Lots of trouble for our country Kenya

I know most of you who have access to Kenya's press (print/electronic and audio visual) know that Kenya's forest cover is now 1.7% of 582650 square Kilometers that is the total geographical area of our country.Just to break it down for all of you dear readers who were kicked out of the math class in high school just because the math teacher didn't like your face......the total land mass under forest cover in Kenya is 9905.05 sq.Km (582650 * 1.7/100 = 9905.05 sq. km....damn i feel smart...or 990505 hectares or better still 2447591.158 acres)www.hmnet.com/africa/kenya/kenya.html

http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/forests-grasslands-drylands/country-profile-96.html
Of the highest concern of these forests, is the Mau Summit which is 2/3 or approximately 66% of 9905.05 sq.km.The mau has been invaded and something needs to be done ASAP.Images of fires gutting down the eucalyptus and cedar plantations in the forests is enough proof that this wanton destruction did not start this year neither did it start ten years ago.As far as the Maasai elders are concerned Mau was originally made up of indigenous African tree species not the cedars and the Eucalyptus that are burning down today....i accept the fact that once an indegenous forest is gone there are very little chances of re-generating one...so the soft-wood plantations are better than no forest at all...to cut a long story short....all people in the Mau should move out and give the forest a chance to regenerate by itself.

Politicians should sober up and stop trivializing this issue using their usual tools (politics and tribalism).Top leadership of the nation must deal with this matter squarely and conclusively...indeed this is a litmus test for the prime minister....whether he can make rational and unpopular decisions at a risk of political fallout. (something which Kimuya successfully did but the consequences were that he was censured by parliament).On an ironical perspective, the politicians can let the destruction go on and we will see which ethnic community will suffer most.....( i cannot believe i have just said this)

There are also disturbing news that 76 lions in Narok and Trans Mara districts have been poisoned and killed in the past one month. Again, we say let the politicians defend their ethnic interests as we wait, as a nation, to see what happens when the food chain in the Mara gets skewed

Harambee stars should bring us inspiration

Those who are keen on Kenya's current/past affairs know that Patriotism ceased to exist in our beloved nation ever since the World Bank/IMF coerced the then government to adopt SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme.Patriotism ceased to exist when it emerged that one Saul Kamlesh Patni ( now known as Paul Kamlesh Patni) had siphoned a couple billion Kenyan shillings fron the central bank and deposited the money in his personal a/c in some bank in rural Switzerland.

It is at this period of time that people stopped going to the stadium to watch football.Co-incidentally, it is at the same time that Benga/rhumba/taarab/bango were replaced by old jack/funk as the music of choice.It is at this time that Nairobi experienced the biggest rural-urban migration....it is at this time that Kenya got a second TV channel and people started prospecting the possibility of FM radio.

All said, i think we are at our lowest as far as patriotism is concerned.When the NARC government came to power there were signs of recovery...what with t-shirts branded with the Kenyan flag??What with Kapuka/Genge hitting the air waves....even our representative in Big brother Africa 1 arrived to the house with a Kenyan something (i cannot remember what that Kenyan something was)....Unfortunately due to too much politics that are typical of our nation coupled with corruption in the high offices...we lost it again

Currently,30% of our population is made up of the youth.Due to lack of jobs,poor education system and lack of a culture, the youth are not inspired.Jua cali and his colleagues in the music industry have tried to bring inspiration albeit subconsciously, but the impact is yet to be felt.Obama did it.... but the "Yes we can" fire died out.Harambee stars and even Gor Mahia have brought inspiration in the past and we are praying that they will do it again by making it to South Africa next year.

I also think the top leadership(president and Prime minister)in the Country should make their speeches more inspiring because that is what the youth look forward to whenever they are on TV.

All said...i wish the stars success in their game against Tunisia tomorrow at Nyayo.....


Note:
To all my boys at home....nunua gomba Kijeeh leo Jioni....kula lunch heavy kesho saa nne asubuhi enda Nyayo saa tano juu Jam itakuwa noma....kuwa umeketi Stadi by saa nane....anza kuambua gomba saa nane na by the time game ianze kuwa umeseti atleast ngwai moja

Valentines eve in Nairoberry

Its yet another friday, and as usual am so worked-up... and cannot think of anything other than a few cold beers.Tomorrow is valentines day and am under pressure to surprise my girlfriend with a gift that will show my undying love for her.She dismissed last years gift as "tacky" and it really broke my heart......readers should not get me wrong...i still stand with the ideals of open communication and am always willing to take up positive criticism.

Due to last years blunder, i invested some time and a few shillings to research on what women in Kenya, and to be precise, what women in Nairobi want for valentines.My investigation yielded very interesting results.Apparently, women in Nairobi always conglomerate with their girlfriends after vals to discuss what sorts of gifts their men got for them.A man who makes an effort to purchase something/anything for his woman, and does something special or something out of the way on this day is rated high.Women have a phrase for this, and the phrase is....."its the thought that matters"

The thought here being the pre-meditation of a man doing something or going out of the way on valentines day to please his woman.

Personally, i find this very hypocritical.How does a woman say that "its the thought that matters" and yet dismiss her man's deeds as tacky???

What is the Civil Society in Kenya doing about the proposed leasing of the Tana Delta to Qatar

I have been following the Kenyan civil society keenly ever since the post election violence that rocked our beloved republic after the current president, His Exellency.Hon Mwai Kibaki (Chief of the Golden Heart,Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Kenya,Phd, Supreme leader of Gikuyu Embu Meru Association) won the 2007 Presidential elections fair and square.

The current crop of civil society activists/journalists are a pity if not a shame to the republic.I read somewhere with utter dismay, that a group of "activists" marched to the Zimbabwean consulate in Nairobi and made a petition that it closes shop in protest of President Mugabe's leadership (God save Africa... for too many brainwashed idiots roam the land). The other day, there was a procession in the city centre in solidarity with the media houses against what the Media calls "draconian law" signed by the president, which in actual sense is a self-regulating law to stop newspaper vendors from selling porn to kids in broad daylight or better still aimed at stopping KTN and its affiliate Kass FM from polarizing and dividing the country along tribal lines.Surprisingly, the same laws apply even in the most democratic country in the universe....USA.

A lot of noise was made and has been made about the media bill,Mugabe,Unga,free primary education,Electral commission of Kenya, Chief Secretary Francis Mutahaura et cetera...but little have we heard about the invasion of paradise on earth, that is, the Tana delta and the proposed building of a port in a UNESCO world heritage site, that is, Lamu isles.
Just to bring all of you ignorant souls up to speed with what iam talking about,Tana delta is a geographical area spanning 130,000 hectares/320,000 acres.The Tana River Delta is amongst the top three of Kenya's largest and most important freshwater wetland systems that comprises of a diverse range of habitats that support in particular many thousands wetland birds.It is internationally important for the survival of no less than 22 species of birds making the delta one of the key sites in the country for waterbird conservation. It also holds a diversity of other wildlife including hippo, lion, elephant, buffalo, many breeding fish and amphibians(I have plagiarized this paragraph....don't bother googling).

As we speak, Abu dhabi brothers are on-site alongside a local company known as Mumias Sugar.They have invaded the delta and already the effects are being felt.An example is the malachite kingfisher (see below) which is on the verge of extinction.
The most disappointing thing is that the civil society is entangled in the politics of the day.One cannot help but notice that they are wannabes....they all want to be Raila Odinga..

Instead of focusing on real issues like the inability of NEMA to make independent decisions, they are wasting time conning donors and government agencies of their money pretending to be champions of the people but in the real sense champions of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).Brothers and Sisters in the civil society ODM is in Government.They sat together with their PNU counterparts and sold the Tana Delta to the Qatari's.
So take your Placards and lets see you on TV engaging the govermnent (ODM, PNU government) machinery (read police).Lets see you engaging the police in cat and mouse races in the streets for worthy causes such as Mau Forest, Tana Delta, the Girl child, The Boy Child, Free water for all, Education for all...et cetera....who knows you might bag 100 million USD in the form of a Nobel price.... blo

References
1.http://tanariverdelta.org/tana/1115-DSY/version/default/part/AttachmentData/data/Rare%20and%20Endangered%20Taxa%20found%20in%20TRD%20-%20by%20NK.pdf
2. http://tanariverdelta.org/tana/about.html#dsy1066-DSY_diversity
3.http://www.wildlifeextra.com
4.http://thewaterhole.wildlifedirect.org/category/tana-delta
5.http://thewaterhole.wildlifedirect.org/2008/06/25/nema-blunders-on-tana-delta
6.https://candobetter.org/taxonomy/term/565

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