Alphonce SHIUNDU

 Happy New Year.   Just a few questions occupying my mind as the New Year 2022 begins.   -Will Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta have a honest look at the CBC and make a bold decision –the only decision he has to make, which teachers and parents agree on—, or will that have to wait until the next President comes to office?   -The whole world has been talking about ‘The Great Resignation’ or ‘The Big Quit’, where employees were quitting toxic workplaces (after the pandemic revealed just how short life is to live a mediocre life). Will this get to Kenya in 2022, or are employees in Kenya (and much of Africa) perpetually in survival mode (thinking about bills) that it makes sense to suffer the toxicity?   -Kenyan elections are on the horizon. All the top presidential contenders are above 50 years. It is estimated that more than 50% of the voters will be under 35 years. Will the young people use their numbers to surprise the world with a new hitherto u...

When you see the ‘k’ in Jakaranda, you really want to correct it. Who writes ‘Jacaranda’ that way? Well, Peter Kimani does, and it is the name he chose for his fictional nightclub. (Ha! Had to spoil it for you this early! Perhaps I should not have mentioned that. Sorry Peter, and Bola, I just couldn’t resist!). The book is not about dancing. Yes, there’s plenty of that vividly described, you can feel the party mood, smell the sweat of the revellers, the aroma of the nyamachoma and even the stench of the urinal, and trigger whatever sense is triggered when you see, smell, and drink alcohol. The reason I loved the book, is the meticulous research that went into it. All great works of historical fiction need thorough research. In Kenya, with the political identities defined or determined by ethnic identities, and the question of identity being pretty much the determinant of everything in an individual’s life, more so in political participation and public service, such re...

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan First published: 2010 I have the rare privilege of knowing a few authors personally, and realizing that not everybody has a daily access to these patient hardworking minds that sit down for hours, thinking about words, and writing them down to tell beautiful unforgettable stories. One of those authors is Peter Cunliffe-Jones. We have sat down with him for lunch a few times. The first time we met, it was over drinks in some Nairobi hotel. We spoke about fact-checking. But that is another story, for another time. I knew he wrote a book and when he speaks, in passing, about the experience, you get the impression that it was one of those works where he spent hours doing research, combing through his notes, talking to people, asking uncomfortable questions, making conclusions and then doing the brave thing: stringing a readable story and putting it out there. His book My Nigeria: Five Decades of Independence is one of those books that I rea...

Kenya’s former Chief Justice, Dr Willy Mutunga is one of those guys you can listen to for a long time without getting bored – that is, if you like those debates about Kenya’s struggle for democracy, political freedoms, and if you want to make sense of the political razzmatazz. He has been there, done that.  And when he came out on the other side, he concluded that Kenya is a bandit economy . That view hasn’t really changed, and he still thinks the country’s elite is playing a “very very dangerous game”. He actually says that Kenyan leaders are captives of imperialist and neoliberal forces. Four things Kenya’s ex-CJ told the BBC about Kenya’s politics      1)    It is a 'class problem' ‘We are in an environment of gossip, fake news, great great polarization that I have avoided being partisan about these issues. The position that I have taken very clearly and publicly myself is that, I blame the Kenyan elite, and I don’t buy the argument th...

One of Kenya’s foremost public intellectuals, Dr David Ndii had a very interesting interview with KTN News’ Sophia Wanuna. I enjoyed it! Immensely. In it, he had surprises and thought-provoking views, about the country’s politics and policies. Let me put some of the quotes to whet your appetite to view the whole interview . Yes, if you like cats, there are two beautiful cats playing in the background. You’d love those. One surprise: Anne Waiguru, the former devolution secretary and now Kirinyaga Governor was Ndii’s “research assistant: when they produced a report on harambees for Transparency International in 2001. Githongo was TI’s boss. “Anne Waiguru was my research assistant at the time,” he told Sophia. I looked it up. Let me leave this excerpt here: About Mutahi Ngunyi, well, well, well…. “I don’t think people like Mutahi Ngunyi are intellectually qualified to label me. “Most of the things I say and do are written. I have been part of the political oppo...

Wow! That’s all I can say. So, in summary, Mwende Gatabaki, is an accomplished IT professional . She had a great job in Tunisia. She worked at the Africa Development Bank. One day in 2014, her boss at the AfDB walked in and told her that President Uhuru Kenyatta wanted her to return to Kenya and do some work on digital transformation. “I actually have a letter with my name on it signed by the President” she says. She left a great job. To come back build her country. The President explained, he wanted her to create a ‘single source of truth’. She requested him to table the issue at Cabinet for ‘buy in’. The idea was to have an identity infrastructure. Think of it this way, she says, when you are born and they process your birth certificate, by the time you get to 18, the government should call you and tell you, ‘come for your ID’, so you show up, surrender your biometrics, and the ID is processed. What she had in mind, was an integrated solution to show data about ...

You want to dance  ‘helicopter’ . It just fits. You want to shake your shoulders, just a bit (not the way they do in ‘ kutalang’i ). A little shoulder-shaking-arms-apart kind of dance, with your legs doing whatever they want to do. The head can nod, mbele-nyuma, or left- right, like you just took a sniff (Haa!) Yes, it is Nyanshinski’s song. The solo guitar that introduces the song and stays with you – disappearing to let Nyashinski relay his message and resuming as a signal that he’s done with his verse— is unforgettable. It reminded me of that guitar in  ‘Kasuku’  by Maroon Commandos or the one in Sukuma bin Ongaro’s ‘ Jirani Kuno ’. And the way the bass guitar checks in at 00.09, eish, that combined sound of “vroom and uuhhmm” boooosss! Where’s  Clint the Drunk?  The bass man doesn’t have to play anything! I’d heard something like the rhythm guitar earlier on, not intrusive, but it is there, pacing the song, (it’s perhaps somebody getting creative ...

When you have a Cardinal, dozens of Bishops, hundreds of priests and nuns in one place, you expect all things secular to go through the window. When you have politicians, as we have seen in the so-called prayer rallies, politics usually takes over. But Friday, at the Moi International Sports Centre, in Kasarani, we had His Holiness Pope Francis – and neither politics nor prayers took over, but song, dance and deep self-reflection. The thousands of the young people who had heeded the call of the Catholic bishops in the country turned up at the stadium to have their date with Pope Francis on his maiden tour in the country. They sat on the terraces singing, cheering, and dancing. As they awaited the Pope, a party mood engulfed the stadium. "...the Bishops, in their black cassocks with pink band cinctures on their waists had no option but to dance away. And that they did, not simply swaying from side to side, but actually doing that shoulder-shaking dance, hands raised and sto...

The curse of tribalism, the ghost of corruption and the threat of radical teachings yesterday formed the topic of Pope Francis’ talk with thousands of young people in Nairobi. The Holy Father dropped the religious red tape, turned to his mothertongue, Spanish, and through a translator, engaged thousands of eager Kenyan youth in a heart-to-heart talk at a packed Moi International Sports Centre, in Nairobi’s  Kasarani neighbourhood. The global head of the Catholic Church confessed that “even in the Vatican there are cases of corruption” and lamented that it was something that disturbed him every day. But his mission yesterday morning was to inspire a change in attitude among the thousands of young people in Kenya whose role models made their money through dubious means. “Corruption is something that eats the inside. Like sugar, it is sweet. We like it. It is easy… you end up taking so much sugar that you become diabetic or the country ends up being diabetic. Each time we ...

Tanzania's President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete shakes hands with the Speaker of Kenya's Senate Ekwee Ethuro (in blue robes) as the Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi looks on. (PHOTO/STATEHOUSEKENYA FACEBOOK PAGE) Kenyan lawmakers cornered Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete and demanded an address in Kiswahili. The MPs who had sat quietly listening to the visiting Head of State address the House in English, pushed for a Kiswahili address from their guest, and being an easy man, Kikwete obliged. The Tanzanian President’s aide promptly handed his boss a sheaf of papers with the Kiswahili version of the speech, and it is in there that the deep secrets, hitherto known to only a few people were poured out to the whole country in a speech beamed live on Kenya’s public broadcaster. The Kiswahili delivered in a conversational tone, with the ease of a brother talking to a brother, Kikwete explained why, to Tanzanians, Kenya is a very important partner not just in ...

There are lessons you are inadvertently taught when you are a 35-year-old being forced to sit in the same class with an 18-year-old. Imagine someone who is half your age, with less of life experiences sitting by your side, being taught the things you should have learned eighteen years ago. You feel a little jealous that you were not told these things early enough; that some people are just lucky. But you also feel hopeful that a young generation is being made to learn about better ideals of leadership, and what a good society should look like. It is also somewhat shameful that you haven’t really done a lot to ‘change lives’, and in a country with a life expectancy of 61 years such as Kenya, you take a silent vow – the things you tell your heart and your mind and your conscience— to use the remaining part of your life to change the world. Your world. But when you sit in that class with an open mind, to learn not just from the lecturers but also from your colleagues, both the one...