A nation of Frauds

The good news of former colonial masters granting ex gratia to its victims during the Kenyan war for independence has been greeted with mixed reactions.

Concerns are gathering over the vultures swooping over the 1.8 billion compensation money. From fake claimants, to alleged home guards (who helped Britain perpetrate the atrocities being compensated) to advocates (who have been put on notice not to charge claimants), it is being proven that Kenyans are characteristically fraudulent.

Compensation in Kenya has always been faced with this same old culture of strategic positioning of non beneficiaries to reap the compensation at the expense of the deserved victims. During the forced Mau evictions, this same clout joined the evictees hoping to get resettled with the victims claiming to be squatters too.

The same scenario presented itself during the IDP after the 2007 chaotic elections where resettlement, to date has been marred by fake claimants and recompense is being seen to go to opportunists while victims continue to languish in camps.

 This national aberration towards fraud leaves a lot to be desired about our country and deserves national condemnation akin to that being meted to #Mpigs greed and underscores what Hon. Duale said about Kenyans being just as greedy as their leaders.

During the distribution of subsidized unga (maize meal) by the Kenyan government during a crisis i witnessed first hand this culture of fraud. The unga meant for the poor who could not afford the high priced off-the-shelf commodity was being acquired in large scale by rich Kenyans, and unscrupulous business men who repackaged and made a killing from it. Most of the poor who could not afford the ten kiliogram package did not benefit.

To demonstrate the vitriol of our  society, the people responsible for distributing the compensations were at the fore of the malaise, encouraging their relatives and friends to come benefit from the ‘freebie’ and serving these nepotic polity with priority over the real victims being targeted.

This malaise ought to be confronted and condemned if we are to purge our society of greed from the leaders to the led.

Notwithstanding this malaise as adverse as it is in Kenya knows no borders. After the Boston bombings in America, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley warned that within four hours of the bombing, more than 125 websites had been registered purportedly to collect money for victims most of them fraudulent.

May 5: Internship Unions

Labour day during college recess and students are all over the internet and newspapers and relatives looking for internship in Kenya.

It has become a very interesting trend in Kenya’s capital Nairobi as companies recruit interns for three months or so. The interns who are in abundance service this industry much of whom are never paid (some even pay the companies to ‘teach’ them). Like all businesses the companies can ‘outsource’ for this cheap labour instead of hiring permanent workers who cost them money.

The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that all jobs require a three or four year experience, and no graduate can make it into employment without having served as a pawn through internship and hope for absorption.

Just to throw in a little more for the fun of it universities have slotted that internship is in the curriculum so unless one goes through it they will never graduate.

Put all this ingredients together and you have scores of desperate students who are offering free, cheap labour or even paying organizations. It’s a capital system and business sense the opportunity use interns for the short time and dump them for other interns as universities constantly churn out new desperados every other time during the school year.

If this is a labour concern then I beg to voice it. I believe interns are a major skilled resource and by offering their services to organizations they deserve remuneration. Students have a heavy loan burden and barely survive through semesters. They are undeniably in need for money and thus they deserve to be paid and paid well.

It is a matter of fact, though, that organizations are important to students as they afford field experience to students. In fact, as a good recruitment policy its best to prove the worth of students through internships as a substitute to graduate trainees who might cost more.

However university students might have to consider an internship union that allows for interns to bargain while offering their services as a skilled resource and not just be workhorses. Universities can also consider teaching labour laws and union membership as a common course for all students to understand that as they enter the job market they should view themselves as integralcontributors to successes of companies rather than mere apprentices who work for free. It is undeniable that all workers who feel more appreciated contribute more and what better way to intern them.

The Kenyan Fourth Estate: Role in Election

Kenya has in recent years had its media wake up to a realization that its professionalism was devoid, as any sweet voiced or good looking nobody could be a journalist.

Then came 2007, a turning point for almost everything in Kenya including realization of the need to ensure ethical and responsible journalism as journalist allegedly treated their role ‘irresponsibly’.

The Media Council of Kenya came alive in earnest robustness radically calling for all journalists to be accredited by it on grounds of academics and practice. Journalists are now thanks to them able to be cut out as professionals. During the elections only journalists with badges accented by IEBC were allowed near polling stations or tallying centres. And with such levels of accreditation plus the IEBC badges, we still could not trust journalists to provide the nation with poll figures. Instead it was decreed that only the results tallied from IEBC were supposed to be relayed. Journalists too scared to treat this times election ‘irresponsibly’ kept off too.

I doubt that it was beneficial as it would have proved important to have different tallies by more than just IEBC, e.g. the tallies carried out by Nation Media Group as referrals that would in effect help reconcile variances. Leaving IEBC to be the sole source of primary data inspired by the politics of fear or ‘peace’ as was our case leaves a lot to be desired about journalistic role in the election.

It makes void the point of accreditation if journalists cannot be trusted to do their work or would not do it for fear of being blamed. Hitherto irresponsible-unprofessional journalism has not been annihilated by badges and accreditation if we cannot trust journalist to announce results from the ground in real time.

Thus what would purge this profession of doubts and win back public trust that would allow us, as journalists do our work without being subjected to unwarranted restraint on the obvious. Surely I do not think packing our tabloids with expert analysis from non-journalist consultants is the solution.

If Media council of Kenya can strengthen curriculum of journalism schools encourage specialization in different discipline and have media houses reinforce this differentiation then we can have not just paper professionalism but practical as well.

We can build brands around disciplines of sciences, politics, health, social issues, finance etc and have media practitioners who we know have true command of their fields. Then we can trust them with the truth and its analytics.

I believe if we strongly had journalists who we could trust with political issues we would allow them to tell the story as it was instead of playing to the public gallery of peace. We could trust them with tallying just as a way of reconciling variances.

If our journalism is to rise above mediocrity then we should have the fourth estate realize they are not observers but key players in the business of running this country.

Has Kenyan manifestos matured?

When I was young there came a time when I was allowed a wish list just as I entered high school, in the ‘budget’ (more or less a wish list) I wrote the necessary (sugar) to the uttermost mediocre (zesta plum jam). When I presented the wish-list to my father he had to slash down the budget not only on basis of finances but on school rules and physical modalities that allowed me only realistic options of my wish-list.

Kenya has for a long time been a bed of fantasy when it comes to manifestos. It is not really a party thing because it comes from the party owners and not members. Maybe it is high time it came from party members I think. This will allow us, Kenyans, a construct of our wish-list, which will be rationalized by the parties we belong to, slashing it to realistic achievable options.

Where we are presently is a phase where Kenyans demand for issue based manifestos and when the issues are incorporated in party wish lists we slash them down ourselves arguing they are unachievable.

Are Kenyan parties ready to do a Yash Pal Ghai like consultation of the electorate to construct manifestos, or amass a delegation’s expectation of parties? If so will Kenyan’s wish list be as farfetched
as their parties wish-list which we continue to tarnish as unrealistic.

The lessons we might learn from this year’s party manifestos is not the pomp of manifesto launch, the design of the same said or the in depth details that they possess but our own skepticism and what we
would come up if given chance.

We will learn that it’s due time parties consulted with its constituents in coming up with the manifestos rather than consult designers, experts and grandeur launchers in coming up with manifestos.

The arguably biggest challenge hence comes up if Kenyans have risen above personality politics to party politics that can allow parties considerable rational constituents to consult from. If we are not ready as Kenyans to lobby as an interest group how do we expect parties to formulate manifestos that are real to our interest?

I hold that parties are ready to make formidable manifestos but Kenyans are too detached from the issue based political agenda they publicly clamor for. It is not until we all coalesce on issues to join party not merely on basis of personalities but on ideals that we can expect the same said parties to consult us making manifestos cum wish-lists.

It is high time Kenyans shifted the blame to themselves rather than laughing of the mediocrity posited by the manifestos we see in present time. Seriously a computer for all when we haven’t even gotten all North Eastern children to school or say employment which the manifestos claim to have a magic bullet solution to.

Hitherto, political parties presently continue to be vehicles for political success and as politicians demonstrate their ability to learn from the voters tune (who are pseudo members characterized by inertia, opportunism, coming alive only when elections are announced and being more of voters than party members) they have objectively lent their resources to consultants in creating manifestos. It has come a time for Kenyans to grip on the maturity that is entering politics ensnaring it to the needs of the Kenyan polity to belong to parties and be part and parcel of developing manifestos which they will see as real, justified and achievable and they will fund themselves from the taxes they remit to a government that will be more responsive to their needs.

I stand corrected but Kenyans can no longer dismiss party manifestos as my first year political science class as duplicated and detached, Kenyans can only blame themselves for not being part of the same said manifesto constructs because they simply belong to no party as such.

As legislation in the new constitution has forced parties to be national and be formed in time Kenyans must find it in their nerve to belong to parties that reflect their morals and are in tune for their aspirations. They must then assist parties to come up with manifestoes. It is due time that we realize that when we point a finger three are pointing back at us.

Armed Civilians a threat to stability

The world has for a long time been a center stage for acute competition, domination and power. Initially it was a rule of the mighty against those without the physicality to challenge for power. But as civilization ‘westernization’ occurred, the rule of the intelligent usually less physical took center-stage and sought to control physical power which has worked with mixed reactions.

First physical power was so feared that only intelligent militarists controlled power (like armed generals) and they in turn feared uncontrolled civilian power. At the end of the 16^th century in China for instance Oda Nobunga sought to end freedom of civilians to carry swords for defense or decoration especially the Ikkō-ikki who sought to end Samurai rule. The Samurai in turn later in 1876 were also banned from carrying swords and a standing army and police force was created.

This fear of armed civilian continues to plague contemporary polities with a fear that governments might at a given time be unable to impose on its populace in case of unpopularity. America is abuzz with calls for gun control citing incidents of irresponsible gun use with dire consequences. While the call is undeniably justifiable the end game is de-militarization of the civilian population that will help confine power to bureaucracies and not the rule of the might. This is in hindsight with global trend of giving armies special treatment, holding them above the law and swelling their budgets every year as part of appeasement policies.

During the world war 2, after Brits were armed in case of occupation George Orwell decried their inability to see beyond Germans and realize that for the first time in history power was literally in the hands of the proletariat, when no revolution was borne.

In Kenya the Maasai Turukana, Samburu and other Northern Kenya tribes carry arms for self-defense because of the inability of the government to protect them. The area recently became the center for a world shocker when more than 50 elite policemen were gunned down by bandits. There area, Baraghoi, remains isolated to date with the Kenyan  security apparatus still unable to enter the area and secure it.

As the world reaches the throes of ultimate civilization and negation of militarism, the physically endowed and or armed parts of the populace who do not share in the luxury of the intelligent will come calling. Small arms proliferation continues to be one of the biggest threats to stability in Africa than military tyrants with more discontent being a reality in marginalized communities of Africa like Nothern Nigerians, Southern Sudanese in Pibor, Kenyans in the North  Rift, NFD and coast, Mali etc, we expect more civilian challenge to bureaucratic power.