Santina's World

DISCOVERING CARL SAGAN:WHY EVERY (SCIENCE) TEACHER NEEDS TO READ THIS GREAT MAN

2011-08-19T07:39:00.000-07:00

Carl Sagan was a man famous for many things and especially for de- mystifyng science for ordinary Americans,sadly he died 15 years ago and today as i read his book The Demon Haunted World I wish I had met him but more than that ,that science teachers in Kenya would get the book and read it cover to cover as i did.Sagan sets out to portray Science in an easy to know way without sounding pompous and his reverence for the universe (he was a Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences)jumps at you with every word in this book and with each turn of the page.

Written largely for an American audience it does have much to offer for Kenyan audiences too because much of what he discusses we can relate too,from aliens ,to pseudo-science to miracles and even hallucinations.He urges his fellow scientists to "communicate the substance and approach of science in newspapers,magazines,on radio and television,in lectures for the general public,and in elementary,middle,and high school text books."

As i was reading the book, which is a must have in my opinion for the curious ,i was reminded of ~~two things~~ ,no its four things that have hit our local headlines and that would be made clearer if Kenyan scientists took time to explain things to the general public.One of them is the afforestation programmes going on in the Mau Forest and other water catchment areas,the increasing Kenyan population,the proposal to start nuclear power generation and the GMO debate.

Much of the debates that have occurred in the public sector have been based on superstition,ignorance and myths.Take the example of GMO that is sensitive very sensitive here because it deals with a national delicacy ugali(stiff mixture of corn meal taken with vegetables/meat stew).Even scientists who should know better discouraged it on the basis that it was an untested technology and that we were being used as guinea pigs by companies.We forget that maize seed has seen changes made to its genetic make-up to yield more and withstand disease.

Or the Mau Forest where a certain MP whom i would not name was telling his constituents not to move from the areas of the forest they had encroached because there was no way trees could attract rainfall.Yet if you drive along the Nairobi Kericho ,you get a clear view of the heavy grey clouds always hovering over the trees.Ready to pour down ,nourish the trees and provide water for the people down stream and feed the many rivers,lakes that rely on this water catchment.

All of these areas i have highlighted would benefit from a demystification approach without scientists being too patronizing to the listening public.We would all benefit from knowing exactly what it is we are dealing with and the after effects of whatever cause of action we take.Then science would cease being a reserve for the "nerds" but would become the marvel that it is.

In primary school i remember my fascination with the human body and with space,i would read over and over again about leukocytes(white blood cells) and (erythrocytes (red blood cells)blood plasma,how the heart and kidneys worked .My dad and i would even spend some nights outside star gazing,it was wonderful and thrilling !But in high school everything changed,i could never get my head around physics and chemistry was a struggle yet i remained fascinated with biology and would pore over my textbooks and notes especially when it came to the topic on genetics.Somehow my curiosity waned and i never understood why.

Probably it was the way it was taught or i was too afraid of asking dumb questions,something Sagan says he saw in high school kids too, the fear to ask and dumb .He said that his most enthusiastic audiences were elementary school kids who never got tired of asking questions and Sagan talks about "provocative and insightful questions bubbling out of them.".But he reports his disappointment with high school students ,who had learnt to "memorize facts" and the "joy of discovery had gone out of them."

Could we as a country learn something from the mind of this great man who never lost his wonder and curiosity about science?With a vision towards seeing Kenya being an industrialized country by the year 20303,is there more we could add to the present curriculum to motivate students to take up more science subjects.We need to have more students taking up these courses in our universities and we need to have more Kenyan Professors who are passing on this love of science to the next generation.How many of them go to high schools to pass on this wonder for the natural world to students,most forays in career fairs are by accountants or even lawyers but rarely do scientists venture out from their laboratories.Who knows the next cure for cancer,AIDS could come from among these young ones.With climate change slowing affecting seasons we need more studies done on the effects this will have on our environment,land use and disease and science will have the answer to that.

Hopefully the recent back and forth that has been going on among stake holders in the educational system as to the review of the 8-4-4 system of education and the way this knowledge is passed on to students will be reviewed so that we do not cede the natural curiosity and need to know we had as children.This innate "need to know" and "stretching of our minds" is something we as a humans have and must use in order to survive in a world that is changing pretty fast.

I will end this with a beautiful article by Carl Sagan's wife published in the Skeptical Inquirer in his memory....

WHERE IS KENYA-What a strange Question..?

2011-08-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Image from photographyblogger.net

When i keyed in the words Kenya on Google analytics i expected anything except what i got .The things people do not know about our country are many and very simple. I found it buffling that people (meaning the rest of the world)do not know we are in Eastern Africa,that we border the Indian Ocean and are smack in the middle of Somalia and Tanzania.That our country measures 582,636 sq.km and our capital city is Nairobi.What exactly then do peole know about us apart form the fact that we have some of the best long distance athletes in the world?

The results i got from Google analytics shows the interest in Kenya over the past 12 months ,the search words used over this period were ; Kenya map,where is Nairobi, Kenya,map of Kenya,capital of Kenya and where is Kenya.You would think that with our trail blazing athletes,Kenya Tourism board and the Brand Kenya Team and the Foreign Affairs Ministry all doing their thing there is a whole lot that is known about Kenya.That we may as well sit back, pop some bottles of champagne and wait for investors and tourists to come flocking in.But it isn't that way and when i pulled this out ,the global monthly search yield for the ket word Kenya alone was 6,120,000,the local monthly search stood at 1.120,000 and this was today at 3 pm ,the analytics are here.

Which makes me wonder whether we may be putting out the wrong information or not enough information out there or maybe the bodies charged with marketing Kenya or making Kenya as a brand known have wrongly prioritized their need to know areas.Such that what we are giving out to potential investors/tourists is very different from what they want to know.

With the recent resignation of the Kenya Tourism Board chairman Mr Michael Joseph the former CEO of the mobile company Safaricom,maybe the next head of this body needs to be someone as hands -on and with as good a record as MJ.The reason for his resignation which can be read here were as a result of him being appointed the World Bank money transfer fellow .Seeing the success he had made of the mobile company by the time he left,it is hoped the next chairman's appointment will be on merit,someone who can bridge the disconnect that seems to characterize the various bodies in the tourism industry.

The various bodies which are charged with the responsibility of making our country known beyond our borders need to know that sometimes they seem to be all pulling in different directions.In my opinion there needs to be a well orchestrated symphony among all the bodies involved from the Kenya Investment Authority to the newly formed Kenya Association of Women in Tourism and all players in between from tour operators to Ambassadors on how we can map out a strategy that works .We need to plan it in such a way that people can locate us on a world map with their eyes closed and that Nairobi is a capital children in Shanghai can utter even in their sleep.
South Africa is a good example of a country that has done this and that has benefited from its concerted campaign to be a prime destination when you think of Africa.This is the strategy that will work for Kenya ,making sure everything a potential tourist needs to know is out there such that visiting Kenya is on the bucket list of the 7 billion or so people who inhabit the earth.

So next time someone asks where is Kenya do not be surprised because a lot of people really do not know as much as we expect they should about this country that sits on the equator.A country that is home to one of the hottest places in the world,the Chalbi Desert,numerous world heritage sites,is home to one of the wonders of the modern world in the form of the wildebeeste migration and that has some of the best climates you will find anywhere in the world.What a strange thing....

WHEN GROWTH ISN'T A GOOD THING:Real Estate and Population Growth

2011-08-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

Kenyans in our quest to be home owners have thrown all caution to the wind and we are now selling our farms to fulfill dreams of being multi billionaires.The real estate industry in Kenya has spawned off a list of noveau riche Kenyans who are living large courtesy of the land deals they have been able to broker.If you doubt me just take a look at the number of real estate agents in Kenya's growing towns from Nairobi to Kisumu all the way to the coast,land is changing hands and is appreciating in value like no other time in our country's history.

We can partly lay the cause for the rise in land prices on the growing and better infrastructure in most parts of the country and also the burgeoning middle class that is seeking to be home owners.Banks have quickly cashed in on this and most are offering mortgages and home development loans to their customers.The cement industry in the country is also growning and testament to this was when the President opened up Simba cement factory in June of this year.The company joins the list of cement factories that have been seeing a growth in the building industry and are recording healthy bottom lines.

While lauding all these commercial activities that can be nothing but music to the ears of economists we must be cognisant of the fact that the boom will not last forever and there are ripple effects not at all positive for other areas of the economy like the farming industry and the environment .Take the case of the four junctions development project whose owners sold off 200 acres of land that was previously a coffee farm to developers who are putting up plush and luxury apartments for sale.Much of the land under construction around the Thika road super highway and the Northern bypass that will link Nairobi to Thika passes through land that previously had coffee trees ,one of Kenya's top foreign exchange earners.

In Nakuru and parts of Njoro the real estate bug has hit the residents of these growing town and real estate agens have sprung up everywhere selling land for development.The same can be said for other major towns in the country now growing rapidly. The growth curve is projected to show a steady ascent as now governance has been devolutionized to the counties.With the battle for investment that is expected to set in among the counties, it is time we weighed the benefits of providing housing versus that of feeding a growing populace before the madness sets in.

Growing population
Just recently our MP's were in Mombasa to discuss the runaway population growth we are now seeing as the last census of 2010 showed we are growing at the rate of a million annually.With not much focus being put on expanding public facilities like hospitals or even schools to accommodate this growth i wonder how we will be able to feed and house 70 million Kenyans in 30 years time,seeing that our population right now is at 40 million.Maybe we will have to demolish structures to give way to farmland or lease out land from other countries to feed ourselves.

When the Mp;s held the meeting in Mombasa opinions were split as usual and an interesting article on what was discussed can be read here .However the opinions expressed were not surprising because they were representative of the view Kenyans have on the sensitive issue of population growth.The opinions though were a good indicator that we still have a long way to go in shedding our ignorance on issues affecting us.
In my opinion politicians are the wrong people to be discussing population growth because they are most likely to rely on everything except scientific data and cold hard facts.If we look at the way land has always been and continues to be an emotive issue,marry that with our ethnic bigotries and vested interests in the political circle you have disaster in the making.The reason for this is because decisions made politically will always be skewed towards selfish interests and not national interests.

We need to hear more about the effects of our growing population and appetite to be home owners from our scientists.The National Environmental Management Body (NEMA)should be focusing more on what our commercial and industrial activities are doing to the environment and what this will translate to in the future.Giving too much attention to the wars over whether waste baskets should be availed in public service vehicles and over the noise made by establishments like bars,churches,mosques though relevant is banal in the long term.Where are the great minds that have passed through the corridors of our universities,with great and fresh ideas on how we can manage the resources we have?

An asinine excuse for not discussing population growth is the excuse that our traditions prohibit us from doing so,but ask that in 20 years time and we will be reeling form the effects of the excess growth that was not reigned in in time.Much of the effects of this unchecked growth can be seen in our slums where competition for scarce resources in our cities and towns has seen unemployed youth turning to crime .

Looking for Solutions....
Maybe it is time the government gave farmers incentives to make them hold onto their farms instead of selling them off for quick money.Despite the back breaking work they do,farmers remain some of our most underrated public servants because feeding Kenyans to me is a form of public service.Too often you hear them complaining about price or lack of farm inputs,lack of transport or poor infrastructure that would allow them to take their produce to the market.These are things the government can provide solutions to if not ease the inconveniences involved .

Educating our citizens on the benefits of controlling population would go a long way towards demystifying the problems our country is now facing from the land battles that form a major part of the cases in our judiciary,to stemming the rising crime levels in our towns.All these because people are fighting for resources that are not there or aren't enough to go round.

Our solutions are in our hands and in our heads if we put our collective effort together and there is no better example of this in the recent days than in the Kenya for Kenyans initiative that has raised more than half a billion shillings.This has set off a positive vibe of activism that is now seeing Kenyans discussing long term solutions that will see that this national embarassment never happens again.

We need to discuss what the effects of our economic activities will mean for future generations of Kenyans,we need to stop being the ostrich that buries its head in the sand hoping that our problems will magically find solutions

KENYANS FOR KENYA:Why it needs to be long term.

2011-08-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

No Kid Hungry is a campaign that aims at ensuring no child in America goes without food,the national spokesperson and founder for End hunger network is actor Jeff Bridges.On their website they ask people to donate at least a dollar that will go towards seeing a child receive up to 10 healthy meals.Already over 53,000 peole have signed up for the campaign and it is definitely set to attract more people.

In Kenya we have had the KenyansforKenya initiative started by the private sector, that has seen over 600,000 peole in a country of over 40 million donate in cash and kind to the appeal that was began to feed hungry Kenyans in northern Kenya.When the campaign started i tweeted that i hoped this would not be a short term strategy but that the initiators of this fund drive would find a way to make it long term.The same calls for long term solutions to hunger issues were raised when the private sector held a fund raising at one of the upmarket hotels in the capital city Nairobi last week.The intiative almost hit its halfa billion shillingtarget and you can read more about the drive here.

Now in an earlier article on the current food crisis i detailed how i made a trip round the rift valley and saw acres and acres of farmland under maize crop .How i drove by little towns ,where market women and men sat by mounds of vegetables and cobs of green maize and potatoes waiting for buyers.Yet we were busy importing maize from outside the country to stem the deficit that is the cause of the hike in food prices especially of maize.Many people reading this who are not familiar with the Kenyan diet will wonder at our obsession with maize or corn as it is called in certain parts of the world.But maize meal is to Kenyans what pasta is to the Italians,so you can imagine the kind of crisis precipitated when the precious commodity runs out.

While appreciating the good work and generosity Kenyans and friends of Kenya have shown in supporting the campaign i hope there are long term measures by both the public and private sector to see that we have an initiative along the lines of No kid Hungry.This will ensure that no Kenyan child will sleep hungry or miss school because they lacked a nourishing and satisfying meal at the end of the day.

School feeding program is already in place in some parts of the country where children attending school at least get some food when they are in session.These programmes are funded by both government and international donors.

If such programs like these can be expanded such that the most vulnerable members of our society and especially children are guaranteed a meal or even three meals every day it would go along way towards ensuring that the countrys' future citizens are given a chance to grow and thrive.

When all is said and done each of us owes it to future generations,whether we have children or not to ensure that we leave this country a better place than we found it.This includes making sure another generation of Kenyans do not grow up knowing the ravages and pangs of drought and hunger.Over to you Kenyans for Kenya team...... hope this is the beginning of a hunger free country.

SIASA MBAYA,MAISHA MBAYA-WHY FORMER PRESIDENT MOI WAS RIGHT ON THIS.

2011-08-12T02:24:00.000-07:00

The former President of this great republic Daniel Toroitich arap Moi had a great line he used when he was upset with political going -ons in the country..Siasa mbaya maisha mbaya which literally translated means that bad politcal decisons would always culminate in a lousy life for the citizens.I think more Kenyans should see polical concern for the way the country is run as a sense of civic duty and not something to be left to the civil society activists and donors.

The former president can be blamed for many things but we cannot fault him for the uncanny manner he was able to read Kenyans minds and tell them exactly what needed to be told.That is why when he was giving his speeches we would all wait for him to get through his written speech then deliver the unscripted Kiswahili version which more often than not was not related to what he had just read..That is where you could pick gems like this.And on this one i must admit he knew exactly what he was saying.

Too often when anything goes wrong in the country we are quick to voice our displeasure over nyama choma (roast meat) and bottles of Kenyas finest beer,but rarely show this displeasure come election time.Some of us who should know better do not even vote during elections yet we are very quick at pointing out what is not working.

If you ask many Kenyans today what they think about politics,most of them will say politics is a dirty game and they would rather be singing in church,planting trees in the Mau or visiting a children's home but do not ask them to go to a political rally or even engage in political debate.That is why come election year we will be praying that God grants us a good President,MP,county governor but we will not touch a party manifesto or even put the political aspirants to task as to what their vision and mission is if they get elected.That is why we have celebrated people who have stolen from the public,lied to us for decades and we give them a free pass to parliament.
Being a keen follower of the Piers Morgan Tonight talk show that airs on CNN,i have followed the calibre of guests he brings on his show.Think what you may of him ,but he really does pick people's minds and one of his trademark questions when he is ending an interview is ,"What do you think of President Obama and the state of the economy?".All guests who have come to the show be it actresses,musicians,comedians,televangelists name them all ave an opinion.If you asked the same question here about our current crop of leaders, you are likely to get a lot of responses ranging from "politics is a dirty game","i leave it to God" or "i do not have an opinion but i am praying for them."

It is after watching this kind of engagement people in the west have with the political going ons in their countries that i am still mystified by the apparent lack of zeal to discuss our current political situations by (some)Kenyans.We quickly forget that politics is what influences a lot of things in the country from the recent power rationing or is it management,to the price of food to the kind of education our children are getting in school.

If we do not discuss the failings,shortcomings,triumphs and mistakes of the leadership who run this country how are we going to move forward?If our MP's in parliament are busy discussing cattle rustling in Turkana ,their non compliance to payment of taxes when the Kenyan shilling is on a free fall,private sector is raising funds to feed hungry Kenyans when food is going to waste in the Rift Valley,how do we expect things to change?

I was quite amazed at the swiftness of the UK government to call an extraordinary parliamentary session in the wake of the London riots,yet here in Kenya when we had the crisis after the election we had to call in Koffi Annan to settle the growing unrest in the country.Don't we have leaders who could have quelled the situation without having to hang out our dirty laundry in public for the whole world to see?

If you listen to the kind of discussions going on in parliament you will be amazed at the lack of coordination in government,a lot of time is spent answering questions and not enough on moving this country forward.We still have too many bills not passed yet it is almost an year since we passed the constitution.Even the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Mutula Kilonzo says he is frustrated by the pace at which bills are being passed.

If we as an electorate cannot face up to the mistakes we have done in the past of seeing MP's as demi gods who hold solutions to our problems in the name of crispy bank notes,we will not achieve the much touted Vision 2030.We need to see Kenyans getting more involved in the way their counties,towns and cities are run and not leaving them up to elected leaders because by not doing so it gives them leeway to steal,plunder and lay to waste national resources.

Let us start seeing more forums where we discuss and educate the general public on the importance of being engaged in the way they are governed,let us all have an opinion as to how we want things to run in this country.Without this sense of civic duty to the country we will be at the mercy of the leaders we elect and instead of them being the servants of the people they are going to be the leeches that suck away our country's life blood.

WHERE ARE KENYAN URBAN PLANNERS?

2011-08-11T01:38:00.000-07:00

Kenya's cities and towns seem to have no forethought put into them when it comes to their growth whatsoever and we can blame this on our lack of urban planners whose job it would be to make decisions on how our cities and towns should develop.Of course each administrative council in the country be it ,a town council,municipal council has a department of urban planning but it is questionable if their advice is even sought if the rate at which thoughtless developments are taking place is anything to go by.

In an earlier blog post here in April of this year i had lamented the fact that the real estate industry was threatening the very livelihood of our country by encroaching on agricultural land .Housing estates are coming up left ,right,centre in every major town in the country,the situation is especially sad in Nakuru because people are selling off rich agricultural land .In areas that should be the source of food and livelihoods,people are looking for the quick shilling to be made by subdividing the land and selling it off to Kenyans who have suddenly got a voracious appetite to be home owners.Sad indeed....

If we indeed do have urban planners in some of these towns am sure they should be at the fore front of managing the now free for all real estate industry that is slowly becoming a cash cow for the well heeled in terms of money.Land has always and will always remain an emotive issue but i think prioritizing our needs and wants should be key.Would you rather live in an Italian marble palace or go to bed with a full stomach.These are some of the questions we should be asking our selves.

Our cities and towns are growing daily with malls,office blocks and all manner of structures being put up daily,but how many of these have been well thought out ideas that take into consideration the growth of these towns and cities in the future.We are seeing most of these towns turning into concrete jungles with no thought given to recreation facilities like parks or even public utilities.

What is interesting to note is that for our cities and towns to grow we need to think not of today but 50 years ahead.In 2070,where will the residents of Nairobi be living,getting their water from,will there be enough electricity,sewage lines to cater for the cities population or will the city be another spot in the annals of history that was obliterated by a lack of planning.

Take the case of Nakuru that is said to be one of the fastest growing towns,how will the town;s growing population affect the environment around the lake,the deforestation in the Mau Forest that is threatening the very existence of Lake Nakuru,is there worse to come if we do not mange the way this town is growing?

These and many other questions can be replicated in the planning of the towns we envision to have by 2030 and that i think should be what urban planners (if we have any) should be asking themselves and advising the county governments set to come in after the general elections next year.

HUNGER IN A LAND OF PLENTY:The Kenyan food crisis is man made

2011-08-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has been watching local and international news they are already too familiar with the pictures of starving children and their skinny malnourished mothers from Northern Kenya and parts of Somalia as a result of what has been called the worst drought and famine the horn of Africa has seen in 60 years.It is said that especially in the Dadaab refugee camp a child is losing their life every day,either because help reached them too late or they succumbed to the ravages of hunger that have predisposed them to illnesses.

Now for any child below the age of three years it is especially important to be well nourished because good nutrition is a buffer against common child hood illnesses and infections that are major causes of child mortality.You can read about the effects of poor nutrition especially prevalent in developing countries here.

Since 1984 when Michael Jackson and other musicians teamed up to sing the We are the World song in the USA for Africa campaign to raise funds for the very same region facing drought today,it seems nothing much has changed.We are waking up every day to pictures of children with distended stomachs,hollow eyes and sagging skin that is barely holding together famished bodies.It is 1984 all over again but on a grander scale or so it seems!

A lot of issues have cropped up over the delay in providing much needed aid, from the alleged squabbling by donors,to just lack of coordination yet every minute wasted will cost the life of a child.I watched with a growing sense of shame as the Australian and French Ministers pleaded with the international community to speed up the relief effort to reduce the loss of life at the camps,yet no senior government official from any of the countries affected has paid a visit to the area.

I went to a public university for a degree in Nutrition yet i got a job in a totally unrelated field as did most of my 20 classmates because international aid bodies would rather hire expatriates rather than local graduates for some of these jobs.

Meanwhile as the shame of the century unfolds ,Kenya is seeking to be a middle income economy in 18 years when we cannot even ensure that no Kenyan child goes to bed hungry.We can lay the blame on the weather,global warming and all manner of factors biggest load of blame falls squarely on our leaders backs.

Why almost half a century we should still be talking of hunger is a shame ,why we should be having power rationing in the name of power management beats logic for a country seeking to grow its economy.There are a lot of whys we need to be asking ourselves in the coming months leading up to the next general election and their answers lie in the kind of leadership we elect next year.

What this all boils down to is lack of vision by our political leaders.I watched with amusement when the speaker of the national assembly was disparaging the government slack lustre response to the famine crisis as they presented a check donation of over 8 million Kenya shillings from parliamentarians.The speaker,his deputy and a coterie of members of parliament were handing over the donations to Mr Abbas Gullet who has literally been the face of the drought mitigating efforts by the Kenyan private sector that has so raised over half a billion shillings in the Kenyans for Kenya campaign.

As they presented the cheque i was taken back to a week ago where i dd a road trip from Kakamega all the way through Kapsabet,Iten,eldoret,Baringo,Eldama ravine ,Nakuru,Kericho,Kisumu and back again to Kakamega. I passed acres and acres of lush green farmland full of maize in various stages of growth,at Total on our way to Kericho and all through till the tea county market stalls by the roadside were creaking under the weight of potatoes,cabbages,tomatoes and carrots and i was tempted to believe what i was seeing in the news was the work of an overactive Kenyan media.Along the road to Kisumu women were sitting by mounds of cabbages,green bananas and cabbages waiting for people to buy them while our people in Northern Kenya are starving and we are importing relief food.The rice fields of Ahero were spotting green baby stalks that bespoke of the rice crop that had been planted and was getting much needed nourishment .It is a pity my camera's battery ran out of charge i would have been posting the photos of the bumper harvest this farmers had.

The only blight to these otherwise fertile landscape i witnessed in my trip round the rift was in Baringo where instead of lush green maize field i saw healthy goats, perched on cliff tops ,filling their bellies with leaves form the shrubs that dot the rocky terrain.

We have heard media reports of farm produce going to waste in Nyahururu because farmers had no buyers,why should people be going hungry if there is so much food.?

Because we fail to plan we are faced with images of starving Kenyans holding out tin cans for their monthly
rations of beans,maize,rice and cooking oil.In a country where many more people are abandoning farming than are taking it up,why are we watching mounds of cabbages,green banans and sacks of potatoes go to waste while peole in the north are starving?why cant we encourage this people to change their diets and thus provide a cash cow for our poor farmers .

What many peole forget is that farming is a noble profession much like being a teacher or morgue attendant,it is a job which very few peole take because it requires a sturdy body as well as a sturdy heart to keep going even when the rains fail or your crop is destroyed by pests or disease.We need to hear the government encouraging farmers by supporting them in whatever means necessary because they feed our bodies and are more important than the preacher spewing out condemnation of damned souls.

If presently we have 40 million Kenyans who are increasing at the rate of a million annually,why does our strategic grain reserve have to be at 8 million maize bags?For a country that produces so much milk and even exports most of it why do we not use more butter than margarine on our bread in the morning?why do you have to buy an imported box of cereal when you can buy a packet of millet flour and have porridge for breakfast?

The government seems to be like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights and has been taking one wrong step after another after it was declared that Kenyans were indeed dying of hunger.From our government spokesman who claimed ignorance of hungry Kenyans dying to the late response by parliamentarians when the Kenya red cross has marshaled the private sector to raise funds,it does seem that our elected leaders could as well be living in another country.

We produce enough food to feed oursleves,its our lack of planning that has had us being the laughing stock of the international community.We need to stop being beggars of everything be it expatriate experience,educational funds,funds to improve our roads to food aid,we need to atleast take pride in one thing,feeding our won peole which iwe can do with just more well though out plans .

It is time we stopped having stop gap measures to address drought and famine,we need to sit down and plan and decide that no Kenyan should ever go hungry again or die of hunger.If we can do this and demand more from our elected leaders then Kenyans will cease being the recipients of sympathetic looks and hand me downs from the donor community.

NAKURU:Reaching for the Stars

2011-08-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

I have watched Nakuru town grow from the dusty little town it was seven years ago,where shops closed by 7.30 pm to the bustling town it is right now,labelled among the fastest growing town in Africa.Then people hardly ever came to Nakuru except if it was to watch the Nakuru sevens tournaments or visit the Lake national Park.Nakuru to me is home,having fallen in love with this little town more than a decade ago it has become like a little sibling that i have watched grow from infancy and it is bursting with potential.

As things stand right now everyone wants a slice of this little town that sits smack in the middle of the Rift Valley tourism circuit.Banks have already made their presence felt and Kenyatta Avenue the main street is literally overflowing with these financial institutions.High rise buildings are present whichever way we look with their gleaming glassy fronts and security guards in their spanking brand new uniforms can be seen at nearly all entrances to these new edifices making up part of the emerging Nakuru skyline.

It also seems that Kenyan corporates and the non governmental organisations have also got tired of holding workshops and conferences in the capital city and are now trooping to Nakuru where the towns hotel's are working overtime to accommodate the sudden influx of conference attendants trooping to the town.A report of the sudden increase in conference tourism can be read here.

With all these happening in the town we need to ask ourselves how the local leaders and Nakuru residents are readying themselves for what is easily going to be one of the busiest counties in the country.Too often we have heard of the rising cases of insecurity with everything from muggings,to hijackings to murders taking place.For Nakuru to cash in on the goodwill it is receiving from investors,the local administration and security network needs to spruce up the image of the town and beef up security.

For investors security is like breathing air,businesses only flourish in safe havens.It does no good for businesses to be worrying about getting robbed or the increasing cost of ensuring their investments are secure when they are doing business.It is hoped the security apparatus in the county are watching things keenly and putting measures in place to ensure security is beefed up.

The hotel industry in the town also needs to spruce up their establishments for the growing number of local and foreign tourists who are coming to savour what the town has to offer.We also have to see the towns officials also have to come up with incentives that will attract more investors interested in the growing populace who call Nkauru home and investors who are finding what the town has to offer very attractive.Only in this way will Nakuru reap from all the goodwill it is generating from the people who have seen its potential for growth and have invested in it.

I wish I had the job of marketing this now bustling metropolis ,the peole charged with this are not yet doing enough for this little gem of the Rift Valley.We seem to have forgotten our administrative units are now counties and we need to market them as much as we can so that we see the benefits of the much touted devolution.

WHY IT IS VERY DANGEROUS TO BE EATING GRASS IN KENYA TODAY

2011-07-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

In Kenya today it is very dangerous to be caught eating grass because many people will assume a wizard has worked his magic on you because you stole your neighbours chicken,bag of maize or goat.Worse you could have milked your neighbours cow at night to assuage the pangs of hunger your children may have been feeling and supernatural powers picked you out as the culprit.

What is more likely to happen if you are seen by your fellow citizens eating grass is that they will either rain kicks and blows on you mercillessly.Pray to God that the police are nearby and rescue you before you are quicly dispatched to the pearly gates of heaven or the rusty gates of hell.In Kenya today to be caught eating grass is a cardinal sin that points to the fact that someone cast a spell on you for helping yourself to things that did not belong to you.

After seeing the number of people who have been turned into grass eating men(why are there no women) i have come to the conclusion that we do not need the endless number of law enforcement bodies or even police officers on our payroll.We need to employ more wizards.
Can you imagine the number of people who would be caught outside their offices chewing on the monocotyledonous green plant of the gramineae family?maybe this would be the easiest way to catch the men and women who have been fiddling with the funds meant for free primary education.It would even save the head of the Kenya anti corruption body a lot of heartache and talk because he has to wait for the kleptomaniacs to surrender their ill gotten wealth and offer them amnesty.And we all know this is going to end up being an exercise in futility or so i think,Kenyans who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar are more fond of claiming that they would rather die as they gorge themselves on the cookies and are never afraid of getting caught .

We would be provide much needed job opportunities in a stagnating economy that is all but tanking with the rise in fuel and food prices because we would be using the services of wizards who would be otherwise occupied advertising their services in the backstreets of major towns.Their clients also operate like they are in a cloak and dagger movie because none will ever admit they have sought supernatural powers to heal broken marriages,get financial success or increase political clout or catch a wayward spouse.Engaging the services of these men and women would mean that their services are recognized and the government could proceed to tax them and we would not have to turn ourselves into beggars of donor funding.

It may also be a good idea to engage them in the services of tracking who has stolen bags of relief food and where they have been transported to and turning the said cereals into pebbles as they leave the warehouses .This would ensure that no one ever attempts to steal food meant for starving Kenyans.

It is my honest opinion that we have left some stones unturned in our pursuit of the thieves who help themselves to public funds and wizards are the last piece in the puzzle of public fund embezzlement.After all the more developed countries employ the services of psychics in solving murder and kidnap cases.It is time we put the services of these gifted men and women to better use,instead of chasing after wayward spouses and vanquishing enemies let us use them in solving the biggest curse to befall this country-corruption.

CIVIC EDUCATION 101:How does your preferred candidate measure up?

2011-07-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting for the government ,civil society and the Ministry of Justice,National Cohesion and Constitutional affairs to start civic education to no avail.Even the church which hither to has always been active in civic education seems not to be very keen on the matter.So being the philanthropic sort of person especially when it comes to matters of sharing knowledge i have decided to start my own civic education classes here...sort of.In this way we can decide if the candidates we are seeing dialy on our tv screens and reading about in the dailies measure up to what the constituion has defined.

My main focus will be on the post of President ,seeing that we are going to have at least 10 maybe even more candidates gunning for chief executive of the 582,650 Sq Km that make up the country called Kenya and its its 40 million inhabitants.

Now i took time to go through the constitution to see what the qualities for the next President should be and i am going to share the information here.Hopefully this is going to make it very easy for Kenyans reading this to determine whether the men and women seeking their precious votes meet even the minimum criteria for heading this country.

If you have ever looked for a job in any field we know the rigorous vetting one goes through before they are called for an interview.Once your application letter lands on the desk of the Human resource officer ,whoever is reading it is going to go through it with a fine tooth comb and even a spelling mistake is going to see your resume end up in the shredder.Now Kenyans need to see themselves as employers and the presidential candidates as job seekers,they need to throw away the rose colored glasses they have been using to view politicians before and get glasses that will ensure we all have 20/20 vision so that we do not slip and end up where we were in 2007.

Here is what the constitution says about the requirements for the next President simple terms.

1.The President shall respect,uphold and safeguard the constitution.
How many aspirants are talking about this?In August of last year we ate,drank and made merry when the draft constitution was signed into law.We all know of the rocky road and the billions of tax payers money that has been spent in the search for a new constitution.How many of the aspirants are willing to protect,defend and uphold this document that has cost the lives of many,seen many Kenyans suffer in the infamous chambers at Nyayo house.Some like Kenneth Matiba have lost their fortunes and been rendered immobile all because they fought to make Kenya a more democratic place for every citizen of this country.

2.The President shall safeguard the sovereignty of the Republic.
If i may quote Wikipedia whose definition i found most apt on sovereignty "a sovereign state is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.^[1] It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither dependent on nor subject to any other power or state."

Now is the presidential candidate seeking your vote telling you how they are going to ensure that Kenyans no longer have to beg for food to feed its people?is s/he telling you how they are going to ensure we are able to transition into a middle income economy without seeking for more loans from donors which more often than not over the past has disappeared into private accounts or been misused?

3.The President shall promote and enhance the unity of the Nation

Is the man or woman standing before you a symbol of national unity or are they a divisive factor.Do these men and women know that Kenya has more than 42 tribes and we have citizens from all the corners of the world who have chosen to make Kenya home.Are they cognisant of the fact that the country needs Kenyans of every color,tribe,faith and race to work together in order for us to move forward.

It amazes me that in a country that is like a mini united nation because of its diversity our political leaders never seem to remember that it will take the efforts of every Kenyan regardless of the ethnicity and the prejudices we have had about each other in the past to make vision 2030 a dream and not some task force's paper dream.

Is your preferred candidate doing enough to ensure each and every Kenyan feels part and parcel of the whole work in progress we are calling Kenya.Or do they make you feel marginalized,forgotten and ignored.

5.The President shall promote respect for the diversity of the people and communities of Kenya

Please refer to (c) above

6.The President shall ensure the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of the law.

The bill of rights in the constitution we passed is already very clear about this and the President needs to ensure that all Kenyans enjoy the freedoms and rights enshrined in the constitution.

These being the basic requirement the constitution defines,what else do you think the next president of this great republic needs to have?

WHY AFRICAN COUNTRIES NEED TO WORK TOGETHER

2011-07-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

When the US President stood to address the men and women of both members of the house of Parliament at Westminster hall,he laughed at the high bar he claimed had been set by the three predecessors who had the honor of addressing the same gathering before him in the past.Only the Pope,Her Majesty the Queen and Nelson Mandela had been so honored by addressing both houses in the past.The full transcript of the speech can be read here

There were some key note points i picked from his speech and i am going to point them out here.He started of by reminding the gathered members of the long relationship the US and UK have in their shared histories and the value they place on the rights of individuals and the rule of law and not on ethnicity or color.He also emphasised that the prosperity of nations was intertwined,countries could no longer exist in isolation.He defined the US and the UK as being countries that were defined by ideals and one of the most important questions he posed to the audience was,what future are we passing on to our children?

Listening to him was enthralling because President Obama plays and uses words much in the same way Mozart used musical notes to create pieces that resonate 250 years later with audiences the world over.Obama's greatest gift to audiences who listen to him is that he is able to paint pictures with words,and it is a joy listening to the way he puts his thoughts together in words.

But this post here is not meant to extol the oratory skills of the 44th President of the United States of America,it is out to show the need for African countries to work together if they are to shed off the tag of the dark continent.Too many times the world has been treated to the spectacle of hungry and malnourished children standing at deaths door,or to the bloody and mutilated bodies of the victims of tribal violence on the continent.It is time we stopped being the recipients of all forms of aid from food to military to educational aid.

At the moment there is a huge crisis in eastern Africa especially among the countries that make up part of the horn of Africa.This is as a result of the drought and famine that has ravaged the people in these region and left them high and dry begging for food yet again.The area right now has seen an influx of international aid workers as well as the accompanying spectacle of international TV crews.All the food that is going to be donated to manage this crisis will come form the west,it is very rare for African countries to sort out one of their own.Why cant we have maize from Malawi and wheat from South Africa to assuage the pangs of hunger our brothers and sisters in Daadab are feeling?

Why is it countries in Africa apart from the peace keeping forces they so faithfully send out at times of crisis and the support they give whenever one of their own is being hounded by the "west" be extended to helping each other in times of crisis such as this?

The US and much of the countries in Europe operate under various alliances and have perfected the art of bailing each other out to a t".Why cant the same be replicated in Africa?Are we so busy seeking to outshine each other and compete for the never ending aid that we fail to notice that working together would be mutually beneficial to the citizens of these continent?

The re branded African Union needs to stop being a body that does less talking and more action ,it needs to have some more relevance in a world that has changed drastically since it was formed.It needs to answer to Africa's needs today and create a future for the children of these great continent.Too much time is spent discussing conflicts,resolving conflicts and not much time is spent on real workable solutions that cause the conflicts in the first place.

Regionally we have already seen the reluctance that has met the launch of the East African Common Market with some country's like Tanzania being wary of their neighbour Kenya.We will not see any progress on the continent if we are suspicious of each other.We cannot also be fighting over territory like the Migingo and Ugingo islands in Lake Victoria which you can read about here and expect to go on with business as usual.

We need to recognize that we need to work together or we "die".Our countries need each other to survive economically and with the newest kid on the block South Sudan is looking up towards the countries that have been independent for much longer .Countries need to stop living in isolation,there is an African proverb that says .Two trees planted together cannot avoid brushing against each other " and countries have begun to realize that we do not need the west to market what we produce locally .Our biggest and best clients are right here right across the border .We are now doing more business with our neighbours than we did in the last 5 years,it is time we went beyond being markets for each others goods and became allies and friends,neighbours who can help each other out in times of difficulty because as they say" it is a fool who rejoices when his neighbour is in trouble."

Africa is where the rest of the world is looking towards for ideas,resources,market and expansion yet our eyes are so focused on the countires across the oceans we have failed to see the need in our own backyards.

JANE EYRE ON WOMEN: 19th Century lesson for Kenyan women

2011-07-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

"Women are supposed to be very calm generally:but women feel just as men feel;they need to exercise for their faculties,and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do;they suffer from too rigid a constraint ,too absolute a stagnation,precisely as men would suffer;and it is narrow minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings,to play the piano and embroider bags.It is thoughtless to condemn them ,or laugh at them ,if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex"-Autobiography of Jane Eyre (pg 106)Bronte .C

Charlotte Bronte's famous book Jane Eyre was published in 1847 when just at 31 she published this great literary work that sought to emancipate women in the 19th century and show them there was life beyond the confines of a kitchen and the hum drum of home life.More than 160 years later much of Africa is now waking up to the fact that a woman can be more than a A woman's contribution to society can go further than the kitchen and this need to be relevant and lead a meaningful human existence is a basic human being that goes beyond gender description.More than one and a half century later she could be talking to the 40 million Kenyans who next year elect more women to parliament and the newly created senate than we have ever seen in the 50 years we have been an independent country.

When the new constitution was enacted it was said women would be guaranteed 1/3 of all elective posts,a lot of argument for and against this clause in the constitution has ensued.Fida Kenya even took the government to court over the constitution of the Supreme Court and we are yet to hear the last of the matter.

A lot of argument has been put forward by women over why they are entitled to these posts but we need to ask ourselves how many women especially outside the urban centres of Kenya even have the means to launch a respectable campaign for elective posts.Women in the country who for the longest time have always taken a back seat in leadership matters now have a chance to shine by electing fellow women to elective posts yet the biggest hindrance to these posts lies in the women themselves..

Kenyan women shine when it comes to entrepreneurship and things like chamas( financial merry go rounds) have been so successful that women have been able to garner enough financial clout as to gain recognition by banks such that there have been accounts especially tailored to suit chamas and women.The government also noticed this and launched the women's fund that was meant to support women groups and make them more financially independent.

Now as we settle into a new constitutional dispensation women have to come to the fore front and show their mettle as leaders.Already the men are crying foul that the women folk are being handed posts on a silver platter whereas they (men) have had to work hard to get elected.It is germane to point out the fact that we are just getting out of a very patriarchal society and probably the drafters of the constitution wanted to correct the skewed representation in parliament that was always in favor of the men.Maybe the transition to a more gender balanced parliament and senate would have been achieved more gradually by first tackling the impediments that block women from getting elected and by encouraging them to join political parties but it is what it is and we have to work with what the law laid out.

Kenyan women need to prove themselves worthy of the posts they have been guaranteed by the law,they need to join political parties that support causes or ideals that are close to their hearts.It is a fact that most Kenyans (not only women) do not belong to any political parties.We cannot expect to be elected when we have taken no initiative to popularize our ideals to the electorate whom we hope to elect us.If people do not know what you stand for what chance do you have of being elected?Women need to show they want the posts so bad the men will stop ,listen and vote for them.

Kenyan women have shown themselves to be among the smartest people we have around and you just have to take a look at the annual pull out of Business daily's Top 40 under 40 to understand that we are not short of some real gems in our women folk.Why then are most of them shying away from elective posts and seeking to go the route of formal employment or business and more are not choosing public service/Maybe it is because for too long the political waters have been muddied by the men and these posts have been left to the women of steel like Martha Karua with enough back bone to stand up to the men.Yet there are many more Martha Karua's and Jane Eyre's who everyday fight of societal prejudices and male chauvinism to rise above these constraints,it is time we joined these foot soldiers who have paved the way for us and further this great cause for the sake of the next generation of women.

Last year i had written a post asking Kenyan women to stand up and be counted here.My clarion call that was directed towards my sisters was because the next generation of Kenyan women who are still in school or in diapers are looking up to us,we owe it to them to be able to fight off the prejudices our mothers and grand mothers carried with them,that women cannot lead, that their place is in the kitchen and that they should be seen and not heard.It is time we proved the drafters of the constitution right,that in granting the privileges they did by reserving special seats for women it was not because of poor judgement but because they had seen and recognized the vital role women have played in the country so far and the immense potential they hold.

Over to you women...it is time you stood up for yourselves,be brave and face the crowds of naysayers who say women cannot rule.

THE POLITICS OF FOOD ....

2011-07-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

The world as we know it today is full of many contradictions and none more so than in the distribution and availability of food.While people in the developed countries watch news items of starving children from Eastern Africa struggling to suckle at the breasts of their malnourished mothers,they are also some of the biggest wasters of food.It was reported in a UN study that you can read about here that an astonishing 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year,much of it in North America and Europe.If i may quote the study it stated that the "estimated per capita food waste by consumers in Europe and North-America is 95-115 kg/year, while this figure in Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia is only 6-11 kg/year. "

It should be noted that most of these countries run relatively democratic governments while Africa and much of Asia is still struggling with this "D" word.This has led me to the conclusion that being a democratic,developed country is hinged very much on the country's ability to feed itself.Right now much of the horn of Africa is facing a food crisis,the worst in years. Africa is awash with foreign aid agencies who have come to our rescue because we have been unable to feed our people.If you look at the countries that are recipients of much of this food aid,their political and governance histories are always very colorful.A hungry man has no time to think about politics ,he would rather worry about where his next meal will come from because much of the population in these countries lives from hand to mouth.It is also why voters in most of the constituencies in these countries are easily swayed by the sight of a few dollars that they can buy food with and that will assuage the pangs of hunger they have suffered for days.

People in the West marvel at the kind of leaders we elect sometimes,yet they forget that they so readily give us food aid with conditions attached or as reward for good behaviour(meaning we kowtowed to what they demanded of us).As long as countries are still receiving food aid they will not know democracy and good governance.So long as people are electing leaders based on their oratory skills and popularity and not leadership and integrity then we will be seeing the pictures of starving children in Northern Kenya till kingdom come.It is also true that as long as food aid is given not out of a sense of altruism but as a reward for "good behaviour" or as a way for donor countries to have their way in the recipient countries then Africa will not know what it is like to be free to feed and rule itself.

If i had a magic wand i would pass it over the countries that have for years been the recipients of food aid in the arid and semi arid areas of the Eastern part of Africa.I would make the deserts of Northern Kenya, lush and green with food crops,flowing with life giving water from streams and rivers so that the women and men of this part of the world do not have to trek for miles in search of food or water .Their cows would be plump with health,their coats glowing with nourishment and their udders full of milk so that we do not have to see the picture of another starving child.Then they would know the joy of electing a man or woman who will not give them fish for a day but will show them how to fish too so that they never know what hunger pangs or food aid is...ever again.

However magic only happens in fairy tales and not in real life and so i am hoping that common sense prevails and that in the coming elections people vote with their heads and not their stomachs or emotions.We need to elect leaders who are able to think outside of the confines of the "box".People who would love to see Kenyans free of the shackles of foreign aid which have made us puppets in the hands of donors.Food aid never allowed anyone to think beyond their stomachs........

AND THEN GOD CREATED FARMERS.......

2011-07-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

After God and mothers,farmers have to be the most important people on this planet, without whom we would not be alive today.Am sure all the politicians,philosophers,religious leaders,musicians and plastic surgeons must be disappointed to think that we cannot live without them but it is true.Farmers provide the food ( fuel) that we use to run our frail human bodies and without which like all living things we would die

Agriculture has played a very important role in the development of human civilization as we know it today when man was able to domesticate plants and animals..This is especially so when you think about the Agrarian revolution that was responsible for much of the human settlements that have contibuted today to civilization.The US,Canada,France,Australia and Spain rank among the countries that export the most agricultural produce in the world,a map showing the top 10 countries can be found here.These countries are also among the most developed which goes to show feeding yourself as a country and developemtn goes hand in hand.

Human beings can survive without mobile phones,ipods and ipads,cars,clothes and beer but no one can do without food and we owe the lives we have to the tenacity of farmers and their belief that feeding the human race is a noble thing to do.That is why farmers the world over are renowned for being early risers before the crack of dawn to ensure that the billions who populate the earth are fed.

As Eastern Africa faces the worst drought and famine in decades,we have put out our begging bowls and we are waiting for the west to come and fill them up with food to feed our starving children yet we have done little to improve the conditions of our farmers or make their work easier.Farmers are the last people government would think of consulting when they ordered for the GMO maize to stem the deficit that has seen the price of a 2kg packet of maize flour triple in the last 12 months.Being a Kenyan and having lived in a farming community for a while i have seen the grunt work that goes towards making sure that the you get the packet of milk that makes part of your morning tea ,it takes a lot of work and dedication,visits from the veterinarian officer,and a lot of money sunk into a project which lives on faith and hope.Farmers are never guaranteed that the hard work they put in will be rewarded,the rains may fail,livestock may get sick or the price of seeds and fertilizer may sky rocket.

Last year when we saw a bumper harvest especially in the Rift Valley region that is considered Kenya's grain basket,the government must have been asleep because a lot of maize went to waste as farmers had their granaries full and there was no storage place for the surplus.Seeing that we have never put up any grain storage facilities since independence yet we are growing at the rate of one million every year the national silos were full and there is never any place we can store surplus.Fast forward 12 months later and we are in a crisis ,the country has no maize reserves and we have to look for the precious grain elsewhere.Our fondness for ugali (a dough like mixture of water and maize meal/cornflour) can only be rivalled by our love for tea and it is disconcerting that many Kenyan household have been forced to forgo this delicacy and have to resort to alternatives that are easier on the pocket but certainly not as filling.

As much as our country seeks to be a middle income economy by the year 2030 and continues to shout from the rooftops that it is ready for investment ,can it feed itself?Farming has always been shunned because it does not carry the prestige of a blue collar or white collar job that entails sittng in an office and drinking copious amounts of coffee and samosas without any thought as to how they landed on your desk.Our farmers are the most important resource we have.We cannot boast of being a regional super power when our farmers cannot afford a bag of fertilizer that goes for kshs 1500($20).

What is even more saddening is that government seems to be blind to the encroachment of fertile agricultural land that is being turned into real estate.I had written an article about that here and the country also lacks policies that could govern land use and ensure that we safeguard agricultural land.It seems we are more concerned with living in palatial homes complete with Italian marble rather than in feeding our children.

How many Kenyans know that April 17th is International Farmers day,we know of a Father's day,Mothers day heck we even celebrate Halloween but you will not catch a Kenyan celebrating farmers day,hell would soon freeze over before we do that.We need to start appreciating these men and women and even children who put the food we enjoy at our dinner tables.The government needs to make life easier for the Kenyan farmer.There are some insurance companies like APA that are providing farmers with insurance cover but more needs to be done.We need to ensure our farmers are able to transport their produce to the markets by having better roads and improving our rail transport.We need to invest time and money in ensuring that our farmers get access to information that will see them employ the best farming practices to ensure they get good yields from their crops and livestock.

I am yet to hear any of the presidential candidates talk about how they are going to tackle the perennial grain shortage in the country,how they will improve the condition of the Kenyan farmer or even what policies they are going to put in place to ensure that the Kenyan farmers life is made just a little bit easier.

We need to hear how the next government is going to tackle the never ending cycle of begging for food aid every year.It is a shame that a country such as ours so richly blessed with agricultural land is unable to feed itself ,yet countries like Israel and Egypt which are less endowed are not only able to feed their people but export food to other countries.How many times have we heard of the government investing in agriculture except when it is to subsidize fertilizer?

We need the next cabinet secretary in charge of the ministry of agriculture to be passionate about feeding Kenyans.We need a Joseph to save us from the looming famine that is staring us in the face every year,we need a visionary man or woman who is going to drive this sector of the economy forward.

If you ask any Kenyan school going children if they ever want to be a farmer,none of them dare answer in the affirmative.Everyone wants to be in IT,own a business and drive a flashy car without getting their hands dirty.Yet we fail to ask ourselves what we will be eating in the comfort of our air conditioned offices,busy with making our country the next big thing in the business process outsourcing industry .Will we be exporting our food?

Granted there are a few brave Kenyans who have ventured into agriculture as a side hustle while they maintain regular jobs in the urban centres but this is not enough to be able to feed the growing population of Kenyans.

A country that cannot feed itself is a shame to the rest of the world,a country that cannot support its farmers is like a man who forgets his mother in the village when he gets to the big city.Yes it is true next to mothers ,farmers come a close second.

DR WILLY MUTUNGA REVEALED

2011-07-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

Dr Mutunga carried a back pack to the approval hearings and he confirmed to all and sundry that he is not gay,he is in fact a spiritual man and sees his interest in the position of CJ as a national duty.He revealed himself to be the kind of citizen we wish all Kenyans were and with ideals and values we wish most Kenyan politicians exemplified.

The approval hearings by the Constitutional Implementation oversight committee were held today morning for the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice and Director of Public Prosecution.The Parliamentarians drawn from parties across the board were asking tough questions to the three candidates endorsed by the President and the Prime Minister.It was a captivating 120 minutes or more on what drives Dr Mutunga,what his beliefs are and was meant to allay the fears the Christian community and some members of society had about Mutunga the man.

The most focus and the toughest questions were reserved for Dr Willy Mutunga who has received the most flak and criticism for his wearing of an ear stud and his questionable religious beliefs.He allayed this fears by quoting Professor J Mbiti who said Africans are "notoriously religious" in his book African Religions and Philosophy by giving himself as the perfect example of this .He said he had been a traditionalist ,then he was baptized as a Protestant,a Catholic a Muslim,has gone to synagogues,shrines and says he does not belong to any one religion but to all of them.In defending his wearing of a stud as an expression of his spirituality he quoted Professor Mbiti who said symbols can not be divorced from religion,you cannot have one without the other.His ear stud was therefore to him similar to the crucifix worn by Christians as an expression of their beliefs.

Like any spiritual person he did say he gets hurt by the vilification he is getting as a result of his beliefs which are protected in the constitution.Am sure if roles were reversed and a Christian was in Dr Mutungas shoes and was having their particular religious symbols discussed and dissected in the public domain the way this man has,they would be demonstrations on the streets already.Christians are persecuted for their beliefs in so many other countries where Christianity is not a majority belief system that is is a pity we are meting out the same prejudices to a man whose only crime was seeking constitutional office.

The Dalai Lama one of the most revered spiritual figures outside of Christianity has a famous quote that states"Human beings are of such a nature that they should have not only material facilities but spiritual sustenance as well.Without spiritual sustenance,it is difficult to get and maintain peace of mind."I think Kenyans should be happy with the fact that Dr Mutunga did not fear to discuss nor to deny his spiritual leanings in the public domain.It would have been so easy to seek affiliation with any of the many denomination or sects that are available but here is a man unashamedly admitting he has dabbled in all known religions in a bid to find one that he felt comfortable in.Instead of choosing one,he embraced all of them and if truth to be told,all religions are the same only that practices may differ from one to the other but their basic aim is to make the adherents better human beings .

His divorce was also questioned and he clarified he was a petitioner in the proceedings that were currently before the court and he gave the committee copies of the petition.He also underlined the fact that divorce is not to be taken causally,relationships when they break down carry with them a lot of grief and hurt and he said it was not a matter he took lightly.

He also displayed a very forgiving attitude towards the former President Daniel Moi who had detained him without trial.In 2002 when Kenya elected a new President after 24 years of Moi's rule,most Kenyans tore into the former Presidents character,calling him all manner of names.Dr Mutunga in an article after the shameful behaviour displayed at Uhuru park after the inauguration of the new President urged for tolerance ,forgiveness and respect for the rights of the former President.

On being asked about family values,he stated that he respected the family unit though to him family meant more than the little village he came from in Kitui.He stated that he was very open to the idea for anyone questioning his values to talk to his children,friends and relatives and was saddened that peole who did not even know him would question his value system.

In conclusion Dr Mutunga proved to be everything the Judicial Service Commission envisaged when they sought someone who would reform the judicial system,a man without a tunnel vision of the world,who would hold the new constitution sacred in all his responsibilities and duties as CJ .Just like any human being who had failings he sought to be understood and accepted especially by the Christian minority that had cast aspersions on his character.Am sure this is a man anyone would love to have on their side especially in the fight for justice that so many Kenyans have been denied.

Here was a man who was leaving his position as the representative for Ford Foundation in Eastern Africa and seeking a job in public service with less salary,smaller perks and without the globe trotting the holder of such a job would enjoy.Instead he wanted to serve use the five years he would be in office to reform the judiciary such that justice would be available to all Kenyans regardless of financial clout.A man who just wanted our judiciary to discard its tunnel vision and adopt a bigger picture approach in terms of judgement especially on national interest issues as enshrined in the constitution.That is the kind of man we need to lead the reform agenda in the Judiciary.

NB:I had to edit a few thingsa on this post but it was first posted on the 9th of June 2011.

CIVIC EDUCATION:From the Pulpits

2011-07-13T02:47:00.000-07:00

Hosea 4:6 My people perish for lack of knowledge.

Every weekend on either Saturday or Sunday any Kenyan TV station worth its salt will have a televangelist extolling the virtues of tithing,performing miracles or fasting.Most of these are geared towards making the regants feel good about their lives because let us face it, life is very hard for the average Kenyan.With rising fuel and food prices a little spiritual solace goes a long way towards mitigating the effects of the harsh economic times we are living in.

In August of this year it will be exactly one year since we passed the new constitution and it will be about another year before we have to face another general election.Politicians being the smart men and women they are have already seen the growing ignorance of the new constitution most Kenyans have and have launched into the usual games they play.Clerics on the other hand have been busy battling the adornment of earrings by certain constitutional office holders or their marital statuses .

Granted that most of the Christian clergy were against the passing of the document in the first place it is disappointing that they have failed to recognize the immense good it holds for most of the Kenyan citizenry.Despite the problems they had with the clauses on marriage and right to life it remains a great document, a huge leap from the one we had before.So it is still a puzzle that most of them have chosen to remain mum on its other contents.

Now as usual we have been waiting for civic education to start ,seeing that we will be having county governments and devolution is going to bring a whole new meaning to governance it only makes sense for the government to educate its people on how this is going to benefit them.This has not happened and if we do not do something we will see such confusion come next election we will wonder what hit us.The government is battling so many wars on other fronts that am sure carrying out civic education in hte counties is the last thing on its mind.

Maybe the church despite its lack of support for the new constitution should start educating its congregants on what the new constitution means for them.It needs to be telling peole that voting with their heads and not their tribes or stomachs will see them have a better life than they have right now.It will ensure that health care is available for all even for the ones who do not get the miracle cures.It will ensure that a family does not starve itself to death, in the name of tithing and that medicines are available in all government hospitals and that we do not have to rely on anointed oil.

It will also mean that instead of praying for our youth to surrender the guns and ammunition they have been using to rob and maim peole we will have them gainfully employed because we have elected leaders who have job creation in m ind.It will also mean that we do not have to have harambees(fundraisers) for everything from weddings to settling of medical bills because our economy will be growing thanks to forward thinking leaders.

Am sure the clergy will also be happy if they have to preside over fewer funeral services because fewer Kenyans will be dying on our roads as the rule of law will be respected.Husbands will honor their wives and grant them divorces instead of bludgeoning them to death,hospitals will be better equipped because corruption will be a thing of the past thanks to respect of public property.Justice will be swift as judgments will not be delayed and our prisons will not be overpopulated with petty offenders and other innocent or not so innocent people waiting for their day in court.What this means is that there will be fewer pastoral visits to prisons for the clergy and they can concentrate more on preaching the good news and nourishing the spiritual life of the faithful.

I would like to hear every Church,Mosque,Temple and Synagogue in the country extolling the virtues and the good that is in the new constitution.We cannot always wait for the government to do everything,the government need partners such as yourselves to be able to attain the Vision 2030 which we are all being called to be a part of.It needs foot soldiers and being leaders of faith in a country that is zealously religious you can help shape and build a heaven down here.

2 MOST IMMPORTANT DECISIONS IN LIFE:WHOM YOU MARRY WHOM YOU GIVE YOUR VOTE TO.

2011-07-13T01:46:00.000-07:00

Okay i may have strethced the truth but just indulge me a little....

If Kenya was a girl looking for a boy to get married to i wonder what she would be looking for?The world over marriage is approached with a sober head and with hope that when one finally settles on a partner that they are going to spend most of their adult life with ,then reason and clarity of mind are key towards in making this very important decision.

It is a no -brainer that one needs to have a standard by which they have set the minimum requirements for a partner.One does not just settle for any Tom,Dick and Harry who comes along.But looking at the varied array of individuals who have thrown their hats into the ring that is the presidential race,i am amazed we have given some even the light of day.It is time as Kenyans we came up with standards by which we measure our leaders,only in this way will we ensure that only the most worthy make the cut.So far there are almost 20 people who are garnering for the top seat and if things go as they are going on right now, we will waste precious time in a run -off ,yet we would have weeded out the unworthy candidates and saved a couple of millions.

We do not need a vetting board like the JSC to weed out those who are unsuitable ,a little digging into the colorful or not so colorful pasts of these aspirants is very easy.Every Kenyan household has a radio or TV or they at least get to read the papers.And with our propensity for political intrigues we are not short of stories on what our leaders have been up to.We should not be giving the time of day to people who in the past have been known to preach water and drink wine,peole who have reneged on promises,people with a past to hide or who have had brushes with the law.

In choosing the next Chief Executive of this beautiful country we need to approach this very important decision with the same soberness and reasonableness with which we choose whom we marry.In choosing a partner one does not make a decision over kilos of succulent nyama choma and crates of Kenya's finest barley products.One sits and mulls over the options available and then settles on one.It is said that one should ensure they date a couple of people before they settle on THE ONE.Only in this way will you know what you are looking for,it does no good to settle for the first man or woman who shows an inclination to spend the rest of their lives with you.Neither does it do any good to propose marriage or even accept a proposal when inebriated .

If we look at the way Kenyans make decisions for their President , it is always a case of herd mentality.The one who attracts the largest crowds at rallies and uses the most colorful language gets the votes.It does not matter that this man or woman has no economic agenda or has a closet full of skeletons.All that matters is that he or she is able to draw crowds that are forever singing his praises.And if he throws in the fact that there are people out to finish him then the more sympathy votes he or she gets.

It is also very interesting that though Kenyans do not know it ,their votes have always been used to settle political scores.That is why politicians use the platforms we give them to fix their opponents.Before you know it public opinion is being swayed by allegations and innuendos which have been taken for the gospel truth and we trash a possible presidential candidate.

We never seem to make up our minds independently we always have to listen to what they(politicians) tell us instead of asking ourselves what these people who want to lead us are going to do for us.We forget that first and foremost these people are our servants,they should be begging us for votes,laying out the blue print of taking this country to the middle income economy it should have been two decades back.The next presidential candidate should swear to be a servant of the people and a servant of the constitution the same way Dr Mutunga did when he was being interviewed for the post of Chief Justice.In this day and age does a woman listen to the promises of heaven a man swears he will provide or does character,ideals and moral standing bear much more weight?

The presidential candidates who are getting the most media attention are only talking about how their tribal numbers can be used to their advantage.My question to Kenyans is this?are we living as one country,united under one flag or should we change our name to the united tribes of Kenya?Every tribe is claiming that it is its time to get the presidency and if we go along this lines then we will be in the same predicament we were in 2007.This is similar to the man who walks up to a woman and says he had a vison that they would get married,that God has spoken to him and they are the perfect match.I always run away from such prophets and visionaries.

Dear Kenyans it is time to make sober decisions and get rid of the herd mentality we have had for so long,we need to grasp the future in our hands and make it happen today .It is never going to be vision 2030 unless we make it happen now.You can only dream and see visions for so long,and you are only young for so long.How many generations of Kenyans have to listen to the same old story of my tribe your tribe deserves this more than the other?

As the Chinese say a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and it is time Kenya got a spouse who will look after her and her children,respect her ,honor her and protect her.

WOOING THE KENYAN VOTER-Why turning thirty has something to do with it.

2011-07-13T01:24:00.000-07:00

Turning thirty has to be the best age for any woman to be in,she knows what she wants, has found her place in the world,is not easily impressed by appearances and she is not afraid of going for what she wants.Kenya at the moment is like this woman who has turned thirty,she knows that a man needs to provide more than security and financial clout,he need to have more than looks going for him .This woman needs to have a friend and partner with whom she can walk life with.

This is the best time for any man to show his mettle and sweep such a woman off her feet.This woman is Kenya and it is time to woo her,we have had three presidents so far and being the wise thirty something we are we have had our hearst broken and it is time to end the heart break and grab the happiness we deserve and the partner who has shown his worth.

For as long as i can remember ,as country we have had politicians swaying our votes on the basis of tribe,appearances or financial clout.We are yet to hear of a Kenyan president who has come from no where in this case meaning he has no past political affiliations or loyalties and risen to be President .
I think it is time we as voters became like that discerning woman in her thirties.Most of us have only ever seen two Presidents rule this country in our life time and we make up the largest bloc of voters.We have come to learn and we know what works and does not work,who is lying and who is telling the truth and the ones who are there just playing for the gallery.We need to weed out the suitors who are wasting our precious time and leave only those who have some character and backbone to them.Someone with the mettle ,who will not be swayed by threats and bullying and with a clear conscience as to why they need our vote.

Long gone are the times when a few shillings for unga(maize flour) or cheap liquor could buy you votes.A woman at thirty is not swayed by a man who is a stallion in bed(i hope so) or one who buys you copious amounts of drinks.We need to be that discerning because we can only have visions for so long.Every woman i know dreams of this ideal man,tall,dark,handsome ,financially stable who will come and sweep her off her feet,but at thirty you realize no one is perfect and a few slight blemishes here and there do not not distract from the character of a man which is the most important thing-what he stands for and believes in.

It is time Kenyan voters ,the suitors have come calling and it is up to you to be wise and not be used as one night stands where we are promised heaven during the campaign period but are very surprised when our elected leaders throw us out of their "houses" and go mteja(switch off their phones) once they are in the August house.We are wiser now ,we know the chameleons and water melons who change colors as it suits them...be wise dear Kenyan voter you deserve better .

THE STATE OF OUR WOMEN-Why her challenges speaks more about our democracy than anything else.

2011-07-13T00:49:00.000-07:00

If you want to know how a country's politics is,just look at the way it treats its women.If the women are marginalized, have to fight for their rights are generally the weaker sex in every sense,are under represented in the higher echelons of power,have a lower literacy level and are generally reports of abuse are high then you know democracy in that country still has a long way to go.

Since the beginning of this year there have been a lot of women in the news and sometimes for all the wrong reasons.We have heard cases of domestic violence that ended tragically and we have seen stories of women who have committed suicide and have taken their children along with them.It is also in Kenya where prostitution is a crime that victimizes the women and lets the men get away scot free.

In the English language countries acquire a female gender specification when it comes to speech and they acquire a female pronoun..I have always asked myself why and now i think i have an answer.It is because a country just like a mothers womb is where we are borne.A country like a mother shelters her children and a country does so under a flag.Just like a mother nourishes a child at her breast, a country feeds it populace through the fertile earth it has been blessed with.It is from this earth too that we get the natural resources that spur economies the same way a mother through the labor of her hands is able to provide for her family.

A mothers heart is a home to her children, people who have left their countries of birth feel that their hearts never leave their mother countries and it is always a joy to be back.We all can identify with the nostalgia that comes with leaving home and setting out in the big wide world on our own.In the same way people pine for their home countries when they have to immigrate,we pine for ourmothers coooking when we are far away from her.

If we look at the lives of Kenyan women today ,leave alone those in the urban centers we will find a very disconcerting similarity between the battles they are facing and those facing our country.Just like the thousands of women who face all manner of physical and emotional abuse our country has been abused by people in power and by the citizens themselves.We blatantly chop down trees,trash our rivers and plunder our treasury for our own selfish benefit.We forget that the same hand that is feeding us is the same hand we are cutting off.A country just like a woman can only stand so much abuse and sooner rather than later the woman leaves or commits suicide when it is too much to bear.

A woman who has been abandoned by her husband faces an uphill task taking care of her children and society never looks kindly upon one who has been so abandoned.It does not matter that the husband maybe the one on the wrong but she faces a lonely journey ahead.The same case with our country,our leaders be they political,business or clergy have abandoned this country and have left the task of caring for it to...no one.No one ever talks about what they can do for the country,how her children can benefit from its vast resources,how we can be able to protect the resources we have for our future and that of future generations who will call Kenya home.The country is struggling under huge public debt and no one cares,all that matters is our selfish endeavours to make the most of what we have now.Look at the way we have encroached on forest land,game reserves,national parks and rivers.The very same things that allow us to feed the 40 million Kenyans are abused with no regard or thoughts given to sutainability or conservation.

I can say for a fact that women in Kenya work the hardest,they are the ones you will find early in the morning trekking from the informal settlements to look for work in the sub urban areas just so they can feed their children.They make up the largest number of domestic workers and women make up a huge percentage of some of the most lowly paid workers.Who are the people who despite the back breaking work of feeding us and tutoring the next generation of Kenyans have the least pay?They have to be teachers and farmers.Farmers in Kenya are a forgotten lot.Year in year out,season in season out they faithfully plant the maize,wheat vegetables,rear cows,goats and chicken that will fill the bellies of their fellow Kenyans but they hardly ever have anything to show for this.Teachers especially in public schools prepare lesson plans that will see them impart knowledge on eager Kenyan school children, but for the longest time they have had protracted battles over pay with the government.These two professions i have mentioned have the largest number of women compared to any other career.Does that tell us something?

We need to ensure that every Kenyan woman enjoys the same rights as a man,where she does not have to struggle to put food on the table because her husband has abandoned her,where she is assured of equal pay for the same work she does as a man,where she does not have to beg for her rights or have them enshrined in the constitution .Only when we are able to have the Kenyan woman treated as an equal to her male counterpart will we be able to ensure our democratic space is as democratic as democracy allows.

DEAR KENYANS OUR "NORMALITY" IS MADNESS

2011-07-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

"Veronika decides to Die" is the title of a book by renowned author Paulo Coelho and he tells the story of Veronika a twenty something year old girl from Slovenia whose suicide attempt reults in her ending up in a mental institution.It follows up on her life there and offers a peek into her mind and that of other patients there as a result of their "madness".

At one time while Veronikah is trying to understand "madness"she meets Zedka another patient there who in trying to define madness tells her a story that goes like this:

"There was once a powerful wizard who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom,so he places a magic potion in the well from which all inhabitants drank.Whoever drank that water would go mad.The following morning ,the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad,apart from the King and his family ,who had a well set aside for them alone,and which the magician had not managed to poison.The King was worried and and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health.The policemen and the inspectors ,however ,had also drank the poisoned water and they thought the King's decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the Kingdom heard the decrees they became conviced that the King had gone mad and was now giving non sensical orders.They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair ,the King prepared to step down from the throne ,but the queen stopped him saying,"Let us go and drink from the communal wel.Then we will be the same as them."

And that was what they did,the King and Queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking non sense.Their subjects repented at once;now that the King was displaying such wisdom,why not alllow him to continue ruling the country?"

The country continued to live in peace,although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbours.And the King was able to govern until the end of his days"

Kenyans have become like the inhabitants of this mythical kingdom who have drank from the poisoned well.That is why tribalism,corruption,impunity,blatant theft and misuse of public funds and recklessness on our roads are like terminal illnesses we all seem to be suffering from.We are all mad!

Our road carnage statistics are some of the highest and most of the time you hear people blaming it on God's will.We find it normal to fork out a few thousand shillings to get a driving licence after you pass your competency test.We even raised hue and cry when drivers were subjected to sobriety tests by the infamous alco blow.It is very normal for a matatu in Kenya to be breaking the speed limit while the passengers silently watch and pray that they get to their destination safely yet they can clearly see the driver is shuttling their bodies to the cold slab of a morgue and their souls straight to the gates of heaven or hell.

When public funds find their way inmto private accounts,we chuckle and guffaw at the civil activists when they chain themselves to the gates of the Ministry of Education to protest the misuse of these funds and we label them mad.We forget that these very funds are not gifts by donors but loans that we are paying and that our children are going to pay back. Even the newbies being born today are being saddled with loans that were squandered or spirited away to foreign countries by government officials.

Last year maize meal which is a staple food item in 90% of Kenyan households was retailing at sixty shillings for a 2kg packet at the beginning of the year.Right now the price of the same packet costs more than a litre of petrol and many Kenyans who live on less than a dollar a day are either going hugnry or looking for alternative foods which given the current economic crisis are not many.Drought has ravaged parts of the country and indeed much of the horn of Africa and now international donor agencies are calling for aid to mitigate the current crisis the region is facing.

We are also witnessing a curious spectacle by members of our August house fighting taxation on the pretext that there aren't any laws permitting taxation of members of Parliament.If they all paid tax all 222 of them we would see 700 million go into the excheqeur and hopefully some of it would be used to feed our poor brothers and sisters in the arid and semi arid areas of the Northern part of the country who are grappling under the effects of the worst famine and drought in decades.

With an election looming,we are having the same old story of tribal alliances going on and the big tribes are aligning themselves for possible victory come August next year.We are listening to the same promises we have been told over the past years and which have never come to pass.

Tell me if we havent all gone mad,then what has made us immune to everything that would be declared wrong and unacceptable in other countries.When children are going to school barefoot,having their classes under trees,people dying from poorly constructed buildings ,farmers barely eking out a living from the back breaking work of feeding the 40 million Kenyans and no one seems to give a damn.

We all seem to think it is normal for a country such as ours that showed so much promise at independence is now a pale shadow of itself .Year in year out we hear promises of fighting corruption and tribalism but none have come to pass.It has become normal to let our leaders get away with lies and blatant disregard for the law and what is right and moral and then we hail them as leaders.What madness!

We are all mad and unless we act quickly we will be like the mythical kingdom Coelho writes about.We have already seen what normality can be like so refreshing and bold when we got a new Chief Justice the Judicial system got a facelift.It is time we gave the same antidote to our electorate so come next year we wake up to brand spanking new crop of leaders and not the old order we have known for what seems to me to be eons.

SOUTH SUDAN....A NEW BEGINNING

2011-07-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

South Sudan becomes an independent country today after successfully making their view on secceding from the Northern Sudan in a referendrum that was held in January of this year.Watching the proceedings of the celebrations going on at the Garang Mausoleum that are being aired live on most TV stations in Kenya i was both happy and sad.Happy that after decades of war and thousands of lives lost the people of South Sudan now had a place they could call home and whose destiny they could be a part of but sad that this was not Kenya being born again.

The Southerners have got so much hope for this new nation that the excitement was infectious ,seeing all the celebrations that have been going on all week.These people have their whole lives ahead of them if they do things right and do not get infected with the diseases of tribalism,corruption and impunity that have destroyed Kenya.With their oil reserves and if they are able to mange them well,South Sudan could surpass Kenya in growth by 2030 as it is blessed with vast oil reserves which remain untapped.

The President of the new nation Salva Kiir has his work cut out for him, in driving the growth of Africa's and indeed the worlds newest nation.It is my hope that he is going to keep the momentum already being shown and even surpass it so that the thousands or indeed millions who have immigrated to other countries have reason to come back home and be a part of stirring the growth of this country.

The whole world will be watching how this new country takes its baby steps and with time we hope the southern Sudan people will be able to erase the years of conflict they have had to live through and face the promising future ahead with courage and bravery.They need to put their best feet forward in ensuring that the dreams the leader of the SPLM had, Dr John Garang are realized and that the Sudanese people are able to enjoy being free to determine the direction their country takes.

So today am going to choose to be happy and pop a bottle of champagne for this new country taking g its baby steps in the world of democracy.

DENY,DENY DENY AT YOU OWN PERIL

2011-06-17T02:56:00.000-07:00

No one knows this better than Anthony Weiner the Democratic Party congressman who was forced to resign after weeks of a scandal involving the inappropriate photos he had been sharing of himself on the social networks platform of Twitter were leaked to the public.The 46 year old married Congressman who had been labelled as a rising star had been denying that he had sent the photos for weeks but finally caved in and admitted to his lack of judgement and resigned ,full details leading to hi resignation can be found here.

While Kenyan politicians have not been involved in such scintillating scandals such as those that seem to envelope US politicians whose most recent victim was Weiner,we do have scandals of our own that involve integrity and honesty of the men we elect to the August house and to other public offices.

The most recent scandal to hit the Kenyan press has been the misappropriation and blatant theft of billions of Kenya shillings meant for free primary education.It has been said senior officers in the Ministry of Education wired huge amounts of money that up to now run into 4.2 billion shillings into accounts of non existent schools.The scandals have not elicited much public response which makes me wonder if Kenyans despite the new constitution and having a new CJ are not too tolerant of wrong doing among public officials.So far the Minister in charge of Education and his PS have so far denied any wrong doing and are staying put in their offices.

Last year in March,there was a scandal involving the same Ministry and the PS then one Professor Karega Mutahi who was transferred to the Ministry of Local government and we carried on with business as usual.Now just a few days ago the Minister of Finance Uhuru Kenyatta released an audit report carried out by the government that confirmed what Professor Sam Ongeri had been denying since last year,that indeed billions had been spirited away by people in his Ministry.Details of the scandal can be read here and here.

This makes we wonder whether our politicians and senior public servants ever care about their reputations and the character assassination that follows public scandals.Abraham Lincoln a man greatly honored by Americans for fighting for the emancipation of slaves once said "character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.The shadow is what we think of it;the tree is the real thing.".

You will never hear a Kenyan politician or public servant resign for any scandal whatsoever and most wait to be hounded out of office through public outcry or by Presidential decree.These men and women would rather hung their characters and reputations out to dry than admit lapse of judgement or ignorance for any misdemeanours they may be caught in.

It does not make sense however to have your name dragged into disrepute,be caught up in mudslinging and put your family through emotional suffering just because your pride does not allow you to admit you lapsed in your responsibilities and duties.Too often i have heard members of the Kenyan parliament lament how their families and children are being ostracized when they are mentioned in scandals and to me it sounds like they are just begging for sympathy.

Just a few days ago the new Kenyan Chief Justice was being disparaged by members of the clergy for his adornment of an earring,his sexuality and marital status and not for one moment did he blink.Our members of parliament never allow such kind of scrutiny on one of their own and are quick to amend or vote down motions in parliament that would otherwise allow closer scrutiny of misconduct.

It is time Kenyans stopped being so accommodating and complacent when it comes to wrongdoing and being economical with the truth that public servants and elected members of parliament are so fond of.We should start demanding the same high standard of integrity,honesty and character that we have asked of the recently appointed members of the supreme court and the Chief Justice and his Deputy.If we do not do this we shall continue seeing the same theft and misuse of money meant to ensure this country's children do not face bleak future.Hospitals,dispensaries and other public institutions that are in dire need of funding will continue to lack basic equipment to save lives or to function and the vision 2030 will continue being nothing other than a pipe dream.

We need to see more Ministers resigning not at the behest of the President but because their have a conscience and know the wrong doing they have been party to or ignored in their Ministries .We do not have to see them being hounded out of office because of public outcry but because they know they failed at the responsibilities and functions the 40 million Kenyans have entrusted them with.

Why the Catholic Church needs to face the abuse scandals from the pulpit.

2011-06-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

In my life having gone through Catholic schools i met priests who were great people and lived by their vows but then there were also those who broke all the rules and gave priesthood a bad name.The Catholic church for a while now has been reeling under the accusations of sexual abuse of minors by some of its priests in Europe and North America.The scandals began receiving public attention in the 1980's but the church hierarchy as it is structured in the affected dioceses never reported the matter of these priests but just transferred them to other locations.Wikipedia provides a detailed article on the scandals here.

Kenya has got its own share of these scandals when we have had Father Kizito Sesana's name dragged into the mud over his misconduct with boys and young men and reports of the battles he has been fighting here and here.
Both times there has been no concrete evidence found to charge him and he has fought of his accusers by saying that they are more interested in the millions involved in the projects he runs through Koinoinia Kenya.

The hierarchy of the Catholic church in Kenya has chosen to keep quiet over the scandals.Their stand is similar to the position taken by the Vatican when the sex scandal emerged,they were swept under the carpet with the fervent prayer sent to heaven that they would just disappear,but they did not.Over the years the allegations against some of its priests have increased and the young victims of these priests who are now grown men have chosen to speak up.

When Father Kizito used to write articles in the Sunday Nation and were serialized under the title Fr Kizito's dairy, i read them voraciously and they were great and inspired my faith then in many ways.When the first scandal hit the press in 2009 i wanted to cry for this man who had inspired me not only with his writing but who i admired for the noble vocation he had taken.

It is very easy to hate on religious people who fall of the high pedestal we have placed them on and the reason for this is because a majority of people look up to them because they represent an institution that is meant to uphold morality in the society.That is why when Fr Kizito's alleged scandals first hit the headlines,a lot of furore and debate ensued on whether his accusers were legitimate or they were after the millions in his projects.

After following the scandals the Vatican has been battling over alleged abuse by the men of the cloth i think it is time that the church in Kenya investigated itself.It is time the church hierarchy asked itself,what if there are priests abusing their high office here ,how do we handle it?

Reuters had an article on how the scandals have affected the church in Germany with thousands leaving the church and it can be read here. Much of this has been caused by the dismal handling of the matter by church which has not been stemmed by the apology offered by the Pope which elicited mixed reactions.An article by the New York Times on the apology to Irish Catholics can be read here .

Maybe it is time the church stopped the fire fighting approach it has taken to reports of abuse by its clergy.The systemic issuing of apologies that is directed at only the affected countries needs to stop,instead the church needs to make its stand on sexual abuse by men of the cloth known,it needs to publicly state that it will not be condoned or tolerated and that the abusers will face the full force of the law.

Sermons made by priests from all the catholic church pulpits need to remind the faithful that the church does not and will not hide sex abuse scandals.The faithful who give of their time,money and energy in church activities need to hear that the church will not hide the crimes or wish them away but will make sure the perpetrators who break the law and their victims have their day in court.

Each of the one billion Catholic faithful who make up at least 50%of the global Christian population need to hear that the church will act and is protecting them from the wolves who come adorned in priestly robes.They need to hear that the church is listening to the voices and the cries of those who have been abused by these men .The church needs to shout from the pulpit that sexual misconduct of its priests cannot be condoned ,every catholic from the remotest village church in Turkana to the Basilicas in Rome needs to hear that.Only by doing so will the church get some of its credibility back.

WHY KENYANS ARE STILL DYING OF HUNGER

2011-06-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

Kenya is an interesting country to live in,while some Kenyans acquire the latest tech gizmo's and fuel guzzlers,almost 2 million Kenyans in the arid and semi arid areas in Samburu are dying of hunger.All the signs were there last year but as usual we were to busy trying to make it big to notice the bumper harvest we had last year which if we had employed measures to store the extra bags of maize,wheat farmers harvested and the tonnes of milk that even had us experience a milk glut and which saw gallons go down the drain at the state owned Kenya Co operative Creameries,we would not be seeing the national shame that drought and hunger have now become.

In September of last year,the meteorological department issued a warning that 2011 would be a hard year for us because we would have less rain therefore planning should have begun then.But as usual warnings here are never taken seriously till we see the scrawny Samburu residents on national TV with even reports of death now coming in.Just a few days into June there are already reports of five people in Samburu who have died of hunger,full details of the crisis can be read here.

On the 8th of June ,we had the budget read ,things like wheat ,maize and rice were zero rated and this is meant to cushion hungry Kenyans who are already paying through the nose for basic food commodities.In Kenya fuel determines what you are going to pay for your packet of milk or for a 2 kilo packet of cornflour.At the moment global prices have been on the rise and so the ordinary Kenyan has had to dig deeper into their pocket to feed themselves and their families.Maize(cornflour),wheat flour and rice are staples in most Kenyan households and the direction their prices take whether north or south determine whether a child will go to bed well fed or sleep hungry.

It puzzles me that in an era where we have all manner of warning systems,where information is at our finger tips we still have the same problem we had back in the 80's when the internet,mobile phones and satellites that track global weather pattern were non existent.Why are we failing our people,when they all die of hunger who are our leaders going to be leading ?

Maybe a time will come when no single Kenyan dies of hunger,where children,men and women will not have to boil wild berries to assuage the pangs of hunger,where planning for crisis will be a habit and not an afterthought and where we will not watch food go to waste while the rest of the country starves.I pray for a time where every Kenyan child will go to bed with a full stomach and not with the sickening knowledge that when dawn comes the biting stabs of an empty tummy will have them staring into space with no hope for the future.

WHY AFRICA'S VOTE FOR HEAD OF IMF DOES NOT MATTER

2011-06-10T00:49:00.000-07:00

Christine Lagarde and Agustin Carstens have been on a tour of some countries which by the sheer strength of their economies may just be the deal breakers in the search for the next Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.The position was left vacant after the previous holder Dominique Strauss Khan was charged with sexual assault and other charges committed against a hotel maid in an upmarket New York Hotel.

When i hear talk about the IMF all i seem to remember are the Structural Adjustment Programs(SAP'S) they gave as conditions for Aid to the Kenyan government back in the 90's which went on to cause a lot of grief among Kenyans.Now the tide has changed and Kenya and most other African countries are no longer at the mercy of the IMF.They have a very willing partner in China who lends without too many questions or conditions.

Looking at the wooing that is going on for votes by the two candidate it is a no brainer to conclude that African countries do not carry that much weight in the vote.That is why they do not feature in the itinerary that has been mapped out by the two contestants.The countries that contribute a bulk of the money.This is mainly because funding for the body by member countries is based on quotas that are determined by that countrys' strength on the world economy.The system used for funding the IMF can be read here.African countries do not have much economic clout on the global stage and that could be the reason that the two candidates have not paid much attention to them.Another factor that could be influencing the choice of countries the two are visiting to pitch their suitabilities for the job are that countries in much of Europe like Greece,Ireland,Portugal are in need of bail out from the IMF.

In voting for the next managing director for the IMF job,a candidate needs to garner votes from the members with the highest percentage of contributions because these are the ones who have the greatest say in decision making.African countries are largely borrowers in these financial arrangement and more often than not have been saddled with loans with so many conditions ,that African countries end up being forever mired in debt for generations to come.

According to an article by rainbow warrior on how voting is done it is literally a matter of how much your influence is worth in gold that will determine who gets the top job.Africa with its meager resources can in noway have a say in who heads the organization,the decision is in the hands of the US and much of the G8 and G20 countries.Africa and the rest of the developing countries who make up the IMF membership can only ever hope to have one of their own heading the financial body if they can garner financial clout that can stand up to the US and Europe and that is going to take years.

Meanwhile as we wait to hear who gets the job though i think it is a no brainer that it will be Lagarde with Carstens as deputy in order to appease the BRICS countries,it is time the next MD changed tact on the way the IMF views Africa.Much of the time it has received a lot of flak from African intellectuals for forcing conditions down the throats of begging countries and imposing plans that have done nothing but harm the recipients of the countries they have been channeled to.This is because some of the money is targeted at projects that hardly ever benefit citizens and the conditions imposed for the loans end up wrecking the lives of the very same people they are meant to help.

Focus by the new head should now be on well thought out and researched policies that can benefit the people in the developing countries while also making sure the funds are used for their intended purposes.With China now joining the list of options available for loans and grants IMF needs to drop the list of conditions it imposes for their loan,what should be focused on is monitoring of these funds to make sure they are being put to their intended purposes.

African countries also need to play a a part in ensuring that they reform their policies to include more transparency in the way they utilize their funds,elect leaders with integrity and knowledge to push their economies to compete in a world where bail outs have become the norm rather than the exception.Countries are facing tougher times on the world economic stage and previously countries we never thought would need bail outs are now in urgent need of financial help,it is now up to African countries which have so many resources are able to manage their resources in such a manner that they reap economic benefits for themselves and their citizens.