Kenya’s deficit is not fiscal, it is moral
In governance, statecraft is mostly stagecraft. That is what I wrote in a commentary in this column sometime in May this year. In light of developments since then, that needs a little calibration: governance is mostly about mindshare. It is about how much of the public’s mind is occupied with negative images and messages in […]
Mandela: The Long Goodbye
In the Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela treated us to his journey from Qunu, his birthplace, to Pretoria, the seat of political power in his country, South Africa. After retirement, he wrote Conversations with Myself and, through letters and diary notes, shared with us up-close his personal world of pain and struggle – and joy […]
Time for Africa to practice strategic humility
If you hear it said you would be forgiven if you thought you were in another planet. The new growth frontier; the rising giant; the future hub of global growth; unprecedented economic rise; a golden time for Africa, and so on. These are the words we hear increasingly bandied around at every other forum on […]
President Uhuru Should Consider ‘Breaking Some Eggs’
Consider these statements by President Kenyatta speaking in May 2013 on the matter of the MP’s push for higher pay. “I urge our MPs to focus on serving the people instead of pushing for higher salaries for themselves.” “This continuing paralysis is not in the national interest …. I therefore urge Parliament to engage the […]
Which Path for Kenya in the Next 50 years?
“Do not compare us with developed countries; compare us with countries in Latin America.” This was one of those inane statements made recently by one of our MPs in reference to the debate (debacle, really) about the right level of salaries and perks for Kenyan legislators. Today being 50 years since Kenya attained internal self-rule, […]
In governance, statecraft is stagecraft
We learn in business school that images convey messages–both subtle and obvious; messages in turn help form impressions; and impressions lead to conclusions and decisions. The past week was full of images and messages – from government – and we can be sure impressions were formed. Soon conclusions and decisions could follow. Perhaps the biggest […]
Caught between Boardroom-smart and Street-smart
Once in a while, we are reminded that democracy seems only fit for the most crazy. Consider the brief (but bound to recur) tussle between Governor Evans Kidero and Senator Mike Mbuvi “Sonko” over the matter of the scrap metal dealers in Nairobi. “With immediate effect, we will not be issuing licenses to those people […]
Justice is blind, but it is not deaf!
The law is an ass. Justice is blind, but not deaf! Two pieces of news these past few days reminded me of these expressions. There was the back-to-back news that Kamlesh Pattni, he of the Goldenberg infamy, had been cleared of all charges relating to the two decades-old Goldenberg scandal. Before we recovered from the […]
MPs Greed & Citizen Apathy: Quite Typical!
It is going, going, gone… Well, almost. I am talking about the resistance against blackmail by their Excellencies, their Highnesses (or is it their altitudes), Most Honourable Members of the 11th Parliament of the Republic of Kenya. Pitted against grit by civil society, and lately the Church, it appears greed is winning. The clamour seems […]
Mutula Kilonzo: A reflection on life
In one translation of my favourite Mao Tse Tung’s poem, Ch’ang-sha, the poet observes and asks: In the waste’s dreariness brooding, I ask the blue space without bonds: Who masters fate’s rise and descent? In the death of Mutula Kilonzo, we may similarly ask: Is death an arrow, always pointing forward towards infinity? Is it […]
