Kenya Stockholm Blog

From our investigations steeped in insider details, Ambassador Purity Muhindi at the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm has totally given up on working with Kenyans in Stockholm. The general attitude of bosses at the Embassy is that Kenyans in Stockholm must be left alone “because nothing seem to be working”.

The situation is a bit different with junior staff members struggling to cling on to their jobs. Although they hate the Ambassador like leprosy, they continue to put on a face of “business as usual”, sometimes supporting the Ambassador when she looks frustrated due to stuff spilled at blogs.

The Thursday secret and selective invitation of a cross section of Kenyans to a dinner Party where a group of Kenyan dignitaries and Civil servants were being entertained revealed a lot of detail about the psychology of the Ambassador, the workings at the Embassy, frustration of Embassy staff and the dilemma of Ambassador’s guests from Kenya especially when they were faced with uncritical odiangabuks more inclined to smiling at them as the swallowship continued than asking serious questions about Kenyan politics.

Once the Ambassador got signals that a group of Kenyan dignitaries were on their way to Sweden, a meeting was called by her at the Embassy where top Embassy staff decided on who was and who was not to be invited to a reception at the Ambassador’s residence where the guests were supposed to be hosted. The Kenyan delegation has been on a tour of Europe and Sweden was just a stop over.

In their tour of Sweden, KSB gathered that the dignitaries have been taken to different facilities including the Parliament buildings, the police stations, different factories among others. But when it came to the Thursday dinner where the Ambassador “welcomed the dignitaries” and where they “met Kenyans in Stockholm”, it was Mr. Daniel Kottut, the First secretary and Mrs Chatherine Kiboi, the Administrative attaché, who were making the invitations after a carefully selected list of Kenyans were decided upon by the Ambassador and her advisors.

Although the invitations were made on phone, special Embassy cards were also prepared and sent to different Kenyan contacts. The selection among Kenyans in Stockholm was very down to earth and one of the key names which made it to the list is Jeff ole Ngais.

After failing to get a serious political platform in Stockholm, Ole Ngais is emerging as an “Embassy favourite”, not just because of his polished demeanor but because he has cultivated a culture of avoiding controversy especially when he is dealing with the “Embassy dinner” kind of situations where taking the dignitaries by their political jugular could land you into the “Black book” of the Ambassador (where KSB is resting) and block any future invitations.

OLE NGAIS ASKED ABOUT DUAL CITIZENSHIP
Last October, Ole Ngais is one Kenyan who attacked the Kenyan Ambassador for failing to give him a contract to design the now dormant Embassy website, in the process, taking issue with the Ambassador at his blog for having given the contract to web designers linked to the disco group, Sound of Blackness, without a transparent tendering process.

It is not clear what happened after that attack and Kenyans who thought that Ole Ngais had eventually joined the ranks of anti-Purity activists had to return to the drawing board to try and understand the pattern of Masaasi worrior’s change of tact.

On Monday, Kottut was reported to have been very busy on the phone, calling contacts. A big advantage on the side of the Ambassador is that there is a group of Kenyan students pursuing their Masters degrees in various fields at various Institutions of higher learning in Sweden and who had taken contact with the Embassy upon their arrival in Sweden as a matter of protocol.

What the Embassy did is that Her Excellency packed the dinner with these students who were expected to “behave” in the presence of the dignitaries. According to insider information gathered by a KSB agent, there were between 15-20 Kenyans resident in Stockholm and among them, only three could be classified as Kenya-Stockholmers known within the social scene.

If you have been in Stockholm for some time, what it means is that you couldn’t put a single name on the faces of at least 17 Kenyans who were present as guests while among the MPs, identification as to who was who became next to impossible because majority of MPs who honored the invitation were back benchers who got to Parliament for the first time after elections last December. One of them was the MP for Wundanyi who ousted Mwandiwiro Mghanga while another one was MP for Mandera North or there about.

According to a source who was at the dinner, the MPs were surprised that they were not facing any challenge from the Kenyan audience despite the fact that some top MPs who were in the entourage had skipped the dinner thinking that they would be grilled by Wakenya. The only serious question that came up and that was reportedly posed by a Narc-Kenya top brass who was also invited was why the MPs had refused to allow their salaries to be taxed.

OF MPS WHO “HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED”
In response, one of the MPs said that he appreciated that question because in Kenya, audiences rarely asked them those kind of questions. The MP said that they are already paying taxes indirectly because of the many harambees they have to attend from time to time, a worn out answer that does not wash following the banning of harambees in Kenya after Narc took over power.

Another soft question that came up was based on the issue of dual citizenship which was posed by Ole Ngais. One of the MPs said that dual citizenship was definitely on the agenda and that it would be included in the new Constitution. Asked when the Constitution was likely to be delivered, an MP answered that the delivery of a new Constitution was not on the agenda at the moment because of other pressing problems such as the Waki report and the resettlement of IDPs.

For your information, the sitting arrangement was such that different groups were sitting at different tables and to know what was being discussed at one table, one had to move from table to table. There was no organized fielding of questions with the MPs addressing an audience or anything like that. In the meantime, the Ambassador put on her jolly posture as members of the audience steered cleared from controversy, much to her satisfaction.

At another table, an MP stunned listeners when he said that MPs in Kenya have mainly been compromised and that it is very difficult to criticize the “principals” because of the power they wield. He said that all MPs wanted positions as Ministers or Assistant ministers and that to realize this ambition, criticizing the principlas amounts to political suicide.

The Mandera East MP who was addressing another table reportedly said that he doesn’t care whether or not he gets a top post in the Cabinet, signs that there are MPs who have withdrawn ambitions of making it to the Cabinet. According to a new piece of Intelligence, there is a new staff posting at the Embassy although our agent could not dig deeper because the trail ended there. In our next installment we bring you Mr. Martin Ngatia’s reaction to Ambassador’s purity’s tendency of hiding her Kenyan visitors from Kenyans in Stockholm.

Okoth Osewe