Kimunya’s goofs mark him out as the biggest enemy of Kikuyu and Kenya
By MURITHI MUTIGA
Posted Saturday, May 12 2012 at 17:44
When the history of the role of ethnicity in fostering divisions and conflict in the Kenyan political arena is written, Gazette notice No. 31 of 2012 will prove a handy guide.
The public debate on Transport minister Amos Kimunya’s recent controversial appointments relates to the composition of the board of the Kenya Ports Authority mostly because of the emotive historical issues surrounding that facility.
In fact, the April 20 gazette notice indicates Mr Kimunya made appointments not just at the port but in a number of other parastatals that fall under his purview at Transport: the Kenya Ferry Services, Kenya Airports Authority, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority and the railways.
Nine of the 14 nominees to the boards of these strategic organisations were Kikuyu. That is 64 per cent of the total number of appointees. Mr Kimunya’s Kikuyu community, of course, only makes up about 23 per cent of the national population.
The unapologetic approach those like Mr Kimunya bring to these matters makes you wonder just how tone deaf the Kenyan elite can be.
Here we are, a post-conflict society emerging from one of the worst conflicts the nation has known after a war fought along the contours of ethnicity above all else.
The country somehow pulled back from the brink, and voters endorsed a Constitution that seeks to assuage the ills of the past.
Few issues drove the quest for dispersal of power from the centre more than the problem of resource monopolisation by the ethnic elite of the party in State House.
To deal with this the drafters of the supreme law placed the need for ethnic inclusion in virtually every chapter of the new Constitution from the preamble through to the end, even calling for the top echelons of the armed forces to reflect the nation’s ethnic diversity.
Yet only months down the line along comes the tin-eared Mr Kimunya to revive the ghosts of the past with his divisive appointments.
The biggest tragedy of this saga is that the primary victims of Mr Kimunya’s lack of vision are the very Kikuyu whose cause he appears to be championing with his nominations.
The point that these senior appointments benefit few people other than the appointees and their families is so obvious that it barely merits mentioning.
But packing senior positions in government with the Kikuyu feeds one of the most dangerous and fictitious theories outside Mt Kenya – that the Kikuyu are generally more successful in business because of some permanent access to a large pile of government largesse. This is nonsense.
Pro-Kibaki critics of British author Michela Wrong’s book on the Anglo Leasing scandal, It’s Our Turn to Eat complained that it was one long anti-Kikuyu tract.
In fact, Ms Wrong made one of the most interesting observations about the widespread notion of government as the source of the average Kikuyu’s relative wealth I have come across.
She noted that even after 24 years of President Moi’s rule, every taxi she took in Nairobi appeared to be owned by a Kikuyu.
A more persuasive theory on why this is the case might be one that looks at the large scale displacement of a large proportion of the community in the colonial years and in post-colonial Kenya, which forced people to adopt a posture of risk-taking and frugality that often develops in the wake of such traumas.
But this is not the place to engage in pop psychiatry over these matters. The point is that the likes of Mr Kimunya do little to dispel these unhelpful notions.
Instead, they entrench ancient resentments, reinforce the perceptions of state power as the route to material well-being for ethnic groups and provide ammunition to those that see incitement against the Kikuyu as an easy route to power.
Mr Kimunya is doing more than flouting the Constitution. He is in fact straining the bonds of national unity and trying to return us to a past we have no interest in reliving. Parliament should move fast to challenge his misguided appointments.
I am glad Kibaki is retiring for good. He has been worse than Jomo Kenyatta and Moi in contradicting policies that he signs as law. He accepted the new Constitution yet disobeys it continuously. The man is demented and should have never been president in the first place.
Feed them and their Children AfloToxin and let them die as Poor IDPS who wants them in this year of election Relief maize turns lethal at IDP’s camps
Updated: 14 May 2012 – 12:00:00 AM
Panic and anxiety has gripped several Internally Displaced Persons camps in Mai Mahiu after the relief maize they were supplied with turned lethal. Those who consumed the contaminated ration complained of stomach aches, diarrhea and vomiting. The IDPs received 200 bags of maize from the ministry of special programmes last week as part of their monthly food ration and now want the government to shade light on how the contaminated maize got into their camps. They further claimed that livestock and poultry that fed on the lethal maize died a few hours later. Full Story
Kweli Its Pay Back Time>
Finance minister Njeru Githae’s son has committed suicide at the family home in Runda, Nairobi.
Police have launched an investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of the university student.
The deceased, Brian Njeru Karanga, was a fourth year computer engineering student at the University of Nairobi’s Chiromo campus.
“This is shocking news,” said family spokesman Dr Peter Githae, who declined to comment further saying the family will wait for results of a post-mortem due later Thursday.
He appealed to the media to respect the family’s privacy at this time of grief.
Mr Karanga’s body was removed to the Lee Funeral Home.
Kimunya’s goofs mark him out as the biggest enemy of Kikuyu and Kenya
By MURITHI MUTIGA
Posted Saturday, May 12 2012 at 17:44
When the history of the role of ethnicity in fostering divisions and conflict in the Kenyan political arena is written, Gazette notice No. 31 of 2012 will prove a handy guide.
The public debate on Transport minister Amos Kimunya’s recent controversial appointments relates to the composition of the board of the Kenya Ports Authority mostly because of the emotive historical issues surrounding that facility.
In fact, the April 20 gazette notice indicates Mr Kimunya made appointments not just at the port but in a number of other parastatals that fall under his purview at Transport: the Kenya Ferry Services, Kenya Airports Authority, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority and the railways.
Nine of the 14 nominees to the boards of these strategic organisations were Kikuyu. That is 64 per cent of the total number of appointees. Mr Kimunya’s Kikuyu community, of course, only makes up about 23 per cent of the national population.
The unapologetic approach those like Mr Kimunya bring to these matters makes you wonder just how tone deaf the Kenyan elite can be.
Here we are, a post-conflict society emerging from one of the worst conflicts the nation has known after a war fought along the contours of ethnicity above all else.
The country somehow pulled back from the brink, and voters endorsed a Constitution that seeks to assuage the ills of the past.
Few issues drove the quest for dispersal of power from the centre more than the problem of resource monopolisation by the ethnic elite of the party in State House.
To deal with this the drafters of the supreme law placed the need for ethnic inclusion in virtually every chapter of the new Constitution from the preamble through to the end, even calling for the top echelons of the armed forces to reflect the nation’s ethnic diversity.
Yet only months down the line along comes the tin-eared Mr Kimunya to revive the ghosts of the past with his divisive appointments.
The biggest tragedy of this saga is that the primary victims of Mr Kimunya’s lack of vision are the very Kikuyu whose cause he appears to be championing with his nominations.
The point that these senior appointments benefit few people other than the appointees and their families is so obvious that it barely merits mentioning.
But packing senior positions in government with the Kikuyu feeds one of the most dangerous and fictitious theories outside Mt Kenya – that the Kikuyu are generally more successful in business because of some permanent access to a large pile of government largesse. This is nonsense.
Pro-Kibaki critics of British author Michela Wrong’s book on the Anglo Leasing scandal, It’s Our Turn to Eat complained that it was one long anti-Kikuyu tract.
In fact, Ms Wrong made one of the most interesting observations about the widespread notion of government as the source of the average Kikuyu’s relative wealth I have come across.
She noted that even after 24 years of President Moi’s rule, every taxi she took in Nairobi appeared to be owned by a Kikuyu.
A more persuasive theory on why this is the case might be one that looks at the large scale displacement of a large proportion of the community in the colonial years and in post-colonial Kenya, which forced people to adopt a posture of risk-taking and frugality that often develops in the wake of such traumas.
But this is not the place to engage in pop psychiatry over these matters. The point is that the likes of Mr Kimunya do little to dispel these unhelpful notions.
Instead, they entrench ancient resentments, reinforce the perceptions of state power as the route to material well-being for ethnic groups and provide ammunition to those that see incitement against the Kikuyu as an easy route to power.
Mr Kimunya is doing more than flouting the Constitution. He is in fact straining the bonds of national unity and trying to return us to a past we have no interest in reliving. Parliament should move fast to challenge his misguided appointments.
What is this Muhindi telling Kenyans and who is behind this corruption which should be punished by death?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c09vWyTYVYA&feature=player_embedded
I am glad Kibaki is retiring for good. He has been worse than Jomo Kenyatta and Moi in contradicting policies that he signs as law. He accepted the new Constitution yet disobeys it continuously. The man is demented and should have never been president in the first place.
Feed them and their Children AfloToxin and let them die as Poor IDPS who wants them in this year of election Relief maize turns lethal at IDP’s camps
Updated: 14 May 2012 – 12:00:00 AM
Panic and anxiety has gripped several Internally Displaced Persons camps in Mai Mahiu after the relief maize they were supplied with turned lethal. Those who consumed the contaminated ration complained of stomach aches, diarrhea and vomiting. The IDPs received 200 bags of maize from the ministry of special programmes last week as part of their monthly food ration and now want the government to shade light on how the contaminated maize got into their camps. They further claimed that livestock and poultry that fed on the lethal maize died a few hours later. Full Story
Kweli Its Pay Back Time>
Finance minister Njeru Githae’s son has committed suicide at the family home in Runda, Nairobi.
Police have launched an investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of the university student.
The deceased, Brian Njeru Karanga, was a fourth year computer engineering student at the University of Nairobi’s Chiromo campus.
“This is shocking news,” said family spokesman Dr Peter Githae, who declined to comment further saying the family will wait for results of a post-mortem due later Thursday.
He appealed to the media to respect the family’s privacy at this time of grief.
Mr Karanga’s body was removed to the Lee Funeral Home.