nairobians? The warlike Maasais have suddenly developed a memory! They say Nairobi is theirs! Maa-territory!
Answered another: there wil be enough Gikuyus -ethnic cleansed--- returning from the Rift Valley, Coast and beyond, and their numbers will be high and their tempers lost enough to force the warlike Maasais to accept Nairobi as United Nations International territory! Otherwise of course everybody else in Nairobi will unite to solve the Maasai warlikeness with genocide against them. Nairobi becoming a city state.'
NB: 140M and 4 years on, a commission has not returned the verdict on the Kenya Uganda border around Migingo. That kind of lazy work ethic is history. When a people are going Switzerland and another going Singapore, and Turkana going Kuwait, you do not work like that no more. And come to think of it, I do not think even Patrick Njoroge at CBK with his leaky Fraud Units, let alone Waiguru with oily fingers for light duties, would find a job in Switzerland Mount Kenya, unless they are thoroughly retooled. Things like (ex CBK's) Nyagah and Njuguna Ndung'u, who thinks they can even be clerks in a 'Swiss' bank?
And the likes of Carey Orege, Kidero or George Mboya? Anybody who knows Singapore rising will know they would be executed for incompetence. No place for vermin.
Yes, David Ndii should be hanged! . Tom Mshindi the Agha-Khan dog can now bite him and prove himself a mental corpse. He opened a pandora's box! And here we are. What a sense of humour we Kenyans have! They say the Turkana have decided it is better their oil move through Uganda to Tanzania, than straight-line to Lamu! Risk calculations advise that move!
Woi woi!
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
DAVID NDII CALLS OUR BLUFF, THE END OF THE AFFAIR?
THE 2016 STATE OF THE UNION BY THE PRESIDENT.
Tomorrow will be a possible Ides of March for the republic. The nominal president of the republic, Kamwana Muthamaki Uhuru wa Kenyatta, where the nicknames are either of fondness or derision, depending on whether one is a detractor or admirer, is scheduled to give a state of the MARRIAGE address.
Nominal head of state I said, because the way corruption has ran rampant makes me believe there is a head of the cartel more powerful than the official most powerful man in the land. Shadowy Keyser Soze I call the real power, the one pulling strings in Kenya.
So what is it with the Ides of March -the date of transition?
The problem is one word: Ndii. Dr. Pandoras David Ndii.
This man has opened a Pandora's box and unleashed an issue which has shot itself to the top of the national agenda: DIVORCE. Is the Unitary state of Kenya a waste of time? Basing his thesis on the historian Ogot, this public intellectual with his slingshot has become a nightrunner destroying the sleepy peace of the republic.
Long ago this would be treason. To publicly imagine if not call for the dissolution of Kenya. But times have moved. A referendum is thinkable on the subject. Those like me who suffer from colonial dependency and therefore, using pragmatism as an alibi, wish to maintain the Berlin artificialities of Africa for the moment, need must argue their case in public. Our hero Uhuru Kenyatta can not therefore, tomorrow, be the proverbial ostrich with its head out of sight, nor can he act out the blind man unaware of the elephant in the room. The mad man of the market has already pointed to the nakedness of the emperor and the crowd, enlivened, can't help commentating the royal d.ick head.
If, nevertheless, His Excellency does opt tomorrow for keeping up stupid appearances, his deafening silence will just show how scared witless he is. He is already a dynast making even a bigger mess of things than his father did, and, as we have seen, lacking the repressive infrastructure of the old despot, he has no option but to make a public case against the divorce propagated by doctor Pandora.
Why should not this mess he presides over be disbanded, so as to give room for flowers ala Switzerland (Mount Kenya) and Singapore (Kavirondo Lake region) to bloom? Muigai can not afford to ignore this grave matter.
Ndii has bust our bubble. Folks are spooked. They need unitary reassurance. Others are emboldened, devolution must go its full logic to wholesale federalism, and finally break-up referendum. There is a vision too, perhaps better put as a budding suspicion, that the current bone-stripping looting of the Kenyan state is the work of separatist Mount Kenya strategists, to finance the start of their Switzerland of the tropics. When finally the others will have their eyes open, this Switzerland would have cleaned out the joint Nairobi treasury, and left Kenya an empty shell. A carcass of bones only.
If Kenyatta ignores the implications of this sentiment or fear, then he should not be surprised after tomorrow to find a country effectively drifting under his feet. There may just be no fools left for a grand old April fool's day.
Our ides of March.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
here is Peter Kenneth responding to David Ndii on 31-03-2016.
KENYA IS HERE TO STAY
David Ndii wrote an interesting article last weekend arguing that we should split up this country into tribe based regions.
Thanks but no thanks.
No one gets to determine or suggest that the Kenya idea or project has failed-no matter their level of education. Yes our elections are chaotic, angry and even violent on occasion but Kenya is bigger than politics and elections. The Kenyan idea is alive in our hopes and aspirations for a better and more prosperous tomorrow for us and our children. We want good education for our children, jobs when they finish school and reliable healthcare for when sickness hits. Dividing Kenya into tribes won’t make us get these things faster or easier-it will make them even harder to get.
Patriotism is not dead. Garissa University, Westgate-every dark moment reminds us that we truly are one. It may sound like something people just say online but is a genuine feeling. The tribes have not swallowed the country; its the politics of tribe that has swallowed the country but we can always choose another way to run this country.
There is a narrative of fear brewing about the coming elections but the truth is we have nothing to be afraid about-if we make the best choice for Kenya. If anything we are afraid that we have seen the truth, that we now know that there are lots of rhetoric’s coming from our leaders and we need to do something about it and fast..
Kenya is not a marriage-it is a union of diverse people who simply want to live in peace and prosperity. Divorce is not an option. We cannot run away from the job of making this country great and passing that on to our children. The only thing we should divorce is empty politics and being used to advance an agenda of greed.
Kenya is never going to split; what we will do and what we have to do is leave ethnicity about out of the war on poverty and disease as well as the provision of services.
But I am still scared. Peter Kenneth has not stated in no uncertain terms, that the idea of a mount Kenya republic going it alone and becoming as prosperous as hardy and thrifty Switzerland is immaterial fantasy, and madness! If free visas were available for relocation, how many Kenyans would remain behind? (there was a time 67 million Nigerians applied for relocation to the UK!)
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
Uhuru Kenyatta takes the bull by the horn, defends the so-called abusive marriage.
THE KENYA COVENANT IS ETERNAL!
HERE IS THE FIRST SECTION WHICH, READING BETWEEN THE LINES, DEALT WITH THE TALK OF DIVORCE AS A SOLUTION TO OUR MARITAL PROBLEMS.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s State of the Nation speech
By PSCU Updated Thursday, March 31st 2016
Fellow Kenyans,
I want to affirm that our nation is strong: That the Nationalist Covenant, negotiated by our Founding Fathers at independence is alive and well. We have re-imagined it, enhanced it and expanded it. The spirit of the Lancaster covenant that bound us together as a nation in the 1960s is still with us. And although we experienced turbulence in the 2007 Post-Election Violence; we re-affirmed our commitment to the Nationalist Covenant in August 2010 when we proclaimed a new constitution.
I am humbled to pioneer the establishment of the Second Republic, as envisioned by our Second Constitution. To establish the First Republic, our Founding Fathers sacrificed their years of youth; defended the ideals of the Nationalist Covenant with their very lives; and stayed the course until we were free. Every one of us owes a sacred duty to them and a responsibility to pass on a secure, united and re-imagined nation to future generations.
READ MORE –--President Uhuru Kenyatta to address nation as critics cite unmet promises. Uhuru Kenyatta's address in Parliament disrupted by whistling MPs CORD pokes holes in DP Ruto's claims on Jubilee achievements
As I stand here, there are brave Kenyans in uniform who echo the youthful valour and patriotism of our Founding Fathers. With skill and tireless determination, these young heroes are fighting a cruel enemy who is burning cities and countries across the globe. Our solders in Somalia, their police and intelligence counterparts at home are all keeping their part of the bargain by defending the nation.
They are protecting the republic; but more fundamentally, they are securing the broader Nationalist Covenant. Their duties have at times demanded the ultimate price. And for this, we owe them gratitude and an eternal place in our hearts. As their Commander-in-Chief, I honour them and want to assure their families of our utmost consideration and respect for their service and sacrifice. And while on this, I want to assure this Honourable House that my government has every intent to uphold the dignity of our soldiers.
As their Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow them to be subjected to undue harassment. Now I would like to take a moment to salute our fallen heroes from the Defence Forces and the National Police Service. I would also like to ask the House to stand for a minute of silence in their honour. (MOMENT OF SILENCE) Dear Kenyans,
Today I invite you to a moment of national self-reflection with me. And at a personal level, I am compelled to return to the question of our nationhood as crafted by our Founding Fathers and re-imagined by us in August 2010. In discussing this question, I will expound on the Nationalist Covenant. This covenant was crafted as an exchange of promises and guarantees between the communities that make Kenya. –----It was built as a bond that waxes the 42 communities to one Nation. –---- It defined our Lowest Common Denominator; our Irreducible Minimum as a collection of communities. –---- It was our ‘unwritten contract’ binding ‘one to all’ and ‘all to one’.
This is what convinced all of us to join hands and constitute Kenya.
But as the country developed, we took this Nationalist Covenant for granted. We assumed it until we saw other nations losing it and falling asunder! We ignored it until we were faced with the dangers of losing it in 2007. Now it is at the centre of our National Question and we must tackle it head-on! The question we must now pose is this: What is our individual and collective responsibility to this Covenant? If it is the base upon which our nationhood is built, how must we engage with it? How do we protect it from ourselves and others? And how do we preserve it for our children and generations to come?
I have a few thoughts.
The Nationalist Covenant is a bond that brings together 40 Million Kenyans. It is greater than each one of us; but must respect every one of the 40 Million of us. This covenant is Sacred and the 40 Million People who created it are Sacred too. Administrations will come and go; but the Covenant and the People remain. Leaders will come and go; but the Covenant and the People remain. If we disagree as leaders, the Covenant does not change. It remains unmoved. It is the embodiment of our collective aspirations; the representative of all of us.
This Unity of Intent is our Lowest Common Denominator as a people. It defines us, our Nationhood, and our diversity as Kenyans.
To aggress it is to harm yourself because it is part of you. Those in opposition and ‘alternative society’ have disagreed with our understanding of this Nationalist Covenant. And as a democratically elected government, we have supported their concerns as part of the expansion of citizen expression. In fact, I think from this, we have created the most active and effective opposition and civil society in Africa. And we celebrate this diversity and Kenyan invention.
However, our opposition should be reminded that they are the alternative side of the Nationalist Covenant. That they are part of it, and are bound by it through normative law. In their undertakings, therefore, they must remain true to the commonwealth of all. This way, we can go through election cycles without worrying whether the gains of one administration can be destroyed rather built on by the in-coming one.
This is why I invite opposition and the ‘alternative society’ to liberally criticize my government’s agenda. But they must not criticize it as a ‘sport’. They must criticize it as owners of the Covenant, and provide alternatives.
Criticism without alternatives is reckless political ‘sport’.
Further, and I address myself to the beneficiaries of expanded fields of citizen expression including civil society, the general population and media, they must enjoy the new liberties with conscious responsibility and faithfulness to the covenant.
I say so because new-found liberties have a way of promoting reckless abandon. As you enjoy the liberties, we must remain true to the Spirit of our nationhood. We must criticize, then give alternatives; build bridges between divides, instead of digging trenches; build a Culture of Celebration instead of our Culture of Lamentation.
In sum, those who enjoy our new liberties must NOT contaminate the spirit of our nationalism.
Everything will come and go in Kenya, but the Covenant that binds us is eternal. If we remain true to this Lowest Common Denominator; this historical exchange of promises and guarantees; this unwritten contract that binds ‘all to one’ and ‘one to all’, then the State-of-the-Nation will remain unchallenged. –----------------------- Honourable Members; I will now turn to a record of the pledges given by my government for the current reporting year, and our achievements. Then I will attempt to tie them to our Nationhood. It must be noted that development is a secondary and supportive aspect of our nationhood.
We are a nation on the path of progress, a nation on the move that is rapid and impressive enough to attract the attention of the world. We continue to dare, to hope in the promise of prosperity for every Kenyan: We hold steady the reigns of a bold and vibrant Constitution that is intended to empower our people, strengthen our nationhood, and advance positive social transformation.
Over the last two weeks you have heard in great detail the achievements of my administration in the last 12 months. You have heard from my Deputy President and Cabinet Secretaries the lengths to which we have gone and will continue in order to transform this nation. I want today to give context to the work we have done, what it means to the Kenyan people, and where we are headed in the coming years.
Our economy is resilient at a time of global economic and financial turmoil that has seen some of the strongest performing economies in the world stumble into recession. I am glad that the macroeconomic foundations of Kenya are strong and sustainable. Our real GDP grew by 5.8 percent in 2015, and we expect it to hit 6 percent over the next 12 months. Inflation has remained under control and our foreign exchange reserves have improved significantly. Our dreams for decent jobs, more profitable businesses and more taxes to pay for our health and education are dependent on a strong economy.
ON BELIEVING THE IMF AND THE WORLD BANK ARE HERE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD
In his state of the marriage address, the nominal husband of Kenya was jubilated and waxed lyrical about the certificates of health awarded the Kenyan economy by leading, reputed world bodies who know.
Why do I say nominal husband? I do, because in political science, there is a narrative of Africa, which proposes the current socio-political praxis in Africa, is Africa under foreign domination. A neo colony. This explains the ease with which foreign powers can move on an African leader like Muamar Khadafi, and have him sodomised to death on the stake by mercenaries.
Economically speaking, Central Banks in Africa, flying the flag of an independence from African presidents like we saw Njuguna Ndung'u defy Mwai Kibaki and Raila, are recogniseD as nothing more than lower functional, card-carrying departments of the two international Bretton Woods structures.
The memoirs of former (African) ministers of finances or banking dissenters who have dealt with the IMF are an insightful read on this subject. But our own Jukwaa too is a scorch-earth enlightened eye, at least when Proprietor Onyango Oloo is not distracted by other worldly stuff like mapouka b()()ties. Here below is a citation from an Oloo primed digital which, if one did a lot of homework around it, the description of Uhuru Kenyatta a nominal president is a bull's eye hit.
As far back as September 2012 several key players in Kenyan civil society circles and the Constitutional Commissions were expressing their disquiet. Look, for example at this media release issued on September 9, 2012 by Ndungu Wainaina, the Executive Director of the Nairobi-based International Centre for Policy and Conflict:
IMF Hand Behind Devolution Battle
Ministry of Finance (Treasury) through Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta and Central Bank of Kenya Governor Prof Njuguna Ndungu conspired with International Monetary Fund( IMF) to block devolution and dispersal of power as provided in the Constitution, International Centre for Policy and Conflict can authoritative reveal.
According to the documents posted in the IMF website the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has invested heavily in promoting, ever since the referendum period, creation of Integrated Public Finance Management (PFM) law as well as a Single Treasury Account.
The two are contained in the IMF Loan Agreement with the Government of Kenya as structural conditionalities that attract penalties if violated without a formal waiver from the IMF Board. Treasury upheld these two IMF conditions because they favour it (Treasury).
IMF crude political interference on the implementation of the Constitution is severely detrimental to the devolution process.
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Local Government have differed sharply on how to regulate the management of public resources. The Ministry of Finance (The Treasury), in accordance with IMF deal has fronted an Integrated Bill covering the two levels of government - the National and the County.
2016: Uhuru is now president (since 2013) and is relying on the same IMF passmarks to buttress his success story.
NB: Some will know Christin Lagarde of IMF wouldn't be allowed even a single comment, let alone a policy decision, at the Swiss treasury. And what does the wolf, Gang Schaeuble, the finance minister of Germany think of her? --if she knew sh!t about economics and state finance then she and Nicolas Sarkozy would have modernised the French economy when she was finance-econs minister, and France wouldn't have become a basket case draining Germany!
So when David Ndii and like-minded Gikuyus joke about Mount Kenya going Swiss, the depths are beyond the likes of Lagarde and her, in Uhuruto vocabulary and mental state, reputable world body!
Yap, the Son of Jomo has some growing up room. So we say baby kenyatta.
Of course the IMF can sometimes be right --like the famous anecdote about a defect clock being right at least once a day, so I do not mind stretching it a bit and declaring their current bill of health toward Kenya, a bonus. Here is the jubilant baby Kenyatta:
We have joined the realm of middle-income countries, with the consequence that we can now access non-concessional credit from institutions such as the African Development Bank and the World Bank at significantly cheaper cost. We have also seen the continuing confidence of the financial markets in Kenya. The worlds most sophisticated financial institutions agree on the strength of our economic fundamentals, our management of the economy and our future growth story.
Evidence of our success is that the World Banks Doing Business indicators show Kenya to be the third-most improved country in the world. We jumped an almost unprecedented 28 positions in the rankings. Nairobi was named the most attractive destination for Foreign Direct Investment in Africa; and Kenya, alone in Africa, was singled out as one of the seven most promising emerging markets.
And this achievement is also part of the Nationalist Promise. I want to thank members of Parliament for taking the time to review and pass the necessary pieces of legislation to enable many of these reforms to be implemented. I would also want to ask for your support in quickly passing other pieces of legislation to support this effort. Despite global economic and financial turmoil, the Kenyan economy has shown notable resilience. A strong example of this resilience is the performance of the vital tourism and hospitality sectors. They suffered severe setbacks as a result of terrorist attacks. This meant that their vital role in providing employment depended on by thousands of families and businesses was harmed.
Our economy is resilient at a time of global economic and financial turmoil that has seen some of the strongest performing economies in the world stumble into recession. I am glad that the macroeconomic foundations of Kenya are strong and sustainable. Our real GDP grew by 5.8 percent in 2015, and we expect it to hit 6 percent over the next 12 months. Inflation has remained under control and our foreign exchange reserves have improved significantly.
There! I want to know if Dr. Patrick CBK Njoroge was consulted in the rendition of this epic!
Unlike my sisters Millie Odhiambo, Gladys Wanga and a host of lunatics from my native county, I pay a hawk's eye detail to presidential speeches, regardless. Of course my Mpigish relatives are traumatised by our powerlessness to do anything about Migingo, ma en kuesi minwa, ma ng'a matek onyono. (annexed by a rogue from the neighbouring village of Barbaria!)
I always pay attention to the diary power keeps. From of old. Always a pimped-up some.
Power keeps a diary. A state of the Union is an important entry into that diary.
Ordinarily, it is like the writings on a pylon, propagandising the prosperity achieved under a pharao. It is a narrative of his/her greatness kept for posterity. A narrative written by hired scripts and sycophants in his court. A spindoctor's concoction or sell.
But it can not be all lies of course, there have to be grains of truth, otherwise the pillar would be an erection of ridicule. A phantom erection.
Kenya's real crisis, is that we are all aware of the real potential, and these achievements narrated are self explanatory in our minds. Ndii's mercurial dismissal of Kenya, is based on the thinking that Mount Kenya can be faster Switzerland while Kenya, staring at vision 2030, becomes a Chinese debt colony may be.
Here is Jaindi Kisero in a nervous twitch. --And this story about debts, missing in the hieroglyphics column denoting the year 2016 under the infant Pharao Kenyatta II, is why I ask if The Money Seer and Counter Patrick Njoroge, was debriefed first.
March 30, 2016. By JAINDI KISERO
Are the Chinese-funded projects worth debts we are sinking in?
I am worried about the size and rate at which we are gobbling up Chinese loans, especially for the standard gauge railway. We borrowed a massive $4 billion to build the Mombasa-Nairobi part from the Export-Import Bank of China, commonly known as the Exim Bank of China. Recently, we hurriedly moved to sign off another $1.5 billion for extending the line to Naivasha. We have signed a commercial contract with a Chinese railway contractor to allow us access to another $5 billion for the extension of the railway from Naivasha to Malaba. In total, we are borrowing a massive $10 billion from the Chinese for the railway. $10 billion is 20 per cent of our gross domestic product. Do we have the right to saddle unborn generations with Chinese loans? The figures on the Chinese loans are not from my head. I have extracted the numbers from a Cabinet memo I came across recently.
I have also read through a copy of the buyer credit loan agreement between the Government of Kenya and the Exim Bank of China for the Nairobi-Naivasha railway line. Indeed, the theory that Exim Bank loans are cheaper is a big myth. Loans from the African Development Bank or even the International Development Association the World Banks concessionary lending affiliate would appear to me way cheaper.
The Chinese story is about the tale of the camel and the tent. Once you let them in to finance the first phase of a project, they will not stop. We must not forget that the Exim Bank of China will only give you money once you have signed a commercial contract with a Chinese contractor.
The standard gauge railway has offered us new insights into the dynamics behind the phenomenon known as Chinese contractor-negotiated loans. They will come dangling offers to you, promising to negotiate and arrange an Exim Bank of China loan on your behalf and carry out a feasibility study free of charge. This is the reason our appetite for Chinese contractor-negotiated loans has exploded. Why did it become necessary to fast-track the Nairobi-Naivasha line? On paper, the government says that it is to serve the planned industrial park in Naivasha.
MASSIVE EXTERNAL LOAN
But why are we hurrying to commit the country to a massive external loan to build a railway leading to an industrial park which, to the best of my knowledge, is still at the conception stage? Indeed, going through government documents, the industrial parks that were in the works even before the Naivasha one was conceived were special economic zones in Dongo Kundu, Kisumu, Diani, Lamu, Isiolo, Eldoret, Kisumu, Nairobi, Mariakani, Konza, and northern Kenya.
So, are we fast-tracking the proposed Naivasha industrial park to provide justification for fast-tracking the Nairobi-Naivasha railway line?
Clearly, Chinese contractors and their influential allies in the government are on top of their game. And the Exim Bank of China can come up with new conditions at any time to support the interests of the Chinese contractors who have friends in high places.
For example, I read from a Cabinet memo that the China Exim Bank has made it clear that before it disburses money for the Nairobi-Naivasha line, the government must first complete the building of an inland container terminal in Embakasi to handle the much larger volumes from the standard gauge railway. Initially, the plan was that the inland container depot would be built by funds from the railway development levy. Apparently, the government has blown all the money from the railway levy on paying land compensations.
We are now going back to the Exim Bank of China for another expensive dollar loan to build the inland container terminal estimated to cost $125.7 million. I am not against borrowing to fund infrastructure. Indeed, a dollar borrowed to finance critical infrastructure is likely to promote more economic growth than a dollar borrowed to pay salaries. But these Chinese loans are driving us to debt levels never witnessed before in the history of Kenya. As of June 2015, Kenyas gross public debt to GDP ratio was 49.7 per cent. We have crossed the debt sustainability threshold, which stands at a ratio of 45 per cent to GDP. The Chinese loans are beginning to tip us into unsustainable debt territory.
If we leave these big projects to the corrupt elite and crafty Chinese contractors, they will bankrupt us. jaindikisero@gmail.com
DEBT. I want to talk about debt. At length. Theft does not worry me too much. After Ouru wins his second term and is freed from the congenital suicidal pact with William Singh, he can very well choose the opportunity to have under lock and key at Kamiti, the likes of Singh and Dr. Evans. And throw the key deep away in the Indian ocean, just as Ester Murugi, the former Special programmes minister in the GCG, suggested recently. NB: Ester Murugi achieved international notoriety when, end January 2012, she threatened to mobilise all Kenyan women to walk naked days on end if the Ocampo-ICC had the audacity to detain the then president in waiting, Uhuru Kenyatta.
This came hot on the heels of the showstopper by Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi, who last year promised to lead women in stripping naked if Uhuru was detained upon his arrival at The Hague for the confirmation of charges hearings.
"We are in your full support, and even if it means undressing, we will do it for your sake," the Nyeri Town MP stated while teasingly holding her dress during a public rally attended by Uhuru. ....
Now she wants top hyenas locked up forever. And I am saying William Ruto or Evans Kidero, take your pick, is one such hyena. But the son of Jomo must live today to fight tomorrow, no? Otherwise his pillar of rule will be empty, for he would be a royal husband with a phantom erection fumbling on a night the wife has taken viagra, her visions and horizons enlarged. For that is what David Ndii has done, toyed with the erogenous zones of a reckless woman, with some history of frustration. Hurry up Uhuru! The slums are teeming with restive youth. Idle, they are overflowing the growth rates the World Bank calls World records. 7% is below average. 12% is minimum acceptable.
Some friends you have. Excellency.
DEBT&THEFT.
Last Edit: Apr 3, 2016 11:17:38 GMT 3 by jakaswanga
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
Long ago this would be treason. To publicly imagine if not call for the dissolution of Kenya. But times have moved. A referendum is thinkable on the subject. Those like me who suffer from colonial dependency and therefore, using pragmatism as an alibi, wish to maintain the Berlin artificialities of Africa for the moment, need must argue their case in public.
Times seem to have stood still for others. Like professor Kagwanja. Here he is, totally spooked by David Ndii, he is gone hysterics!
Ndii’s ‘genocide’ thesis a ploy to defeat democracy in 2017 poll
Ndii is a grand master in conjuring up the obscene and the grotesque.
By PETER KAGWANJA
Seventeen months to next year’s General Election, a tiny but vociferous group of increasingly radicalised Kenyan intellectuals and activists poses a deeper existential threat to the country perhaps than even the Al-Shabaab extremists.
This becomes clear from a deeply troubling and provocative article by the Kenyan economist and public intellectual, David Mwangi Ndii (DN, March 26, 2016). Ndii is a grand master in conjuring up the obscene and the grotesque. This time round, he used the metaphor of “a cruel marriage” to paint Kenya as a country inexorably hurtling down to another cataclysmic post-election violence.
Propelling this prediction is a sheer intellectual hubris rather than a serious scientific enquiry. “If Uhuru Kenyatta is declared winner in another sham election, this country will burn,” he declares. Claiming that he cannot sit back and wait for the “coming genocide,” Ndii calls on Kenyans to take cue from the former Soviet Union and bring to a “blissful” end the 121-year-old “Kenyan project.” Also cynical is a view that Kenyans “voluntarily” breaking up of the civic nation into myriad “ethnic nations” to avoid the type of violence that rocked Yugoslavia.
In Ndii’s jeremiad, peace is not an option. “What I do not see is another accept and move on — “the tyranny of peace,” he says. One would be tempted to treat Ndii’s hubristic piece as a mere fireside prattle by a public intellectual known for his obsessive hatred for Kenyatta, and who loves to niggle and criticise every aspect of the Jubilee regime. But Ndii and his ilk mean business.
This begs the question: What form of thinking is driving Ndii?
Ndii’s piece reveals a complex amalgam of ideological and philosophical trends that are driving his activism.
Foremost is nihilism, a philosophy of extreme scepticism and cynicism that maintains that nothing in the world has a real existence — everything is “invented” or “imagined”. Judged by the tone and content of his political pieces, Ndii may be modern Kenya’s leading nihilist, an intellectual trend that virulently and violently rejects all authority.
SPREAD OF NATIONALISM
It is in this context that Ndii invokes Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, as the basis for treasonously repudiating the Kenya state. After 2013, nihilism in Kenya has increasingly evolved into a movement hell-bent on using violence for political change. Uncannily, Ndii’s rendition of Kenya as “abusive marriage” carries the familiar echoes of the Russian nihilists who expressed anger at what they described as the “abusive nature of the Church, the tsarist monarchy and domination of the Russian economy by the aristocracy”.
On his part, Ndii has railed against the “abusive nature of the Jubilee regime”, the “Kenyatta dynasty,” and the alleged domination of the Kenyan economy by a Kalenjin-Kikuyu “ethnocracy”. With the collapse of the Kenyan cases at the ICC, the Kenyan nihilists have become increasingly desperate and radicalised. They see violence as the only pathway to power and are preaching against peace — or what they condescendingly call “the tyranny of peace.”
Yet, the nihilists are also astute entrepreneurs of violence. Once the guns fall silent and violence is over, they will be queuing to get donor funding to “tackle impunity” relating to the violence. Ndii is a self-declared “card-carrying member” of what Jubilee activists love to lampoon as the “evil society.” He is also one of the intellectual activists behind the opposition’s Okoa Kenya referendum initiative.
This introduces the second plank in Ndii’s intellectual hue: “Odingaism,” a rarely acknowledged intellectual trend harkening back to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
However, Ndii exposed his lack of deep ideological nuances and understanding of the intellectual politics of Luo Nyanza when he cited the eminent Professor of History, Bethuel Allan Ogot, to buttress his thesis that Kenya is a “failed project”.
In a nutshell, intellectual trends in Luo-Nyanza take the form of what the Nigerian scholar, Peter Ekeh, described as “the two republics” living side by side. The first intellectual trend is Jokoyo (singular, Jakoyo), corresponding to Eke’s “primordial public as the space of traditions, customs and political mobilisation of local identities and sensibilities. The high priest of the Jakoyo is Jaramogi Odinga and his political heir, Raila Odinga.
UGLY FACE OF POLITICS
“The Jokoyo represent the ugly face of Luo politics,” quipped one Luo elder, adding that: “The chaos you witnessed during the State of the Nation address exemplifies this ugly face of our politics.” The rival intellectual trend is the Jonanga (singular, Jananga), again corresponding to Ekeh’s “civic public” as the modern space of civic order, rights, laws and mobilisation across multiple identities and sensibilities.
Tom Mboya is immortalised as the hero of the Jonanga because of his cosmopolitan vision of the Kenyan nation. But since the death of Mboya, the Jonanga have been eclipsed or “colonised” by the Jokoyo as the dominant political force.
After 1997, the Jokoyo moved quickly into the national space, injecting the polarising negativism, extreme scepticism and chaos into the Kenyan public sphere. Ndii would have been correct if he invoked the late Professor E.S. Atieno-Odhiambo as the intellectual who “pronounced the Kenya project dead”.
It was Atieno-Odhiambo who declared in 1998 that: “The future of ethnicity is robust, the career of nationalism ended at independence, and the future of democracy, like the arrival of a matatu at its destination, remains uncertain.” In contrast, Ogot is generically not an Odingaist, but a Mboya man, a Jananga, with a pan-Kenya vision. Having studied under his feet and served him as Secretary-General of the Kenya Historical Association (1994-1998), I can unequivocally say that at no time or space has Ogot proposed the quartering and breaking up of the Kenyan nation into “ethnic nations”. Indeed, his book, Kenya: The Making of a Nation (2000), is a celebration of a nation at a 100 years (1895-1995).
In this configuration, Ndii is ideologically aligned to the Jokoyo. Like Bildad Kaggia before him, Ndii is an Odinga man who privileges distributive policies over wealth creation or production. Like the Odingas, he has an obsessive hatred for Kenyatta, which has blinkered his intellectual objectivity. His repugnant hypothesis of replacing the civic nation state with ethnic nations is a recipe for anarchy and chaos. It is a sneaky way of setting the stage for the opposition to deal with a potential defeat by rejecting results and pushing for power sharing. Prof Kagwanja is chief executive, Africa Policy Institute
I am a Unionist, but the way fellow unionists are defending the 'cruel marriage' does not reassure me.Ndii is treasonable!? some thoughts must not be thought in this Kenya, a bananaland with 40m population with a GDP of (rebated) $52bn in 2016!
That is zero productivity to begin with! We need chinese to build calverts for us! because we give the job to an engineering company like our own KIRINYAGA works, and they take 12 years to build 3 calverts costing ksh. 300M!
On a serious side, an issue touched on by a sensible Makau Mutua in the standard, none of of unionist patriots seem to see the CONSTELLATION OF NEW VOLUNTARY ECONOMIC ASSOCIATIONS as an answer to the claimed unviability of mini-states because they would fly in the face of the wisdom of the economics of scale.
WHAT IS SEKEB!? later!
I thought
He (Uhuru Kenyatta) is already a dynast making even a bigger mess of things than his father did, and, as we have seen, lacking the repressive infrastructure of the old despot, he has no option but to make a public case against the divorce propagated by doctor Pandora.
Why should not this mess he presides over be disbanded, so as to give room for flowers ala Switzerland (Mount Kenya) and Singapore (Kavirondo Lake region) to bloom? Muigai can not afford to ignore this grave matter.
Ndii has bust our bubble. Folks are spooked. They need unitary reassurance. Others are emboldened, devolution must go its full logic to wholesale federalism, and finally break-up referendum. There is a vision too, perhaps better put as a budding suspicion, that the current bone-stripping looting of the Kenyan state is the work of separatist Mount Kenya strategists, to finance the start of their Switzerland of the tropics. When finally the others will have their eyes open, this Switzerland would have cleaned out the joint Nairobi treasury, and left Kenya an empty shell. A carcass of bones only.
Some members of Parliament from Ukambani have said that they were not consulted on the formation of the recently launched South Eastern Kenya Economic Bloc (Sekeb).
The economic bloc, bringing together Makueni, Machakos and Kitui counties, was launched on Friday amid disquiet that most MPs were overlooked during its formation. Only two MPs out of the region’s 26 attended the inauguration ceremony at the site of the proposed Konza City. Those in attendance included governors Kivutha Kibwana (Makueni) and Julius Malombe (Kitui), as well as the former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka. Kibwezi East MP Jessica Mbalu and Kitui Central MP Makali Mulu attended the event that was addressed by Dr Chris Kiptoo, the Principal Secretary, International Trade and Mr Julius Korir, the Principal Secretary for Industrialisation.
Nb: Kagwanja disparages Jaramogi Odinga and Bildad Kaggia –-as non Kenyan nationalist and patriots.
The first intellectual trend is Jokoyo (singular, Jakoyo), corresponding to Eke’s “primordial public as the space of traditions, customs and political mobilisation of local identities and sensibilities. The high priest of the Jakoyo is Jaramogi Odinga and his political heir, Raila Odinga. UGLY FACE OF POLITICS
Kagwanja! You switched your mind off!? Remember Jaramogi and George Anyona, when they were the lone voices against KANU-Moi!
Professor, please stop soiling the good name of historians. This way economists like my brother in law Mank will ever grin in superiority over historians! Kagwanja this is intellectual suicide in public. Please read even a page of Not yet Uhuru first!
In this configuration, Ndii is ideologically aligned to the Jokoyo. Like Bildad Kaggia before him, Ndii is an Odinga man who privileges distributive policies over wealth creation or production.
Ndii spooks us this bad!?
There is a good reason to stay together. I take it from Chekoslovakia splitting: 0=00. Now we are one big zero, and we want to go to 41 zeros!
Unless we get a kind of leadership that goes places, you know what I mean. Not the ones where top bureaucrats are winners of prices like Njuguna Ndung'u and Anne Waiguru!
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
THOSE FOR A REFRENDUM ON DIVORCE STAND UP AND BE COUNTED!
There are several reasons I have not lost my temper with David Ndii, despite my being a Unionist. I will pick two things which make me insecure.
All those who have come up hotly against the evil doctor -Kagwanja declares him a Nihilist and a grandmaster in conjuring the obscene and grotesque; Uhuru Kenyatta declared Kenya an eternal covenant (Pan-Africanism my foot, he seems to suggest!); Koigi Wamwere, Peter Kenneth, Rev Musyimi, they all rabidly rose in various degrees of hot temper to declare the marriage everlast and Ndii a bogeyman. However, Wycliff Muga, Onyango-Obbo and Makau Mutua brought a moment of relief with some contemplative stuff.
Yet everybody has avoided this question.
The question which unsettles me no small way. ---The new constitution allows for referenda, but who can assure me that, should the question be put to a referendum, the Kenyan population and citizenry at large would vote with me, to continue keeping appearances of bliss in the cruel and abusive marriage?
It is all very well for his Excellency Muigai to call this marriage an eternal covenant, but dare we ask the people what they really think and would vote for?
Second point that unsettles me: OPINION POLLS.
One can always argue about their accuracy and objectivity, or their pre-rigging by one or other party. It happens everywhere these days -the Scottish referendum the BBC kept on getting wrong; the Sanders and Trump leads before wins which major papers in the USA just can't predict nor publish. Nevertheless, opinion polls have become a modern language in public debate. They cannot be avoided, interpretation must be a faculty.
But now, what goes? Outside TV spot checks by SMS, heavy weight Kenyan pollsters have decided to ignore the hottest potato in politics today. -How hot? Watch pundit Kagwanja declare that Ndii and his ilk
poses a deeper existential threat to the country perhaps than even the Al-Shabaab extremists.
That is a heavy duty accusation, a hysterical lung, Ndii dropped a bomb in a crowded mall. Still, the common man could and should be asked for an opinion. The last poll said Kenyans considered corruption a greater threat to the nation than terrorism from Somalia.
I have a hollow feeling in my belly, that the majority of Kenyans could just turn out to be indifferent about Kenya falling apart or not (don't know, have no opinion, don't care!). It is the elite with everything to loose, or colonially dependent, who may really want to stay in the abusive marriage at all costs. Because they are on top. It feels very different on top. The abused mass below may just opt out to try their luck elsewhere. Even well-catered for wives sometimes elope in search of a mirage romanticism
This is what unnerves me. We do not dare ask the public --in a referendum for instance! I think we fear.
Eternal covenant, but we are not sure we can beat Ndii's divorce call in a referendum. It is broke, let us fix it before it becomes a write-off junk.
In the days of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act! --George Orwell.
I have contemplated starting a new thread on this, but on a second thought, believed that, it could perfectly fit here, from a different angle.
I have resisted giving David Ndii's thoughts much attention because I have often found them to be a little too emotional and reflective of the frustrations of a section of political elite with little regard to nationhood. After Uhuru Kenyatta's STON address, which as always elevated the discourse and sharply contrasted Ndii's arguments, the good doctor has again put pen to paper (here). This time, a little more sober than before. The truth is, however, as a people, our call is far much higher than what Ndii and his paymasters challenge us to every week. Our problems and challenges whether at village level, or local church, should be located in the larger global context and not the tribe of our chief and village elder.
Whereas tribe has sold big in Kenya in the past, I think we have moved on to a larger pedestal. Of course there are a few who are yet to see this. My take has always been that, something happened in 2013 that the Kenya's political left is yet to fully comprehend. We slayed the tribal narrative in that election, and all we await is it's burial in 2017. To me therefore, just as Uhuru Kenyatta above, Ndii's views and those who subscribe to such, are like the early morning wails on the burial day, very common in my motherland; they are normally energy-supping and breathtaking, but the last of such. The originators and promoters of the tribal narrative are fading away from the face of Kenya, 2017 will put them to rest and the Nationalist Covenant will firmly take its rightful place. I am not worried.
~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
The things that will destroy us are politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity and worship without sacrifice --Mahatma Gandhi
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral -- Paulo Freire.
I have contemplated starting a new thread on this, but on a second thought, believed that, it could perfectly fit here, from a different angle.
I have resisted giving David Ndii's thoughts much attention because I have often found them to be a little too emotional and reflective of the frustrations of a section of political elite with little regard to nationhood. After Uhuru Kenyatta's STON address, which as always elevated the discourse and sharply contrasted Ndii's arguments, the good doctor has again put pen to paper (here). This time, a little more sober than before. The truth is, however, as a people, our call is far much higher than what Ndii and his paymasters challenge us to every week. Our problems and challenges whether at village level, or local church, should be located in the larger global context and not the tribe of our chief and village elder.
Whereas tribe has sold big in Kenya in the past, I think we have moved on to a larger pedestal. Of course there are a few who are yet to see this. My take has always been that, something happened in 2013 that the Kenya's political left is yet to fully comprehend. We slayed the tribal narrative in that election, and all we await is it's burial in 2017. To me therefore, just as Uhuru Kenyatta above, Ndii's views and those who subscribe to such, are like the early morning wails on the burial day, very common in my motherland; they are normally energy-supping and breathtaking, but the last of such. The originators and promoters of the tribal narrative are fading away from the face of Kenya, 2017 will put them to rest and the Nationalist Covenant will firmly take its rightful place. I am not worried.
~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
decided to return to class on devolution and majimbo versus nationalism and federalism just to get is correct on the above two red high lights
reason we have the Constitution of 2010 primarily was to dilute the effects of a unitary state by introducing devolution which has kind of created 48 states, one national and 47 counties. much as we may wish to claim we have a nationalist covenant we need to first define it. since both Uhuru and Ruto have no history of producing intellectual discourse as none has any writings that can be attributed to them it is a bit of a tall order to rely on them defining what nationalist covenant is.
on the 1st red high light all it takes to dismantle it is to quote Muluka. "President Kenyatta presides over an ethnic duopoly. Even if all the political parties in Kenya were to be dissolved and replaced with only one party, this alone would not create national unity. The face of the Public Service is disturbingly duopolistic. If the President does not dismantle this duopoly and replace it with the face of Kenya, his national unity proclamations remain a pipe dream and a formation of empty words."
this sickly way of tackling the ethnic question flies to the reality of what is happening everyday even to fields where it does not make sense as this current story narrates. "Muthee’s appointment slightly over a week ago kicked a storm within athletics fraternity with demands that a CEO for the global event should come from within athletics ranks. His appointment followed the suspension of former AK CEO, Isaac Mwangi, by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Ethics Committee over doping-related cases. “Riadha House (AK headquarters) is currently sagging under the weight of major scandals that the Government opted for Muthee to assure the general public that the event is in safe hands and that the Government is keen to stage the event successfully,” said a highly-placed source, who could not be identified because he is not authorised to speak for the Ministry."
since both UhuRuto are adept at talking one thing and doing the exact opposite it is clear that the 2nd red highlight is neither here nor there. off course both are not originators but inheritors of entrenched ethnicity. both learned at the feet of Mo1 who clearly stated he was following Jomo's nays when he took over in 1878 when Jomo peacefully dies in his sleep. and many things that happened in Mo1's time are slowly and surely creeping back. the Machiavellianism of talking nice things like nationalist convent while packing important national offices with ethnic bigots is the order of the day practiced by both UhuRuto.
Machiavellianism - the political doctrine of Machiavelli: any means (however unscrupulous) can be used by a ruler in order to create and maintain his autocratic government
will continue being at play come 2017 when we go to polls. all Jubilee spin doctors are busy preparing Kenyans for a supposed bloodbath if any dares to refuse the continuity of UhuRuto duopoly. so when it comes to dealing with IEBC instead of being quick to arrest the bloggers unlike the bank directors of say Imperial, NBK and now Chase bank we get UhuRuto talking that the IEBC is an independent constitutional office and if anyone has beef with it all one has to do is go to Parliament get endorsement of a Tribunal to investigate IEBC and voila UhuRuto will take the necessary corrective action.
6 or 5 years ago this article appeared in Star newspaper. "Phobias are considered to be pesky little bothers. But as irrational as they may be, most phobias are not without a root cause. Something, however small, must have happened to trigger the fear. Now, there is one popular phobia in Kenya called Kikuyu phobia."
so now that we have a duopoly inform of UhuRuto pair to them could nationalist convention mean adding a 3rd, 4th or even 5th ethnic community to that? listening to the hypothesis of Mutahi Nguni we can see the evolving narrative. when the latter talked of tyranny of numbers was he in a way preparing us to the 'fact' that a computer program could sift say Kikuyu names and give those votes to Uluru and the same way give Luo names to RAO ensuring 'tyranny'. so now the hypothesis on how not return to 2007/2008
the bigger picture being painted is that we can reconcile if we accept
corruption is an institution so we should only contain it and stop kidding ourselves that we can do without it.
so back to the headline and listening to the Jubilee consultant above Ndii is elevated to a status of a political engineer following prisoner of contract. flipping that on UhuRuto one can see they are also trying to take us the the nationalist definition. "Nationalism makes one to think only of one’s country’s virtues and not its deficiencies. Nationalism can also make one contemptuous of the virtues of other nations."
so that explains why UhuRuto can only trust and rely on their ethnic enclaves for appointments in the national (read ethnicity) government. so when one thinks of the nationalist aka UhuRuto style it is nice to read George Orwell who said "Indifference to Reality. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts.....The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them....Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should....Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt about the most enormous events. "
in conclusion UhuRuto fit being called nationalist in the definition of Charles "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first."
UhuRuto hate everyone who is not a Kikuyu for Uhuru and a Kalenjin for Ruto. as good Christians one may turn the other cheek. as good Muslims it is an eye for an eye. let them, UhuRuto, try another one. but yes they are nationalists who fit what Charles said "hate for people other than your own comes first." yes let them try another one.