Late Kenyan Woman To Be Buried In Sweden
An elderly Kenyan lady who passed away recently at an old people’s nursing home will be buried in Sweden. According to information gathered by KSB, the late woman (Name on file) hails from Gem in Siaya District, Nyanza province.
Information reaching KSB indicate that the burial will take place on May 26th at Rissne and the service will be held at Rissne Church from 13.00 hrs. Friends, well-wishers and sympathizers are welcome to the service.
A source told KSB that the woman suffered a stroke some time back after which she was admitted to hospital. She then recovered from the attack, prompting hospital authorities to discharge her. At the time she left hospital, she had began to walk once again and her condition began to get better.
Unfortunately, she slipped a week after leaving hospital and fell down. According to reports received by KSB, the accident was serious because she broke her thigh bone. She was rushed to hospital and treated but because of her advanced age, she had difficulties with the healing process in the sense that her bones could not fuse.
As time progressed, the woman was discharged from hospital to recover at home but because she had basically become disabled following her injury, Swedish authorities decided to transfer her to an old people’s nursing home so that she could receive special care and attention.
It is at the home where her condition deteriorated before she passed away. KSB sends condolences to the family of the bereaved especially her daughter who resides in Sweden.
Okoth Osewe
Wamaitha Prayer Meeting Postponed
A Prayer meeting of the Wamaitha family that was scheduled for tomorrow at Vällingby from 17.00 hrs has been postponed. The Prayers were to be held for the late father of Ema and Ciru who passed away in Kenya. Both girls reside in Sweden.
In a tacit message, Pastor Samson said that the Prayers have been postponed “until further notice”. Regardless of the postponement, Pastor Samson said that both Ema and Ciru will still travel to Kenya to bury their father. Their travel arrangements have been finalized. Any inconveniences that might have been caused by the postponement are highly regretted.
Okoth Osewe
Deep Condolences To Wamaitha’s Family
The family of Mrs Serah Wamaitha has lost a very close member of the family – the father of her two children, Ema and Ciru who passed away in Kenya. Kenyans friends, well wishers and sympathizers are invited to Prayers at their home on Wednesday 30th April from 17.00 hrs.
The address is Björnbodavägen 57 in Vällingby Bus number 116 towards Spånga then alight at Björnbodavägen. A short message transmitted by Pastor Samson of The Outreach Ministries based at Bagarmossen said that some family members will travel to Kenya to attend the funeral.
KSB sends deep condolences to the family of the departed and hopes that they will find the strength and courage to go through this difficult moment. There is a time for everything. A time to be born and a time to pass on. A loved family member of the Wamaitha’s has passed on. May his soul rest in peace.
Okoth Osewe
Moses Trubadur Is Fine And Doing Well
Moses Trubadur, a Kenyan musician who has been out of circulation, is alive, well and doing fine. Concerns about the whereabouts of Trubadur have been filling the air following the inability of friends to reach him on phone, email and physical contact.
A short message transmitted to KSB by the musician said that he was in Stockholm and that he was making plans to re-surface after a long period of hibernation. Trubadur is a very social and open person and when he went missing from the Kenyan social scene, his absence became quickly noticeable prompting friends to begin looking for him.
Among Kenyans who have been concerned about the whereabouts of Trubadur is Man Nzoro who called KSB to try and find out whether we had touched base with Trubadur.
There are Kenyans whose disappearance from the Stockholm scene is usually of no consequence. However, there are others who absence immediately become the source of rumor and hot gossip.
Okoth Osewe
Elderly Kenyan Lady Passes Away In Stockholm
A Kenyan lady has passed away at an Old people’s nursing home where she has been residing for several years.
According to a source, the old lady has been ailing although her poor health was associated with her advanced age. Very little is known about her because she has been living an isolated life away from the Kenyan community.
A Kenyan who knows her told KSB that the lady’s inability to interact with Kenyans before she was admitted at the nursing home was due to her inability to touch base with her age-mates who are also isolated in Stockholm.
It is not known whether she will be buried in Kenya or in Sweden and funeral arrangements are taking place behind a closely knit family circuit.
Okoth Osewe
Kenyan Lady Apologizes To Swedish Man Over KSB Story
A Kenyan lady who was the source of a story in which she had allegedly been abused by a Swedish man has requested a public apology to the man saying that when she came out with the story, she was undergoing a serious emotional transformation.
Speaking to KSB on telephone, the lady said that she wished to apologize to the man because he is the father of his little baby and that after a serious reflection spanning many months, she has arrived at the conclusion that it was a mistake for her to have gone out with the story at KSB.
According to the story, the Swedish man, was routinely abusing African women by using them as sexual objects then boasting about his exploits to friends in pubs.
The Kenyan lady told KSB that she now regrets her decision to go public with the story because the move had created serious complications which she cannot reconcile without rendering a public apology to the man. She said that she had totally misunderstood the man because she had not lived with him long enough to appreciate his gentlity and kind heartedness especially to their little baby.
When asked about the complications, the lady said that they were personal and could not therefore be divulged.
When the story was broken by KSB, the Swedish man took contact with the blog demanding that the story be pulled down otherwise the man would sue KSB.
However, KSB refused to pull down the story arguing that all Swedish press laws had been followed and encouraged the man to take up the case with police so that KSB could meet the guy in court.
According to the Kenyan woman, she has come to understand that although she acted under emotional instability, she has accepted that the story did not change the fact that the man was the father of her child. She told KSB that at the time she went public, she had not yet understood the significance the man was bound to play in the future of her child and that it was also in the child’s interest that she needed to render an apology.
She said that she unequivocally wished to apologize to the man as part of her healing process and in the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. Her view is that such an apology is important to her emotional progress and the child who will still need to touch base with the father regardless of history. KSB has accepted to publish the woman’s apology as a sign of good faith.
Okoth Osewe
Humor: “Kenya-Stockholm Ladies Reducing Dressing Standards” – DJ Jimmy
When KSB went down last week, Lenza, a Kenyan resident in Stockholm, was turning 40 and she had thrown a huge birthday party at Skanstull on Saturday the 12th where friends were invited to boogie down.
I was not left out in the grand coalition of pals who were invited to sample food at the birthday extravaganza. Rukia, a close confidant of Lenza who had just emerged from her 40th birthday “invitation only” bash, had even wired omena that worked well to stress the Kenyan factor in the evening’s menu. One could realize that a lot of labour had been pumped into the event because everything seemed to have been falling in place.
When I checked out, I discovered that my close buddy, Marky was also on the guest list and since he had just returned from Kenya, I was certain that there would be lots of squib about the situation in Kenya. This was a good way for me to update my hard drive which depends on the Internet and occasional phone calls to Kenya for the situation on the ground. Marky had been down there during the post election crisis and part of the excitement in meeting him was tied to an expectation of tales from Kenya.
To be sure, I called Marky just on time for a link up. When we arrived, I was surprised that the place was already filled up with Wakenya from all walks of life engaged in all kinds of party activities. It was just around 22 hrs but almost everybody who mattered was already there – Barry, Odero, Jimmy, Nyakwar Oyundi aka Gidigidi, Sundy, Mama Priakendel, Bridget, Jasper, Oyugi, Nancy among others and people kept on coming until the place was packed to capacity. Otuga, Coolie, Meryl, Prisca, Atieno had all left their normal business to join in the Party. There was a very new circumstance in Stockolm.
There had been no Kenyan Party in this city since December 15th when Sound of Blackness threw a bash at Norsborg which, nevertheless, ended in violence, police, ambulance and blood on the floor. A Rwandese national who tried to mess up at the Party was floored by a Kenyan Ninja and he had to be taken away in a stretcher.
For the first time since 1998, Kenyans in Stockholm failed to link up at a new year’s Party on December 31st. Kibaki had just stolen elections and Kenyans had just began to cut one another’s throats with pangas, chasing neighbors away from their homes, burning children in churches or locking up people in rooms then roasting them alive. It was not the time for parties.
Suddenly, some Kenyans were being referred to as “members of a certain community” while others joined the “enemy tribe” whose brothers and sisters were “cleaning the Rift Valley” and converting people into IDPs. It has now been reported that Raila and his friend Kibaki, who are responsible for creating the IDP species, will be going to the camps to view their creation languishing in the camps and to discuss how these poor Kenyans can get back to their shacks because life must go on. Kibaki rigged elections while Raila wanted him to step down and in the process, IDPs were created in large numbers.
As the post election crisis deepened, I called my friends from “a certain community” in Stockholm to try and check if the crisis in Kenya may have drifted in Stockholm to affect our friendship. Things were fine and I was happy that we shared the same point of view when it came to the future of Kenya – one Kenya. There was no fear that I would become another IDP in another part of Stockholm because of a surprise attack. However, a friend of mine became a unique IDP here during this period because he was evicted from his flat after a disagreement with his Swedish rib. The matter is personal and it can only be left there.
The December 31st Party miss had been followed by a “No Party interlude” on December 25th last year, time when Kenyans in Stockholm traditionally celebrated X-mass with children’s activities, youth parties and wazee hukumbuka sessions. Part of the explanation is that there is no longer an active and organized Kenyan community in Stockholm to levels that could be compared to KUWA with many Kenyans opting to retreat into individual or personal Networks for social life.
At the end of January, February and March, the Kenya Party scene was dry, just like the Sahara. Looking for a Party in Stockholm was like looking for a lagoon in Lokitaung. Sound of Blackness, a promising group that took Wakenya by storm soon after the group was launched, had retreated into inactivity without explanations.
Opportunists who used to take advantage of the “Party vacuum” to cash in as Kenyans literally crawled on their knees for a bash had all returned to their spider holes because of charges that they were simply exploiting Wakenya “to get rich”. Although these guys were filling up a very important vacuum, some Kenyans (watu wengine) looked at them with different lenses. Other Party organizers have been wallowing in scandal and throwing a bash has not been opportune. The Lenza birthday Party was therefore a welcome break from Party ukamwe and who was I to miss it after a clean invitation?
DJ JIMMY’S CONCERNS WITH THE LADIES
When we arrived, there was no question that the Party had been conquered by ladies who far much outnumbered the dukes. The situation was such that a tactical bachelor Club member of any size or color could easily walk away with a pair of boobs because the “free ones” aka spinsters were available in all kinds of brands. I thought DJ Jimmy could take advantage so when I met him at Arlanda International airport, I quickly threw an inquiry.
The Kenyan DJ had just returned from Paris where he had gone shopping and he really amused me. He said that he tried to sample the girls but that he was disappointed because the ones who looked “available” were so poorly dressed that he failed to get attracted. He complained that many of them had not painted their finger nails with cutex, did not refresh their lip-sticks while they had cheap imitation jewels hanging on their ears as if they were living in poverty and deprivation. He said that Kenyan ladies should avoid cheap perfumes because some bachelors know the difference between a good perfume and a pesa nane perfume. It was the strongest attack on Kenya-Stockholm ladies by a practicing bachelor in recent times.
Jimmy, who drives a BMW and nothing else, had attended a Ugandan Party the previous week-end and he said that he had a big problem trying to chose from the big attractive mixture of cute Ugandan ladies who kept on criss-crossing his path. According to Jimmy, the girls were very sophisticated and that it is him who had to work hard to impress them. At one point, a lady reportedly dismissed his bling as not worth more than 20.000 kr.
In a lengthy interview which was totally impromptu, the Kenyan DJ lamented that the hair styles at the Kenyan bash were less appealing as if our ladies were finding salon services too expensive.
He never made any serious attempts because he was fearing that with the kinda stuff the girls were wrapped in, he would find himself travelling to London for shopping or being part of the “make-up” budget when he was supposed to be more concerned with entertainment bills at discotheques and a Taxi trip back to his crib to feast on his catch.
When he was last at Nairobi’s Florida 2000 in December, Jimmy said that ladies were dressed as if they had Phds in the art of dressing. In the streets of Nairobi, he kept on turning his head left and right as he sampled the different designs that covered flesh in the city.
When I asked him what could be done to save the situation in Stockholm, he appealed to Kenyan researchers to find out what was happening among Kenyan ladies here whom, he said, had reduced “dressing and sophistication standards” to pathetic levels. He also appealed to Kenyan ladies to stop dressing like Swedes whom, he said, do not know how to dress.
Jimmy challenged any Kenyan lady who doubted his analysis to give him a date so that he could show some pictures of ladies who were dressed as if they were going to fetch water from the river. “You could actually think that they were going to the market to buy mbuta fish”, he said. I just had to leave the Kenyan DJ alone because he had already filled me up for the day so we agreed to keep in touch.
Regardless of Jimmy’s views, the Lenza party was a big hit. I had missed the birthday Party of Sunday’s son because of some bizz and when I met him at the party, there was a lot of catching up to do. After the Rukia bash and the Lenza hit, another Kenyan is turning 45 and a fresh bash has been fixed this Sato.
The problem is that these kinda bashes cannot be advertized at KSB as many Kenyans begin to adopt the culture of “By Invitation Only”. The Kenya-Stockholm post election social Network may have undergone a complete metamorphosis and if you are not linked to any Network, you might find yourself waiting for public parties that may not materialize very soon. You might even find yourself “displaced” from the social scene and end up as a new breed of IDP, left to starve for company.
Okoth Osewe
Diaspora Kenyans Among Losers In Grand Coalition
In Kenya, grumbles from politicians who believe that they lost out in the Grand coalition cabinet named by President Mwai Kibaki last week are increasing. Critical ODM MPs like Ababu Namwamba have insisted that the Party lost out in the Cabinet appointments while other ODM MPs have said that the Party was clearly short changed because the appointments did not reflect a 50-50 power sharing arrangement as had been agreed upon during the Kofi Anan mediation talks.
The sticking point is that all the “Power Ministries” were scooped by PNU, leaving ODM with “Taka taka Ministries” that have no real significance in the governing of a country.
In Rift valley, some ODM Parliamentarians who believe that the Kalenjin were the biggest losers threatened to quit ODM and form their own political party to “fight for Kalenjin interests”. ODM supporters are fearful that the Party betrayed an important election promise for a lean Cabinet. Raila has himself been confronted in Parliament by an Assistant minister over the thorny issue of a bloated Cabinet.
The seriousness of the situation played itself out yesterday at the Kenyatta International Conference Center where both President Kibaki and Raila Odinga were meeting MPs from areas where thousands of Kenyans were suddenly converted into IDPs immediately after the post election violence.
At the meeting, serious disagreements are reported to have emerged on how the crisis of IDPs ought to be resolved. According to majority of Rif Valley MPs, there should be no attempt to resettle IDPs before the historical factors connected to the question of land ownership in the region is first resolved.
The subsequent appointment of Permanent Secretaries simply heightened the tension with both ODM and PNU MPs throwing spanners into the works. Voices that have so far not been heard forcefully are those of Kenyans in Diaspora who also seem to have lost in the grand deal.
During election campaigns, one key demand of Kenyans in Diaspora was connected to the question of dual citizenship which was supposed to be entrenched in the Constitution. A sympathizer could argue that ODM does not have full power to implement any radical changes but what is worrying is that the dual citizenship item is not even on the immediate agenda for urgent Constitutional reforms as compared to the issue of Prime Minister’s post which is already entrenched in the Constitution although it wasn’t the biggest issue before December last years.
Instead, it appears as though the dual citizenship project has been left to wait for a comprehensive review of the Bomas draft of the Constitution before it can see day light, a process that might take years as PNU and ODM continue to grumble on other issues which are of personal interest to MPs on both sides. If the Coalition collapses, the issue might as well have to wait even longer and Kenyans in Sweden who have taken up Swedish citizenship for various reasons will continue to seek and pay for visas at the Kenyan embassy to travel to their own country for an indefinite period of time.
RAISING SAME QUESTIONS WITH SAME POLITICIANS
After the Coalition, a National Board was set up “to sell Kenya” abroad. According to some Kenyans in Diaspora like Pastor Beatrice Kamau in Stockholm, it was a big mistake that Kenyans in Diaspora were left out of the consultation conduit when it came to appointment of members of the Board.
Beatrice argued that majority of those who were appointed in the Board have not spent any substantial portion of their lives outside Kenya and that under the circumstances, they were not in a position to market Kenya effectively.
Her view is that Kenyans in the United States, Britain, Canada, Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa and other countries are in a much better position to market Kenya in their respective countries of residence and that what the government could have done is that it could have consulted with these Kenyans through Kenyan embassies before appointing political cronies to head these Boards.
Another loss for Kenyans abroad is that even though it looked like Kenya could go into another election if the Coalition collapses, no Constitutional provisions have been put in place to ensure that Kenyans abroad would this time round be able to vote from their bases outside the country.
Kenya Diaspora is now a well established Constituency and Presidential candidates know that their campaigns are always incomplete if they don’t gallivant to take contact with Kenya Diaspora to seek endorsement so why should members of this important Constituency continue to be disenfranchised in total violation of the Constitution which stipulates that every Kenyan has a right to vote in Civic and Parliamentary elections?
From recent media reports, it is now a well established fact that the Kenyan economy receives big boosts every month as a result of remittances by Kenyans abroad. In January this year when the country was in deep crisis, these remittances hit a record high. The point is that Diaspora Kenyans consider themselves to be part and parcel of Kenya so why should they be left out in the country’s political process?
Today, the Coalition government is still dilly dallying on how the issue of IDPs ought to be handled while for Kenyans abroad, millions of Kenyan shillings continue to be raised and sent directly to IDPs. In Stockholm, the Bagarmossen church raised about a quarter million Kenyan shillings which was sent directly to a Catholic Church in Kenya to help IDPs as politicians dithered. Shouldn’t Kenyans abroad rise to take their rightful place in the current political set up after years of marginalization?
The issue of Kenyans in Diaspora voting from their bases abroad is the same as the question of dual citizenship in the sense that they both need to be entrenched in the Constitution. Judging from activities of the Grand coalition government that has just been put in place, there seem to be no hurry to address the twin issues and the situation is worrying because Kenyans in Diaspora have no central representation inside the country that could directly take up these matters with the new government.
The risk is that although Kenyans in Diaspora could continue to shout through the net, very little might be achieved on the ground without active pressure and the community might find itself raising the same issues once again with the same leaders as time passes.
As the numbers of those who have lost out in the Grand coalition continue to mount, Kenyans in Diaspora appear to be part of the growing crowd and the question about what needs to be done will continue to remain relevant during the Grand coalition era.
Okoth Osewe
Hacker Problem Resolved
An attempt to hack into KSB last Thursday Failed. The threat has now been contained and KSB will be resuming operations as soon as possible.
Okoth Osewe
KSB Hacker Attempt
There has been an attempt to hack KSB. The problem in under resolution with wordpress as new security measures are considered.
Okoth Osewe
“Investigate Police Execution Of Mungikis” – ODM-Scandinavia
Obviously, every Kenyan has his or her perception of a group of Kenyans calling themselves “Mungiki” which has been associated with a series of illegal activities across the country especially in Nairobi and its environs.
There are those who believe that Mungiki is a gang of marauding thugs and murderers who sniff life out of their victims through beheadings. Others understand them as a terror gang which engage in crude and forced circumcisions because they believe that all Kenyans should be circumcised.
On the contrary, other Kenyans think that Mungiki is a politico-cultural sect that simply lost direction and started breaking the law. The Kenyan government has its version of what Mungiki is – thieves, robbers, extortionists, killers, security threat, hooligans and what have you.
What is disturbing ODM-Scandinavia as a Kenyan political Party is that the Kenyan government has decided to use summery executions as a way of dealing with members of Mungiki. As we write, 14 members of Mungiki have lost their lives in Kenya in the last few days after being shot by armed police trying to control rioting Mungiki members.
Before the killings, Virginia Njenga, the wife of Maina Njenga (the alleged Mungiki leader currently in police custody) together with his driver were killed last week and their bodies dumped in a forest. Because of the manner of the executions and the method in which their bodies were dumped, fingers were pointed at the government because of the serial nature of the killings and dumping of bodies which have been associated with Kenya police in the past.
In the run up to General elections last year, the bodies of hundreds of Kenyans who had allegedly been executed by police were dumped at mortuaries and forests across the country and the Kenya Human Rights Commission worked hard to document these killings. The figures ranged between 500 to 8000. So far, no one has been arrested and charged with these executions neither has any investigation been launched by the government to establish who, how, where and why these Kenyans were executed.
Regardless of the political or gangster character of Mungiki and other perceived trouble makers in Kenya and regardless of crimes Mungiki may have committed against the Kenyan people, it is unacceptable that Mungiki members, their leaders and their relatives are falling victim to what is increasingly being viewed as state orchestrated executions and subsequent dumping of victim’s bodies in forests to be discovered accidentally by passers byes.
GOVERNMENT SHOULD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
ODM-Scandinavia believes that the way to go is to arrest suspects and charge them in a court of law so that if they are found guilty, they can pay for their crimes, not executing them and dumping their bodies at designated forests and morturies.
ODM-Scandinavia joins other voices which are calling for exhaustive investigations to establish who executed Virginia and his driver along with others who have also fallen victim to summery executions in the past.
Kenya has a well established investigative machinery which is also one of the best funded. The country has laws that must be followed in cases where a Kenyan is suspected of having committed a crime. In this era of “Grand coalition government”, it should be unthinkable that a Kenyan national could be executed by police and his/her body dumped somewhere without the law being left to take its cause.
ODM-Scandinavia does not want to speculate on what may have caused the deaths of Virginia and her driver. However, these killings should not just be left to be part of the growing statistics of Kenyans suspected to have been executed by police. Justice should not just be done but should be seen to have been done.
The new Coalition government should not drag Kenya back to the days of the Moi dictatorship when Kenyans used to be executed by police at will without the killers being brought to face justice. If this trend is allowed to continue, Kenya will become a dangerous place to live in and opponents of the government together with their relatives will begin to live in perpetual fear.
ODM-Scandinavia does not support the illegal activities of the different forms of Mungiki and this should be very clear. The Party’s standpoint is that if members of the sect are believed to have committed crimes, let them be arrested and tried, not killed and their bodies dumped as has happened several times in the past.
From the point of view of Human Rights, it is a massive violation for state agents to take a life of a citizen using whatever pretences then proceed to dispose of the body of the victim in whichever way. The new Kibaki-Raila coalition government must address the issue we have touched on as a matter of urgent concern.
The Office of the President, the Ministry of Internal security, The Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs or any other government agency whose responsibility is to provide security to Kenyan citizens and to protect the sanctity of life in Kenya must take up this and other cases which have become an eye soar in Kenya. ODM-Scandinavia believes that it is criminal for anybody to remain silent in the face of overt executions by people who should be providing security to Kenyans.
Kenyans should not accept the routine executions of fellow citizens by police and the subsequent dumping of bodies at various locations. It is in this spirit that ODM-Scandinavia is standing up to be counted in the list of those saying that the executions must stop, the cases must be investigated and police officers found guilty must be brought to face the full wrath of the law.
Mr. Martin Ngatia
ODM- Scandinavia Vice chairperson
Stockholm, April 15th 2008
ODM Scandinavia Statement On New Cabinet
A Cabinet of 42 has eventually been announced by President Mwai Kibaki and from an initial study of the line up, it is clear that ODM accepted the deal without some of its key demands being met. The contentious Ministries of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Internal security, Defence, Transport, Energy together with Information and communication which ODM wanted shared have all been retained by PNU.
Apart from the Ministry of Local government and Ministry of Tourism, ODM has effectively settled for peripheral Ministries. In its last Statement after pulling out of the talks last week, ODM maintained that it had switched positions which meant that it wanted a Cabinet of 34 instead of 40 that had been proposed by PNU.
Now that a Cabinet of 40 has been announced as per PNU’s plans, ODM appears to have lost both the bargain on the identity of Ministries it wanted and the size of the cabinet. From the view of ODM-Scandinavia, this amounts to a defeat within the context of “real power sharing” after PNU stole elections last December. We take the view that a Cabinet of 40 is a bloated Cabinet that will be too expensive for the Tax payer.
ODM Scandinavia believes that the configuration of the Cabinet which ODM has accepted means that the Party ought to prepare for fresh confrontations with PNU during the governing process because of inherent problems likely to pop up during inter-Ministerial collaboration needed for smooth running of government.
Given the acrimony that characterized the negotiations (from Kofi Anan to a bloated Cabinet), the mutual suspicions, intransigence on the part of PNU, outright distrust between the protagonists and a vicious struggle for control of power, Kenyans should accept that the country has seen the birth of two governments masquerading as a “Grand Coalition” with one government being led by President Kibaki and his 20 Cabinet ministers on the one hand and another government being led by Raila Odinga with an equal number of Cabinet Ministers on the other. The most likely scenario is that PNU Ministers will be inclined to answer to Kibaki while ODM Minister will tend to listen more to Raila Odinga.
If this view were to be accepted, then PNU is definitely the powerful side of government by virtue of the powerful Ministries it holds like Defence, Internal security, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Energy, Information and Communication just to mention a few of the “Power Ministries”.
A big loophole as ODM enters into this fragile Coalition with thieves in PNU is that the question of “power sharing” in other critical government Institutions has neither been discussed nor in the agenda for discussions.
THE ENEMY WITHIN
Top positions in the Civil Service whose occupiers are traditionally appointed by the Office of The President have not been ear marked for sharing between the two parties. In previous exchanges, PNU seriously resisted attempts by ODM to have these positions discussed with a view to including them in the power sharing deal. Unless the issue is revisited in future, the assumption is that PNU will continue to call the shots in the appointment of these Civil servants thereby downgrading the concept of real power sharing.
Since ODM has accepted to enter into the Coalition, the Party needs a new approach in its politics with PNU because our perspective is that the future will be rout with conflicts, new political wars and fresh confrontations that will make it impossible for the Coalition to deliver to the Kenyan people.
PNU should not be in government because it lost elections but circumstances have placed the Party at the center of power. What ODM should focus on now is to utilize its position in the coalition to not just change the rules of the game but to reform key Institutions in preparation for next elections.
An Institution like the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) which plunged the country into crisis after heavily abetting in election rigging needs a total overhaul to prevent a repeat of election rigging in future.
Secondly, ODM should use its position in government to check PNU excesses especially corruption and theft of public funds through other means. The attitude of ODM should be that the Coalition government they have entered into is a “transitory government” in preparation for next elections because the ghost of rigging that still lurks in the background will never disappear.
An important element of the Peace accord is that if any of the Parties pulls out of the Coalition, the government has to be dissolved to pave way for new elections. For this reason, ODM should not make any further compromises to PNU while in government and once the necessary restructuring of relevant government institutions has been done, the Party should begin to root for elections because it has the Mass movement behind it.
An election will cut short the control of power by PNU and since Kibaki does not have the people’s mandate to rule Kenya, there is no reason why PNU should be allowed to rule for the next five years.
The biggest gain since the crisis began on December 30th is that the post of Prime Minister has been entrenched in the Constitution and there is little PNU can do to change the situation. The PMs post has, for now, reduced the powers of President considerably and this is a welcome development in the struggle to democratize Kenya.
Because of ODM’s popularity, the general public mood to oust PNU from power and assuming that there are no significant changes in political alignments, any election in Kenya in the near future has the capacity of according ODM both the Presidency and the Prime Minister’s position.
For this reason, ODM should not waver or sit on its laurels simply because it is part of a fake Coalition government. The Party’s leadership should always remember that it has decided to dine with the rattle snakes on the same table because of complex circumstances. The whole country will be watching ODM’s style of politics as the coalition begins to govern. The view of ODM Scandinavia is that the mother Party ought to be on the look out because there is a lethal “enemy within” in the government. The unfinished business is the defeat and the vanquishing of this enemy. Entering into a Coalition government with this enemy is just part of the battle. Defeating it is the ultimate goal and ODM should not lose focus of this important agenda as it goes to bed with PNU.
Okoth Osewe
Secretary
ODM-Scandinavia
Download: EU Final Report On Kenya Elections
The EU Kenya election Observer group has released its final Report on the General elections in Kenta. Download the Report using the link below.
Download: EU Final Report On General Elections In Kenya (pdf)
Okoth Osewe
ODM Sends Condolences To Nyagah’s Family
The Orange Democratic Movement Scandinavia sends condolences to the family of the late Hon Jeremiah Nyagah who passed away today at Aga khan Hospital in Nairobi. The late Nyaga, who was 88 years old, died after a short illness. The late Nyagah is an independence veteran who entered pre-independence Legislative Council in 1958 to represent what is today known as Nyeri, Embu, Kirinyaga, Mbeere, Muranga and Maragwa districts.
The late Nyaga retired from politics in in 1992 and leaves behind two sons (who have taken his political line) among other children. Norman Nyagah, the late Nyagah’s second born took over from him as Gachoka MP but later moved to Kamukunji constituency to pursue his political career. At Gachoka, Norman was replaced by his elder brother Joseph Nyagah who originally contested the seat on a KANU ticket and successfully defended it in 2002 on a Narc ticket. He however lost it in 2007 on an ODM ticket.
He is also survived by several grandchildren including Jeremiah Nyagah based in the United States and who has been in touch with KSB for a Magazine project he is currently running. The late Nyagah practiced politics for 35 years.
Through its Vice chairperson, Mr. Martin Ngatia, ODM-Scandinavia said that Kenya has lost a gallant freedom fighter who will for ever be remembered for his dedication and commitment to Kenya’s liberation struggle.
Okoth Osewe
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