If you’re reading this, and you text the group chat asking where to get a safe abortion, chances are that someone will know. You’ll get recommendations about specific clinics or doctors who offer the service,
For the longest time, possibly since he joined Twitter (now X), Siaya Governor James Orengo has maintained the same masthead, a photo of a youthful Orengo seated across from and speaking to a suited, bespectacled,
News broke in February this year that Kenyan actor Lenana Kariba was on Netflix’s Bridgerton, a show watched all over the world. Amidst the widespread celebration and show of goodwill by Kenyans for one of
To clarify, I mean a married woman who you are married to, and you’re trying to get into bed with. The lag could be for many reasons:

By

Abigail Arunga
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The intention behind people pleasing is usually a very strong, almost alarm-like need to keep the peace, even if nothing about the situation logically calls for such

By

Soila Kenya
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Last week, Kenya’s Controller of Budget Dr Margaret Nyakang’o, revealed on national TV that her official salary has been inflated (by up to three times) in the books kept by the National Treasury. According to
The Constitution of Kenya 2010 requires the government - whether national or county - to facilitate and engage in public participation whenever making laws. However, the form such civic undertakings take depends on who is
Life these days seems to run on relentless pressure for self-improvement. The general message is that we need to do more. This is how you can be more productive at work. Here are some tips
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Mwalimu Mati
How tall exactly is 6 ‘0? If I presented 5 people to you, would you be able to pick out the one that is 6 ‘0 accurately?
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By

Bobby Mkangi

Azimio Protests And The Concept Of Stochastic Terrorism 

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. 

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‘We’re not Freaks’: Tales of a Kenyan Geek

For the uninitiated, comic conventions are gatherings for geeks who are enthralled with fictional worlds whether it be from books, animations, TV shows, movies or comics. And there are two such conventions in Kenya – Nairobi Comic Convention and Movie Jabber Expo. Conveniently this year, they were two weeks apart. So I decided to go all in and install the peculiar colour.

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Sampa the Great: The Reason I’ll Watch Wakanda Forever

If you haven’t listened to Sampa the Great’s music, you should. This 29-year-old Zambian singer, rapper and song-writer could be the time-traveler musician of our time. Her hit, Never Forget, featuring Chef 187, Tio Nason and Manjé, reverberates its powerful influences from Zamrock – Zambia’s famous afro-psychedelic rock genre. The Black Panther producers couldn’t ignore it. It was the only track that could carry the highly anticipated Wakanda Forever trailer, now with 34 million views on YouTube and raving reviews. 

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Journalism Is Changing, But Stories Are Forever

Over the weekend, I watched The Voice of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian film about five year old Hind, who spent hours on the phone with emergency workers begging them to come rescue her after the car she and her family were traveling in was attacked by the Israeli army. Hind was the sole survivor. Stuck in the car with the bodies of her family members, she stays on the phone with workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society begging for help as they try to get permission from Israeli authorities to secure a safe route for ambulance operators to reach her. 

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Time’s Ripe For An All Inclusive Constitutional Review

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.  

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Ordinary People, Living Ordinary Lives, Embracing Extraordinary Courage

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. 

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The Case Against Private Conservancies, and Dissolution of Parliament

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. 

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They Won’t Switch Off The Internet. Because They’re Spying On You

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. 

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On Issack Hassan’s ‘Referee Of A Dirty Ugly Game’

The book highlights the high-level political negotiations that are undertaken just to decide on who becomes a member of the commission and the top officials of the secretariat. These negotiations take on regional, political, ethnic, and even fraternity associations aspects. One must get the blessings of these associations to even make a cut for consideration. It involves shuttling from one office to another, meeting top political leaders, key door-openers (including brutes) and opinion leaders.

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Nairobi One Huge Slum? Blame City Hall! 

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.

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The Impending Political Deal, a Struggling Economy and a Disaffected Populace

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.

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“Failed Brakes”, Kenya’s Deadliest Excuse

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.

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Chapter Six Is Under Attack. Does Anyone Care?

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.”

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We Are Debating Everything, Including County Boundaries!

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. 

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Multi-Level Marketing Cults Need To Be Called Out Too

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.

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So Long, Lorna

Lorna raised a generation of us in the school that was her life, showing us time and again that we are more than our physical condition.

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Why Do We Vote?

When the Greeks settled on a popular model of choosing their leaders, they believed that the demos would through the Kratia produce acceptable leaders who would exercise their powers responsibly for the benefit and progress of their nation-states. 

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Parliament Should Publish All Its Voting Records

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. 

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Sticky Presidential Pardons, and A Call for the Pardoning of Dedan Kimathi and Others

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. 

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Emerging Citizen Agency? The Great Finance Bill Debate

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). 

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For Rasna, From the Comrades

When Debunk Media launched its op-ed section, Public Square, in October 2022, Rasna Warah was the first columnist to officially join the team. Alongside the op-eds, Rasna, now battling cancer, did more writing, but in the form of Q&As. This is how Rasna did another first for Debunk,  by pioneering Debunk Speaks To, Debunk’s Q&A beat. These reflections from Rasna’s comrades in arms, those with whom she wrote and thought alongside during her stint with Debunk.

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Let’s Embrace Maps More. Better Maps

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.

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On Rebel MPs: Raila Odinga Is Right, And Wrong

One of the ten demands made by the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition leader Raila Odinga when he appointed a team to talk to President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza seeks to enforce a Turn-Coat Rule requiring rebel Members of Parliament who cross party lines after election to resign, and to allow parties to replace nominated MPs. We are lucky as a country that MPs cannot be removed from Parliament in Kenya willy-nilly.

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Azimio’s Post-Election Slander Could End Badly

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.

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The Thing About Kids

I don’t have children but I spend a lot of time around them because most of my friends are parents. I find that if you want to continue a friendship with people with children, then you have to learn how to enjoy the company of children because more often than not, children will be the loud, chaotic, messy third wheels to your hangouts. That’s how friendships work. The best ones change and evolve and adapt to circumstances. They demand generosity and grace, which they give back in equal measure. And they allow you to experience things that you would never otherwise experience, like being tasked with entertaining two little girls on a Saturday morning.

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The Perils of Today’s Consumer (With Lesser Rights?)

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. 

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What Are Our Leaders Reading?

What are our leaders reading? Some may read nothing at all, if you see the bare desks and shelves in the offices some parade on Twitter and Instagram. 

Many, though, read the softer stuff of motivational literature. I

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The great digital detox? You don’t need it.

I am growing a bunch of vegetables on my balcony. They share a big horizontal ceramic planter; onions and tomatoes and spinach and cabbage and lettuce growing side by side with varying degrees of success. Co-planting, they call it, and it’s supposed to be good for soil health and pest control. Four weeks in, the onions have aphids, the spinach and cabbage appear stunted and the tomatoes wilt every noon under the merciless glare of the Nairobi sun. 

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Allow Yourself To Be Bad At Things

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.

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Raila Odinga’s Mass Miscalculation?

Our history shows that mass action works where there is a generalised belief that the target is engaging in manifest political and economic exclusion of the masses per se. This is extensively analysed in  Musambayi  Katumanga’s paper on the foremost mass action movement of the 1990s the National Convention Executive Council.  In summary, we as a people employed mass action against a colonial master, pre-independence. Post-independence we engaged in mass action to end the imperial presidency and single party domination, and later to amend the Constitution to its present form.  In all these cases exclusion was a factor. Not so today.  

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The Miseducation of the Kenyan Voter

About a month ago, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairperson Erastus Edung Ethekon, while sharing an update on the ongoing voter registration process, also stated that the commission’s enhanced voter registration was not only meant for first time voters – those who have never registered to vote before, but that the exercise was also an opportunity for pre-2012 voters who had never submitted their biometrics to the Commission to re-register.

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Will Kenya Ever Be Good Enough for Kenyans?

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.

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Has The President Jumped The Gun On Shakahola?

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.

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My Mother Told Me: Why Everyday Is Mother’s Day

Girls and their mothers are supposed to have a special bond and though ours is not perfect, I can say I’m definitely one of the lucky ones. More than anyone else in this world my mother has definitely been integral in the formation of my identity. She gave me my name and my frame and I can’t wait to see how our journey together evolves from here.

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