Alphonce SHIUNDU

October is gone, here comes November. The Christmas promos are on the way. The anti-corruption bug has hit the National Assembly. Ministers have gone home, the adrenaline is so much in such instances and churning out copy is what I do. It's been a good month all things considered! I may not have blogged that much, but then, that's a story for another day. I have another 31 days to do the blogging. I hope, I will succeed. So far, adios October!

Well, I can't sleep without telling you about my experience at the first public interview. The Justice and Legal Affairs Committee had Justice Isaac Lenaola and Principal Magistrate Emily Ominde for interviews. As I looked on, I heard the committee members ask the usual interview questions: "Tell us about yourself? what awards have you earned? Have you published any papers? Are you 'clean'?" And such stuff. Then, my pal David Ochami, when we got the chance to put in our questions after the meeting, turned on the committee. He questioned the kind of reasoning that went behind their minds as they came up with the list of questions. He wondered if knowing where a judge went to school was more important than say, their opinion on death penalty and such stuff. He wondered if the committee, which was full of lawyers, knew anything about jurisprudence. The committee members were shocked. But then, I can get soft on them and say, they didn't expect that a journalist c...

So while Kenya was busy celebrating Mashujaa Day, the UK, it's colonial master, was busy worried about balancing books. I Just got lucky to see the UK Finance Minister George Osborne reading his first budget and goodness, it seems life will be tough. While Kenya is struggling to create 500,000 jobs annually, the UK wants to cut 490,000 jobs in government and another similar number in the private sector. So, really, how were Tony Blair and Gordon Brown managing? It seems Cameron will have a super hard time turning that economy around. But looking at all that they have in that budget, I see as if someone is experimenting bigtime with things that can backfire both economically and politically. I hear politicians are the same everywhere, and that if they do anything in the name of the people, then we all have to be wary. Let's see if they can implement that budget, because, what my head of State gave me as a speech for Mashujaa Day looked like a cut and paste job of many of his spe...

Dear Mr President, It’s my humble duty to share in your disgust at the state of indiscipline on our roads. I agree with you that we are perhaps the ‘worst’ in the world, though; I am not sure what you’d say if you went (not as President) to Nigeria’s Lagos, Egypt’s Cairo or Pakistan’s Islamabad. I am even surprised that you know about how careless our motorists can be, yet, whenever you want to use the road, any road, it is cleared hours before you step into your limousine. Nonetheless, I am glad that you know what we go through and that it makes you angry. You sounded really peeved at the way drivers get “excited” for ‘doing’ the Nairobi-Nakuru (you called it ‘Nyaikuru’) stretch in less than an hour. Seriously, a motorist who achieves such a feat experiences a super feeling. He tastes, for that hour, what you Mr President, enjoys everyday --the speed at which your motorcade moves. There’s a day I met you at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. I don’t think you remember. You had j...

This morning, Al jazeera carried this story from Egypt about what it called a marriage crisis. I was a bit confused. In the Al jazeera story, there was this beautiful girl who said that "it reaches a certain age, where a lady thinks that there's more to life than love". In her words, at that age, you just look for a person to grow old with "as long as that person is well-mannered". Then the reporter went into a match-making office and as I looked on, I couldn't help but marvel at the 'Westernness" in Egypt. Yeah, it's more America and less Saudi Arabia. You know, in Egypt, weddings happen from Thursday night to Saturday night --yeah, night weddings, plenty of boat rides and vows are taken while cruising on the Nile. (That's the impression I got when I was there). On the face of it, such ceremonies look grandiose, but when you look or even attend one, they are very simple weddings. But then, I asked a guy, how much it costs to get married and...

A pal directed me to the Daily telegraph story of Tanzanians stealing fuel in, wait for it, a gold mine! Come on, he said, there's gold right there. And I thought, if the security measures were that tight where Gold is concerned, why not go for the next best available option--the opportunity cost. But seriously, with all that gold, and the poverty levels down south? For real, I now know, that some vampire is being fed big time.

Every day I learn something new. Today, while reading Simeon Nyachae’s biography, I came across a funny line. Nyachae notes that when he was Cabinet Secretary he had a run-in with Martin Shikuku. He says, Shikuku was once an assistant minister in the Office of the President. At that time, Shikuku used to come early and stand at the doors of Harambee House, marking what time each of the civil servants reported to work. Complete with a register. Now picture that! Then when Nyachae complained that the civil service had its own mechanism of dealing with such matters, Shikuku raised the matter in Parliament saying Nyachae was “behaving like a Prime Minister!” Of course, something had to give, and in this case it was Mr Shikuku who was shown the door. Life happens! PS: This is my first blog in October. I hope to write 20. The countdown begins. One down! of dealing with such matters