Scramble for Votes in the Diaspora

The 2012 General Election will the first under the new constitutional dispensation and it will be historic on many accounts. For the first time, Kenyans in the Diaspora will take part in the elections. It is estimated that there are about three million Kenyans in the Diaspora and out of these three million Kenyans in the Diaspora, it is guesstimated that at least half of them are eligible voters which makes the Diaspora vote a significant voting bloc capable of deciding the outcome of the General Election. The Diaspora voting bloc is unique in several ways though.

Death Warrants –President Kibaki’s Leadership Failure

For the first time in the history of our nation, ordinary citizens are beginning to have faith in the judiciary. Since independence, patronage, corruption, and dearth of the rule of the law plagued our entire legal system making it dysfunctional. However, the situation is improving dramatically and ordinary Kenyans are very optimistic thanks to the constitutional reforms being implemented by the Judicial Service Commission and the Chief Justice in particular. However, in the ongoing criminal justice system reforms, there is a big elephant in the room and it’s the failure by the President to sign death warrants for criminals sentenced to death.

The Threat of Unemployed Youth and 2012 Elections

I fully support the war in Somalia against the Al-Shabaab -that ragtag band of terrorists whose cross-border attacks have terrorized Kenyans and threatened to destabilize our country. And whereas I fully approve of the government’s response to the Al-Shabaab attacks, I contend that the threat posed to our nationhood by our very own able-bodied men and women who feel they have no stake in our society and consequently feel they have no responsibility towards it because they are unemployed, is greater than the threat posed by the Al-Shabaab. This was clearly demonstrated in the 2007 post-election violence; it is an existential

The Kibaki Succession Politics are Hopelessly Bankrupt

With every Tom, Dick and Harry declaring their bid for the highest office in the land, the menu of those aspiring for the presidency in the next General Elections has now become ridiculously rich. It remains to be seen what impact this will have on the General Elections. Nonetheless, most everyone with an honest opinion agrees that the Right Honourable Prime Minister, Raila Amolo Odinga is still the man to beat in the next General Elections; a political reality that is notoriously

Kenyan Leaders’ Deadly Obsession with Power

It’s ironic. Col. Muammar Gaddafi called those protesting against him ‘rats’ but when he met his brutal death, he was hiding in a culvert like a rat. The heartbreaking irony in the life of the late Professor Wangari Maathai was that her greatness of was a function of President Moi’s excesses and when she died, an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt prevented the former president from joining the rest of humanity in celebrating her illustrious life and it could not even permit him to join fellow dignitaries at her State Funeral. Such is the regret and humiliation the

Safaricom Business Model is Unethical

Safaricom business model was and is still based on the 'capture of subscribers' and locking them in forever. This happened and continues to be the case because of several things: One, the conditions in the mobile telephony sub-sector were conducive back then when Safaricom came into the scene with only one competitor who was exorbitant. Two, Michael Joseph an expatriate with considerable knowledge in mobile telephony business models and having studied properly our peculiar calling habits, chose the capture model. Three, the capture was based on tariffs all along until the company went public. In the IPO, the company chose to make the share price ridiculously affordable by discounting it heavily so that every subscriber could own a share and something which would have the net effect of further ring fencing the hapless subscribers. The only reason Safaricom has the audacity to raise its tariffs in the face of stiff competition and in the thick of biting inflation is because their subscribers are locked in for good.

The Curse of High Incidence of Economic Illiteracy

Our country is currently experiencing an economic trauma that is characterised with chronic inflation and a severely weakened shilling that is has put to the test the resilience of our economy. The Central Bank is pitted against commercial banks trading accusations over what is the real cause of the situation and how best to deal with it. So far opinion among economists is equally divided over where to place the blame and which remedial measures should be taken to bring relief quickly. Regrettably, due to our high economic illiteracy incidence,