KENYA HISTORY TODAY

2011-09-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

John Ainsworth- the man who built Nairobi

The name John Ainsworth may mean little today.
But this was the man who built Nairobi and planned it from scratch albeit with little support from London.
After arriving in town from Machakos, much to the chargrin of the railway administration Ainsworth built his house at Museum Hill to oversee the government administration.
Although he stayed for a little period, upto 1906 when he was transferred to Naivasha, Ainsworth had left a legacy.
By the time he left in the town had naturally sorted itself into seven districts then named Railway centre, Indian Bazaar, Railway Quarters, European Business and Administrative Centre, The Dhobi Quarters, European Residential Areas, and Military Barracks Lions normally laid a state of siege near the Norfolk Hotel while down at the swamp, frogs kept the town busy as they croaked in unison.
The demarcation of roads and plots had began in 1900 and four streets were planned in the Bazaar to be called Station Street, River Street, Punjabi Street and Khoja Moholo Street. But after the 1902 plague it was moved towards the current Biashara street.
Elspeth Huxley recorded the events in her book White Man's Country: "The town consisted of one cart-track recently labelled Government Road (Moi Avenue) flanked by Indian Dukas. Beyond lay the swamp where flogs lived…every night at dusk they used to bark out their vibrant chorus and spread a cloak of deep, incessant sound over the little township. The frogs were accepted as regular inhabitants of the town".
"Lions lurked in the papyrus swamp, and I really should not like to say how many were shot by the present sub-commisioner".
It was Ainsworth who started planting the blue gum trees that now stand in Nairobi today. He started by planting the trees around Moi Avenue, next to the Central Police Station and moved to other highways. Majority of these trees can be found in upper hill.
A treeless plain bored Ainsworth and he brought the seedlings from Machakos where he had been based.
He also lined the muddy strets of the railway town, a legacy that is still visible today in many parts of the town.
The European surburbs were at the hill (upper hill and State house road area) while the indians crowded at the Baazar. The Africans were to the east with the exception of Kileleshwa where a large African village existed.
In 1902 Mayence Bent had opened the first hotel in Nairobi on Victoria Street (now Tom Mboya) the second floor of on a store owned by Tommy Wood. The store also served as a post office. Tommy Wood is remembered as the town's first Mayor. Soon the hotel became too small and moved next door and renamed Stanley Hotel.
A proposal to build a church was accepted and the construction commenced just at the same time A.M. Jeevanjee started work on the first town hall. Also construction of Racecourse Road began. The first mishap for Nairobi happened in 1904 when the "great fire of Victoria Street" consumed Mayence Bent's Stanley Hotel just at the time Major Ringer and Aylmer Winearls were building Norfolk Hotel.
This was a blow to Nairobi and Mayence had to move her clients to another building. She named it Stanley Hotel.
When the notorious Meinertzhagen visited Nairobi in 1906 after his 1903 visit he was surprised by the changes.
"Trees have sprung up everywhere. Hotels exist where Zebra's once roamed. Private bungalows in all their uglines mark the landscape where I used to hunt waterbuck, impala and duicker", he wrote.
It was in 1909 that Mayence bought a plot at the corner sites of Sixth Avenue (Kenyatta) and Hardinge Street (Kimathi) to put up a hotel. The plot went for £350. Construction started in 1912 and by 1913 the first New Stanley Hotel was opened. The old Stanley Hotel continued to operate. (Excerpt from A Short History of Nairobi by John Kamau, coming soon)

2011-06-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

When History caught up with Nancy Baraza

History caught up with Nancy Baraza this week. It will soon catch up with many others aspiring for high office.

It was in 1990 that Ms Baraza - the lawyer who wants to be our deputy chief justice- joined hands with Aaron Ringera, Phillip Kandie, and Nesbitt Onyango (then all Law Society of Kenya council members) to seek orders to have Paul Muite, then LSK chair, barred from releasing “political” statements on behalf of the legal fraternity.

Others sued with Muite were then LSK’s vice-chairman, Willy Mutunga, who wants to be our Chief Justice, lawyer Mr Japheth Shamalla, Mr Charles Nyachae, (now the chairman of the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution, Ms Martha Njoka (now Martha Karua), Mr F. Kagwe and Mr G. B. M. Kariuki.

The Nancy Baraza group wanted this group sent to jail for contempt of court after they defied orders issued by Justice Norbury Dugdale and Mr Justice Joseph Amonde Mango, barring them from making political statements.

When this question was thrown at her - thank you Millie Odhiambo - during the parliamentary vetting exercise, Baraza said she was then naive and wanted to save the law body from being proscribed by President Moi. Perhaps, some of us do not buy that line, but an activist wag told me this week that she was forgiven by Muite and the civil society.

Again, she managed to redeem this black spot on her career by becoming an activist - for the better.

And that is a lesson that all those who aspire for higher offices should learn. What you do, in your moment of naivety or madness, will always haunt you. Remember Bill Clinton on the marijuana: “Yes, I smoked, but I did not inhale”, he said.

For those who followed the Muite case those days, it came at a time that only LSK dared to confront the excesses of President Moi. The judiciary was rotten to the brim and failed to protect the rights of citizen.

Muite stood out. He told the court that it was the business of LSK to talk on human rights violations, over concentration of powers in the presidency, subordination of other institutions and emasculation of parliament. These are the issues that would later inform the struggle for multi-party politics and the Constitution that we have today.

The Nancy Baraza group felt that LSK should restrict itself to the narrow objective of disciplining and licensing of lawyers and that the Muite group was out of tune.

Muite finished his tenure without doing too much as this group managed to scuttle his efforts to use the LSK to raise serious issues of political leadership in this country.

Which takes me to the next issue. Moi had a rotten Judiciary. I recently fished out correspondence, which I have on former Chief Justice, Cecil Miller (then chairman of Kenya Law Reform Commission) as he spent time in Mombasa looking for beach plots. He would write secret letters seeking favours from Kilifi District Commissioner S.M Komu, Coast Provincial Commissioner Yusuf Haji, and his predecessor, Luka Daudi Galgalo, on the same. He would drop the name of President Moi as he did this.

Miller did this immediately he finished nailing Charles Njonjo during the Njonjo Commission of Inquiry of 1984. So what do we see here? Abuse of office. If Miller was alive today, he would be embarrassed if these letters are read in public.

And that is a lesson to all those who want high office. Look back and be afraid. Very afraid.

2011-03-30T21:36:00.001-07:00

The rise of Sam Waruhiu; Kenya's blue chip lawyer
By John Kamau
When he appeared at the High Court in 1969 as the lawyer for Nahashon Njenga Njoroge - the man who was accused of killing Tom Mboya - Samuel Waruhiu was at best a novice.
He said as much.
Two years earlier, he had arrived in the country bubbling with energy having graduated with a law degree from the University College of Wales. But he was not prepared to handle a case that was to throw him to the centre of politics and law in Kenya.
Waruhiu, who passed on yesterday in Nairobi, had been called to bar in 1967 at Middle Temple and was returning to Kenya to join a small army of African lawyers and political elites who were shaping the path of a new nation.
But the Tom Mboya crisis and the Cold War politics had torn the Kenyatta government and divided the nation further as the succession struggle took a nasty path. In the political jumble, Mboya was assassinated and the young Waruhiu, who was not even a criminal lawyer was approached by Njenga’s wife, Grace, to take up the case “otherwise you (Waruhiu) would not live”. He was warned.
That must have been threatening given that his father Chief Kungu Waruhiu had been assassinated on October 7, 1952 triggering Governor Everlyn Baring’s declaration of a State of Emergency in Kenya.
Although he lost the Njenga case, Waruhiu’s image rose like meteor.
At the African Club, along modern day Monrovia Street in Nairobi, he would hobnob with other elites and beneficiaries of Mboya’s airlifts to US universities. From here, he would socialize – and when free he would retreat to playing golf at the Sigona Golf Club, where he became the first African chairman of the club in 1974.
But it was his entry into the boardrooms of blue-chip companies – and at a young age – that catapulted him into riches. He was by 1974 the chairman of Old Mutual and by 1990’s he was chairman of Barclays Bank.
Waruhiu had earned respect among the powerful Kiambu politicians and especially Kenyatta who had lots of respect to his late father. It was at the elder Waruhiu’s funeral that Kenyatta attended one of his last public meetings before he was arrested.
That Waruhiu would be headed for big tasks, albeit controversial, in the Kenyatta government emerged on the year he returned to Kenya in 1967. That year he was picked up to chair a board of inquiry that was to recommend on the composition of Teachers Service Commission and the place of Kenya National Union of Teachers. The inquiry was to avert another national teachers strike similar to the one staged in 1965. Waruhiu performed well together with Rev Andrew Hake. But though not all his views were accepted, he laid foundation for new thinking within KNUT that was picked up in 1967 by Jeremiah Nyaga when he took up the ministry of education.
One of the first students at Kabaa-Mangu High School – as Mangu High was briefly known – in 1940s, Waruhiu would balance his legal activities with business building a law firm whose clientele read like a who-is-who in the business sector.
While his brother, George, founded Waruhiu and Muite Advocates, Sam would practice under the umbrella of Waruhiu and K’Owade Advocates.
With money flowing, and investment opportunities galore he would partner with the likes of Dr James Sidney Nesbit to purchase choice plots in Mombasa joining other elites in the mad rush to acquire wealth. Their company Neswa Investment Limited whose two shareholders were listed Samuel Njoroge Waruhiu and Nesbit took several acres of land at the beach.
But Waruhiu will be remembered for his 400 page Report that he prepared in n1980 after he was appointed by retired President Moi to look at the terms of service for civil servants. Following the footsteps of Duncan Ndegwa, whose report recommended that civil servants be allowed to do business, the Waruhiu Report solidified that thinking. It was a thinking that was opposed by the likes of Habel Nyamu, a career civil servant, who always felt that this is the heart of corruption within government tendering system.
Interestingly, Waruhiu was not interested in politics. But he will be remembered as the chair of the Trading Appeals Tribunal that enforced Africanisation policy in the commerce and industry. It was a body that laid the foundation for indigenous Kenyans entry into business.
By the time of his death, Waruhiu was no longer listed as a practicing lawyer by the law society of Kenya and was not under any law firm having sold his interest in the Waruhiu and K’owade.

2011-01-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

The Story of GK Kirima

By John Kamau
Sometimes in mid-2005 Nairobi property magnate Gerishon Kamau Kirima, frail and crutching on his walking stick, limped into Nairobi’s Market Branch of Barclays Bank with a bag full of cash. He was alone.
A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman rushed in and publicly admonished him for carrying large amounts of money along Nairobi streets. It was end month and it could have been money collected from his rental houses, which bring in more than Sh 17 million a month, according to court records.
Few discerned that this was perhaps one of the wealthiest rags-to-riches Kenyans alive. Unlike other flashy millionaires, Kirima’s style of running business was rudimentary, just like the furniture he made in his early years.
By the time he died aged 88 in a South Africa hospital while undergoing treatment on Wednesday, Kirima and his family had for the wrong reasons become the center of attention as the family fought in and out of court corridors for the control of his multi-billion real estate and other commercial ventures.
It was a drama that had all the tenets of a soap opera: cash, witchcraft, back-stabbing, and litigation. Kirima hardly controlled it, and was more of a spectator, as old-age and senility caught up with him.
Born in the tea-growing Kiruri village in Murang’a and on the slopes of Aberdares, Kirima was a simple man whose dressing, mostly v-necked sweaters with a suit, hid his business acumen and wealth, but revealed his humble backgrounds. Scrupulously honest, Kirima was also naïve politically always failing to read the mood. Part of it was borne of his little education background, having dropped out of school at an early age, and innate fear of wading through uncharted waters.
As a person Kirima evaded the sophistry associated with millionaires, opting to run his business based on trust with his sons and daughters – and the first wife. At best he only trusted himself.
Like many businesses registered in early 1960s, at a time when women inherited no properties, his empire was simply a masculine Kirima and Sons Ltd, exemplifying the weaknesses of the social structure that he was molded into.
Like many of his age-mates who did not go beyond basic education, Kirima’s background is weaved around the colonial education structure that prepared Africans for menial jobs.
That is how the self-made millionaire started off as a carpenter after he eloped from his Kiruri home and settled in the Kinangop plateaus. It was here that he started his carpentry workshop becoming one of the pioneer African businessmen.
Kirima was mean albeit thrifty with the little money he earned. At the dawn of independence he would shift to Nairobi working as a pioneer carpenter at the Royal College (now University of Nairobi) and operating a small workshop in Bahati and later in Kaloleni where his first wife, Agnes would man as she brought up the children.
It was the venture into meat and real estate business that would catapult Kirima into big business. The end of the state of emergency in 1960 and Independence three years later opened a rural-urban migration unprecedented in Kenya’s history. Kirima opened bars and butcheries across the African and Asian neighbourhoods, taking advantage of the new elite who had money and new jobs. The Africanization policy led by Commerce minister Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano, who hailed from Kirima’s constituency also favoured Kirima as a young African entrepreneur. With Asian business targeted for closure and as rules were twisted to favour African businesses Kirima was one of the pioneer beneficiaries.
In 1967, he had saved enough cash to enter into big real estate business and surprised many African elites, mostly ministers and senior civil servants in the Kenyatta government, when he bought 500 acres from Italian Donenico Masi in Nairobi. By then only Kenyatta and his family had managed to buy such land within Nairobi district. In the same year, Kirima bought two other large farms in Nairobi which included some 108 acres from British settler Charles Case and a further 472 acres from Percy Randall, the settler who sold most of his land to Magana Kenyatta in 1967.
With such large tracts of land, bought from well-established ranchers and enough for ranching, Kirima was set for business as a big meat supplier. His main worry was that the Kenya Meat Commision, which was still commandered by British settlers did not allow meat from African farmers.
As the chairman of African Butchers Association, a lobby group seeking permission to sell meat in the city, Kirima managed to have the Africans have their way- a move that saw him start a private abattoir in one of his farms in Njiru area of Nairobin and which partly led to the death of Kenya Meat Commision (KMC), largely seen as a colonial outfit.
With Dr Kiano at the helm of the ministry of commerce, businessmen from his Murang’a backyard thrived by purchasing tens of properties in Nairobi’s River Road and from the vacating Asians whose business licenses to run retail shops were withdrawn. Also, as Asians lost their permit to run transport business, Kirima entered the business with his Kirima Bus Service competing with Dedan Njoroge Nduati’s Jogoo Kimakia Bus Service as the two leading African-owned bus companies in Kenya against established British company Overseas Trading Company (OTC) on the central Kenya route.
But the Kirima bus company did not survive for long. When Kenyatta issued a decree that allowed Matatus to run transport business from Nairobi to other towns in 1973, Kirima and other transport entrepreneurs: Muhuri Muchiri, Kamau Mweru and Nduati were some of the first casualties of the stiff competition. While buses were licensed by the Transport Licensing Board, the matatus were exempted.
Both Nduati and Kirima concentrated on real estate as they abandoned the bus companies. Those close to Kirima say he may have abandoned the business because he was a hands on man and always wanted to collect his money.
It was in the real estate where Kirima built a solid empire mostly concentrating on low income rental houses in Eastlands.
Kirima combined his business with politics. Having rose as a tycoon in the 60s, Kirima managed to get recognized among the African elites and his burial committee is an indicator of those who rubbed shoulders with. But even with that he was still a rural man. His children would still pick coffee in his farms, go around Nairobi collecting rent, and sell meat in their spare time.
At the political front, Kirima was elected a councilor in Nairobi rising to became a deputy mayor. He later contested the Starehe seat after then then MP, Kiruhi Kimondo was kicked out of Kanu in 1989. With the clamour for multi-party politics, Kirima was the Nairobi chairman and he organized the Kanu brigades that manned most of the City bus-stops. It was these brigades that would later become the thuggish elements that haunt the Matatu industry in Nairobi today.
The late Kirima did not win the Starehe seat in the 1992 multi-party elections and lost to Kimondo who defected to Kanu in 1994 leading to a by-election won by then Nairobi-mayor Steve Mwangi. A few months later, Mwangi quit his seat and politics, and Kirima won the seat on a Kanu ticket becoming the sole Kanu politician, and the only Kikuyu, to have won a parliamentary seat in Nairobi during Moi’s multi-party parliament. His appointment as an assistant minister was largely a reward.
Away from politics, Kirima spent his time at his up-market Kitisuru home and at his K&S House opposite Jevanjee Hardens in Nairobi.
It was from these two places that the drama on how to run the properties he had acquired for years was privately fought before it spilled into the courts and later to the streets.
Diabetic and partially blind, Kirima died without resolving his estate rows. The pale grey gate at Kitsuru still hides much of the drama captured in some video footage by the daughters and sons of the first wife as they fought the third wife.
Kirima had a second wife who stays in Kiruri village and away from the rows. With Kirima now dead, the battle to control his estate will begin in earnest. It will be bruising at best, and rough at worst.

2010-11-02T02:07:00.000-07:00

Ngoliba: Where Kenyatta dumped squatters

By John Kamau

Some 33 kilometers on the Thika-Garissa, a small sleepy shopping center sticks out like a sore thumb in the sparsely populated highway. Apart from the lone signboard that signals to visitors that they have now entered Ngoliba, there is nothing else to suggest how this sun-baked shopping centre – actually a row of Indian-styled Dukas- came into being.
A peep down into the rocky valley, where farmers plant mangos for sale, reveals very little economic activity.
The grass thatched houses, mud-walled at best, and falling apart at worst, show that Ngoliba Settlement Scheme as originally mooted in 1964 collapsed long time ago and residents have to constantly rely on relief aid – and like lost balls in the high weeds, they watch the sun rise and set.
The Thika River downstream, which was to provide water to irrigate the scheme has turned to a stream – and its banks spot small plots of vegetables for domestic use.
New archival documents now shed light into how Ngoliba was used as a dumping ground of squatters – who lived and wanted to purchase a farm next to Kenyatta’s farm in Kasarani.
They were not only forced to sell all the livestock –since settlements schemes policy did not allow new settlers to go with them- but were also supposed to plant sisal. When the global sisal industry collapsed in 1970s, Ngoliba collapsed like a a house of cards.
Today, it stands out as yet another showcase of misuse of power, might and money.
In August 1964 when Sasini Tea and Coffee Estates decided to donate some 8,000 acres of their land to accommodate squatters in their farms little did they know that it would spark a political row.
Documents now show that government officials were constantly embarrassed by the presence of squatters in Mr Block’s Farm next to Mama Ngina’s Farm in Kasarani which forced the Commissioner of Squatters, Zachariah Shimechero , a former police officer, to order their relocation to the 8000 acre Ngoliba, the farm that had earlier been earmarked for a separate group of squatters.
A Secret letter written by Mr Shimechero to the PS, Lands and Settlement tells him: “You may or may not be aware that Block’s Farm is adjacent to Mama Ngina’s farm and Mzee is normally bothered by the presence of 200 squatter families next to his farm…”
One of the conditions given by Sasini –when they donated the land was that squatters were to be accommodated in Ngoliba “on condition that they base their economy on sisal.”
But it appears that there were no funds available and a way had to be found out to use the British funds from the Million Acre Scheme kitty for this purpose. This was an anomally since Ngoliba was outside the Million Acre scheme that covered only the White Highland areas.
Ngoliba was outside the scope of the funding but since it was involved settling squatters who could embarrass Kenyatta near him farm, Geofrey Kariithi, who later became a power figure in Kenyatta government, wrote to the first permanent secretary of the new Ministry of Cooperatives asking him to get money.
Actually, it then not clear what ministry was to handle the 8,000 acres that had been donated.
“I still maintain that we are not funded for schemes like this and the under-secretary is fully aware of this position and until the government agrees on the overall question of schemes outside former Scheduled Area (white highlands) there is little that we can do,” wrote the Director of Settlements on September 22, 1966.
What perhaps he didn’t know was that Kenyatta had a personal interest in Ngoliba. Even as officials planned on how to settle the 200 people Kenyatta added a new twist when he demanded two people he had selected should be given 10 acres each.
The names were given to Jackson Angaine the Lands and Settlement Minister, who filed them and wrote a small note dated November 11, 1966: “the President insists that his two people must be allocated 10 acres each and Mr Shimechero (Commisioner of Squatters) is not willing.”
Mr Shimechero had told the PS that “It will be very bad for the overall morale if we are to allocate them with 10 acres when everybody is getting 5 acres and also when they have not contributed to the communal work carried out by the others”.
When the matter was brought to Kenyatta’s attention by Angaine he was ordered to issue them with a title-deed immediately while the others waited for a two-year period with temporary occupation licenses.
The two special cases were of Njau Gakinya and Gacheru Gatere.
Actually, Kenyatta visited Ngoliba on November 26, 1966; perhaps to make sure that his two settlers had found a place among the 200 who had been relocated from Block’s Farm. But it was not clear why the two had received Kenyatta’s personal attention.
Ngoliba, from the start was a bay of confusion. In the confusion, farmers were issued with occupation licenses without paying the stamp duty – and it later became a big row within the ministry of lands on how to collect the money.
But it was the dispatch of 200 squatters who were living next to Kenyatta’s farm in Kasarani that brought a huge political row and annoyed Kamba politicians. It was sparked by local MP, Gideon Mutiso. The MP, was a few years later charged with treason.
On the day the final group was to be taken to Ngoliba on January 31, 1968, Kenyatta happened to be in Eastern Province and the move was postponed.
It is this time that assistant minister Gideon Mutiso learnt about the exercise and wrote a protest note to lands and settlement minister, Jackson Angaine.
“I am sure you are not doubt aware that 200 squatters were recently moved from Block’s Estates near Nairobi, all of them of the Kikuyu tribe and were settled at the above scheme, along with some other squatters within the area,” said the letter dated February 15.
“This means that those people who originally belonged to Ngoliba and who wasted a lot of their energy in clearing bush, putting up houses, and schools will now be moved to a complete new area,” wrote the MP who feared that the move could spark a tribal conflict.
Ngoliba was threatening to explode and Angaine wrote a small note dated March 3 to his PS saying: “I am not going to allow politicians to play with my staff. Mr Mutiso is out of date and needs just a slight adjustment to bring him up to date”.
Apparently, the Commissioner of Squatters had decided to dump the 200 squatters who had indicated interest in buying Block’s farm in Yatta.
Perhaps to minimize skirmishes, Ngoliba was shifted from Yatta to Juja Constituency – that was to be represented by Kenyatta’s eldest son, Peter Muigai.
Today, Ngoliba has turned to be a ghost settlement with hardly any economic activity. The sisal industry that was meant to support its inhabitants hit rock bottom in 1970s after global prices slumped.
Anytime you hit the Garrissa Road, watch out for Ngoliba; for here is a settlement that is dead in the water.

2010-07-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

Kenyanjui Karioki
Orbituary (Former Head Presidential Press Unit)

1936 - 2010

Like all former Presidential Press Unit heads, Kenyanjui Karioki – as he liked to spell his name- was a man of a few words. When it came to discussing his dalliance with Jomo Kenyatta he would quickly evoke the Official Secrets Act.
When he passed on last week, a chapter of how the media covered the late president Jomo Kenyatta and how power changed hands in 1978 - when he was at the centre of events- was lost. Karioki never uttered a word and lived by the secret oath he had taken to safeguard the image of the first First Family.
Perhaps it was because he was Kenyatta’s press secretary, at times operating from the President’s British government- built Gatundu home, that he kept away from the media glare or was struggling with an innate fear that still haunts the political pelicans who manned State House corridors then.
From his coffee farm along the Kiambu-Kamiti Road and overlooking Kiu River, where he retired, Karioki adhered strictly to the catholic faith.
Quiet and suave and portraying an urbane; near-colonial character, he tended his coffee farm in the same style. That is where he will be interred on Tuesday at 76, a ceremony that will perhaps be witnessed by the remaining oldies of both Kenyatta and Moi era who epitomized power.
A non-smoker and occasional drinker during his hey days, Karioki earned his living from the media- but lacked the confidence to be robust or go gaga with detailed explanations as his boss at the ministry, the late Peter Gachathi would want.
This was borne of Karioki’s minimal education background and since he had risen from an obscure information officer at Mfangano Street’s Kenya News Agency offices. How he ebbed his way to Kenyatta’s State House – or what he simply refered to as “Gatundu” as a former workmate recalls is little known.
But from here he managed the coverage of Kenyatta-era politics, the death of JM Kariuki and crafted the mercurial immortalization of Jomo Kenyatta with the help of Peter Gachathi, a former Ministry of Information Permanent Secretary who also acted as the official government spokesman.
Karioki believed in delegating his duties to junior officers. That masked his incompetence as a Kenyatta’s media officer but it also allowed him to shop for the right talent to man the Presidential Press Unit.
“As a manager he was a good man”, recalls a former journalist who worked with Karioki for many years. “He also detribalized the Presidential Unit and only believed in quality.”
With the help of Gachathi, the PPU battled the media for balanced cold-war coverage, and to set up the propaganda units within the media to tackle the Somali Shifta crisis. When Kenyatta collapsed at his Bamburi home in 1968 it was Karioki who is said to have crafted the statement issued by the minister for defence, Dr Njoroge Mungai confirming that Kenyatta had been indisposed for three days “but could now take normal meals”. It was the last such statement from State House on Kenyatta’s health.
His interpretation of the Kenyatta docket was obscure. As the PPU head, his task went beyond the coverage of Kenyatta – the man - to wife and children. He would order a team to for instance follow Kenyatta’s children to the US colleges where they were attending school to do documentary films on them. One of the most memorable was when Christine Kenyatta joined Cedar Crest College and the PPU was at hand to issue a statement as they followed the mother, Mama Ngina Kenyatta and daughter abroad. In July 1974 he would troop with his Information PS John Ithau and Deputy Secretary Darius Mbela to Gatundu to show Kenyatta the graduation footage of Christine Wambui which earned some good media attention.
For his part, Karioki knew the power of media and would have his undertakings, both minimal and irrelevant- covered by the Kenya News Agency. It was something he had learnt from State House mandarins. His many arrivals at the Embakasi airport from abroad were given instant coverage that included cities and towns he made stop-overs and dignitaries he met – who would include then UN Secretary General U. Thant.
The death of Jomo Kenyatta must have come as a blow to Karioki who was only 42 then. His survival in the new corridors of power meant that he had to fit in the Nyayo era or be whisked back to the ministry of information. While Moi retained him – as part of the pseudo-confidence he exhibited on Kikuyu elites, Karioki was silently returned to the ministry since Moi wanted a hands-on man like the assertive – and at times arrogant - Wamatu Njoroge, who would later be replaced by a perceived weakling Cornelius Nyamboki.
Karioki’s return to the ministry meant one thing. He could hardly rise within the Nyayo ranks. He would during the Nairobi International shows be seen manning the information stand at the official opening ceremonies ready to welcome the minister and other dignitaries.
But his contemporaries say he loved his job and only lacked the necessary credentials. Again, he was in media field during murky times and for egoistic rulers. It was part of a job and he did it well before the curtain fell on 17th July 2010 at the age of 74.

2009-10-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Nairobi's Community Hill - A Short history

By JOHN KAMAU
Nairobi’s Community Hill still puzzles me.
It was from that very spot that the pioneer Nairobi administrator, John Ainsworth was taken by the powerful railway engineer, George Whitehouse in 1900 or thereabouts, to be shown some land – far from the railway line – where he could build structures for the Imperial British East Africa (IBEA) administrators who were to leave Machakos for Nairobi.
Here, he decided to put a camp for his police – and it is a scandal that these same structures were still occupied by administration police until this year when they burnt to the ground.
It is again on this hill, secure because of the topography, which Ainsworth built these very structures and on the opposite hill, on the grounds of National Museums, he built his residential house – which was demolished to give way to the Coryndon Museum, the modern day National Museums.
From these two hills his security would watch over Nairobi from a vantage point. But only fate had moved them there because the railway had taken the best lands in Ngara and was given priority over the government. Thus, the government was pushed to the edge of the Kikuyu escarpment.
From this buildings, now gone, lay the frustrations that IBEA officials went through in their efforts to make Nairobi a township. They were the first efforts to have government buildings concentrate around Community Hill – and the reason why that area still houses some many of government ministries to date.
It is in this area that in May 18, 1906 that Sir James Sadler, the Commissioner for the East African Protectorate suggested to Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State, that the future capital of Kenya should be built away from the plains. Sandler argued that the site selected by Uganda Railway managers had inadequate drainage, and was unsuitable for a large and growing population. Nobody listened. The government quarters continued to expand around Community Hill moving West to the wooded areas as business congregated near the railway line.
That story is now halfway buried in the ashes of the burnt down police lines. A chapter of Nairobi history is gone.
Sadler told Churchill that it had been pointed out that Nairobi was a “depression with a very thin layer of soil or rock. The soil was water-logged during the greater part of the year…”
It had been recommended that the town be removed “to some point on the hills”.
But the railway engineers were not seeing Nairobi emerge to anything more than an Indian township which they argued could “prosper inspite of insanitary conditions and chronic plague.” Without anyone noticing corrugated iron shops began to mushroom on the plains as Indian coolies, whose contracts had expired, started turning to business. Prostitutes, sightseers started crowding the new railway depot- some looking for fun, others for leisure. With amazing speed the railway depot started looking like a town. They called it Tinville! Those who hated it more called it City under the Sun due the scotching heat with no cover.

2009-09-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

Of Nairobi's Doonholm Estate, cattle dips and Namirembe Church

By John Kamau

Before a gate knocked him dead, 77-year old colonial Nairobi farmer, Mr J.K. Watson had faded into oblivion.
Even today, very little is known of Watson, and libraries have since discarded his pictures, mementos, and all that he stood for.
Yet, no Kenyan has never seen the cattle dips that this man helped design in the countryside, or heard of Doonholm Estate in Nairobi where it was all began before spreading countrywide.
Still, this was the man who helped in the actual construction of early churches in East Africa and the most notable so far has remained Namirembe Hill church in Uganda.
That, some might argue is the reason why Doonholm Estate in Nairobi has interestingly refused to give up its colonial name.
The only time it did was when the former Doonholm Constituency (actually Watson’s Farm) once represented by Mwai Kibaki, changed its name to Bahati (and later Makadara) and when Doonholm Road became Jogoo Road shortly after independence.
I have always met people who wonder why an estate in what was exclusively an African neighbourhood has such a name or its place in this country’s history.
Let me try to reconstruct the reasons.
Although now a residential area, Doonholm was previously a dairy farm known still as Doonholm Estate, and named after Glasgow’s Doonholm Estate where its previous owner, J.K. Watson hailed from.
Initially a 4,600-acre farm that stretched from the eastern edge of City Stadium towards the modern-day Doonholm Estate this was the first place in Kenya to have a cattle dip and to initiate a serious experiment against east coast fever.
It was also the place where the first breeds of Ayrshires, named after Watson’s birthplace, Ayr, were first tried in East Africa earning him many trophies including a prestigious Gold Cup given by East African Standard.
From that perspective, it would be interesting to look again at Doonholm Estate and appreciate its place in Kenya’s dairy history.. Watson, was not ordinary colonial settler and had been one of the few architects and constructors whose passion was to construct roads and houses.
Perhaps long forgotten is that this was the man who dug up the cotton soil at Nairobi’s Kenyatta Avenue and laid foundation for what the road is still today.
Thus in terms of drainage, and design Watson gets most of the credit for laying the Avenue, then Sixth Avenue, which is the widest of all in the city.
Also, when he found that he could not supply milk to the city – he was the first milk-man for Nairobi City- he decided to build a murram track that he named Doonholm Road and which is today known as Jogoo Road.
Doonholm Road was running through the farm and linked it to the city and that is the reason why it was at the edge of African estates that were built to accommodate the African labour force.
But it was his desire to breed grade cattle in the region, even before Lord Delamere, that made him well known in the white-elite circles although his legacy later cut across the racial divide. At Doonholm Estate, Watson had an office – nay house- where most of the famous buildings he later built were conceptualized. Among the most notable buildings is the famous Namirembe Church in Kampala, and the YMCA buildings in Nairobi.
Namirembe, which celebrated its 100 years in 1997, is the oldest Diocese in Uganda, and the construction of the church there by Watson turned the hill to become the cradle for Christianity in Uganda.
From Uganda, Watson also built the building now known as the Kenya National Archives, and residential houses in Muthaiga before he quit to concentrate on farming at Doonholm - considered the edge of Nairobi.
And like the powerful architecture that he gave the town of Nairobi, his contribution to farming was remarkable although it is the designing of cattle dips in Kenya that went to annals of history for a man who had been bluntly told in 1903 that there was no land for faming in Kenya.
Initially, his stock had started to die of east coast fever and Watson was told there was no cure and that if he had to control the ticks, picked from the Athi plains, he had to build dipping tanks.
Records show that he ordered the first drums of chemicals from Coopers and were delivered by Messrs Newlands and Tarlton.
From then on, Doonholm became an experimental farm and one of the memorable notes written to the Agricultural Society of Kenya, of which he was a pioneer acknowledged the role of Watson in East Africa.
The letter dated August 4, 1913 says: In time to come when the history of the stock industry in British East Africa comes to be written, as assuredly it will, it will always be remembered that J.K.Watson (of Doonholm Estate) was the pioneer of stock dipping in the protectorate”.
Interestingly, and like the disappearing cattle dips in the countryside, Watson’s name has not had any luck. But Doonholm Estate lives on, not as a livestock far, but inhabited by people who Watson had, perhaps fenced out!
So should Doonholm retain its name? It is a question that only you can decide…

2009-09-15T04:08:00.000-07:00

The clumsy origins of Eldoret; once a boer town

By John Kamau
Eldoret is out- may be for a short period after witnessing the exodus of its second wave of investors.
Of all the fancy and clumsy stories about origins of some Kenyan towns that I have come across, Eldoret beats them all: Nine-zero.
This was the only Kenyan town that ostensibly had a bar that was never manned! Revelers would just go, take beer and leave the money at the counter- and if they needed change they would take the exact amount and stagger to the hyena-laden fields of Farm 64 as the emerging town was known then.
The story is told of how two thirsty revelers found that one of their own had accidentally locked the padlock and they broke the door, took their beer, paid as usual and left. For years, the story goes on, the bar operated without a door.
But that is as far as the juicy stories of Eldoret go. Perhaps it happened, or it is one of those Happy Valley tales.
I doubt it happened for one reason. Eldoret is one of the only towns in Kenya that was founded by South African and British rogues, renegades and perverts! So, one might just ask: at what point did they acquire this civility of taking beer, paying and taking the exact change. Total lies.
But what we know is that Eldoret was the epicenter of colonial notoriety, murders, rape and chicanery. What is currently amazing is that the town, or just “Eldy” as they call it, has managed to hide this notoriety and past and soldier on rising to become the fifth largest town in Kenya.
It all started in 1909 when about 280 Boers arrived in Kenya from South Africa with prefabricated houses, wagons, ploughs, cattle and sheep and started a mighty trek to the highlands looking for a place to settle. Something akin to the velds of South Africa where they had fled from fearing to be colonized by the British.
Led by Meneer Van Rensberg the group left Mombasa – where they arrived aboard a chartered German Boat “Windhoek” – on June 1908 and reached Nakuru on July 18, 1908. It was at Nakuru that the47 families dispersed to different routes but most veered towards modern day Eldoret with some 42 wagons.
It was in the Uasin Gishu plateaus that the group, interestingly aided by gun totting British rogues, that they managed to push out the Maasai to create what they called “breathing space” .
Colonial writer, Elspeth Huxley in her book "No Easy Way" captured the drama: "To get heavily-loaded wagons up this steep escarpment along the rough, narrow, treacherous track, with inexperienced oxen and in a wet year, was a truly remarkable feat, and only Afrikaners could have performed it...."
Famous American travel writer Negley Farson, in his 1947 book "Last Chance In Africa" says that Eldoret to the Boers looked like “ their beloved kopjes in the Transvaal -- they out-spanned at once, saying: 'Here is a land where our women can breed in space' ...
But why did they pick Eldoret? There is one story that has been passed on for generations.
It is said that one of the wagons that made it to Eldoret was carrying a heavy safe that collapsed at the site of Eldoret. An attempt by the Boers to lift it back to the wagon failed and they decided to build a bank around the safe!
By this time most of the best land had been grabbed by the whites who had christened the entire area “white highlands” and wanted to lock out ownership from everyone else. That is how the Nandi’s lost most of their land here.
Of course the boers were no ordinary settlers but cowards (fleeing Anglo-Boer war!) perverts, and racists. It was the Nandis who paid a heavy price dealing with them.
The british also had no time for the boers who had taken up farms here that had been surveyed by the Royal engineers.
Farm 64 had been allocated to a boer named Willie van Aardt and it was him who built the first post office since he could not make a living out of the farm. Thus, the story of Eldoret township started after Aardt started getting applications for business plots on the farm.
The British administration sent one of its administrators, N.F. Corbett to build a stone house opposite the New Lincoln Hotel. It was opposite here that they build a corrugated iron police station and a District Commissioners residence from the remaining material.
All this time Eldoret had no name and was just Farm 64 and farmers had to be summoned by Governor, Sir Percy Girouard to give it a name.
The names suggested included Girouardfontein, Sirikwa, Sosiani, Bado Kidogo, and finally, Eldare. It was the governor who suggested that a ‘t’ be inserted at the end to read Eldaret but due to a typing error in the official gazette the name was spelt “Eldoret” in the gazette notice of January 1, 1912 and it was never rectified!
The Bank built by the boers became The Standard Bank but the Cape Town office allegedly refused to approve the premises unless bars were fitted in the windows. Historian, A.T. Mason captures what happened: “ all the paraphenaria of city banking arrived, including a brass plate which was quickly affixed to the mud and wattle wall. On one occasion its manager J.C Shaw told the office boy to patch the flaking mud but the Swahili of both the manager and the worker was meager with the result that when Shaw returned he found the wall had disintegrated under repeated onslaughts with buckets of water and the safe was outside in the mud!”
It is said that because there was no accommodation in Eldoret, some of the customers slept at the counter and took their morning bath at the bank or at a bar next door known as The Eddy’s. It is the Eddy’s that had been broken into by the revelers to have a beer.
Unlike other towns Eldoret used the Kruger coins as its currency and its District Commissioner had very little hold of the boers and the town was basically neglected and the public works department did not encourage stone buildings hoping to remove the corrugated iron and go elsewhere.
The DC had to refer all decisions to Naivasha or Nairobi and had no powers and in 1913 the first DC resigned in protest.
But it rose to service the agricultural farms with fuel and as a post office and by 1924 the railway arrived connecting the town to the coast.
Even today, the Boer legacy on this town can be seen in the old buildings and churches.

2009-05-22T01:11:00.000-07:00

The children of the Happy Valley

In 1956 Leo Hoyle, of the royal Irish Fusiliers, become the first European in Kenya to be sentenced to death for raping and murdering an African woman to ostensibly “ end her agony” of being kicked out of her house.
The decision was, however, reversed by the court of appeal which declared him “legally insane” and reduced the sentence to a few months in jail.
Lots of Kenyans are wondering why there is seething outrage over the light sentence recently passed on Tom Cholmondeley. It is because the history of justice in Kenya appears to have been tilted in pre-post independent Kenya. The recent case of Tom Gilbert Cholmondeley and the eight months he got should not come as a shock. It joins a long list of such cases that have escaped the attention of Kenyans.
August 18, 1960 remains an important date because that was the date when a small crowd of about 300 people gathered outside Nairobi Prison to witness the hanging of Peter Harold Poole—the first and only white to be hanged in both colonial and independent Kenya — for killing an African, Kamame Musunga for throwing stones at his dogs. The case had actually torn the nation down the middle and had to be decided by the Governor who actually refused to intervene and Mr Poole was hanged at 8am in Nairobi prison. Today, his papers signed by Prison Superintendent J. A Mkinney and Nairobi medical officer, Dr D.H Mackay lie in our archives as part of our history.
White settlers had tried to push Tom Mboya, then Kanu secretary for Nairobi, to organise Africans to petition the governor to exercise the prerogative of mercy on Mr Poole, but Mr Mboya knew the political dangers of such an attempt.
Hanging those days was supposed to be a statement and dramatic too. That is why two hours after Mr Poole was hanged a notice was posted at the prison gates reading: “The sentence to death passed on Peter Poole by the Supreme Court has been carried out at 8 O’clock.” That was history. Mr Poole had entered the annals of Kenya history by becoming the first white to be hanged for killing a black man.
Nothing indicates the level of different thoughts going through the white and black communities than two comments made that morning and captured by the newspaper journalists who covered the drama: “May courage be rewarded in Heaven!, shouted one white man. “Justice has been done!” shouted a black man who was promptly arrested by the prison wardens. But Poole was just unlucky! Others who had committed macabre murders had gotten away with light sentences. “Happy Valley” has always had its tales. It was in the Soysambu Farm that Third Baron Delamere threatened to shoot any trespasser— including government surveyors —who set foot on the property. In 1908, he had also led a protest to Government House to demand the resignation of Governor James Hayes Sander for “being pro-native”.
Look at the case of Col Ewart Grogan. He was charged with murder of two African rickshaw riders whom he flogged to death in front of a magistrate. He even chased Police Superintendent, a major Smith, as he tried to intervene. Despite this, the murder charge was reduced to “assault” and he got two months of hard labour which he spent sitting in a “prison” opposite the Norfolk Hotel. There was also the case of a settler named Harris who flogged a farm labourer to death in 1943 poured kerosene on him and torched him. Smith was released on a bail by a High Court judge and later fined Sh600.
There was also the case of Walter Wilkin was on February 13, 1964 charged with murdering 33-year-old butcher Mwangi Kamau by locking him in a box and suffocating him to death. Wilkin got away with a light sentence of six years passed by the Chief Justice Sir John Ainsley. Wilkin had in 1955 also shot dead a Mr Wallace Gitagia, but the state entered a nolle prosequi.In 1980, Kenyans watched as an US sailor Frank Sandstrom walked away to freedom after paying a bond of Sh500 to keep peace after he admitted killing Monica Njeri, a Mombasa prostitute.
The case caused an outrage in parliament as the Attorney General, James Karugu, said he was not satisfied with the verdict. By that time Sandstrom had bolted to freedom.
And now Kenyans have watched yet another man get a light sentence. The White Highlands may be no more, but the Happy Valley is for real.

2009-04-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

THE WORLD OF BANTU MWAURA

Two weeks ago we met in the streets of Nairobi. Bantu Mwaura was still in his true self: jovial, candid. We were both in a hurry but spent 10 minutes chatting. For five minutes he had lectured me on politics. We talked about arts - the Kenya National theatre and the general trend that arts business is taking.

We promised to "meet soon" at have a beer!

I met Bantu Mwaura in early 1990s at the Kenya National Theatre. I was loooking for the most promising thespians to profile. Bantu fell in the category and was one of the few that I recognised instantly.

From the days of the Okoth K'Obonyo Memorial plays at Rahimtulla Theatre along Mfangano Street and at KNT I watched Bantu's career progress. His dreadlocks mesmerised most of us. His could only match one other thespian, Wakanyote Njuguna.

Every time you stepped at KNT, when the bar was a real theatre pub in the 90s you could hear him engage everyone in debate. He theorised and philosophiswed. We had our different takes on how to review plays. We debated endlessly on whether art critics should be such brutal in pouring cold water on plays. What role should media play in promoting local theatre? Was the theatre still hostage of the colonial era and has African theatre surfaced? We could discuss forever?

Later on Bantu would earn a scholarship to Leeds University. I had a interview with him after he grdauated and was then on my way to University of London for a different course - human rights! Not media anad not anything to do with arts where I had started my career. We talked over a beer as we did the interview. It was a candid talk.

By the time we met again, he was going for his PhD. and on the streets of Nairobi during his summer breaks we would meet - talk and remember the good days.

When me met on the streets of Nairobi recently it was yet another of those - "hey Mundu uri o kuo? He man are you still there?

I joked about his take on national politics on a television show at KTN where he dismissed politicians as "actors" - but who "act violence" . I liked his thesis....

Here is a man I would have like to see him grow. He had a positive mind, was radical but sofy spoken.

When I learnt about his death it struck me as odd. It still is. But Bantu Mwaura will live among us for a long long time

2008-12-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

Of Mboya, Rawson Macharia and the Loyalists

The modern day story of Rawson Macharia – who was buried last week- is not about how he testified against Jomo Kenyatta but how Kanu – or to be more blunt; Tom Mboya used the “frail little Kikuyu shopkeeper”, as the Times magazine called him, to his advantage.
It was at Mboya’s People’s Convention Party (PCP) headquarters where Macharia walked one day and signed an affidavit alleging that the British government had paid him to lie during the 1952 Kapenguria trial. As a result he was jailed for perjury for 21 months.
There was, of course, lots of paper trail on the promises made to Macharia who was the star witness in Kapenguria and whose evidence on Kenyatta taking Mau Mau oath was relied on by the prosecution.
Even historians today are still struggling to place Macharia within the history of Kenya. Was he a character shaped by the Mau Mau interrogator Ian Henderson – the man who was behind the penetration of the movement with pseudo-gangs? Did Henderson dictate Macharia’s testimony to fix Kenyatta? Finally, how did Macharia shape the later history of Kenya?
On one of the notes of a Colonial Office meeting held in September 23, 1952 it was succinctly put that “time might come when a decision had to be taken either to 'bust' or 'buy' Jomo Kenyatta. It would depend how the campaign went against the Mau Mau. Unless action was taken against Jomo the Africans might say that he was too important for the Kenya Government to tackle”.
That could be how Macharia was brought into the picture in a bid to “bust” Kenyatta and its no wonder that Kenyatta’s lawyer Mr D.N. Pritt described him as “a dirty little informer”. While there is evidence that Macharia demanded more from Brits shortly after Kenyatta was fixed the story of how Mboya took advantage of Macharia to score political battles is little told.
What is public knowledge is that after his testimony, Macharia became a loner and turned down several jobs after a beer bar opened for him by the government flopped due to lack of customers. After all, most of the Kikuyu men were either in detention or in secured camps. Macharia tried to hawk his story to Newspapers and frustrated he walked to Mboya’s office.
Mboya spotted a political chance to rally the Kenyatta supporters to his side and outwit the man who was his main rival in Nairobi; lawyer Clem Argwings-Kodhek who had founded the Nairobi District African National Congress to specifically tame Mboya and “and his American allies” as he used to put it.
Mboya reasoned that if he used Macharia to rubbish the Kenyatta trial, he would have an upper hand among the Kikuyus who supported Kenyatta.
Also, Mboya wanted to show that the moderates had forgiven the loyalists. He also wanted to portray himself as above the emerging radicals within Kanu who included Oginga Odinga.
After Macharia was jailed, Mboya did not lose sight on this opportunity and organized a grand welcoming party –organised by Kanu - at Solidarity house where there was “free beer, food and sweetened tea!” as one paper put it. This was a symbolic party. The point was: If leaders like Mboya could party with Macharia, then Kanu would not harm the loyalists if it took power.
Having scored on Macharia, Mboya had other ideas on how to tackle his rivals. Back in Nairobi he had befriended Pamela, fun-loving daughter of veterinarian Walter Odede, who was a restricted detainee.
Odede, more than Odinga was well known in Nyanza politics and Mboya used his US connections to secure for Pamela a college bursary as the father remained in restriction.
For that his Nairobi rival Argwings-Kodhek used to quip: “The Americans are not Mboya’s friends, they are his masters”
Odede was one of the senior officials of Kenya African Union (KAU) before it was banned and was one of the main political figures in Nyanza. If Mboya could get Kenyatta’s Kikuyu supporters to his side by using the Macharia card – even for symbolic reasons only – he would manage to outfoc Argwings-Kodhek. Again, if he secured the support of Odede via his daughter Pamela, he would secure the Luo votes.
On both ways, Mboya won and Macharia faded into oblivion unscathed. That was until he died recently.

2008-02-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

There is a sense of optmism that is pushing me to think that there will be a compromise. Today there was lots of speculation that a breakthrough has been found by Kofi Annan. But the body language tells us that there is still a long way to go.
We cannot afford to lose any other Kenyan because of the stalemate. We have exhausted the minutes and are living in borrowed time.

Next week is not far....but let us all maintain peace.

2008-02-03T02:53:00.000-08:00

Three years ago and on the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, I drove to the little village of Nyamata where the first whistle of an impending genocide was raised in 1992.
Then, nobody listened, not even the international community. Today, the Italian priest Tonia Locatelli, who was killed for raising the alarm in 1992, lies beside more than 10,000 people killed in a record five days at the Nyamata church when genocide commenced in 1994 in Rwanda.
Nyamata, some 65 kilometres south of Kigali, is the largest memorial in Rwanda and is a reminder of the effect of diplomatic silence when a nation starts to tear itself apart. Rwanda found an excuse in the name of a downed plane that carried President Juvenile Habyarimana to settle old historical scores among the Hutus and Tutsis. And now, welcome to the Happy Valley. Besides the tussle over vote tallying, the current wave of enmity in the former White Highlands tells us that population pressure, environmental challenges, poverty and land ownership — rows that go back to pre-independence days— have yet to be sorted. The post-colonial economic arrangement is getting a beating. One has to re-read University of California’s Prof Tabitha Kanogo’s book, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, to understand the genesis of some of the controversial settlements in the Rift Valley. Another good read would be Abuor Ojwando’s White Highlands No More, which covers some of the intrigues of settlements. And this is not only about the landless or the organisation and running of land buying companies in post-independent Kenya.
Failed to tackle land question
It is about a political system that failed to tackle the land question when an opportunity arose in 1964, which was lost after the Nakuru "forgive and forget" speech followed next day by the "Hakuna cha bure" rally in Nyahururu.
Instead the Kenyatta government relied heavily on the colonial elite, led by the last Governor Malcolm McDonald (he became the first British High Commissioner to Kenya), Agriculture minister Roy Bruce Mckenzie and Director of Settlements A. Loughlan, in making critical decisions on land, especially the maintenance of the status quo so as not to harm the inherited colonial economy. What we are seeing are victims of a colonial economy going for each other’s throats. Land issue in the Highlands has been emotive. While Colonial Secretary Reginald Maudling promised in Lancaster that they would not hand over the colony "unless we can be sure that we shall be handing over authority to a stable regime, free from oppression, free from violence," there are documents that indicate that they had decided to create an African elite via the 1955 Swynerton Plan.
There were also threats to "start war" in 1963 from Kadu’s William Murgor who came to be known as Bwana Firimbi if other groups were settled in the Kenya highlands. We must look back at why white farmers were encouraged to sell land to the Land Board and why the Settlement Scheme that was primarily set up to relieve landlessness went wrong. Land was an issue that saw Kenyatta and the likes of Bildad Kaggia and Oginga Odinga fall out. In September 1963, Kaggia even wrote to Mackenzie saying, "our freedom fighters expect a complete change of policy… in my opinion, land must be found for these people somehow and somewhere".
If we need to understand the genesis of the problems in the Highlands then we may have to check in the political history of this country. The truth must be told, however bitter, and a solution found. But that cannot be done through killings, mayhem and constant digging. If a truth and reconciliation commission is not formulated, we can all wait for our own version of Nyamata. After all, the land pressure in the Highlands is evoking tribal anger and more.

2006-12-22T06:17:00.000-08:00

MERRY XMAS

It is christmas festive season again. I would like to than all you dear readers who have faithfully followed me in this blog. It has been a lazy year for me but promise promise I will be active next year and bring much more news and life.
After I post this, I will be out of my station and join the mob in the streets as we make merry in a sensible way. Please please folks do no drink and drive. Do not walk in lonely paths, and be vigilant always...
We will meet next year; same spot

2006-12-11T22:22:00.000-08:00

KIMATHI STATUE UNVEILED

For some of us a chance to see the Independent Kenya government honour the Mau mau freedom fighters is a dream come true. We have lobbied for this day to come and i9t is here now. It is a simple recognition but with deep ramifications. The British will no longer control our history and destiny. watch!

2006-12-05T22:02:00.000-08:00

Kanu Tastes Tear-gas

Oh well, how things change. I sat and watched as Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka and William Ruto, were enveloped with tear-gas fumes. In their hey days in Kanu they would mock us as rioters and had no mercy on those fighting for freedom of assembly. I believe that had they done their bit to change the relevant laws we would not have witnessed that drama.

Those in government should learn a lesson...the police hardly change but can be tamed with good laws. Cry Uhuru, cry Freedom.

2006-12-04T22:37:00.000-08:00

MONUMENT FOR KIMATHI, FINALLY

The Kenya government has finally decided to honour Field marshal Dedan Kimathi, with a monument that will be unveilled at the junction of Nairobi's Kimathi Street and mama Ngina street.
Kimathi was one of the Mau Mau freedom fighters who led troops against the British army, eager to continue with their colonial escapades in africa. Born in Thenge Village Tetu division, Nyeri District, he joined the local primary school, Karuna-ini, at age 15 where he perfected his English skills. He would later use those language skills to write extensively before and during the uprising. He was a Debate Club member in his school and deeply religious and carried a Bible regularly. He later joined Tumutumu CSM School for his secondary learning, but dropped out for lack of funds.

In 1946 he became a member of the Kenya African Union from where he became a leader of its Nyahururu (then Thompson Falls) branch.
He became radically political in 1950 and involved himself with the Mau Mau, and later that year administered the oath of the Mau Mau, making him a marked man. He joined Forty Group, the militant wing of the defunct Kikuyu Central Association in 1951 and was briefly arrested in that same year, but escaped with the help of local police. This marked the beginning of his violent uprising. He formed Kenya Defence Council to co-ordinate all forest fighters in 1953.

In 1956, he was finally arrested with one of his wives, Wambui. He was sentenced to death by a court presided by Chief Justice Sir Kenneth O'Connor, while he was in a hospital bed at the General Hospital Nyeri. In the early morning of February 18, 1957 he was executed by the colonial government and buried in an umarked grave.
The British have ever since refused to show where they buried him regarding him as a terrorist.
The last two Kenya governments of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi also refused to honour Kimathi.

2006-12-01T01:26:00.000-08:00

SECRET PAPERS: Kenyatta versus Idi Amin

Recently I stumbled upon some secret papers on Idi Amin one of the most brutal dicators to have ruled in Africa. The papers which were published by the Daily Nation shows that Kenya lost close to shs 5 billion at the current exchange rate when Idi Amin nationalised properties belonging to non-Ugandans.
The hitherto confidential papers – now made public - also indicate how close Kenya went into war with Uganda in July 1976 after Amin stepped up a hate campaign against the Kenyatta government.
As a result, Kenyatta privately warned Amin to either stop the killings of Ugandans and other nationals, pay up Kenya’s monies or else.
Part of the items seized to that period included a car belonging to Peter Muigai Kenyatta, - then an assistant minister for foreign affairs- while accounts of Timsales Ltd, which Kenyatta family had interests, were blocked.
Besides touching the Kenyatta family, assets belonging to Kenyan companies were seized and nationalised and included the Uganda Brewery, a subsidiary of East African Brewery which in 1971 made record after placing the largest public share issue in Kenya’s history. By the time it was seized the brewery had assets worth shs 61 million, equivalent to shs 530 million at current exchange rates.
Others notables who lost property and money in the looting spree were Chandaria Industries, Car& General (which was nationalised), while Attorney-General Charles Njonjo’s first-cousin Andrew Mungai Muthemba’s company, Kentazuga Hardware, lost goods worth shs 452,000 (current rate shs 4 million).
Muthemba is best remembered in Kenya as the man who was accused in 1980s of acquiring arms in a bid to topple Moi's government
Back to Amin and Kenyatta, it now appears, the row was both personal and political.
As a last minute ditch, Kenya summoned foreign diplomats in Nairobi and issued the warning to Uganda on the morning of July 27, 1976.
Also declassified is a partial list of Kenyans who died in the hands of Ugandan forces between January 1971 and July 1976 and include the missing freedom fighter, Kungu Karumba. (see separate story) who went missing in Uganda on June 14, 1974.
Behind the scenes, Kenya’s then foreign minister, Dr Munyua Waiyaki, tried to negotiate for the return of the seized assets – houses, cash, plots and shares- but Amin accelerated his reign of terror by grabbing more Kenyans and their assets.
The papers reveal that a week after Kenya issued its final warning to Uganda, a delegation from Kampala arrived at the Office of the President in Nairobi to talk peace and Waiyaki repeated his earlier warning that Amin must stop “piratical and criminal activities of [his] undisciplined Army”.
Waiyaki had earlier taken his demands to the UN where he tabled the list of accounts that Amin had frozen, names of assets seized, and nationalised.
That Kenya also came close to toppling Amin has never been made public. But the ex-Ugandan strongman, who died in exile, was finally toppled by Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere’s soldiers on April 11, 1979.
And these are some of the Kenyans who disappeared or suffered in Uganda.
Here below are some of the other incidents that Kenyatta took to the UN.

• In February 1971 Mr Ndolo Mwaniki and Musyoki Mwaniki were killed by the Uganda Army Personnel either by beating or drowning.
• John Maina, a Kenyan businessman was arrested by the Army on April 9, 1971. His whereabouts is not known
• Mr Dominic Onyango Amoth, a senior accountant with East African Community at Tororo was shot dead by Army officers on the night of April 21/22.
• Oketch Muga was arrested by the army at his place of work at Kisenyi on June 26 and taken to Lubiri Barracks. He has never been seen.
• Raphael Ambinyo Omolo was picked from his house on June 26 1971 and was never traced.
• On August 6 Mr James Mungai who is believed to have been detained at Kasese Police Station was beaten to death by Uganda authorities
• David Kabaka who was reported missing since the military coup in January 1971 has never been traced
• Mr George Nderitu, a Kenyan businessman resident in Uganda and who was being sought by the Uganda army escaped back to Kenya and in the process was robbed over shs 3,000 by Uganda authorities at the border
• Twenty Kenyans were killed in a border raid and thousands of livestock stolen.

1972
• Samson Indeche was taken up by Uganda military Personnel in October 1972 and taken to Makindi Military camp. He has not been heard of since.
• Mr Amarakar Sachdev, a Kenyan citizen, was reported missing from his Liandanda on August 22 has not been traced
• Mr John Muli, a Kenyan journalist together with his two friends Messrs Githome and Maundu were reported missing; to date their whereabouts is not known.
• On March 14, 1972 Uganda army personnel entered Kenya and arrested one administration policeman and two Turkana tribesmen and detained them at Moroto Army Barracks. They were later released after being molested.

1973
• January 31, 1973 John Oketch Amara was picked up by Uganda army officers at the Railway Regional Headquarters and taken to an unknown destination. He is believed to have been killed thereafter
• On January 7, 1973 three Kenyans James Ogola, Omolo Uruidha and Sam Oringo were killed in a Kampala Bar by Uganda Army Personnel
• In January 1973 Lieutenant Omar Hussein, a Kenyan air-force officer while visiting Uganda was shot and killed by a Uganda soldier
• On January 3 and 8 Uganda army and police in a government land rover crossed into Kenya and molested innocent Kenyans in Turkana and Pokot districts
• On September 12, 1973 well armed Ugandan soldiers in a private vehicle crossed into Kenya and were promptly arrested by Kenya police.
• In early February 1973, forty Kenyans working with the East African Railways Corporation were kidnapped at gun point and taken to an unknown destination. It is feared they were all killed and have not been heard of since

1974
• Mr. Kungu Karumba who had gone to Uganda on business went missing on June 14, 1974 and was killed by Amin’s men. Throughout 1974 Uganda tribesmen with the support of the Amin’s regime continued to harass Kenyans along the common border. Five Kenyans lost their lives.

1976
• January 27, 1976 a Kenyan businessman John Oyuga Danga who had been held captive for two months under constant threat bought his way to safety with a hundred shs 180,000 bribe
• February 13, 1976, two Kenyan girls studying at Makerere University were picked up by Ugandan authorities at Entebbe Airport. One (Sally Githere) escaped but the other one, Esther Chesire ( a sister to Reuben Chesire) has never been traced.
• On February 15, 1975 Amin made a shock statement claiming a large part of Kenyan territory.
• On March 16, a Kenyan student at Makerere, Mr A. M. Ireri, was beaten unconscious by the Uganda soldiers
• On April 8, Uganda made allegations that the proposed communications link between Kenya and Sudan was an Israeli plot.
• On May 20 Amin accused Kenya of recruiting Ugandan exiles into the General Service Unit.
• On July 4, 1976 at the OAU meeting in Mauritius, Uganda accused Kenya of collaborating with Israel on the Entebbe raid.

2006-10-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have just been watching President Kibaki's speech on the occassion of Kenyatta Day. what impressed me was that he remembered to recognise the presence of freedom fighters among them Ramogi Achieng Oneko.
A lot has been said about the Kapenguria Six and we now know that not all those who were jailed lived to freedom expectations after they got to power. Two of them, Bildad Kaggia and achieng Aneko lived humble lives after they refused to toe the line and power never got into their heads. For that we salute them.

2006-09-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

I am writing this from Geneva where I am attending a WTO meeting. Today was a fine day for me and i presented a paper on the MEDIA. It was a good experience. Tomorrow is another day of meeting NGOs here in Geneva and I have the whole of Thursday to myself. Geneva is a bit boring unlike other cities I have been to...maybe its because it is the centre of corruption for third world leaders. Yesterday I was shown one of the buildings owned by former Zairean dictator Mobutu sese Seko, an imposing building in the centre of town. Although this city looks civil it has hidden Africas wealth in its banks...

2006-09-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

Where do I begin this...It is a fine morning in Nairobi and there are galaxy of delegates attending the Africities Conference here. I am at the media centre doing rounds and looking for stories.
Yesterday I almost collapsed due to exhaution and here is yet another day...work man work man....my mind tells me.

2006-07-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy day for me. A TV show at the Kenya Television Network analysing the elections results on the by-elections and another radio interview with Radio Deutchewelle.
Personally, I think the by elections put Kenya politics at a crossroads. But the main victors appear to be the young turks who have convinced Kibaki to come out and give them support. Will Kibaki rely on them next year? Possibly. There is also the collapse of ODM as a Dream and the Narc Dream.
The two will have to live with the obvious: death. It is the nature of Kenya's fast evolving politics

2006-07-24T04:27:00.000-07:00

It is the voting day in Kenya. A very interesting time in Kenyan politics. For Kibaki it will test his hold on the presidency. For Uhuru it is d-day on what he can achieve outside the ODM dream. For Moi it is the future of Uhuru Project and for Raila it is whether he can marshal support outside Nyanza.
The byelections will remain the litmus test on whether Kibaki has enough political energy to run again.

2006-07-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

There has been some shootout near the office here as thugs engaged a woman carrying money. Two or three people have been shot but what surprises me is that the police left the injured "thug" for two hours in the sun hoping he will die. I believe that justice should not be metted in the streets but in the courts of law. the police should have taken him to hospital after demobilising him and later to court....suppose he was an innocent bystander?

2006-07-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

The church they built in despise Mau Mau in Kenya
(This story appeared in Sunday Standard in Nairobi on July 19,2006)
By John Kamau
When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, flew all the way from Europe to commission a single church in central Kenya in May 1955 it was supposed to be part of a political statement against the Mau Mau freedom fighters.
Two years earlier he had presided the coronation of the young Queen Elizabeth II just as the Mau Mau war started to gather momentum in Kenya. With the Church of England at the forefront to confront the Mau Mau freedom fighters Dr Fisher flew to Kenya to lay foundation of a shrine that was to be in memory of those loyalists “in emergency areas” who had died – and were to die – while supporting the colonial government.
As a result the Church of the Martyrs in modern day Muranga town, then Fort Hall, was born. Today it stands as the only attempt done by the colonialists to mock the Mau Mau – an attempt that has been left to fade away in post independent Kenya lest it evokes bitter memories.
The untold story is that the Church almost stalled in the middle and the committee selected to build the shrine started taking any kind of donation to complete it. As a result, and official government documents show, bottles of whisky and brandy, and cigarettes were given to the committee as part of the fundraising effort for a shrine that was to cost an estimated £10,000.
Built at the height of the State of Emergency the notable slow response was because the Kikuyu countryside had been cleared of thousands of able-bodied men who had been wheeled to detention camps.
Indeed, by early 1956, the committee complained about the slow response after raising a paltry £1000 in several months of which £670 had been raised in Britain.
Something had to be done or the project came a cropper.
The problem was so severe that it was discussed at the Church Missionary Society’s (CMS) headquarters in London at a meeting attended by then assistant archbishop of Mombasa in charge of Fort Hall (now Murang’a), Rev Obadiah Kariuki – who once worked as a domestic worker for Rev Harry Cannon Leakey before he was recruited for theological training.
(Leakey is best remembered as the man who started the CMS mission in Kabete and as the father to the Leakey’s of Kenya)
While it was hoped that the church would take 18 months to complete the committee found itself in a quandary. Money was not flowing and a decision was made: “money must be used to make money”, concluded one of the meetings held in July 1956.
A colony wide appeal was also announced and donations started to flow including a donation from Princess Margaret, whose office wrote to say that she did not want press coverage over her contribution.
Outside Fort Hall Club (now Murang’a Country Club), lay a huge pile of empty whisky, sherry, gin and brandy bottles which revelers had donated to sell to Africans in the villages.
But it is a letter from the Fort Hall District Commissioner to well wishers that told the political story of this project: “The church fills a need here in Fort Hall and the surrounding districts and commemorates brave men and women who died in the emergency….do not think we are asking too much and too often. The memory of what this church commemorates stretches into the past, its influence will reach far into the future if you make this possible”.
Interestingly
One of the curious donations was that of 2,500 cigarettes donated by the Kenya Tobaco Company for the church fete and 2,000 cigarettes from east African Tobacco. In a letter dated June 7, 1956 the Kenya Tobacco company asked the church committee to receive the cigarettes “to be delivered by one of our staff next week”
They were to be auctioned, together with other donations at a large fete held on July 6, 1956. So crucial was this auction that for the first time State of Emergency regulations were relaxed in Murang’a District. The DC, J Prinney wrote to the District Officers in Kandara, Kangema, Kiharu and Kigumo Divisions asking them to permit Africans in the reserves to leave. “No passes will be required to travel within the district on this date,” said the secret letter in part.
The committee also sought the services of Anthony Lavers to write a propaganda piece to aid the fundraising. In one of the pieces published in the East African Standard he exalted the virtues of the loyalists and why they deserved such a memorial.
“These chiefs and other government servants knew how Kenya had prospered under the British rule…the majority of loyalists were simple humble men who knew the difference between right and wrong “, he wrote.
“It is a building that should have a special place in the hearts of all Kenya’s people for it commemorates some of the finest citizens of all races this young country has ever produced”, said the piece.
When it opened in October 1958, the Governor Sir Evelyn Baring flew to Murang’a to witness the occasion conducted by the Archbishop of Mombasa, Rev L.J. Beecher. Interestingly the ceremony was attended by a multitude of children and women. Most of the men were still in detention.
But today, the Church is, and for political reasons, deliberately forgotten as the only shrine in the Kenya in honour of Home Guards, a coterie of armed youth wingers recruited to suppress the Mau Mau freedom fighters.
What was to be a national shrine has yet to find any mention in the county’s history since the home guards remain the most vilified group for their work as collaborators.
While the Mau Mau leadership has always fought to have a shrine in honour of the freedom fighters – one forgotten shrine stands still for the loyalists.

2006-07-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

It is months since I was here but I promise myself that I will do it now....bear with me. It has been many weeks in Nairobi and this saga of Armenians still troubles me. What the heck did the authorities think?
It is July folks and we are freezing in Nairobi. From where i sit the Kilimambogo has disappeared in the mist.
The weekend was terrible. Fire at a Nairobi factory killed 10 since it was bolted so that workers do not steal. Pray.
We witnessed loss of precious African artefacts at Libra House. It is a scandal that even the media is not following. A story that will just die with no follow up.

2006-03-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

When he appeared before the press this week Internal security minister John Njoroge Michuki looked agitated- or just annoyed by the pestering.
“Lets go”, he was heard telling his aides as the pushing by the press to get a comment from him continued.
Michuki - who once worked in Nairobi as a tailor- is always in a hurry to tailor things in his own style. Hardly twenty minutes after Mwai Kibaki named his cabinet after the 2002 Narc victory Michuki was already at the doorsteps of his new office ready to enter! It was at the Transcom House where he built respect and honour – which crumbled to smithereens this week.- eclipsing the image of Michuki’s past in the colonial administration.
As the smoke from smouldering Standard newspapers billowed into the night sky on early Thursday morning so did Michuki’s reputation.
Two years ago, Michuki had earned accolades as the man who had tamed the matatu madness, by putting back structures and rules into the chaotic sector. But as the Swahili avidly say: mgema akisifiwa tembo hulitia maji! This was Michuki’s week and it will be a week that the media will always wish away.
By trying to lord over the press and the freedom it enjoys the Kangema member of parliament appeared to have gone a bit too far in the guise of State Security.
By tackling the media, and from behind, the minister used measures he never used on the matatu sector and to make matters worse, in the cover of darkness.
This week, Michuki no doubt equated the media to either Kamjeshi, Mungiki, Taliban, or Jeshi la Mzee which are his waking nightmares and which literary and practically threaten state security. By taking on the media he has entered into a virgin territory where he can hardly win the way he lost in 1979 when he attempted to dislodge John Joseph (JJ) Kamotho from the Kangema seat despite a high profile campaign.
Although he managed to dislodge Kamotho on second attempt in 1983 following kamotho’s alleged association with the Charles Njonjo group - that was accused of planning a government take-over - Michuki may not be able to dislodge the media as one of the watchdogs of the Kibaki administration.
Trained by the colonialists as a future administrator, the Oxford-trained Michuki still possesses some mannerisms of his trainers- strict, ruthless and never negotiating. It is no wonder that he was nicknamed “Kimeendero” (The Crusher) when he plunged into Kangema politics and in reference to his days as an administrator in both Kiharu and kangema during the colonial days.
With the current campaign to intimidate the press bound to fail Michuki will be walking on the same path his predecessors passed when they tried to use archaic laws to suppress the media.. But Michuki is not known for relenting but defeated he is known to take a back seat and watch – although not from a position of comfort.
In his days as Executive chairman of Kenya Commercial Bank, Michuki passed off as an astute executive and used one of his pictures taken at KCB for his campaign poster. In the picture Michuki had his arms stretched on the table and comfortably posing as the man of the moment.
It is a pose he had taken since his days as the first African Nyeri DC, whose political slogan, like that of his friend Kenneth Matiba was Kuga na Gwika — a Gikuyu phrase that means action speaks louder than words.
But this week Michuki used both action – at night and words – during the day to show the sterner stuff he is made of.
“If you rattle a snake,” he told the media, “be prepared to be bitten”. It was a phrase that carried more weight than his Kuuga na Gwika slogan that had guided his politics in Murang’a District. Born in 1931 in Iyego location in Murang’a, Michuki has the Herculean task of dealing with the fallout and outrage that follows his Wednesday night raid on The Standard and Kenya Television Network (KTN).
It is will me more tougher than his childhood days when he had to finance his early education after his father, colonial chief Michuki wa Kagwi, left him when he was only nine years old.. With no shoes but with determination the young Michuki’s mother had the son enroll at muguru Primary school on the same year his father died.
That Michuki did not inform his fellow cabinet ministers of the raid is perhaps his character. He came from a large family where not everyone knew what the others were doing. Michuki grew without knowing his step-brothers and sisters since his father had more than 44 wives and more than 150 children scattered in different villages where he owned land and might!
If Michuki appears to be tough-talking and has no time for people who he perceive to be disobedient is also a character he picked in the administration – especially after he became the Nyeri DC which was the hub of Mau Mau politics.
But for his credit Michuki has struggled to the top using all rules in the book to succeeed the way he did when he founded Kangema Farlands Company with a membership of 6,000 members to buy land once held by colonial farmers.
Having dropped out of primary school in 1943 Michukileft for Nairobi where he did odd jobs at a tailoring shop, fixing buttons and, may be, ironing. It was here that the 12-year-old lad made some money to go back to school in 1944 but it ran out again in 1945 and he had to switch to Kiangunyi Primary School, where he struggled until he passed his Kenya African Primary Education (KAPE).
That is the kind of determination that he is putting for the wrong course – suppression of media freedom. Those who admire him since his days in Nyeri High School where he joined in 1949 say he is strict disciplinarian and refused to be bullied in Form One. But it is the chest thumbing aspect that make him lose some friends too.
If the raid on Standard Media group was violent, Michuki’s first attempt to capture the Kangema seat was vicious and violent and would only rival the rivalry in Mathira that pitted the late Davidson Kuguru and Matu Wamae, the former ICDC boss.
Michuki was then young and at 45 in 1979 he would have staged a vicious ground campaign. But appears that today he can sit back and belt out orders and switch gears the way he switched from Nyeri High School to the little known Mugoiri Boys secondary to be a day-scholar and reside in the house of his father’s friend, Chief Ignatius Murai – who locals simply called “Nyathiu”.
Michuki would later marry “Nyathiu’s” daughter, Josephine Watiri, whose sister, Emma Murai served as Kenyatta’s chief of protocal,
If Michuki is defending Kibaki with zeal he may be wishing to save his senior at Mangu High in 1951 where he joined Form One when Kibaki was already a prefect and in Form Four! But even his friends are afraid that Kibaki’s junior may have done the wrong this time around.
Michuki has not been media friendly and even when Kibaki appointed himn the minister for transport and communication he kept away from media glare. “I will only call you when I have something”, he once said as other ministers used the Narc euphoria to win media mileage. For Michuki, the media makes no difference in his political life and may be to his exclusive business - Windsor Golf and Country Club.
When Michuki and Kamotho fought in their backyard, the later described Michuki as as "tight-fisted, snobbish and cruel" after Michuki managed to have Kamotho thrown out of Kanu and into oblivion.
His friends say that Michuki had wished to join politics in 1974 when he was one of the senior GEMA leaders- a position that saw him and Njenga Karume , convicted and fined for failing to file returns! Via Gema, and with Karume on his side, he had hoped to be a senior insider in Kenyatta’s cabinet but had to wait for 30 years to become one.
Michukli threw his weight in 1974 behind a little known Nairobi lawyer Muturi Kigano who polled 7,031 votes against Kamotho’s 8,007, a close shave.
If the political enmity between Michuki and Kamotho was born here, the enmity between Michuki and the media was hatched this week .
A man who joined the civil service at the age of 25 in 1955, and at the height of Mau Mau war Michuki started work when the word state security was used to intimidate the African press. It was no wonder that when the former Busia DO faced the media and invoked the same, memories of the colonial era administrator flushed back.
If he could crack down on the Mau Mau — or witness the crackdown — his recent efforts and threat to crack down the media will earn him wrath for his "tight-fisted" tendencies. Unlike in 1970 when he was asked by Kenyatta to start up the Kenya Commercial Bank after the government bought the former National and Grindlays Bank., Michuki is this time flexing his muscles on the wrong people. It is a battle he can hardly win. Or can he?

2006-01-23T05:02:00.000-08:00

Isaih Mathenge: The last "Governor" of Rift Valley

As the 1998 general election approached a chance came to interview Isaiah Mwai Mathenge on whether he would still run for the Nyeri seat. I went for it. We sat at a corner table by the pool at the Hotel Intercontinental taking snacks as we talked.
As he strode to the table he stretched his hand and with a bit of arrogance said: “Kamwana wimwega” (How are you lad?)
It was not unexpected having heard and read escapades of Mathenge and how he turned Nakuru to be the headquarters of Kenya politics from 1971 when he was transferred to Rift Valley from Coast Province.
At that time Mathenge was to face a radical named Wanyiri Kihoro – who had just returned from exile in London- and there was a lot of speculation that he had fallen out with Mwai Kibaki. The man was worried after word, or rumours, started circulating that Kihoro flew to Kenya in the same flight with then Democratic Party leader Mwai Kibaki.
“Could you be really scared,” I asked him of the Kihoro candidature.
“Not at all. The Nyakinyua really love me. If you come to Nyeri you will hear how they sing of my praises,” he said in Kikuyu. Actually it was not an interview but a chance for Mathenge to gloat and boast of his popularity and how it stretches from location to location within the municipality.
There was something else that mathenge had not explained. His decision to switch base from Mathira to Nyeri town constituency was prompted by prominent businessmen in Nyeri town who he hailed from his Mathira backyard.
In 1983 he had tried to go for the Mathira seat, a year after he left the provincial administration, and came a poor third behind Davidson Kuguru, and Matu Wamae, the former ICDC boss.
Although he had managed to be elected as the Nyeri District Kanu branch chairman shortly after he packed his bags from the Embu provincial headquarters where he served last as PC, Mathenge did not cut the image of a politician. Even as we talked you could see vividly Mathenge the Provincial Commissioner but not Mathenge the politician.
When he lived as an administrator, those who knew him say, he rode like a colossus. When he fell out of glory he was left bare with few friends and died this week dejected and lonely according to some of his remaining friends.
Mathenge made one mistake in his life. He betrayed his closest friends shortly after Kenyatta died in 1978 to save his skin – and job!
One such man was James Erastus Mungai, the former Rift Valley Provincial police boss. The two had worked together, drank together and taken it as their duty to frustrate Daniel arap Moi, as vice president making sure that he felt their presence whether Kenyatta was in nakuru or not.
Moi has never had nice words on the two but he tackled them one by one and used Mathenge first.
November 10 1978: It was three months after Kenyatta had died and Moi had been elected the president just a month back, October 10. Shortly after he was confirmed for a five-year term one man, James Erastus Mungai started running scared after he was told to proceed on leave.
Mathenge, as Mungai was to say later in a letter to Geoffrey Kareithi, the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the president, started calling him on “odd hours of day and night” asking whether he was still alive.
Scared of the calls from Mathenge, who was retained by Moi as rift Valley PC until 1980 Mungai sold his Range Rover and took off to Juba, Sudan (he left his pistol at the immigration desk) in the company of “two Turkana tribesmen” as then Criminal Investigation Department boss, Ignatious Nderi described the men who escorted Mungai to the border.
The escape of Mungai left most of his former friends including Mathenge at a fix. First the Attorney General, Charles Njonjo, had told parliament that there was a plot hatched in Rift valley to liquidate senior politicians including Moi, Kibaki and Njonjo.
If Mungai was up to something like that through the Anti-Stock Theft Unit whose first batch of students passed out a month before Kenyatta died then Mathenge must have been in the picture.
But was Mathenge aware of the plot to kill the top politicians.
Like Peter, Mathenge, a former Nyeri High School student, denied his involvement or knowledge of such a plot but traced the movement of Mungai to Geneva Switzerland hoping that the man would not spill any further beans.
But Mungai was feeling lonely in Switzerland and the winter was starting to bite. That November Mungai wrote a letter from Kareithi and named Mathenge as one of the people who knew the activities and training of the anti-stock theft unit. He was insinuating that if he was to fall from grace to grass because of that group then all those who knew about the training should fall as well.
Even by naming mathenge he was still seeking “forgiveness…the anti stock theft unit meant no ill will to anyone,” he said partly in the letter.
The letter to Kareithi disturbed Mathenge since it wanted to incriminate him with the Ngoroko saga – as it came to be known- at a time when he wanted to extricate himself.
The letter was painfully written and Mathenge, according to some of his friends, sympathised with Mungai but could not show his feelings. The time for everyone for himself and God for us all had come.
Just before he left his Nakuru station for forced leave Mungai had been ordered to scatter the elite anti-stock theft squad to various camps countrywide and later on was ordered to take all of them to the General Service Unit training grounds in Embakasi.
Also some investigations had been started by Njonjo in the Rift valley over misappropriation of shs 85 million by senior government officials.
“As I was instructed to go on leave”, Mungai said in the letter, I have kept away from Nakuru just in case someone (meaning Njonjo or perhaps Moi) thinking that I am interfering with the investigations going on there. I am therefore very far from Nakuru and I just came across someone coming by air to Nairobi ( and I gave him this letter)…. Just before I went on leave, I saw some reports about the alleged Ngorokos who had been stationed in the Rift valley. I was really frightened to read that they had been posted to GSU and others will be detained. I took it that these were the men I had talked to you about in early June or July 1978. Mr Kareithi believe me there was absolutely no plan to harm anybody. As I had told you these men had been trained to deal with the Ngoroko cattle rustling in the Rift valley, Mr Wariithi, our assistant minister saw them in training at Mararal in April 1977 and he talked to them. Mr Koinange the minister saw them in April 1978 or thereabouts and talked to them. They were just dedicated policemen who were trained to deal with one of the menaces in the Rift valley. I kept Mathenge, the provincial commissioner well informed about their training.”
Mathenge got to read about this letter from the press and hit the roof while Koinange and Henry Wariithi, a former MP for Mukurweini and assistant minister, did not make any public comments.
Mungai had one plea to Kareithi: “Could Mr Kanyotu please be asked to re-investigate the allegation…please help as I am really very disturbed…my children are all in school two of them in Secondary in Scotland and I do not want to interrupt their studies…I might lose my job….I have not told my wife where I am as I left my house in a hurry …please, please plead with Mr Njonjo and the president for me….
It is true that Mathenge, as the PC, knew about this elite squad since as Mungai told Kareithi “they were also used for escorting the late President Kenyatta during his many safaris in the remote places of Nakuru Baringo and Kericho.
Could Mathenge have failed to notice them? The full story may never be told and Mathenge goes to the grave having not uttered any more word on the Ngoroko saga and could neither confirm or deny his involment.
On the night Kenyatta died, it had been alleged Mungai had made a major mistake, ordering a road-block on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway to block Moi from leaving town to be sworn in. But it was too late. Mathenge had to let him sink alone.
Asked about this whole episode Mathenge had three words to describe it: It is a “pack of lies”, he said and sealed shut any further questions on that..
**
Nakuru was the hotbed of Kenya politics and if there was one man Mathenge could not stand was could not stand was Dickson Kihika Kimani, the mercurial leader of the 30,000 member Ngwataniro-Mutukanio Company that had purchased thousands of acres in the expansive Rift Valley from fleeing settlers.
Kihika was in a class of his own and had his loyalty to the Kiambu Mafia led by Mbiyu Koinange. Mathenge came from Nyeri and was counted as an outsider. While Kihika wanted the Nakuru parliamentary seats go to his members Mathenge wanted to thwart that attempt – just to show Kihika that he also had a say.
The battle between the two is best remembered in the election and final downfall of Mark Mwithaga, the Mp for Nakuru Town. Mathenge did not want a situation where Kihika would rise to be the political point man in the district.
The 1974 general elections in Nakuru were bruising and Mathenge was only two years old at the provincial headquarters. In the election, Mwithaga had defeated Mark Kabiro Kimemia, an ally of Kihika Kimani and becoming the only non-member of Ngwataniro to make to parliament.
Mathenge it later emerged during the petition lodged by Kimemia had openly campaigned for Mwithaga in a bid to annoy Kihika and company. The judges, Simpson, Todd, and Kneller, found Mathenge guilty –but not of an election offence! – and said: “we cannot discover why the PC openly declared his preference unless he hoped to continue in harness with Mwithaga and did not care that his public action would vex the petitioner, Amos Kabiro Kimemia.”
But it was the dramatic explanation of how Mathenge was caught campaigning that tickled his detractors. One of the witnesses told the High Court that as Mathenge addressed voters outside the Viwandani Voting station, a policeman arrived and was not aware that it was mathenge adressing the crowd. He is said to have kicked and pushed mathenge to the ditch and the PC tried to fight back. When his bodyguard tried to intervene, the court was told he was also thrown into the ditch with Mathenge.
It is a story that made rounds in Nakuru and that Mathenge denied. “If such a thing would have occurred, policemen who were there would have come to my rescue and I would have retaliated, ” he told the judges.” This group, (meaning the Kihika group but to a large extent the Kiambu Mafia) wants a yes-man as their PC who can dance to their people’s tune.”
Mathenge was not liked by the Kiambu politicians simply because he hailed from Nyeri or for other reasons. Also his daughter, Catherine Wangui – now a film producer with Kaza Moyo Productions - was getting engaged to Ngengi Muigai, the Harvard trained nephew of Kenyatta and who was emerging as a powerful force, not only in the family but in political wheeling and dealing of the 70s.
It is not clear how Mathenge managed to overcome the Kiambu group but the Mwithaga saga had put him on a collision course with some senior mandarins in the Kenyatta government. Interestingly, it was Mwithaga who suffered at their hands just to annoy Mathenge. Fancy this:
As the petition was lodged the Kenya political scene was rocked by the disappearance and subsequent murder of Nyandarua North MP, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (JM).
JM, like Mathenge hailed from Nyeri and was seen as a victim of the rivalry between the Nyeri and Kiambu politicians as they jostled for political space. Interestingly, it was the man who Mathenge had supported, Mark Mwithaga, who became the most vocal voice in parliament that he was elected as vice- chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee that was to probe JM’s death.
A week after the JM report was tabled in parliament and Mwithaga became the only Nakuru MP who voted against an amendment brought in by Njonjo to “note” but not adopt the recommendation, his petition opened at the High Court in which Mathenge featured prominently as the man who rigged Mwithaga in.
The Mwithaga hunters were not through with him. He was also accused of stealing shs 100,000 from Kiambogo company. As he lost the petition – he had decided to represent himself- he was hurled to jail for destroying his ex-wife's property but because the ballots had been printed the by-election went on as Mwithaga was in jail. He won from the “comfort of prison” with 5,348 against Kimemia’s 2,567.
That buoyed Mathenge in private but Mwithaga could not present his election papers after prison authorities denied him the opportunity forcing another by-election.
**
The burial of JM at his farm in Gilgil saw a galaxy of Nyeri politicians led by Finance minister Mwai Kibaki (the most senior politician who attended) demand an inquiry of one of their own. It is recalled that in the next few months, during a goodwill delegation of Nyeri leaders at Kenyatta’s Gatundu home, the man who masqueraded as Kenyatta’s body-guard, Wanyoike Thungu openly accused “Nyeri people” of showing disrespect to Kenyatta. Kibaki denied the allegation on the spot and they were in private derided that leadership will never pass River Chania!
If JMs murder had divided Nyeri and Kiambu politicians the wedding between Ngengi Muigai and Mathenge’s daughter was hailed as the uniting factor and dubbed “wedding of the Year” by political analysts.
For the first time in many years Kenyatta’s convoy drove to Nyeri and he cordinated the wedding from the start on behalf of his younger brother, James Muigai. The betrothal brought more than 3,000 guests at Mathenge’s Kamwangi village near Karatina town.
**
The death of Jomo Kenyatta caught Mathenge by surprise. His survival at the provincial administration was not guaranteed given the arrogance he had exhibited before Daniel arap Moi.
Although Moi had no time for Mathenge he also knew that the PC had not time for the Kiambu mafia. The adage, an enemy of my enemies is my friend was put to use. Mathenge was the man to scatter the Kiambu mafia out of Rift Valley and he did it with gusto.
The first to go was Dickson Kihika Kimani’s Ngwataniro Mutukanio company. March 24 1979 Mathenge drove to the annual general meting of the company – he was not a member - .and ordered the meeting to end. That morning Mathenge had been in Nairobi to attend a PC’s meeting that had been called by President Moi. He must have drove fast to catch up with Kihika. At the meeting he directed that the company must submit all its records of accounts and relevant documents to its auditors.
Kihika hit the roof but was warned by Mathenge to heed the directive. The Nakuru of Daniel arap Moi was different and Kihika, tail-between the legs, started falling. The man to twist the knife was Kariuki Chotara after Mathenge had stubbed the man at the back. He had one credit to his name: managing to cripple and dismantle the anti-Moi machine in Nakuru
**
By the time Mathenge left Rift Valley for Eastern Province in 1980 a lot of changes had taken place in the political arena. It was while he was in Embu that the fall of Charles Njonjo began and as Kibaki’s star started to shine. Njonjo had tried to link Mathenge with the Ngoroko issue but he had survived.
By this time only him and Eliud Mahihu had remained as PC who had served Kenyatta. Moi had a soft spot for Mahihu, after all it was him who made sure that the Kiambu mafia did not scuttle the smooth transition after Kenyatta died as the Coast PC mahihu watched.
Mathenge had also served at the Coast province but left at a time when senior Kenyatta administrators were accused of engaging in illegal cloves trade from Zanzibar. In 1972 Lamu West Mp Abu Somo was actually jailed for one and a half years for alleging that Mathenge was among the people involved in the racket.
Back to Embu packed bags in 1982 and returned to Nyeri where he had purchased a coffee farm and named it SereMwai estate. It was here that he spent his time and tried to build a political career that failed.
**
To succeed in politics Mathenge had two battle his own brother-in-law Waruru Kanja or coattail to Mwai Kibaki and his friend David Munene kairu.
At first Mathenge decided to go for Mathira seat but after he failed during the Njonjo-scare polls of 1983 he retreated to Nyeri town to face the brother-in-law.
By this time, 1988, Kibaki was cornered and was on his way out. With Kanja identified as anti-Kibaki his chances in the mlolongo were high as he got favours from Nyeri DC Keholo Muhalule.
Mathenge was no push over and he emerged as a fighter. He not only refused to conduct joint campaigns with Kanja as ordered by the DC but did not campaign at all. In the end he polled 10.314 against Kanja’s 10,741. Mathenge never forgave the regime and from then on it was a bitter battle between him and Moi supporters.
As Kibaki was dropped as VP to a mere minister for health, Kanja was also made a minister for information and broadcasting.
August 1986 he was accused of putting to his won use shs 30,00 given to him by Royal insurance to compensate two of his workers who had died at the farm. It was an embarrassing moment for Mathenge who was ordered by Nyeri resident magistrate Omondi Tunya to give the family the money. But it was the Kanu affair that was to haunt him
Mathenge and Munene Kairu were still the Kanu leaders in nyeri and one of the early plots was how to remove them because they kept on blocking recommendations from the sub-branches!
The two made a mark in Nyeri on behalf of Kibaki. When Bishop David Gitari delivered a sermon in Nyeri attacking the establishment over the queue voting it was Mathenge who raised a storm by describing it as “theologically and intellectually stimulating” while the DC, Keholo Muhalule described it as “seditious and subversive’ challenging Mathenge to resign from kanu is he supported the sermon.
But Mathenge did not budge. Instead he summoned Ngumbu Njururi to explain why he was attcaking the kanu chairman- Mathenge! Forcing him to apologise.
From June 1988, when Mathenge dismissed councillors who had petitioned his removal as takataka the former PC was a marked man. Moi drove to Nyeri where he chided Mathenge as a “colonial overseer’ and rubbished another former Rift Valley engineer, Kim Gatende as people who had returned to Nyeri to divide the people.
As Moi spoke Mathenge refused to stand –after his name was mentioned. It was the worst insult and both him and Gatende were kicked out of Kanu.
Gatende did not actually come from Nyeri but was born in Muranga but followed Mathenge to settle in Nyeri after they left Nakuru base.
Nyeri politicians, Ngumbu Njururi and Kanja made sure that the two were locked out of Kanu and they sent recommendations to Burundi Nabwera, then Kanu secretary general, who quickly put them before the National governing council. Out of Kanu and into the cold Mathenge was tormented.
“If I have been responsible for any political squabble in Nyeri, the Nyeri people will tell me, and if there is any evidence of any underhand dealings I am sorry to God for He is the only one who knows each persons conduct and intentions”, he said.
Come multi-party politics Mathenge was one of the first to join Democratic Party and seek leadership positions in Nyeri. Smoothly he became the Mp for Nyeri Town riding on the DP wave. But for only one term. When we met at the Hotel Intercontinental Wanyiri Kihoro was already in town to wrestle the seat from Mathenge.
He did it and Kibaki did not try to salvage him either. Dejected Mathenge decided to battle his old friend and in the last general election he switched to Kanu to support Uhuru Kenyatta against Kibaki.
It was the last that Mathenge was heard in public and retreated into his Seremwai Farm as diabetes complications started to ruin him slowly minus the crowd that for years thronged his homes in Nakuru and Mombasa.

2006-01-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

Hi folks. It has been a few interesting weeks in Nairobi. from where I sit I witness immense changes in the political arena and politicians fight it out for next year's presidential postion. But what has thrilled me is the manner in which they jostle for positions. I will keep watching. But it is an exciting moment. No doubt as a journalist

2005-12-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I decided to go and do a story on the famine that was ravaging Ukambani hoping that it would touch some souls. It was in the middle of the Orange/Banana madness and there was nobody who commented on that issue. I met men and women who were on the last strectch before they embark on a long famine. there was still some optimism and i met people struggling to plant because it had drizzled that week. their hope was on the rain-fed agriculture and if that crop failed they would not survive the coming year. I will soon be returning to see what became of that crop and follow up the story. Merry Xmas and happy new year.

2005-12-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

It has been a wonderful outing here in Hong Kong at the WTO summit. the riots the talks and all that came with it. Today we wait here as the ministerial draft gets a real scrutiny. Yesterday we remained holed inside as the riots escalated and chants of NO WTO reached new heights. It feels like home but there are serious issues that should be discussed including the US farm subsidies and the desire of the West to have developing and least developed countries open their markets fully. We must build a viable industry before we are ran over by the multinationals . (Sorry folks I have been away but now I am back) keep reading

2005-08-23T06:09:00.001-07:00

The long awaited new Constitution for Kenya has just been published and we are going to study it critically and religiously before we vote. The irony is that even before some politicians read it they had already opened their mouths on how they will vote. The week has been a good one for me doing some research on the Secrets of Kapenguria Six and and how they plotted to kill Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first President during his detention.
It is a historical journey that explains the relationship between the detainees and how the Mau Mau prisoners treated Kenyatta who they felt was an outsider. And they managed to torture him and he in turn endeared himself to the whites which made him popular with the then Turkana DC LE Whitehouse.
One of his key tormentors remained Paul Ngei as shown in this article.
No wonder Kenyatta scattered the Mau Mau after he was elected president.

2005-08-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

REPORTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN KENYA: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

I presented this paper At the Workshop on Trafficking in Persons in the East Africa Region
Lenana Mount Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya on August 18, 2005

Introduction
Every time I hear people talk about the role of media in tackling certain
societal problems like human trafficking – which is a modern day slavery
my mind goes to some of the handicaps that face journalism in Kenya and
East Africa today.
We are not going to witness the slave trafficking drama and capture of
men, women and children in the days of Tipu Tipu in upper Lualaba enroute
to the slave market in Zanzibar! Human trafficking has become more
complex, hidden and we are now being asked to offer our services to help
stop it.
Do we have a role to play in all these. My older colleagues in journalism
had taught me in my pioneer days that we are not policemen, we are not
marksmen and we are not immigration officers. We had been told that we are
reporters and we should leave activism to activists. That civic journalism
has no place. It took me years to know that we can solve some of these
problems and push them to the public domain if we want- if we have the
personal drive and if we understand the issues. From where I stand I know
where the challenge is. And that challenge is the introduction of civic
journalism in East Africa. We must embrace a journalism that is radical
and helpful. But this is not going to be an institutional choice for
Standard or Nation newspapers. It will be an individual choice.

Civic Journalism
One of the most vociferous critic of civic journalism worldwide is Brian
Williams of America’s NBC. As an old-hand Brian Williams urges reporters
to "report problems; don't try to solve them. There are other people who
have that job."
We have done that for years but who does it help? Nobody. I have been
looking through cutting on recent coverage of human trafficking in Kenya.
May be some of us recall the case of Bishop Gilbert Deya of the Miracle
Babies saga.
Neither the police, nor the media has been able to uncover that story in
its entirety. Deya is still free in London, the children are in a
children’s home but the story has died. Yet this was a classic case that
could have pushed us to the bottom of the problem. Of course we all know
that there were no Miracle Babies but why haven’t we gone out there to
tell that story in full.
Teaching Journalism
In our school of journalism they are still teaching people, not public
journalism, but reporting with the three Ws – When, Where, Who? It is an
archaic kind of journalism but it will survive because it is simple, it
does not need capital injection in terms of investigation and one does not
risk a libel suit or a bullet in the head.
But we are now being called upon to practice public service journalism and
more than ever before we are being challenged to become what everybody
says we are – The Fourth Estate.
We are the Fourth Estate because we have had other Estates- Executive,
Judiciary, and Legislature. When they all fail in their duties to help end
human trafficking we as the Fourth Estate have to do it.
It sometimes takes time for a reporter to realize and understand that the
press has a responsibility to go beyond exposing problems and to look for
solutions. I know it took time for me to realize the press has that
responsibility.

Arm Chair Journalism
Human Trafficking subject will not be addressed via arm-chair journalism.
Looking at the stories carried recently in The Standard, The Nation, The
People, and Kenya Times most of the coverage emanates from either a paper
given during a seminar, an arrest by police, or just simple information on
a pending bill. A lucky journalist can get a comprehensive report from a
research centre and do a story. And that is the end of it.
Now that is not coverage of the human trafficking subject. Trafficking in
women for instance involves both gender and basic human rights abuses, and
entails numerous risks. These include unsafe travel, violence (especially
sexual violence), exploitation, forcing into criminal activity and total
deprivation of access to some social services. These can make very good
stories.
We have exclusive clubs in this country and hidden private houses where
this exploitation goes on. In 1998 when I was running a small features
agency, I tried to investigate one such house located in Adam’s Arcade’s
Elgeyo Marakwet Road. One needed to have a lot of money to get to the
bottom of the story for a beer would cost 500 shillings. I managed one day
to penetrate the house and I found many Eritrean and Ethiopian girls in
the compound just whiling away in the sun and the gates locked and guarded
by a reputable company.
I could not make ends with the story because they would not talk….I
abandoned it because I was going back to school but tipped a human rights
organisation to follow it up. They never got back to me and even today I
do not know what happened.

Simplification of Subject
The media has simplified the topic that it may soon look petty. We need to
go back to the drawing board as activists and as journalists. How should
we cover this topic. Trafficking in women is often associated with forced
prostitution, where women have fallen prey to promises of well-paid jobs.
These are stories that can sell a paper given that the media owners are
looking for one thing: a thick wallet. Ho do we entice them and the public
to read these stories so that they can make impact on page One! That is
our challenge. And that is your challenge. We need to work together.
Trafficking is, however, not limited to sexual exploitation of women. We
know of women trafficked for marriage, domestic labour, bonded sweatshops
(in Europe) and other types of forced labour or enslavement. We have heard
of such houses in malindi, Mombasa, and some affluent Nairobi
neighbourhoods. But they simply remain that…. Stories.
One of the best stories I have seen of late on human trafficking was in
September 2004 by Franklin Awori of the Daily Nation. But it is a story
based on the work of a Mombasa NGO titled Ticket to Hell!
Our jobs as reporters, investigative writers has been very simple- we want
to simplify the human trafficking subject and we miss all the points, or
most of them.
We have not yet grasped that Trafficking and smuggling arise out of
economic, social and demographic conditions that encourage desperate or
ambitious people to migrate in spite of the rules and provide the
traffickers and smugglers with their illicit business opportunities. If we
have we have not used our pen and paper- and with all its might- to tell
that story.

MEDIA FATIGUE
But is this deliberate? Not at all. The capacity of the Kenyan media to
report comprehensively on this topic is limited to a few journalists who
can report more incisively and responsibly on human trafficking. But we
have to understand that with the current politicking on Constitution, the
battles between NAK and LDP and so on this is not a major crisis topic in
the newsroom and hardly interest editors because of the way it has been
packaged.
We have a few writers who know about the various human rights protocols
and conventions their countries have signed and ratified and whether they
have been domesticated to become municipal laws.
The capacity to see things from a global perspective, to analyse our
single tree as part of a large forest has been lacking. So what do we do?
We need measures that can strengthen the media to continuously keep their
eye on the subject, to be creative in their analyses so that we do not
soon develop a media fatigue on the subject!

Globalisation
Migrant smuggling and trafficking are not new phenomena. Why, then, do
they appear to have exploded so dramatically in terms of numbers, global
reach and visibility? It has been explained – and may be you have heard it
here - about global revolutions in information, transport, trade and
investment and how this has led to human trafficking.
Globalization has brought more and more countries, and previously remote
zones of countries, into contact with the wider world. Whether drawn by
what they see abroad or pushed by what they don't see at home, the pool of
people who today would consider migrating - and who can realistically make
their wish to migrate come true - has clearly increased. When these basic
ingredients are mixed with one part rising expectations of a better
standard of living, two parts unemployment or underemployment at home, and
one part the promise of a job abroad, they make the ingredients for a
powerful cocktail.
Remember the recent arrest of some Bangladeshi’s in Mombasa. Sixty seven
of them but we have yet as Media to encroach on the criminal networks that
bring forth all these.
But let me tell you one thing. These stories are not seen in newsrooms as
part of human trafficking. They are actually filed under Aliens! They
could be refugees from a war torn country or just economic refugees.

INOVATIVE APPROACH
The media, as agents of change and agenda setters are capable of making
the success of eliminating human trafficking, if well informed through
special trainings, networking, collaboration and through other exposures.
Such trainings can produce vanguards and advocates in reporting in a
systematic, continuous, investigative, analytical, comprehensive and
responsible form.
There is also need for constant media activities which are specific,
measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Information updates will
also be through periodic media meetings with experts, workshops and
seminars. Anything that can spur journalists into more investigative
reports and tips that can arouse analytical, investigative, resourceful
and courageous write-ups.
Finally we need a merit award that is attractive collaborations can be
forged among media establishments with or without the desks. The
development of manuals/press kits and the institutionalisation of media
merit award are high points for sustainability

Conclusion
We need a multi-facetted approach to this problem. As journalists we need
to understand the patterns and dynamics of trafficking and smuggling if we
are to address the problem effectively. The research to inform
policy-makers and practitioners done by NGOs must also be given to the
media and packaged properly to excite the media.
The civil society has lots of information on what is happening but most of
it is used to write reports for donor funding purposes and the reports do
not excite the media for a simple reason: The media thinks it must
participate and should not be used to just report or cover a side show. We
have to be in the field as players not spectators.
There is no easy, simple media response to trafficking - in women, in
children, in human beings in general in the east African region. Our
coverage has been wanting. And we must leave the box by adopting Civic
journalism. But we must do this stories in a way that they can sell
papers- that is what a news editor wants at the bottom of the day. He
wants a story that can make a splash. Do we know of such human trafficking
stories that can make a series in a newspaper. He we are…

2005-08-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome back! It has been a hectic time running around and trying to keep track on the changing face of Kenyan politics. My close friend David Makali (pictured) has left the Sunday Standard where he was my boss in a very interesting way. It all boils down to media freedom, ownership and the place of radical thoughts in an emerging democracy. We have worked together with David since those hectic days of The People weekly, once Kenya's most successful weekly, and later on when I was contributing for expression today published by the Media Institute which he started from scratch.
I hear that David was crucified for running a music radio programme at the Kenya Brodacsting Corporation which was perceived as "conflict of interest". I do not buy that storyline although that is the official line in my place of work.
But Makali goes down (I think up) as one of the most independent career journalists I have come across. We share many ideals on freedom of expression and has been my referee on several occassions and can say nice words about me when I need him. That is why I pen this blog in his honour and tell him go...go...man.
But there are several other thoughts that we need to address what is the role of media in an growing democracy?
Our role is to inform, entertain, and educate regardless of any limits set by other forces. That right should never be taken away from any journalist and any media owner must give in and let the press enjoy its freedom if it has to retain credibility.
I say that because credibility of any media is its driving force and that cannot be achieved if censorship, and back-stabbing is not contained in any media house.
Last night we talked about these issues with coleagues and we agreed that Kenyan media is facing a test of time. We are watching it and from now on you will hear more of these here in the blog...keep visiting.

2005-07-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

It has been an exciting week in politics with Britain issuing a travel ban on a Kenyan minister- Dr Chris Murungaru (pictured),also a close ally of the president.
While I do not hold any brief for the Kieni MP, I feel we might be missing the bigger picture.
The British commercial interests in Kenya have been facing a major test after their companies started losing on lucrative government tenders. Britain has never cried corruption during the Kenyatta and Moi regime because they had a monopoly on on Currency printing and supply of security stuff to the Kenya government.
The coming of Narc complicated things for them after Kibaki ruled out single-sourced contracts. The first to go was the De la Rue contract and the supply of Land-Rovers among others and as early as February I had written this story which I still think is the genesis of the whole problem.
Official documents which I have show that the first salvo on British interests was fired in March 2003 when President Mwai Kibaki held a meeting with Finance minister David Mwiraria and Central Bank Governor Dr Andrew Mullei barely 10 days after the latter took office. They agreed to cancel a 10-year multi-billion shilling contract awarded to De la Rue, a leading British firm that has been printing Kenya’s currency since independence.

Later that March 13, Mullei wrote to the Finance minister to confirm the State House agreement. It was the last item that sent shockwaves: "[That] De La Rue be informed that a decision has been made to go for open tender for the supply of our notes for the period after December 2004, it being understood that De la Rue will be free to participate in bidding."

It was the first time that De la Rue, which opened a printing plant in Kenya in 1994, was to face competition.

But there was fear that if the company were to swiftly lose the contract, the country would not have enough currency notes. This was raised during the State House meeting and the trio of Kibaki, Mwiraria and Mullei agreed to release notes "in stock" bearing the portrait of founding President Jomo Kenyatta to forestall any shortages.

The meeting agreed "that any shortfall that may arise between now (March 2003) and December 2004 be filled with new orders for notes bearing President Mwai Kibaki’s portrait and that of the first President Jomo Kenyatta. These to be sourced from De la Rue in the normal manner."

But why did the new government wish to cancel the British company’s contract, which had been duly awarded and signed?

The answer is found in Finance minister Mwiraria’s reply to Mullei, dated March 14, 2004 in which he ordered Central Bank to cancel the contract, which the government entered into on December 5, 2002, on three grounds.

• The contract was single-sourced. The process was not opened to competitive bidding as transparency would require.

• The contract period was extended to ten years instead of the normal five years for no apparent reason.

• The contract became effective on January 1, 2003 after the Narc Government came to power. The Kibaki administration should, therefore, have been consulted.

Mwiraria told Mullei that "there was no reason for the former government to award the contract as early as they did unless there was something fishy".

To Mwiraria, it was rather "fishy" that the previous Central Bank Governor, Mr Nahashon Nyaga, had agreed that the contract be renewed without fresh tendering. It was even stranger that the contract period had been doubled from five to 10 years.

Exit De la Rue, enter a French company, Francois-Charles Oberthur Fiduciaire (FCOF). Oberthur was set to enter entering into the lucrative printing scene with a Sh2.7 billion passport and visa project also without open tendering.

If the De la Rue contract was cancelled because of single-sourcing, why was the French company being awarded one through the same route? When Ntonyiri MP Maoka Maore blew the whistle in Parliament, claiming that a project that was to initially estimated to cost $10 million had been inflated to over $30 million and the tender in question had been awarded without competitive bidding, the country instantly became a battleground.

In what became known as the Anglo Leasing scandal, shadowy characters had lined up to milk the Treasury via the passport and police forensic laboratories deal. But the story is more complex as official documents show.

Although it is not publicly acknowledged – and the Anglo-Leasing scandal notwithstanding — failure by major British interests to control contracts they have enjoyed since independence has caused bad blood between Harambee House and the High Commission.

De la Rue had been facing some problems in Europe and by the time it signed the 10-year contract with the Kanu government, it had already announced it would close its security products printing facility in High Wycombe — with the loss of up to 350 jobs — in order to focus production on sites in Peterborough, Dunstable, Kenya and the US. It also announced in March 2002 that it would cease manufacturing banknotes in Singapore. Managing director James Hussey had released a statement terming the decision "difficult and painful" and "deeply" regretting "the proposed job losses … after operating for nearly 20 years in Singapore".

In December, last year, just as its contract came to an end in Kenya, De la Rue announced it would close its factory in Portsmouth and also put up for sale the US-based electronic voting business.

The company admitted it was facing an "overcapacity problem" but the British government came to its rescue when it was selected as the preferred bidder for a seven-year contract to print British banknotes, a move that was to involve the acquisition of the Bank of England’s printing operations in Debden, Essex.

Against this background, and a desire to have three hubs in Africa, De la Rue’s Nairobi plant was under threat. Being one of the largest single British investments in the region, any attempt to award the printing contacts to other firms would have been a body blow to the British firm.

Southampton-based Ship Builder, Vosper Thornycroft, is also facing new competition in its supply of ships to Kenya. It clinched its first deal in 1966 when it delivered three fast patrol crafts and has been doing business with Kenya’s military ever since.

Four years ago, the British Parliament was told that "the number employed at Vosper Thornycroft has reduced from 5,000 to only 1,200, with half that number now threatened with redundancy". With new players in the market, Britain is facing a new test.
While new corruption is an issue the Britons have been wounded in Kenya and have shown their tail.

2005-07-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

I woke up to the news that Former US Bill Clinton was in Rwanda and he visited the Genocide Memorial in Kigali. In this picture taken as Rwanda commemorated 10 years after the genocide I had the honour of meeting Tharcise Mukama the only person who survived the Nyamata Church massacre which left more than 10,000 dead in one day. Rwanda will survive but somehow the Clinton tears disturbed me. Clinton, of all people visiting a Rwandan genocide memorial and expressing regret for his "personal failure" to prevent the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 people? Surely, we need another person for crocodile tears! I recalled my earlier visit to Nyamata in Rwanda....
Nyamata is like any other village in rural Kenya and Mukama told me it means a place of milk. Today it hosts one of the largest genocide memorials in Rwanda and I have to tell this story once again.
It was in this small town that Italian priest Tonia Locatelli first blew the whistle a couple of years before the 1994 genocide. For that, like many others in Juvenal Habyarimana’s Rwanda, she paid with her life on the evening of March 9, 1992.
On this day, locals say, presidential guards knocked on her door at a brick house opposite her church and shot her dead.
And with that, the only contact between Nyamata village — some 65 kms south of Kigali — with the outside world was gone for good.

Today, Locatelli lies in a grave in Nyamata Mission Church a few metres from her former residence. A few yards further, in an open space at the back of the church, lie more: in a mass grave holding the remains of more than 10,000 people butchered inside the church in a record five days from April 14 to April 19.

The story of how the Tutsis holed up in the church were killed is one of the most agonising tales you can listen to.

Killings in Nyamata started in 1992 and went on unabated, even as Locatelli raised the red flag.

It all began when the local authorities decided to kill all the Tutsis and began rounding them up. They then locked the victims up in the church without food or water and left them to die.† Locatelli, however, managed to get word out to the international press and the ensuing uproar ensured that the Tutsis were freed without any casualties.† Locatelli’s reward for her courageous act was the full vengeance of the presidential guards.

Pax Christi, a Christian organisation, while mourning Locatelli’s murder deplored "the attitude of the international community, which encloses the magnitude of the violence in Rwanda in a shroud of silence."

The results of that silence are all evident behind the church where a walk-in tomb has been constructed holding bodies in little glass cages for all to see.

Tharcise Mukama, 74, survived the brutes because he had on that day gone to hide in a nearby swamp, but everyone else he knew perished here. Today, Mukama welcomes guest in this church and walks around with a bunch of keys to make sure the gates and the doors are locked.

Nyamata Catholic Church has the power to shock. As we entered the gates of the red-brick church, we held our nostrils. If a previous visit to the genocide site at the Ntarama Catholic Church had left us dazed, Nyamata — across River Nyirabatongo — was promising to devastate us. Here, an intolerable stench came from inside as we counted our steps and slowly walked towards the main porch.

"Iyo uza kwimenya, nanje ukamenya Ntuba waranyise", reads a sign in Kinyarwanda by the door meaning: "If you know me and you know yourself, how can you kill me?" — a clear reference to the hundreds of thousands killed by neighbours and family members here.† The padlock is still intact on the iron door, but the door was forced open.

When Habyarimana’s plane was shot down as it approached Kanombe International Airport, now renamed Kigali International Airport, the locals here took refuge, like everywhere else, at church compounds and schools. That these facilities would turn into death tombs, now sprawled across the hilly countryside, was not known — after all, many people here escaped the 1959 genocide by taking cover in such public facilities.

But as the residents of Nyamata found out, 1994 was a different year. When the Interahamwe militia walked into Nyamata on April 14, a week after killings started in Kigali, they could not manage to get past the iron grills.

"They then came back with the presidential guards who blew up the doors with a grenade", Mukama tells us through an interpreter.

Today, the twisted metal at the main porch are just a reminder of the terror that walked into this compound and its environs.

Holes on the inside of the brick walls caused by shrapnel testified to grenades having been hurled into the crowded building before the killers broke in to finish their work.

Today, Nyamata has been cleared and victims buried in a crypt but still the benches, thick with dust and the pulpit, still covered with bloodied clothes, is all we could find. Here†you can still smell the fear.

The more than 10,000 people who had taken sanctuary here were all bludgeoned, blown up with grenades, shot and matcheted.

As we walked here, 10 years after the genocide, the first thing that hit us was vile smell of rotting flesh.

What was happening? We asked.

A few days earlier bodies of women and children had been retrieved from a toilet where they had been thrown, or forced to jump into, alive. They had been brought to Nyamata to prepare them for a decent burial.

We walked in only to see the bodies of women and children in various stages of decomposition. We counted, 10 women and nine children — some still tied with ropes and exhibiting signs of agony — the struggles they went through in their final hours.

Earlier that week, we are informed, some 400 bodies had been recovered from a hitherto unknown mass grave in Nyamata.

Like all other visitors here, we ask the why question. Overwhelmed by the stench I take a walk downstairs into a crypt where more bodies are held in a glass cage. It is much better here.

There is a central glass case on three levels: the top shelf contained bones — arms, legs and so on; the second shelf contained skulls, dozens of them, staring blankly forward, many with visible cracks where the machetes had sliced through.

Each has a story, a hidden story…

Mukama, one of the few survivors in this village follows me, and we cast our eyes on one wooden coffin covered with a purple clothing.

"The coffin contains the body of a woman named Innocent Mukadori and her child", he says.

Mukadori and her child died a painful death. The Interahamwe tied them together and then thrust a stick through her genitals until it came out through the head. They then nailed the child on her with a sharpened stick.

We move on to another coffin. This one has an identity: It holds the remains of the family of a Mr Louis Kambanda, whose remains were discovered at Kayumba in Ntarama. Nobody knows how the five members of Kambanda family met their deaths.

Flowers left by visitors still litter the floor of the Ntarama church as rays of sun pierce through tiny holes left by shrapnel. A stained alter cloth is still in place, apparently soaked in blood.

Nyamata is one of the churches across Rwanda confiscated by the government and converted into memorials for the victims of the genocide.

Although the government’s action drew sharp protest from the country’s Catholic bishops, the church finally agreed that those slain in the massacres be buried in church crypts and Nyamata was the first to be turned into a memorial.

The then argument by Kigali Archbishop Thaddee Ntihinyurwa was that the government’s plans for the alienation of church property constituted a violation of religious freedom. He had also pointed at the Code of Canon Law, which stipulates that only bishops should be interred inside church buildings.

But at Nyamata, memories of what happened outfoxed the Canon Law.

Strangely at Nyamata, the statue of Virgin Mary stands unscathed overlooking what was a slaughter site.

As we move out towards the mass grave yard, one of the biggest in Rwanda, we pass by the grave of Locatelli, the Italian priest killed in 1992 in a country she inhabited for 30 years. The tombstone, like many others, doesn’t reveal much. Just a slab and a tiny iron cross.

As we take the 14 stairs down the tomb, we are hit by the musty smell of a cellar fully stocked with hundreds of coffins, with skulls and bones below and so many at the bottom

The place is poorly lit but I am informed that it will soon be a lit walk-in tomb, a reminder and a testimony that people died in Rwanda.

We walk out towards a tombstone with names of known victims. They are few and include Alexis Kangage who died on April 11, 1994. His body was retrieved from a 17 metre deep well and buried here. The mass grave also holds 2 children of Gervais Nkima….we count the names, they are no more than 100, the rest are unidentified.

It is time to leave Nyamata and we sign a visitors book with monosyllabic or single word entries — speechless, tears, shocked.
Clinton, or read America, watched as the tiny country decended into anarchy. I wonder what he wrote...

2005-07-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a chance to interview John Ngugi a man who won the World Cross Country title five times and an olympic gold medalist. Ngugi is in a sorry state. Those who remember Ngugi during the Seoul Olympics recall how the entire stadium was thrilled as Ngugi snatched a lead on 5,000 m from start to finish.
He tells me that the people who were out to finish him did it because he was an elite runner and came from the wrong tribe. I have no way of verifying this and have to put it here for records. He says it is the same "jealous" officials of Kenya Amateur Athletics Association who decided to bring him down because they had a war with a stable led by John Bicourt, a former British steeplechaser-turned-agent.
Ngugi claims that the KAAA officials knowing his handicap in speaking English sent some two officials from IAAF as he prepared to defend his title to demand an out of field doping test. Naively Ngugi who is a standard seven drop out told them to wait and that was his waterloo.
He told me he was also accused of joining the opposition politics since he was an influential person in Nyahururu town where he had built a commercial building which he aptly named Boston House, after Boston Marathon. Because of that NSSF (National Social Security Fund) who were his tenants were asked to leave the building. His business was attacked many times by armed robbers and his transport business was also targeted.
Ngugi's story may be true given Kenya's mixture of business and politics. But the man had invested well. Today Ngugi is a pauper after commercial banks raided his empire during the Moi days and as he told me he is in Nairobi running away from creditors.
He has also been thrown out of the army where he worked without pension and is now planning to sue the army for wrongful dismissal. Ngugi is now born-again and the pain of losing his lifelihood is to much to bear. I will talk to him again and see the progress but he is a good man who has maintained himself - although he admitted that he was one time too frustrated he started drinking a lot.
But Ngugi is still a gentleman, but very shy. He is still looking for courage to meet his other colleagues and I am told he might do so at the Mombasa marathon where Paul Tergat is a key organiser. At the moment he is looking for something to do with all his experience at least to make ends meet...

2005-07-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks!I have not been here for three days. And it has been a critical moment in Kenya. Parliament passed recommendations on changing some aspects of the Draft Constitution which many fear may retain a powerful presidency.
Today, the Steadman Research are to publish results of the popularity of President Kibaki and a casual inspection of the results indicate that Kibaki has taken a lead over his competitors.
But this is not about constitution and the results are interesting since there are calls here for Kibaki to go for another term.
Speaking to my colleagues and other ordinary folks I am surprised at the level of disagreement on the Kenyan constitution and how it should be. I was today researching on the history of the constitution making process since 1991. It is very interesting to see how politicians have taken civil society for a ride. So am I surprised by the outcome in parliament. Never.
We have always pegged our hopes on the wrong people and we rally with them to fulfil their agenda.But we must never lose focus.
Yesterday night I watched as some acquintances -how are you Kepta Ombati - sang songs of freedom as they awaited to be charged with "behaving in a manner likely to cause a breach of peace".
I did admire their efforts and others who came out to defend their right to assemble.
But there is one man I will not stand: former President Moi who has become another voice. It is him who sabotaged our initial efforts to a new constitution. I will defende his right to say what he said but I will not stand him.
NB: Next week I travel to Subukia in the Rift Valley to meet a woman whose son was jailed in 1980 and has never heard of her. She wants me to trace the son before she dies. I will try my best....

2005-07-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

Today is the day of riots and we have been watching events unfold around Parliament buildings. A friend of mine has just come back from the area and tells me that police are battling some people. It is all about the convoluted Kenyan politics and this one is about the constitution.
Today the Kenyan papers had this lead story about the fall out on the constitution and it will surely be interesting to watch where this country will go after this. It took us 10 years to have the draft and it took Kenyan politicians a day to whittle down the spirit of the so-called Bomas Draft. The battle lines are now drawn...Oh my country!
There is a lot of confusion in town (and I pity the countryside) because only a few knows what is happening to the constitution review. At the moment there is a pending referendum and you are going to hear lots of violent verbal and physical confrontations here. The churches and mosques have joined fray and expect the news angles to be tilted towards violence. (god forbid).
But from where I sit, the mist over Nairobi continues. It is the tourists season and they are back in convoys of landcruisers. It looks like another good harvest
**

2005-07-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

Nairobi is a bit misty today...I am told that Bill Clinton is making a visit to Kenya and would visit city primary school in nairobi. what interested me this morning is to take a visit in the school. For the last one year I have been complaining that the school needs a fresk coat of paint. Now the swam of City workers have descended on the school with shovels, pangas, paint and trucks to put the order back.
Built in 1940s this was an all white primary school and a citadel of apartheid like education system. I am not sure it has had a coat of paint since colonial days although it has a fine architecture. For the first time I appreciated the beauty of City primary...
What went wrong?
We should not be doing these things because a visitor is on the way but we must make do them because it is our kids in there. But there is a much more bigger picture than the one we see at City primary. The government budget cannot sustain free education and maintain the structures. It has been a problem simply because our main resources tea and coffee no longer fetch good rates at the international market thanks to Unfair Trade practices.
This country also coughs a fortune of our poor income to multilateral and bilateral donors to be credit worthy. We are deep in a hole and we should stop digging - G8 or no G8

2005-07-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

Just what makes a community go berserk and hack their neighbours into pieces. We saw it in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide but the recent killings in northern Kenya need an explanation.
For those of us who have been to Rwanda and witnessed the attrocities in the killing fields of Ntarama should not be explained as simple isolated cases as it happened once in Nyamata where I found a village counting its dead ten years after the genocide.
Such things should not be allowed to happen as we watch.
We have just heard that this killings of more than 80 are basically informed by the recent elections in Ethiopia and that the Kenyan Boranas have joined hands with their cousins The Oromos of Ethiopia to try and curve out a territory. The Oromos number 25 million in Ethiopia and have been fighting to create a nation state. After failing to win power in Addis Ababa they have turned to their focus to the Oromia Republic which include parts of nothern Kenya.
Of course the Kenyan Boranas have not yet hinted at secession yet but their attack on the Gabras for the control of Huri Hills is not an ordinary cattle rustling story.
I do not believe in conspiracy theories but as a journalist we have to piece together information to explain some events.
And that was the gist of my article on the politics of this region and how it informs the current crisis.
We must look beyond the big print and scrutinise the small print too.There comes a time in the history of a nation when historical anomalies must be corrected. The so called Northern Frontier District was neglected by both colonial, Kenyatta, and Moi administrtaions and we are watching to see how the Kibaki government treats the region. Of course the region will not catch up with the rest but it must start to move otherwise we will be courting a disaster.

2005-07-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

I am back home after that sojourn at the G8. I am writing this from my desk that overlooks the ever busy Kenyatta avenue and from the ninth floor of a building. From here I can see the distnace mist at Kilimambo also known as ol Donyo Sabuk. I have been there before to discover the secrets of an American millionaire who built a huge bungalow on the slopes of the mountain which has many secrets.
It has been a wonderful day to be at home and in the newsroom. I have some work to do today . research on the recent killings in northern Kenya and the escapades of the Oromo Liberation soldiers in Kenya. Are we missing the big picture?
The story is a bit scaring. It goes across borders and it is tied to both clan. local and regional politics.
But here we go....
and before I forget thanks to all my friend in UK who introduced me to all this new idea of blogging...Sameer, Jon, Franchesca, Anna, (Alex Whiting for that coffee!) and Ndesanjo for encouraging me on. And to all my colleagues at the fellowship it was nice meeting you at gleneagles when Africa was on the spot. we are back home and the onus is on us..to do justice for the continent

2005-07-12T02:12:00.000-07:00

I am finally leaving London today. this morning was fun for our was the chief guest on BBC Network africa. what do I think? This is becoming fun after all. We will talk later...

2005-07-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a good morning. the interview at BBC Digital went very well and we had a short interview with BBC Swahili Service and will do the final one tomorrow at Focus on africa. Guys in BBc are good (and i mean terribly good! and I wonder how they sustain that.
Talking about the African debt, the G8 and this big lie that might be the Commission on africa report is awakening. we will keep tabs on the promises, both speculative and real.
The time is running out fast and I wonder how we camn turn around Arfrica when we are not encouraging industrialisation.

2005-07-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

I arrived well in London and had been moving around to feel this aura of freedom . at the back of my mind I know that the London bombers are lurking out there, plotting and planning as the hunt goes on. Yesterday I had a meeting with my Kenyan colleague -Otsieno Namwaya who is in London attending the Harry Brittain fellowship. We had a football match with this year's fellows and it was a good outing. I was at one time the referee before we swapped places with mapula!
This morning I am heading to BBC for an interview with Go Digital Programme with my colleague Ndesanjo who introduced me to the world of blogs.

2005-07-08T23:57:00.000-07:00

I am leaving this City of Edinburgh for London this morning. There is a lot to catch up in London before I go back home. Much to see and write on the bomb scenes and a lot of hunting for old pals.
edinburgh has been a wonderful outing but a dissapointment. I was unable to go to the castle which is the second best known historical landmark in UK.
joining the make poverty history adherents was fun. going to the village of aushterander was an awakening time. at least one man will say. I went to the G8 and they kept our spirits high and then dissapointed us.
We walk away with nothing to talk about but with our ego uninjured.

2005-07-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

The horrific events in London remind me of the day the US embassy in Nairobi was blown by Osama bin Laden.
Ilost my best friend and several acquintances. Now I am far in Edinburgh but I can feelthe pain of those who lost their loved ones. the import of all this is that whether we like it or not the African agenda which was high on the G8 summit will have to change.
It will require a lot of political will to Make Poverty History now since most of the attention may focus on the bid to defeat terrorism.
Africa has all of a sudden fallen the channels here and I saw it coming when the first news was flashed by BBC.
I had this feeling that I may not be able to continue my BBC Blog because of all these but I managed to put it up.
We went to the media center and there were free things. You know I love free things and I could call my family and friends in Kenya and tell them I am ok.I also called the Kenyan embassy to confirm if they are any kenyans hurt in this madness which we know very well in Kenya but which we have never been part of.
Attention here had been on Gleneagles, at least security wise, and London had few security officers on alert. Again it was just a normal day and there was an aura of jubilation after London was given the go-ahead to host the 2012 olympic.
The celebrations are over.
My escapades in UK continue and here is a revelation. I today attended a press conference by French President Jacque Chirac and he was speaking in French. I had not seen the headphones for translation and had to sit back and listen to french until almost the end when I saw them under my chair...I missed what he was saying..(Bonjour...auvoir...)

2005-07-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

Today I got annoyed with my self-appointed handlers. If I was in Kenya i would have named them. But i am miles away from home and I have to keep the temparature cool although the local Scottish weather is automatically doing that. I had all day wished I could go to witness the chaos in stirling but then mabepari wa uongo told me that roads were closed. I had to break away and go to Princes Street just to be out of the cage and feel free to see anthing....even a police vehicle.
But this afternoon we managed to get to the small village of Auchterarder to see the demonstration that had earlier been cancelled. There was chaos during the demo since some guys decided to break away from the official route and tried to inavede Gleneagles Hotel compound where all the G8 leaders are meeting.
We never made it to Gleneagles today but at least we spoke with the locals who felt that their little village had been taken over by anarchists and then by police who were in every corner.
One woman I spoke to summed it all: I fear these people. i cannot even cross the road to where they are. she told me. I asked her whether locals were participating in the march and said "one or two...but i cant see any local there.
Why? they think it is not civilised way to do things. She said. I do not know whether she was speaking on behalf of her community but she said she did not like the abusive language used on Bush and Blair. and before she finished a second wave of protestors arrived singing..."Bush the terrorist"

2005-07-05T16:06:00.000-07:00

Before I go to sleep, can readers wake up and support the Ogiek. My earlier book on Ogiek can be found online to help readers understand the genesis of the problem.

2005-07-05T14:46:00.001-07:00

Today was one of those days. I started the morning with a Breakfast Show with a Irish Radio station together with George Monbiot a well known columnist with Guardian.
In he 14 minutes of glory I was on air chating and raving when necessary. Then I had to rush back here at my hotel room to put up a blog for BBC with whom I will be writing a blog for the G8 Summit. It is kind of thrilling to be part of the blog excitement. It is a tradition I want to take back home where there are thrilling stories.
This afternoon I went to the Calendonian Hotel Edinburg to pick my accreditation card for the G8 and the good news is that it is in my pocket. the bad news is that they have mispelt my newspaper's name as East Agrican Standard (it is now known as Standard).
The worst news is that my Tanzanian friend Ndesanjo, who is a well known swahili blogger, had forgotten his letter, nikamtetea akapewa, ands now he thinks he was just smart. [Karibu anyolewe bila maji] Anyway, we will meet in Gleneagles which I am told it is almost an hour's drive from the hotel.
Now Cant there be a place one can eat real food here?
Evening is torture for me here. There is little activity and I can only sit watch TV or just keep writing.
I had a meeting with two Kenyans today who came with the Jubilee guys for a press conference and are tearing the Commission on Africa Report apart here. I should file something home today otherwise what else can I be doing here.
Just in case I have a piece of news in todays standard you can check it out here and tell others about this blog and the other blogs by African journalists who are here Panos London and the stories they are writing.

2005-07-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

I am still holed in Edinburgh hoping to get a glimpse of the G8 leaders if I am accredited. Today was my day and had a big story in the Guardian newspaper complete with a big photo on the front page of their pull-out. (Should I claim celebrity status? No. I am still the humble Kenyan from a village in Muranga district.
Meadow park rally represented all that I stand for: justice. But Edinburgh today also hosted some anarchists who have made me stay in doors because they had threatened violence. I went to have a glimpse of what they were up to but decided to get out of George Street because they had started to break away from police line.
Yesterday we had a chance to see the Yes Men, two activists who dupe journalists and masquerade as CEOs of companies. They have once duped BBC which had a breaking news on their announcement on Bhopal Gas victims.
And last night we went to a pub and had some good fun as Scottish started singing their freedom songs. I should have sang the Mau Mau songs too...

2005-07-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow blogers,

I feel proud as a Kenyan and as a an African journalist to be part of this new excitement where we can exchange ideas. This is it! And we will be together in this whole journey. Iam being initiated into this new world by my new found friend Ndesanjo Macha who you may have known in the blogging world.

Interestingly I am writing this from Edinburgh where I am to cover (that is not the real thing) George Bush and Tony Blair "make Poverty History". May be I am participating or covering a big lie! But you can read some of the issues that I have written since I came here. In my premier article I based it on a conversation with some of my villagemates who wanted to know what the G8 is all about. But speaking to Kenyans in Nairobi streets I found that their understanding of G8 is limited. They have also been disregarded. They are poor, but not poor enough. London and Edinburgh has been good to me. I had a chance to talk to former British secretary for International Development, Clair Short and also about the sceptics who want to Make G8 History.

My fellow journalists covering the G8 are having a fun of their lives. Meet them at the Panos Weblog and Africa Vox for updates on their escapades in Edinburgh including eating 'LEAVES" instead of real food. See you tomorrow!