Servant leaders, not servant thieves, please

We are elated because with the promulgation of this constitution, resource devolution was facilitated. With it too is the devolution of anything that was good and bad about Nairobi. The thieves who have been roaming the capital, pulling strings and cutting deals are definitely being devolved to Kapsabet, Eldoret, Kisumu, Mombasa, Nyeri and any other County HQ. Where we say politics is local, we could as well say thieves shall be local.

With this constitution, the requirement that one must be a first rate thief to steal state largesse in order to develop his area is no longer tenable. Our society needs a Senator who's a negotiator, a (wo)man who can stand and defend the need for funding of key projects in an open and transparent manner. Governors must be (wo)men who can't deep fingers in the gravy jar. We need servant leaders, not servant thieves. So help us God.

Welcome to Nandi 2.0

As the president signs into law the new constitution of Kenya to usher in the birth of the second republic, I can't help thinking that this is the moment that Nandi 2.0 is also born alongside Kenya 2.0. Kenya 2.0 is the product of a negotiated constitution which pitted Kenyans saying YES against those saying NO. In a rare show of maturity, Kenyans cast their ballots and retreated to their homes to await the results of the plebiscite. Those of us, like me, who were outside Kenya at the time stayed glued to livestreaming TV and blogs to monitor the goings-on in Jamhuri. I was elated. Partly because I had pitched for a YES vote and said as much in several posts on this blog and on Kass FM. Partly because this vote was, for the first time as far as my memory could recollect, the most peaceful and possibly the only one whose result was accepted by both victor and loser.

Kenya has had her share of upheavals. From destruction of property and life, from bodily harm to those pluralism activists to deaths of hundreds as we fought to restore our dignity as a people, Kenya 1.0 is a stark reminder of an aborted dream. It is that missed journey that we hope will not recur again, ever. Kenya 1.0, the first republic, was characterised by anything bad about government. From excessive police force (used) against innocent Kenyans to the corruption pandemic to impunity. Kenya 1.0 is synonymous with death, corruption, hate, bitterness, nepotism, skewed resource allocation, favouritism, political marginalisation and failure. It is Misri to us. Not that Kenya 2.0 marks an abrupt departure from the sleaze of the past. No. The RED sea is crossed but we need time in the desert to allow the relics of Kenya 1.0 to die off before we reach Canaan lest they bring their bad into the promised land. Most of the purveyors of those vices associated with Kenya 1.0 are alive and they are positioning themselves to transcend the RED sea and stake a claim on the prominent roles which must re-engineer Kenya o be in sync with a new order.

Nandi County is born, welcome to Nandi 2.0. With this birth comes devolution, of resources and of corruption and vices that have been localised to Nairobi. Unless the new devolved units watch out, change the leaderships and elect responsible and responsive representatives, it shall be business as usual. What with our 'ngo samis muriat ko bo goot ne bo'. That bad and stinking rat knows what to do to evict you from your comfort. It just needs to stink, and off you bolt. Leaving behind the devolved largesse, on which fellow stinking mice will feast. It is real. Devolution of misrule, devolution of corruption or devolution to increase efficiency? We, members of Nandi Kaburwo County must choose to say NO to devolved ills and shades of misrule. Already, I hear whispers of 'he was with us, read RED' or 'he was not with us, read GREEN'. Now is the time for leadership, NOT activism.

Just the other day, someone told me. You'd make a great Senator for Nandi Kaburwo lakini you were GREEN. I considered it unwise. Kenya is ALL Green now, the new GREEN constitution is law and whether you were RED or GREEN doesn't matter no more. We are all in a GREEN Kenya 2.0. Nandi Kaburwo too is GREEN and the move to Nandi 2.0 MUST include ME. I stake claim to this new Nandi because I have been part and parcel of the struggle for fairness. Furthermore it is time to compete for office and the people of Nandi Kaburwo shall determine who stands to serve their interests. I want to be part of that team that shall usher Nandi to the new heights. I want to be part of the new Nandi 2.0, born on 27th Aug 2010. Arye we inyee! During the campaigns for or against this constitution, it was popular to say NO even if you did not know why. I refused to go the popular way. I still believe my choice of a YES campaign, which I explained in this blog, was right. I am proud to have been part of the team that was on the right side of history. That is courage. Safe politics is not necessarily right. By saying YES, I jeopardised my chances of being a prominent part of the Nandi 2.0, but that decision was borne out of the desire to see fairness in matters of squatter landrights. That is why I want to be part of the Nandi 2.0 team.

Make the wish of so many Nandi Kaburwo members come true. Support this transition to new leadership in Nandi. We cannot solve Nandi problems using the same people who created them. Nor can we be fooled any more with stories like "elect so and so because he/she is a friend of XYZ". Nandi Kaburwo must elect leaders with a clear mandate to LEAD Nandi Kaburwo FIRST. Nandi Kaburwo must believe in the abilities of her sons and daughters, the same people in whom you have invested enormous resources and time. This generation is alive to the heavy tasks ahead. But we are up to the task. We need new thinking, an assertive but dynamic leadership. Here we are.

The Construction and Destruction of the Kenyatta State

By DAVID W. THROUP

Kenya has been regarded as a successful African state by both academics and journalists. Although it came under attack in the 1970s for its neocolonialist policies and has encountered acute economic difficulties with the end of the coffee boom and the second dramatic increase in oil prices in 1979, it seems to have weathered the storm. Kenyatta's death in 1978, the maize shortages of 1980, the attempted coup of August 1982, the Njonjo affair, and the 1984 drought have all been negotiated. Its critics are less sure of themselves than in the early 1970s because leftist inclined regimes have also lurched from economic crisis to crisis. Leys (1974, 1978) and Swainson (1976, 1978, 1980) have pointed to the development of indigenous capitalism while Cowen (1972, 1974b, 1976, 1980), Kitching (1980), and the Cambridge historians have provided a more complex portrait of capitalist articulation, putting Africans back into Kenya's political economy as participants not simply victims of history.

Most recent research has focused upon the processes underlying the development of Kenya's political economy and particularly peasantization (Leys 1971; Anderson and Throup 1985; Lonsdale 1986c). This chapter relates this development to the nation's "high politics" and seeks to examine the operations of the political process at two levels:

The high politics of elite competition for control over policy and patronage at the center, and the "deep politics" of social and economic relations, which legitimize the regime through the incorporation of local clients. We shall see that the study of high politics provides insights into what has happened since independence and more particularly since Kenyatta's death in August 1978

Ruto fliflop cannot be explained

Never again to the culture of lies

Why is Ruto jittery on land? An explanation for the NO campaign

BY CHARLES MULILA
Administration Police houses that went up in flames on Monday are located on a controversial plot allocated to a firm associated with a powerful cabinet minister from the Rift Valley province. The plot, LR number 209/13332 was allocated to Rosestar Properties Limited, whose directors at the time of formation were listed the minister and and a Mr.Jamal. Rosestar then used the plot as a security to secure a Sh.200 million overdraft at the collapsed Trust Bank limited in 1996. During the Monday inferno, scores of people were injured and goods worth millions of shillings destroyed.

Two years ago, property worth millions of shillings was burnt at the same property. Investigators are yet to unravel the mystery of the fire then, and now.Interest on the overdraft has since accumulated to a whooping Sh.1.2 billion, according to an official at Central Bank of Kenya who declined to be named. The debt is being chased by the Central Bank's DPF department. Documents obtained by the Business Times show that the said a firm associated with the individual procured a Sh.200 million loan from the collapsed Trust Bank Bank and offered Government land as collateral. The land in question, LR number 209/13332, valued at Sh.500 million by October 1996 is owned by the Office of the President. But is also claimed by Rosestar. The partner however resigned on 14th January 1997, after the firm secured the Sh.200million from Trust Bank.

The money was wired to the firm on 11th November 1996, a letter written by then Trust Bank officials in our possession shows. It is believed that the loan, and many others advanced to politically correct individuals led to the ultimate collapse of the bank, in which billions of savings were sank. The bank collapsed in 2001. 

Before it went under, frantic efforts to recover debts by the Central Bank of Kenya(CBK) appointed statutory manager Rose Ndetho yielded no results. In January 2000, Ndetho wrote to the minister and other directors of the firm in question demanding Sh.545,786,606, as principle and accrued interest from the debt. Detho's letter said in part..”We are concerned that you have not responded to our demands to settle this account…if we shall not have heard from you within seven days from the date here of, we shall proceed as appropriate without any further reference to you”, Detho's hard hitting letter said. Communications in our possession indicates that earlier correspondence between the then PS incharge of Provincial Administration and Internal Security Zakayo Cheruiyot and the firm associated with the minister had been exchanged.

Why I would vote YES for the Draft Constitution

My dad, Joseph Kiptarus arap Rugut died a poor tea estate labourer. He liked his job. He died on the day he had been 'promoted' to a senior supervisor. His predecessor was demoted. Dad died allegedly from alcohol intoxication, apparently because he was celebrating his promotion the only way he knew best: by drowning in the local brew. Those who picked his remains said he was strangled, his neck showing signs of strangulation. He didn't see his family break some cycle he wanted to see broken. Dad belonged to a generation whose parents considered education as a pass-time for social outcasts. His father made sure that he did not go to the Intermediate level after Kaptumo Government School (GS). His generation produced rare exceptions like Joseph Tendenei arap Letting and younger ones like Samwel Kipyebei arap Ngeny. Those were rare exceptions.


My grandfather, a senior (chongin) of the Maina age-set, somehow regretted his decision to roadblock dad's progress in education much later as he sent me away from his death-bed at Nandi Hills hospital. He made me believe he was OK, saying I should go back to my grandmother's in Uasin Gishu. He died before I reached my grandma's.


Kiprugut arap Ngeny believed that education was only necessary to enable one read the road sign posts. Beyond that, he and his generation thought, children who went to GS Kapsabet howled like hyenas. That was madness. My grandpa would have none of that madness for his sons and daughters. And he had many. He migrated from Kapngendui  in Kabirer to Kimatkei in Tindiret and then on to Sireet where he met with Bwana Robotson (Robertson), the owner of Koisagat Tea Estate. Luckily for him and his generation his daughters were married off. For each daughter who was given away, he sold the dowry, kept the money according to a strict rule, which enabled him to separate the wealth according to his two wives' daughters. Eventually, tired of "pressing blue" (teben buluu), signing with the thumb dipped in blue ink, which was a way of seeking permission to keep cattle in the reserves, he sought to buy land in the Location Seven of Kaptalam near Kabiriirsang next door to super athlete Henry Rono, Olympic champion Wilfred Kipkemboi Bungei and World champion Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei. That land was bought using the money accumulated from dowry. Each wife's daughters' dowry bought so much land, which was divided amongst the sons of each wife in keeping with the Nandi tradition of "ma amei go(t age) go(t)", literally no one home shall feed on/eat of another home. Every home is entitled to own property. My father did not want to leave his Kamelilo people to adopt a new home in Kaptalam at Kabiriirsang.

By not moving, he stayed on as a labourer at Robotson's farm (Koisagat Tea Estate). It was the case of the son inheriting servitude from his father. Talk of a vicious cycle, this is one such.

Contentious in the Rift-Valley Province: Land

Will the government take away my land? This is in the ms of ever Kenyan. WKR tells whoever wishes to listen that the government of Kenya, of which he is a prominent member, SHALL take it away. James Orengo, the lands minister says it shall not be taken away.

The NO camp says the new katiba gets yes and you kiss your land bye. Not the way Paul Scholes was kissed by the other guy after ManU scored in the dying minutes to deny ManCity the points. No, it means government is introducing socialism and redistribution of wealth. Doesn't that sound familiar? The only difference is that this message is being given to people who have no land. They are landless while some families hoard 500,000 acres of land. Incredible Kenya.

The YES camp says vote YES and the government gets the teeth to redress the injustices related to land.

Let us retrace our steps.

How Ruto and the gang are lying on amendments to draft before the plebiscite

Hon William Kipchirchir Samoei arap Ruto, WKR, has said it is STILL possible to negotiate amendments to the draft before the referendum. Well, that is what I would like to see happen. The reasons for our agreement with WKR might be different, however. And that is the end of our congruence of thought. Personally, I hate to see schisms in our society fed by fear and twisted logic. Facts are scary for agents of disinformation. And I guess that is why some people do not want to allow room for civic education. I have heard of tales of people who are scared with stuff like "The RV land is targeted in the constitution". Now the people being told that have no land in the first place! So what shall be taken away from them, if I may ask.

FACT: The current Draft is driven by an Act of parliament, the Constitution of Kenya Review Act (2008) published in the Kenya Gazzette of 22nd Dec 2008. A summary of the Act is given graphically at the CoE Wbsite.

FACT: There exists NO provision in the current driver, the Constitution of Kenya Review Act (2008) for negotiations outside the framework provided which means there is only one logical destination for the draft, safe for editorial corrections at the AG Chambers. That destination is a plebiscite with a clear and YES or NO.

Kibaki: the guile old political hand and Kenyans love for raucous politicians

I would like to study under Emilio Mwai Kibaki. His persona is a study in contrasts between the know-all, want-to-know-all of Daniel Kapkorios Toroitich arap Moi and the control-freaks in politics as well as his 'apparent' hands-off, legs-off BUT eyes-on approach. He is probably a suave politician with little colour, or just an opportunist who saunters along ignored. A reputed economist with Alma mater like Makerere and the world renowned London School of Economics, Kibaki does not come along as 'visibly' intelligent as his contemporaries. Yet his stealth nature belies a politically deft personality and a political animal unbeknown to Kenyans. One should excuse Kenyans who are acclimatised to the noises from the Professor of politics and many of his raucous students who mistake vibe for substance. Kibaki is silence and scheming molded into a deadly roll. Here is a politician you would think is not in charge, when all he does is to keep his hands free of soil by delegating.

He had good lessons in management. And he uses them effectively.

But wait.