So, assuming that Azimio la Umoja One Kenya can sustain either the Bomas of Kenya Talks or yet another wave of protests, what is the end game really? Kenya’s history shows that the prize is likely to be an elite compromise by which a power sharing arrangement of some form or shape may be struck. William Ruto has said he will never do it, and Raila Odinga has said he doesn’t want it, but this is what is going to happen. There is no other way for the two protagonists to walk away satisfied. The status quo ante bellum is such that their hands are tied; they are in the same boat.

A permanent campaign mode; political parties that are used as

“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will

“I need to retire from retirement.” Sandra Day O’Connor A

I spent Monday this week waiting for an email that

The totem of private property was raised early after independence. Vast farms and ranches were transferred to our new elite, together with the large populations of wildlife upon them. Near where I live there are still a few multi-thousand-acre private wildlife sanctuary ranches. But development is winnowing the animal numbers at an alarming rate. One used to encounter zebra on my road every day. That’s a rumour today. 

The tragic happenings at Mukumu Girls and Butere Boys schools

I was only two days in, too early in the game for me to land a jab with any precision, let alone successfully block any attacks. Giving up this early would mean I didn’t really have to suffer the indignity of failure because I wouldn’t have given boxing any real chance. I could then tick it off my list as one more thing that’s “just not for me”. Like swimming. Or learning French. Or what sometimes I want to do with writing.

Just over a month ago, it came to light that President William Ruto has, on the advice of the Advisory Committee on the Power of Mercy, freed 5,058 petty convicts, commuted sentences for death row prisoners to life imprisonment, and pardoned 37 convicts including Dr. Davy Koech, once famous for his attempt in the 1980s to find an AIDS cure, but recently notorious for mismanagement of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KeMRI).  For obvious reasons, the July 2023 Presidential Pardon List has been added to the ever increasing number of complaints about President Ruto’s use of executive power, daily compiled by his opponents, as if he had usurped  the prerogative of mercy for himself. 

Watching the mother-of-all-protests and Raila Odinga’s cavalcade traverse Nairobi the other day, I learned a new phrase. Stochastic terrorism is observed where a charismatic leader uses mass media as a platform to incite violence, while simultaneously disclaiming responsibility for the violence.  Carefully choosing his words he (the leader) – for it is invariably a ‘he’ – identifies a population that he can manipulate, groom if you like, over time, and prime them with a steady stream of conspiracy theory, slogans and identifier labels. The labels concretise groupthink. Them against us. Us against them. Us against him. You get my drift. 

The limits of free speech and political propaganda have just been made clearer in the United States where Dominion, a vote machine manufacturer has just settled a defamation suit against Fox News for over 106 billion Kenya shillings. Since former American President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020 Fox News had become a redoubt from where his baseless and fraudulent claims were trumpeted. Signaling how weak its case, and Trump’s claims were, the staggering figure Fox News has agreed to pay is actually half of the damages claimed by Dominion. The case was settled on the first day of trial.

“It is important to expose yourself to ideas you don’t

An interesting thing happened in February. An organisation called the

“The state is not God. It has no right to

Did you know that Kenya’s Parliament exempted our first two

“Imagine a lawyer or doctor with dreadlocks.” – Peter Kaluma, MP

I’m writing to you from a chilly Japan today. I

On 20 April 2023, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk retired

One change that still seems far from Kenya is the cashier-less supermarket, where money leaves your account as you walk out of the store. Of course, cashier-less services such as Amazon Go are only ever possible because of all the personal data that is continuously collected. Security of the data and privacy are obviously concerning, but its seamlessness makes it very alluring. 

Parliament, in particular, continues to hold back information from the public regarding its operations. Recently in the Senate, the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition accused their Kenya Kwanza counterparts of being against devolution. Instead of KSh 407 billion as the Senate’s standing committee of budget and finance had recommended, the house approved KSh 385 billion in equitable share to the counties. Senators from Azimio staged a walkout to show their displeasure, but what they did next revealed how transparency in law-making is manipulated for political ends. 

In the freak-out following a State House visit by a bunch of ODM MPs the other day, Kisumu County Governor Prof. Peter Anyang Nyong’o implored the ODM leadership on Twitter to remember Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s rule; “In a revolutionary situation: Better fewer but better.”

It is a Sunday afternoon and the sun is playing

Either politics is Kenya’s chakula cha moyo (soul food) or

Since the commencement of the 13th Kenyan Parliament, it has been raining constitutional amendment bills. The hangover from the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) constitutional review (mis)adventure seems not to have dissipated. Parliamentarians, both rookies (trying to make their dramatic legislative debuts) and seasoned (trying to flex to rookies) have swiftly suggested amendments. Not in censure – because this is part of their mandate – the suggestions, whether valid or not, seem not well thought out. 

Maps have long been a staple of election reporting. The US Presidential election, for instance, is one of the most mapped anywhere. Be it the presidential election or the midterms, maps help voters everywhere to digest and understand results. Typically, results are reported from precinct to county, to state, and then nationally. Use of more granular maps produces data that better visualises local politics.

Last week I had breakfast with a colleague. As we exchanged pleasantries waiting for our meal, she mentioned in passing that she’d be attending a public participation meeting that could clash with our next planned meeting. It turns out that she is an active participant in her neighbourhood’s local resident association, and she has been joining forces with others to oppose the runaway illegal construction projects mushrooming in the area. 

In November 2022, Akinyi, a domestic worker from Kariobangi, was

Kenyans are a skeptical lot (who can blame them, seeing

Despite what Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua says, the Government of Kenya is not a company with shareholding. But rather, the government is a duty bearer exercising public trust according to law, staffed by people appointed and regulated by national law, and financed by the entire public. This is the short answer to Rigathi Gachagua’s jocular transgression against Article 10 of the Constitution. 

There are national subjects that require assemblage of evidence and

I watched the outcome of the just-concluded Nigeria election in

Raptors, the generic name for birds of prey, are hyper-carnivorous

My name is Soila Kenya and I have a confession.

When times are tough, governments declare they will slash spending and Kenyan ones are no different. Kenyans will remember when Uhuru Kenyatta, as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance…

To begin with, considering the number of accidents that occur, causing death by dangerous driving is not a much charged offence. Latest statistics for 2020 show that there were 290 charges brought against 26 female drivers and 264 men. So I expected that courts would be throwing the book at accused persons. But alas, the courts are imposing sentences that cannot be seen to address the carnage on the roads with any measure of seriousness. The lawyers, defending accused persons, have had it so good that a fine of just over KSh 600,000 for killing three and injuring a fourth was in the estimation of one defence counsel so excessive and draconian that he has promised to appeal against both the sentence and the conviction.

In 2016, a near-brawl broke-out in the Kenyan Senate. The respective combatants were Evans Kidero, the then Governor of Nairobi County, and Mike Mbuvi Sonko, his Senator. It is not clear who won the actual fight, but we now know that Nairobians lost because the Auditor General just told us so. You see, during the consecutive gubernatorial administrations of Evans Kidero and Mike Sonko, no-one could explain the whereabouts of KSh 18 billion of collected revenue. For those who think in hard currencies, that is a respectable $12.6 million missing. But Nairobi residents didn’t know this until seven years later when the press finally reported that according to the Auditor General, “billions of shillings collected in Kenya’s capital may have ended in private hands.”

Why does it seem like we have been here before?

As a Kenyan living in Kenya, the last few months have been difficult to say the least. Like many others, I have watched the prices of basic goods and services quickly skyrocket.. It’s become a running joke, but the truth is that KSh 1,000 doesn’t get you much nowadays. To make life bearable under these increasingly strenuous circumstances, I’ve had to cut down my monthly spending on non essentials and started considering price over brand preferences.

Njonjo Mue takes us back to a magical time when he felt the first flutterings of tender teenage love.

The Constitution of Kenya 2010 provides any Kenyan with the

I was born in one country, spent my early childhood

This month marks 33 years since Nelson Mandela walked out

As you watched the BBC Africa Eye documentary about the

This is the same Nairobi in which public green spaces are grabbed, buildings collapse, residents can’t sleep on a weeknight because bars won’t let them and drainage can’t stand the rainy season. The story revolves around a property on Kilimani’s Kindaruma Road whose construction in April 2022 was not as far advanced as it is today.

“The struggle of people against power is the struggle of

Instagram boutiques have me in a chokehold. I can’t help

A few months from now more than 1.5 million wildebeest will cross the crocodile-infested Mara River into Kenya from Tanzania, in what is recognized as one of the “Seven Wonders of the Natural World.” Many thousands of them will be eaten by the crocodiles and the scavengers who lie in wait.  

The Malindi doomsday cult is global news and the Kenyan Government is keen to catch up. The Shakahola massacre was revealed not by police detective work but by media stringers and correspondents who doggedly tracked the weird goings-on at the Good News International Ministries ranch of Pastor Mackenzie Nthenge. This year, during a four month period of official oblivion, Mackenzie and some acolytes allegedly killed and secretly buried more than 145 of his church congregation. We are told by the Kenya Red Cross that over 500 other Mackenzie followers are reported missing and believed to lie undiscovered in more of the shallow graves that are scattered across the 800 acre ranch. 

One must-do if you ever travel to Japan is signing

From the foregoing, it is clear that the investigation into what exactly Mackenzie was up to and what crimes were committed at Shakahola is, at best, at its halfway point. This is further emphasised by the fact that investigators have begun a second phase of exhumations from Shakahola, raising the death toll and further horrifying an already shocked nation.

Among the demands that the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya

Other than the preying strategy pyramid schemes use to recruit people, the reason I see them as cults too is their ability to similarly brainwash their members into believing whatever hogwash they’re spreading. For example, for those selling supplements or other health-based products, it may go haywire fast. They’ll start you out schilling Vitamin D tablets and then in the blink of an eye, they’ll have you convincing your Facebook connects about ‘force fields’ and ‘protection zones’ that can be afforded by adorning a necklace with a pendant stuffed with a powder only they know the ingredients of.

I’ve been renting in Nairobi for nine years now, and

Fela Anikulapo Kuti, one of the most talented and famous

This was not the story BBC Africa Eye had set

Today’s Jubilee Party is a far cry from its earlier

The President of the Kenya Editors’ Guild recently called a press conference to allege that they had received reports of an imminent phone and internet shutdown. Despite providing no evidence or substantiating detail, the allegation was hours later addressed by the President of Kenya, who assured us all that there is no possibility of such a shutdown in this day and age. Breathing a sigh of relief, Kenyans got on with their usual browsing, gambling, gossip and political commentary. 

Soon after ringing in the new year, Kenya’s education ministry

Kenya’s enforcement of traffic laws tends to be immobile and document-based, particularly around heavy commercial vehicles. The police who enforce traffic rules are stationary, mostly on the side of the road and drivers who pass through these checkpoints can always warn their oncoming colleagues. On the other hand, roaming police cars with cameras that scan number plates and onboard computers connected to insurance and police records would pinpoint offenders in real time and help police stop the right vehicles more often. Such police cars are commonly used in many countries.

Will the day come when Kenya’s urbanites use maps to

I do not seek to get into the pros and cons of the recently enacted Finance Act by the Kenya Kwanza government, even though it elicits a remark or more. Rather, it is the emotion that the bill – and later on the Act – has aroused across the country that most pricks my curiosity. In my view, there have been fewer times when national discourse has been characterized by great animation like has been the case as regards this piece of legislation (first proposed, then passed, and now challenged in court). 

We are living in strange times. Scrolling through the Twitter