The problem with my country Kenya

Pirates in the high seas of Puntland

Apart from the Waki report,the problem of piracy in the waters of puntland dominates Kenyan news today.Yesterday, the royal navy arrested 8 heavily armed young men of somali descent approximately 540 nauts into the Indian ocean, the same day that saw the pirates of puntland hijack a saudi Arabia registered ship (the biggest catch ever), that was ferrying crude to Kenya.

So far, the piracy industry is worth 30 million US dollars and promises to grow if ships continue plying this route.The arrested Somalis are in some police station in Nairobi Kenya and as we speak, Kenya is on the brink of invading Somalia due to what the Kenyan government terms as invasion of Kenya's northern frontier by Somali militia.Somali militia who are currently operating in Mandera are still holding two Italian nuns and a Kenyan man who they kidnapped a fortnight ago.

The situation in the horn of Africa is worsening, as Sudan accuses Kenya and Ethiopia of Meddling in its affairs.Ethiopian soldiers are still occupying Mogadishu and now Kenya wants to invade.

What Kenyans are to expect is a rise in terrorism....the kind we hear about in Pakistan where suicide bombers strike on a daily basis.What the Kenyan government should do is to stop being manipulated by America and other western imperialist governments because as far as everybody is concerned, Kenyan borders are as porous as sandy soil....unlike Ethiopia, Kenya does not have the military might to fight two wars.

references

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081119/ap_on_bi_ge/piracy

Shades of Black,tribalism in Kenya and the pup in the whitehouse

I have been missing in action from the blogger world.If you are a regular reader then many apologies...

Today here iam neither happy nor sad...only a headache.Perhaps,a sign of mild malaria from the thousand mosquito bites i got on Friday night or may be a hangover from the three day drinking spree celebrating the ascension of a black man to the white house.If you could have asked me one month ago who i preferred to be the 44th president of America, i could have told you John McCain.Why? you would have wondered.....here is why...

The main reason would be the fact that iam a Gikuyu.The Gikuyu in me never wanted Obama to win just because Obama is a luo.I visited my friends the other day and sought their opinion and analysis of the just concluded American elections and it was clear that the majority of Gikuyus never wanted Obama to win just because he had a "drop" of luo blood.I am scared by these findings.How comes even people of my generation are this tribal??

I did some quick thinking and evaluated some case studies and it emerged that the Gikuyus are the most tribal ethnic group in Kenya.I have denied this fact for a long time but after looking at myself in the mirror, i think am guilty of tribalism of the first degree.My friends even went on further and played me a mugithi song that was forthrightly anti Obama.Truly, the Gikuyus are the cowboys of Kenya...what with their liking of leather jackets,and cowboy hats.If America was Kenya then all Gikuyus would have been republicans....No one would have evicted them from their farms for voting for McCain.

Although Obama is the president of America, Africa is still in a lot of problems.The African who lives overseas is totally different from the African in the motherland.There is war in the Congo,turmoil and grief in Darfur, IDPs in Kenya,"Real freedom" in Somalia just to mention but a few.

Politicians in Kenya will be heard boasting about how democratic Kenya is, while at night incite their tribesmen to kill other tribes for practicing their democratic right of choosing who they want to be their leader.It is in Kenya where Obama comes from, that politicians, tell their tribesmen to encroach into the forests while they very well know that by doing so, millions and perhaps billions of people, animals and plants will be directly negatively affected.

It is in Kenya, where politicians call for international intervention when they don't get into statehouse (read become president)but talk about the sovereignty of the nation when a report on abuse of human rights after elections, recommends for prosecution in the international courts.

The Obama's are shopping for a pup to accompany them to the whitehouse.You will hear brainwashed Kenyans exclaim....."how sweet"....If i was asked i would recommend the indigenous African dog...the one that resembles the wild dogs of the Kalahari.The one that feeds on ugali and sukuma wiki, just as humans do.

Obama might probably do a homecoming.It will be the biggest day in Kenya.We don't want to see the contempt that past US presidents have shown towards our frail sovereign nations.We dont expect our president to be frisked by Obama's security or Obamas dog to sniff our Presidents limo for a suspected bomb..afterall president or not president we are all mortals

MR. President and Mr.Prime minister it is now time to unite Kenyans

I will not claim to be a perfect human being. I have my misdeeds.
As we celebrated Kenyatta day in Kenya today I had an opportunity to do some thinking. Being a public holiday I was faced with the opportunity cost of either reporting to the office and “build the nation” or idle in the house watching KBC channel 1, which is usually full of patriotic songs and Kenyan historical information .Predictably, as human being I was a little bit lazy in the morning, with the knowledge that it was after all a Kenyan public holiday and therefore ended-up spending a good chunk of time watching “Kenya as it was once was” in your leading broadcaster KBC Channel 1.

I got thinking the moment the song “woiiiiii…..woiiiiiiiii…..woii ….tunataka…… Kenyatta……. Awaachiliwe” , was played as a soundtrack to the 1978 documentary shot by the then Voice of Kenya (VOK) now Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC channel 1).They were interviewing the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta while the aforementioned song played in the background.This is what the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, told the interviewer when he was asked:

Interviewer: What do you think will make Kenya forge forward as an independent
African Nation?

Hayati Mzee Jomo Kenyatta: The future of Kenya depends on the pride (read
patriotism) and hard work by the Kenyan African citizen.

It is as simple as Kenyatta put it…….uzalendo na bidii. It is fascinating how political slogans have evolved ever since independence…in the days of FORD we had “Haki na Ukweli” and ten years later “Uhuru na Kazi” in 2002 followed by “Kazi iendelee” and “Mwanzo Mpya” in 2007.Bear in mind that “Uhuru na Kazi” was also used in early post independence Kenya by the late Kenyatta.As the current Kenyan Prime Minister….The Right Honourable Raila Odinga correctly put it the other day……the first presidential elections in Kenya were held in 1992….and with them came politically instigated tribal clashes.Mzee Kenyattas legacy lay not in economic development but due to his ability to keep Kenyans “United and Patriotic”. Kenyatta converted Kenya from a multiparty to a single party state, in which, arguably, made Kenyans United.Nowadays we have a riot of politicalparties.Todays political parties represent the country’s geographical regions…they are used by politicians to blackmail the state (read president) for selfish needs. To tell it as it is, Kenyan political parties represent Kenyan tribes. The notion of “It is our time to eat” has exhaustibly been discussed in other media and I will not waste my time talking about it. But I will talk about tribalism/nepotism which is the root of all these problems.The people around Mount Kenya should be reminded that the great mountain does not belong to them as a tribe,the people sorrounding the lake and the coast line should also be discouraged to think in this lines.People should be told that it is not the Government responsibility to improve their lives.The Government responsibility is to ensure a level playing ground for all Kenyans no matter what their cultural background is.You will be surprised to find a dozen PHD holders from North Eastern province.You will find many good specialist doctors from the MijiKenda community.It is about time we divorced tribe from politics.Ford Kenya should cease from being described as “a party with strong grassroots support among the Bukusu people of Western Kenya”.Narc Kenya should endeavor not to look like a “Gikuyu outfit”.

Finally, Mr. President and Mr.Primeminister don’t preach water and drink wine. We know that you have limited time but at least set a precedence in the fight against this monster known as tribalism.The vice president must also be accorded the respect that deputy vice presidents around the world enjoy.Afterall, he is the president in waiting as dictated by the current constitution that you seem reluctant to deal with.What we want is peace….unite us…..let us not degenerate to a situation (we have seen this before) where our athletes perform poorly in the world arena just because the person at the helm is not “their own”. Last but not least people who participated in the “Eldoret and Naivasha Genocides” of 2008 must face the consequences of their actions.blo

Eastlands

Oh God save me

Armageddon

The world is coming to an end

Its yet another Monday in the City.I've noticed that schools have opened (What with all those kids at the bus stage at 5:30AM and the heavy traffic jam....is there a co-relation between schools opening and the volume of traffic??).It promises to be a lovely day as the sun is out early .I feel good...ready for another day in the office.I will spend the first two hours in the office blogging, checking my mail, and off-course stalking women on facebook.Whatever happened to Kenya's education system....this thing of having tois wake up at 4AM in the name of education is not good.

Anyway, iam at the bus stop at exactly 6:15AM.Like most Nairobians i dont have time for breakfast and iam feeling kidogo hungry.Iam lucky to get a mat and it takes me around thirty minutes to get to town.I head straight to the Kenya Cinema where you find this nameless cafe which serves breakfast.I order for my favorite "Uji na mandazi" and am good for the day.

In the office, its business as usual. Everybody facebooking, reading the online newspaper,checking stocks online......et cetera.someone should invest some time and money and investigate how many man hours are wasted on a single day on such things...maybe the steadman group especially now when there is very little politics to report on....

Of Nairobi's women fashion sense

Has anyone noticed that women in Nairobi don't wear skirts or dresses??

Spare us this Vision 2030 crap

I spent four days in Nairobi attending college in the past week and was really depressed by the state of the city.
I will not waste my blogger time moaning about the traffic mayhem characteristic of our city.....i will leave that for the morning shows in our local FM stations and...oh...before....i forget, those boring TV breakfast/morning/sunrise shows, that every TV station seems to have put on its schedule nowadays (typically Kenyan).

Now, to the flesh of my blog.......I have been thinking about this 2030 thing.For starters, when 2030 checks-in, i will be like 50, yes fefteh years old.Thats when Kenya will host the Olympics (Stevo sare kutu pima), thats when we'll have Seven lane roads, massive airports,shopping malls, security, everybody will be middle-class, et cetera, et cetera..

At 50, i will be grappling with mid-life crisis and only God knows how miserable i'll be.I will not be that excited about racing a motty on the free lane neither will i be happy hitting the rev at a club in Nairobi situated in a shopping mall.Most of the people i know will most probably be dead due to the harshness of today's life....hakuna doh mazee....Pollution in the city today is so high mpaka when you are in Nairobi you'll be forgiven for thinking its that time of the year when flowers procreate (pollination).

So, gava inafaa ipunguze hizo miaka mpaka 2015.Someone should also be thinking of reducing the number of cars in Nairobi.....no..i meant the number of car registration in Kilindini Mombasa and then lets allow the Libyans, Chinese to invest more and employ more and maybe mambo yatakuwa mazuri.....blo

NO MORE TOBACCO USE IN KENYA

I love Kenya.It never ceases to amaze me.
Smoking cigarettes is now an offense in Kenya just as smoking Ganja is.As i was cycling to work in the morning , i made a point to pass by the police station just to see how well this new law has been implemented.To my surprise the policemen were busy sucking their "cig sticks" as if oblivious with what was happening in the country.I also visited my friend Freddy who owns a small but well stocked duka and as you have guessed i was able to purchase two sticks of my favourite brand "sportsman'. Manze Gova ya Kenya haina capacity ya ku implement hizi law mpya wana jiwekelea.

Peace

All eyes in Naiirobi as African eminent persons jet in for dialogue

Nairobi has been a beehive of activities for the past two days with peace dialogue taking place between the Kenyan Government and the opposition.What is clear though is that the opposition does not have the interests of Kenyans at heart, but are only interested in power.Unfortunately, they (the opposition) have managed to alienate the GEMA people and have brainwashed the rest of the country to believe that GEMA is responsible for the problems facing Kenya.

We are all holding our breadth waiting to see the outcome of these talks.In the meantime KAZI IENDELEE