8 thoughts on “Martin Ngatia Speaks On How To Fight Corruption in Kenya”
Kenyans See the Italian Mafia’s Hand in Worsening Drug Trade
By Brian Dabbs
Italian migrants started moving to the sunny Kenyan coast in the 1980s, but now locals say the country’s infamous criminal element has come with them, spreading drugs and prostitution to a place that already had plenty.
Angelo Ricci, a member of Kenya’s Italian community, listens as a Kenyan judges announces his still-controversial acquittal on 2,500 pounds of cocaine that had been trafficked into the country. (AP)
MALINDI, Kenya — In the days since Paul Gitau’s July 2nd article circulated through the streets of Malindi, a Kenyan coastal town 80 miles north of Mombasa, the 30-year-old journalist has kept his head on a swivel. He sticks to crowded areas. He uses alternate phone lines when discussing his whereabouts or sensitive issues. Two security guards — independently hired — guard his home from evening until morning.
Gitau had anticipated the backlash. His article, originally published in the local County Weekly, exposed Malindi’s underworld of drug trafficking, prostitution rackets, money laundering, and a for-hire service to harbor international fugitives, all within the Kenyan city’s large Italian community.
At ten in the morning on the day of publication, Gitau’s expectations proved correct with an ominous phone call from a local Italian investor.
“We have formed a committee and we have met to deal with the author. Tomorrow we can meet and, if you cooperate with us, you will be safe,” the man told him, as Gitau recounted to me in a one-room office in Malindi, the town’s lone newsroom shared by all the local outlets.
Gitau was spinning. He talked with friends, contacted a lawyer, reported the matter to the police, delivered statements, and requested protection, which he didn’t get. The Italian still hasn’t called back.
When it comes to organized crime in Kenya, corruption is often not far behind. Stories about bribing police, or even government officials, are common. When I asked Kiprono Langat, the officer in charge of the Malindi Police Department, to comment on Italian crime in the area, he refused. But he did give me a wry smile when he denied that Gitau’s report had been filed.
Gitau was unsurprised when I told him what the police chief had said. “The same person that is supposed to be protecting me says he doesn’t know about the report,” he fumed, conspiratorial as ever. “That means he’s an interested party.”
Documentation of the Italian criminal network on the Kenyan coast is relatively scant, but the international community is starting to take notice. U.S. diplomats, in a 2005 cable later released by WikiLeaks, reported that “Some long-term resident Italians are evidently involved” in drug trafficking here, which they say is “skyrocketing.” The Kenyan coast suffers from endemic poverty, poor infrastructure, and the neglect of the central government. The Italian community, though relatively young, plays a critical role in the local economy. It might be dirty money, but it’s still money, and for better or worse it’s dramatically changed the way of life in what was once a conservative and devoutly Muslim fishing village.
“If the high season is underway, the economy is booming. The buying power for the common man is very good,” said Mansour Naji Said, who’s owned a hotel here since 1989, referring to the tourist months from July to October and January to March. “The poverty level here is high. All the people in the town, from the fisherman to the tour guide, earn well when the Italians are here. They won’t look at the negative impact.”
Italians first began flocking to Malindi in the 1980s. They swept up nearly all of the prime real estate; a construction boom followed a decade later. Several thousand Italians currently live year-round in the palatial villas and cottage communities around town. During the high seasons, there can be about 30,000, according to figures compiled by Malindi’s Italian consulate.
Head of the consulate Roberto Macri dismissed the accusations of criminal activities in the Italian community but admitted that he’d heard reports of mafia involvement after the 1990s construction wave. But he said the Italian migration to Kenya was straightforward: prices are cheap and the country is beautiful.
“They thought they found an Eden in Africa,” Macri told me, taking on a mystical tone. “Financially, their dreams could materialize very easily compared to Italy.”
In the areas along the Kenyan coast near Malindi, virtually all of the available beachfront real estate is commonly believed to be owned by Italians. Italian Formula One icon Flavio Briatore, who while no mafioso was convicted in the 1980s of gambling-related fraud charges and was forced off of his F1 team over a 2008 race-fixing scandal, is currently building a Billionaires Club resort adjacent to the Malindi Marine National Park. Italians have constructed over four thousand homes and villas along the beach and on second row plots.
Much of that real estate has been purchased and developed in completely lawful ways. Those businesses now provide jobs that put food on the table for countless Kenyans. Most Italians in Malindi are in no way affiliated with criminal activity on any level. Local community leaders are quick to point out that any Italians involved in drug trafficking or prostitution are a subset of the larger, law-abiding community.
“The big percentage of Italian investment is legal and has helped us very much.
We have a good number of them who are doing a good job here, uplifting life through investment,” said Bishop Thomas Kakala of Malindi’s Jesus Care Center Church, pointing out that Italian locals have helped orphans relocate to Italy to make new lives there. “We recognize that. We have many Italian friends. It is not the whole community.”
For all the local suspicions — which can sometimes verge on conspiracy theory — their accusations can be difficult or impossible to confirm, and no one has yet demonstrated a link between criminal activity in Kenya and Italian mafia families. But there’s also been no real investigation, either, which is remarkable in itself since even U.S. diplomats in the area apparently consider the accusations to be credible. Kenyan police arrested two Italians in Malindi in connection with a 2004 cocaine seizure worth an estimated $6.25 million, one of several high-profile drug busts in the country over recent years that have entrenched local suspicions. Still, it’s also extremely difficult to determine whether or not criminal activity in the region is increasing.
For a drug trafficker of any nationality, the geographic appeal of coastal Kenya is obvious; a porous transit point between Latin American producers and international markets. And Kenyan corruption, as well as the almost non-existent security along the coast, make it an attractive spot for illicit trades.
“That’s the way the typical narcotics trade works … getting it from the producing areas to the biggest markets while trying to evade security,” said John Dickie, professor of Italian Studies at University College London.
“The obvious thing for them to do is go to where security isn’t functioning well,” he added. “It has more to do with that than geographical locations.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime claimed last year the Kenyan coast is increasingly used as a transit hub for narcotics on the global circuit. In response, the U.S. government is planning to train anti-narcotics forces in Kenya, according to the New York Times.
“We know Malindi is used as a headquarters of transporting heroin to other countries. The Italians are involved,” insisted Pamau Mohamed, Chairman of the Coast Community Anti-Drug Coalition, a local group that advocates against drug use and tries to inform authorities of incoming consignments and connects addicts to rehabilitation clinics. “There are so many people we know about working with drugs here but people can’t discuss them. It’s very risky. Some are working with [members of parliament] and ministers. They are involved strongly in this area.” Like many people I spoke to, he had strong accusations but little or no proof, and native Kenyans are of course necessarily involved in the drug trade, meaning that the presence of drugs is not proof of any Italian connection.
James Kitau is a local contractor who says he’s worked with almost every construction firm in the area since moving to Malindi in 1976. He says he he’s seen homes with secure communication satellite links and underwater tunnels that feed into palatial homes, he suspects to allow small vessels to enter the properties undetected.
“They have speedboats. They bring drugs in mixing it with other goods. They import it through the sea,” said Kitau.
Traditionally, law enforcement officials and mafia researchers have focused on West Africa, not East African countries such as Kenya, as a conduit for drugs imported from Latin America to Europe. And Turkey has historically been the major route into the lucrative European markets from heroin producing areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. But, as international enforcement focuses more on those well-worn routes, the Kenyan coast might seem more attractive to traffickers.
Mafia expert Federico Varese, author of Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories, says that East Africa is just emerging as a criminal hub. He suggests that Malindi would provide an ideal environment for another chief mafia revenue generator: money laundering.
“Traditionally, there is a lot of Italian tourism there in Malindi,” said Varese. “[Criminal networks] need to invest in profitable businesses, many times abroad. They do it in communities that they know … where they have friends and shady financial advisors.”
Many Italians have been staying in the country illegally for extended periods of time but government officials that seek to mete out lawful punishment to the fugitives face consequences. According to Julius Kobia, who used to be Malindi’s Immigration deputy officer in charge of investigation and prosecution, some Italians live here without proper visas, sometimes to avoid criminal charges back in Italy. As the 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable reported, “One Italian living openly in Malindi is facing a thirty year Italian prison sentence — if only Kenya would extradite him. Other Europeans sought on drug charges have similarly avoided extradition by political payoffs and protection. Malindi service is said to be so profitable that”
Kobia recalled his 2009 and 2010 campaign to apprehend and repatriate an Italian fugitive named De Caro Giovvani, wanted on criminal charges in Italy and sought by Interpol, Giovvani had been living in Kenya without a visa since 1992.
Kobia says that Giovvani approached him and offered a bribe. The immigration officer refused to drop his investigation, but his bosses later transferred him. He was reassigned, he believes as punishment from his bosses for pursuing the well-connected Giovvani, from his respectable job to a shift supervisor in Mombasa’s Moi International Airport.
“I refused to follow his line,” Kobia fumed, blaming Giovvani. “He wanted to compromise me. All the security services were under his control. They used to get cuts from him so he was untouchable.” Still, he was able to continue his work on the case — a high-level connection allowed him to keep on it from his new job in Mombasa, he half-explained. A few weeks ago, Giovvani was successfully repatriated to Italy.
“There are some criminals in Malindi that have relationships with senior policemen or political figures,” Kobia added. “When you touch them, you touch a live wire.”
Prostitution is a thriving industry in Malindi, as a 2006 UN study documented. Local health advocates say that Italian-run prostitution rackets sometimes coordinate sending local Kenyan women and men to the European sex industry.
“Many are promised other jobs. Then, after they arrive, they are told there are none. Their passports are taken and they’re forced into the sex industry,” said one former male sex worker, now a HIV/AIDS and sex abuse advocate. “Some are successful and return with lots of money. Some disappear. We’ve heard they’re dead,” He asked to remain anonymous over fears of reprisal from the local, conservative Muslim community.
In many parts of Malindi, Kiswahili has become a secondary language after Italian. During the sun-soaked days, Italian men ply the roads with Vespas. Italian markets sell salami, wine, and cheese. At night, the pimps ply their European clientele for business. Geriatric Italian men mingle with young Kenyan women in the countless bars and resorts, buying drinks, getting physical, and celebrating with Italian friends.
To the extent that there is a criminal subset within the larger, law-abiding Italian community, they’re exacerbating the larger “Kenyan-Italian tensions,” as the WikiLeaks cable described them, reinforcing negative Kenyan stereotypes of Italians and leading locals to associate the wealthy Europeans with something more nefarious.
“I don’t want to generalize but I’d have to say most of the Italians here are involved in drugs or the sex industry,” said the sex abuse advocate, probably unfairly. “And when they leave here, they leave their footprints. Lives are ruined.”
Text of a speech made by UK High Commissioner to Kenya Edward Clay to a group of UK businessmen, as passed to the BBC by the High Commission:
Corruption: my major theme, inevitably, given the prominence the subject currently enjoys.
Why does it matter? After all, against a World Bank figure of US$1 trillion spent on bribes each year, Kenya perhaps accounts for only $800 million or so, annually, since the 2002 election.
It’s pretty staggering to think bribes were worth about 3% of world GDP at the time of the study I’ve just mentioned. But it is outrageous to think that corruption accounts here and now in Kenya for about 8% of Kenya’s GDP.
The science is not exact, but I think the message is clear: Kenya, which scores low on almost every indicator that matters these days, has a burden of corruption that is large compared to its people’s diminishing wealth. It is using up its own quota of 3%, plus also the unused quotas of Finland or perhaps all of Scandinavia.
‘Patriotism’
What business is it of ours? It was only a matter of time before somebody piped up with the old saw ‘keep yourself out of our domestic business’.
There was such a columnist in Sunday’s ‘Nation’ who wrote “Any patriotic Kenyan should get offended when a group of foreigners criticise the same institutions we criticise”.
So it seems that a truly patriotic citizen is one who has to defend those who abuse his ideas of right and wrong, whom he may have voted for or accepted his/her authority as legitimate, simply because they share a citizenship in common.
Behind such patriotism, an army of scoundrels could find refuge. The institution we are criticising, in case the writer has not noticed, is corruption.
Well, corruption isn’t just the business of Kenyans. This country extended to outsiders the promises it made to its own people in respect of governance. Tackling corruption was one of the pillars of the understandings they reached with development partners which saw Kenya go back ‘on track’.
We are one of the partners to those understandings. When they are broken we feel let down. And we are invited to channel funds into a government which cannot be relied upon to spend money properly, on the basis of proper authorisations, for the purposes for which it was voted. So I feel disappointed; but I also feel outraged on behalf of a country I feel an affinity for. Why?
Kenya is not a rich country in terms of large oil deposits, diamonds or some other buffer which might featherbed a thorough-going culture of corruption. What it chiefly has is its people – their intelligence, work ethic, education, entrepreneurial and other skills. That is what we mean when we talk of Kenya’s potential ability to regain its diminishing economic and other leadership in the region.
But those assets will be lost if they are not managed, rewarded well and properly led. One day we may wake up at the end of this gigantic looting spree to find Kenya’s potential is all behind us and it is a land of lost opportunity.
Corruption and poverty
It isn’t the most corrupt country in the world: Transparency International in 2003 reckoned there were ten worse countries including Angola, Myanmar (Burma), Haiti, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
It is, however, behind Uganda, well behind Tanzania, and even behind Libya, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries we’d much less like to live in.
A World Bank report in 1997 showed a clear negative correlation between the level of corruption, as perceived by business people, and both investment and economic growth. Where corruption was highest and the predictability of payments and outcomes lowest, investment averaged 12.3% of GDP; where corruption was low and predictability high, the ratio was 28.5%.
The same research shows that countries which reduce corruption and improve their rule of law can increase their national income by four times over a long run and reduce child mortality by as much as 75%.
The other negative impacts of corruption include aggravating income inequality and poverty; lowering investment and retarding growth; reducing the volume and effectiveness of development assistance; discouraging domestic saving; bent procurement processes leading to low quality infrastructure; increasing and unpredictable transaction costs; and, of course, the deviations involved in selecting national priorities not on the basis of the Economic Recovery Strategy but on the basis of what pays well in hidden kickbacks which can be concealed somehow in the national budget.
All of these features are present in Kenya’s case, as I think you could testify.
Progress
Perhaps the most insidious thing is that, spreading from the top and the inside of government outwards, a culture of corruption has spread itself throughout the country. There must be few and fortunate Kenyans who do not believe that exploiting a relationship, or proffering ‘kitu kidogo’ or having some illegitimate inside track is absolutely essential to getting some ordinary public service, on top of paying whatever the fee is and meeting whatever the legal requirements are.
Last year, we all applauded the legal framework established to try to squeeze corruption and the culture of corruption out of government. We approved of the creation of the Office of Governance and Ethics and the appointment of its Permanent Secretary, responsible to and enjoying the full authority of the President.
Now, there has been progress, undoubtedly. The institutions enjoy some credibility: we ourselves have reported cases occurring within the High Commission which appear to involve attempted fraud and soliciting for bribes. At a low level, there has been some impact: Transparency International noted this year that the public reported fewer cases of petty bribery; but an increase in the size of each bribe solicited.
Right now it is grand corruption which fills the headlines. As Goldenberg draws towards the end of its hearings, the list of the previously great and good mentioned one way or another is impressive. Yet now it is the corruption of the present government which needs more urgently to be addressed.
‘Gluttons’
We never expected corruption to be vanquished overnight. We all implicitly recognised that some would be carried over to the new era. We hoped it would not be rammed in our faces. But it has: evidently the practitioners now in government have the arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons.
They may expect we shall not see, or notice, or will forgive them a bit of gluttony because they profess to like OXFAM lunches. But they can hardly expect us not to care when their gluttony causes them to vomit all over our shoes; do they really expect us to ignore the lurid and mostly accurate details conveyed in the commendably free media and pursued by a properly-curious parliament?
The worst feature of the last year has been the repeated attempts to undermine the effectiveness of the Office of Governance and Ethics. This was established under a figure of high standing, to crack grand corruption. It was to enjoy the full backing of the President’s authority, and its boss was to have direct access to the President.
Efforts to kneecap this body culminated in the announcement, apparently in error, on 30 June that it was to be removed from the Office of the President and placed under the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. The ‘decision’, whoever made it, seems to have been reversed within 48 hours of being made.
Two consecutive decisions within a period of days, one in contradiction of the other, suggested a lack of consistency on a most important matter, or a lack of proper sense of direction, or perhaps an effort at sabotage.
Hot air
But the circumstances prompted the EU and a group of other donors to make public statements of protest. This second group, including the US, Canada and us, followed up a joint call they had made on the President on 3 June with a joint letter, accurately précised in the press. We shall be doing more. I have spoken twice to the Head of the Civil Service in the last 3 weeks, once alone and once with some other donors.
I am still trying to get rid of a sense of guilt: he made me feel I was foolish and misled. He is perhaps trying to whistle up his courage, aware that we know a lot, but perhaps uneasily aware that he does not know just how much we know; equally, he will be aware that we know how much he knows and wonder why more energetic action is not being taken on the strength of what he already knows or suspects.
The facts are – although we cannot be precise about the numbers, they are likely to be an underestimate than otherwise – that the new corruption entered into by this government may be worth around Shs 15 billion ($188m) a bit less than the World Bank’s funding of the Mombasa-Malaba road; a bit more than what [Health Minister] Charity Ngilu expects to get from the Global Fund for tackling malaria); the continuation of old corruption inherited from the last government might be Shs 80 billion.
So we are clear what the magnitude of those figures represents, let us look at the first of the two notorious contracts with… a shadowy company with links to an address in Liverpool, with links to Kenyans, not registered in either Britain or Switzerland, incapable of commissioning a garden shed and discovered never to have delivered anything more than drawings more or less on the back of an envelope, and hot air:
Just the first contract with them is about equivalent to what the European Commission might consider giving to Kenya over three years by way of budgetary support – Euros 125 million.
The value of the Shs 15 billion corrupt deals originated and negotiated under the present government would also buy 1,000 Mercedes S350s: keep your eyes open for them and their drivers (or more interesting, passengers).
Fund the construction of 15,000 odd new classrooms (just under half the number the Ministry of Education says it needs): but I doubt it’s worth the trouble your trying to spot them.
Donor fatigue
You need to love this country very much to work to make your business so successful that you can contemplate so much of its earnings being looted by the servants of the state and their friends, and possibly even some of your own friends.
But there is worse to come. Shs 80 billion is the estimated value of old crooked business corruptly carried forward in the 18 months since NARC took office. Mr Mwiraria allocated in his budget for next year a shade more than that (Shs 86 billion) for development; he banked on over half of that coming from donors. I doubt it will: the longer the government fumbles its response to corruption and tries to protect the high officers involved, the less likely the Minister’s gamble on the donors’ generosity is likely to pay off.
Or you might say that if Kenya’s governance was less corrupt he could afford to pay his own development budget, and not come to donors cap in hand and with fingers crossed. Kenya remains, after all, a country relatively less dependent on donors than its neighbours.
To put it more constructively, he could have a much larger development budget: Kenya’s own contribution and one of matching size from development partners glad to help defeat poverty in support of a government in whose policies and practices they had confidence.
These are all big sums. The comparisons of the opportunity costs they represent are staggering.
Some allegedly sober people have reproached the media for being ‘sensational’ in building up these scandals. Such calls for media responsibility are usually a way of covering up threats. The fact is there would have been no disclosure had it not been for the press. It is the truths they have laid bare that are sensational and they need no dressing up.
If the investigations went on and appropriate action followed, we might say that corruption was deplorable, we were sorry it was still going on, but we accepted Kenya was still fighting and winning the battle and that government was genuine in its efforts. Evidence that would be persuasive would be prosecutions; and the standing aside of those names recently mentioned in connection with the current investigations until those inquiries have been completed.
However, the signs are otherwise. The old dragon has turned on its tormentors just as used to happen in the previous regime: veiled threats at the media, who should behave ‘responsibly’; real red-blooded threats to fix, nobble or even damage those who want to investigate the corrupters; statements whitewashing in a pedantic, lawyerly way those who were not involved in one deal when investigations- not under the control of the Head of the Civil Service – were still under way to find out who else was involved in some way, which is much more fascinating.
And at the same time, the corrupt are still cutting deals like there was no tomorrow.
‘King’s breakfast’
Perhaps your new newsletter should run a competition inviting readers to name those they are confident are not involved: the answers could surely go on a postcard or possibly a postage stamp.
Poor Kimaiyo finds himself armed with crown but no power. Because he has the wrong DNA, he should chill for the next 60+ days. Kimemia cannot stand him at OP because he will be forced to speak in a foreign tongue.
Kibaki’s 10 year legacy, while all major TV channels were airing hour long documentaries on the same, onstesibly to showcase the so called achievements of President Kibaki’s 10 years in office.
Few were convinced.
Lipstick on a pig doesn’t make the pig something else. A pig is a pig. Kibaki’s record is his record…a colossal failure to lead…failure to unite…failure to stabilize…and failure to progress. Only success at fleecing public resources…and entrenching institutionalized tribalism.
Tribalism, insecurity, runaway corruption, the Great Somali Migration into Kenya & terrorism, PEV, extrajudicial assassinations, drug and gun smuggling, the Artur brothers, a rogue police force, impunity, impunity, and impunity ain’t anything to write home about. This fella delayed Kenya’s takeoff by years. It’s a dark legacy. Even former Kibaki stalwart Martha Karua has rated impunity under Kibaki worse than the Moi era impunity – a very fair assessment!
This goes down in history as the only regime that opened its paramilitary barracks (& uniforms and guns) for PEV operations to kill its own citizens…blood-chilling things that Kenyans previously only read about regarding Idi Amin’s Uganda. Talking about lopsided development is an understatement regarding the Kibaki era.
If roads were built, they weren’t the priority roads for the nation (Msa-Malaba or Msa-Busia border). If donor funds were restored, most ended up in non-prosecuted corruption. If relations were established with the East, it only brought a flooding of cheap counterfeit goods into our market (with simultaneous smuggling of our exotic resources). Where FPE or AIDS fund were introduced, cash cows were established for connected bureaucrats. Every noble idea was hijacked by the mafia.
10 years under Kibaki saddled the country with hundreds of billions more in debt…for the Anglo Leasings, Ken Rens, and massive transfer of public wealth into the hands of a few greedy oligarchs (the Trans Century looters)…from our Railways, our Ports, Tana Land, Airport Land, Telecommunications, Grand Regency, Oil Refineries, and almost all other public entities….all skewed to Kibaki’s cronies and connected & corrupt foreign oligarchs.
These dirty deals leave outstanding debts that Kenyans and their children WILL BE paying into future…paying for the transfer of public wealth into the hands of a few well-connected thieves aka the Shetani crew (as per Uhuru).
That same enriched shetani crew is now diving the country politically, slicing and dividing voters, in readiness to perpetuate their stranglehold on the country’s resources. After robbing the poor of all their resources (public assets and land), their next agenda is to milk from the budding middle class.
Kibaki has deliberately timed his exit with yet another resounding warning to landlords who have worked so hard (sometimes in distant lands) to invest in real estate. The handpicked KRA boss (Njiraini) is now arm-twisting tenants (starting 2013) to issue personal details of their landlords for future assessment of more taxes – to be looted by the greedy lot. It’s not as if we are not already paying annual property taxes and land rates! The fraudster in Kibaki wants such misguided economic policies to be effected under the legacy of subsequent President…to justify his current massive borrowing under taxpayers name. Talk of an experienced thief!
Yet another of Kibaki’s dark legacy is the blurring of state matters with private financial concerns (ala the hanky-panky between Equity, CBA, Family Bank, Coop Bank & CBK), dalliances which depreciated the Kenya shilling massively. Illegal overnight borrowing from CBK’s discount window has minted a few Kibaki-crony billionaires.
Kibaki and friends at Equity Bank even get to collect Tourism revenues at Kenya’s biggest tourist attraction – Maasai Mara Park. Who the heck is going to know how much cash in reality came in, or how many tourist visitors checked in? They might as well report that no tourists came this year? Ama? These people think Kenyans are a bunch of idiots to be fooled and robbed from mercilessly without consequences. Mta do? That’s their attitude.
Right now as we speak, Uhuru Kenyatta’s banking concern, Commercial bank of Africa (CBA) has been parachuted a multi-billion shilling deal to be the official Shylock of ordinary Kenyans under a program disguised as – the MShwari savings and loan product (mooted along the MPESA model) – with collaboration with Safaricom. This 7.5% interest loan SHARK mooted under Kenyatta’s tenure as Finance Minister, will virtually wipe out SACCO societies.
Kenyatta wants to mop up all little change from struggling Kenyans using the State as business anchor. After all that is how they get all their businesses…all tied to the state one way or another…if not supplying VW Passats to the government, loaning Treasury at exorbitant profits, or hosting public bureaucrats in non-essential seminars at their five star resorts. Isn’t this the real reason why they won’t let go the Presidency and levers of State?
If not thinking how to fleece Treasury… its how to fleece unsuspecting investors (toxic stocks at NSE with crooked brokers stealing investor cash and getting away scot free)…fleecing investors of their life savings at Syokimau…or fleecing folks with pyramid schemes…and now Uhuru plotting to rob jua kali traders with his Mshwari toxic loan….This is one freaking rotten and distressing legacy….as has been the last Jubilee.. It has to give way!!!!!!
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Labels: Deception Galore
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Why I Will Not Vote For Any President
The behavior of Kenyan voters is also akin to the man who goes out for a drink in a bar full of prostitutes with too much make up. One blacker-than-the-darkest-night woman chooses to use scarlet red lipstick and looks like something out of a Hollywood horror movie… By the time the man’s watch says it is 2 am all the women and especially the dark-black-complexion-in-red-lipstick woman look like angels…
In Kenya it is now 2 am
Come March 4th and I will NOT vote any of the clowns thus far before us. I am through with this story of voting for the lesser evil which is what I have done in past elections.
If you look at the leading contenders for the Kenyan presidency not a single one of them is qualified for the highest office in the land so much so that we have no business even discussing their merits and de-merits. Opinion polls show that a man who has been an equal partner of the irresponsible slow-to-act-no-security-in-the-country government of the last 5 years is set to be elected. Close in his heels in the polls is an ICC suspect… and I can go on and on.
Regular readers of Kumekucha will know that I have a simple but effective system for gauging the mood on the ground and I can tell you that Kenyans are very much in an election mood. The problem is the vast majority have stopped thinking.
We Kenyans have a very serious problem when it comes to election time, we usually stop thinking and start behaving very strangely indeed. Only to start complaining about bad leadership just a few months down the road when the honeymoon is over and the clowns we have elected have to actually get down to the work of being our leaders.
Let me illustrate this for you a little more vividly. The old dukawallas (Asian shopkeepers) of Kenya were always a very disciplined lot and that is how most ended up making so much money. They used to have a saying that went like this;
Mboro simama akili potea
For those who don’t know Swahili it simply means that when a certain part of the male anatomy is gorged with blood (to be more specific the tool that ensures that you do not go six feet under without leaving heirs to your property or stupidity) you stop thinking.
This rather crude saying is loaded with truth because we all know how most people start behaving when that part of their body is gorged with blood. They forget that the object of their desire is their best friends’ wife or the age mate of their mother. The brain literally stops functioning momentarily and all reasoning flies out of the window. That’s where Kenyan voters are right now.
As you read this my information is that there are major erections in Central province over Uhuru Kenyatta. The same is happening in Nyanza over one Raila Odinga.
The behavior of Kenyan voters is also akin to the man who goes out for a drink in a bar full of prostitutes with too much make up. One blacker-than-the-darkest-night woman chooses to use scarlet red lipstick and looks like something out of a Hollywood horror movie. As the man sips his first beer he can hardly look at the ugly things. A few drinks later the very same ladies start looking very attractive, even sexy. By the time the man’s watch says it is 2 am all the women and especially the dark-black-complexion-in-red-lipstick woman look like angels.
When the man wakes up the next morning he finds that he had unprotected sex with somebody he cannot even look at without rushing to the bathroom to throw up.
In Kenya it is now 2 am. People who are known to be crooks have suddenly evolved into viable and even attractive presidential candidates. 3 months after the election it will be the next morning and we will find that we have elected the usual suspects to take us through another 5 years of hell on earth. The difference between Kenyan voters and the man who woke up next to the horror-movie-woman is that he will quickly leave the hotel room. We Kenyan voters will have to remain in that hotel room throwing up regularly in the toilet for 5 long years. Just think about that.
I am well aware of the fact that what I am doing here is akin to playing a guitar for a goat. Nobody wants to listen when there is all the excitement about the upcoming elections.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with a close friend and she told me that in 2007 she voted Kenneth Matiba and so when Kenyans were complaining about the very leaders they elected she had a clear conscience and could live with her decisions.
The truth is that I have no idea how most Kenyans live with their election decisions. Why should anybody elect any of the leading contenders for the presidency and then complain about corruption. How???
How do you keep a venomous snake in your house and then complain that it bit your children? Does that make any sense? Somebody please help me understand.
We are now at the eleventh hour and unless some miracle happens and somebody worthy stands for the president I am not voting for any presidential candidate and my ballot paper will remain blank in that particular category. That is the only way I can look at myself in the mirror for the next five years and continue to write posts here with a clear conscience.
You are also bound to enjoy reading…
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Kibaki laughs at pretender MPs praising his rule
Cashing in on Uhuru’s troubles
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
You might also like:
Deadly Decisions And The Kibaki Succession Part 2
Real reasons why some people are voting NO
Goodbye Kalonzo Musyoka and many others
Deadly Decisions And The Kibaki Succession Part I
Prepare For Trouble LinkWithin
Posted by kumekucha at 6:57 AM 4 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: I am not voting for president
Friday, December 21, 2012
Crime Escalates In Kenya As Naïve Decision Makers Continue To Bark Up The Wrong Trees
David Kimaiyo: Kenya’s first inspector general who incidentally was director of operations at police headquarters at the height of the post election troubles in 2008. Fighting crime should not be left to the police and he is doomed to fail if the next administration approches crime in the same manner as the Kibaki administration did.
A few days ago a Matatu headed to Eastleigh was hijacked by six smartly dressed gunmen who robbed all the passengers of cash and cell phones.
As I write this post, this incident has yet to be reported anywhere in the local media.
There are a number of interesting things we need to point out about this latest incident. Firstly it happened in broad daylight (at about 2 pm). Secondly the fact that they picked a matatu headed for Nairobi’s “Mogadishu” Estate was no accident. These matatus are usually packed with traders from Nairobi and indeed all over the country headed to popular wholesale venues like “Garissa Lodge” and others where all kinds of items whose import tax and duty has not been paid can be obtained very cheaply thus assuring retailers a handsome profit. They are usually carrying huge sums of cash and it is not unrealistic for robbers to get Kshs 1 million or more from a single matatu headed to Eastleigh. What that means is that anybody hijacking a matatu on this particular route is bound to make off with a very hefty sum of cash. As opposed to robbing a No 8 Matatu headed to the sprawling Kibera slums for instance.
What should really worry Kenyans here is whether the country has gone back to the Major-Hussein-Ali policy of fighting crime by NOT reporting major crimes so as to give the impression that crime was on a downward trend. At one point the police commissioner soldier was literally editing crime stories at the Daily Nation, albeit on phone. You really cannot blame the man with military training who was made a top cop by the Kibaki administration for that kind of thinking. In a military war (as opposed to a war on crime) propaganda is such a critical weapon that it has single-handedly won many major battles and even wars throughout history and when used well can be more lethal than any guns and ammunition on the ground. This is a historical fact starting right from the beginning of time an even in biblical times when a might army was defeated by simply being given the impression that there was a very big army marching against them when in reality there was actually nothing but some serious sound effects from the Almighty himself.
The only problem is that when fighting crime, propaganda has quite the opposite effect. If I was a violent criminal and nobody was reporting about what I was doing I would be delighted. It would mean amongst other advantages, that I would be able to retain my element of surprise on unsuspecting victims. The folks who robbed the Eastleigh matatu in broad daylight can do it again and again and many on the route will not even be aware that this was something that had happened before.
Yesterday we mentioned some of the successes of the Kibaki administration but today it is worth mentioning tha one of their biggest failures has been security and the fight against the escalating crime rate in the country.
For the sake of the next administration it is worth analyzing this failure a little deeper.
President Kibaki came into power in 2003 with the firm conviction that crime was one of the easiest of problems on his long list to handle. All the country needed to do was to find the money to increase the number of policemen and women in the force. This was promptly done but predictably nothing happened. Then they came up with the idea of appointing a tough military man to scare the criminals. This too did not work. Finally the president himself took to threatening criminals during his speeches to the public warning them that their days were numbered. Of course all those in crime must have had a good laugh and escalated their activities.
While it is true that we have just gotten a new inspector general who is probably the most competent and qualified person to ever head the police force since independence, even he will not have any impact on the war against crime until the next administration come to the realization that this is something that cannot be left only to the police. The next administration needs to actively pursue policies that are designed to curb crime.
Fighting unemployment like there was no tomorrow is one thing that must be emphasized from day one. More hidden close circuit cameras all over the city and indeed the entire country is yet another step that needs to be taken. Then we need to seriously look at the budget allocated to intelligence and undercover operations which is currently a sick joke. Lastly we need to come to the realization that the fight against crime never ends and so we need to brace ourselves for that.
There are of course many other good ideas that security experts can come up with. It is important to ensure that experts are involved in the decision making process to the highest level because switching off all unregistered cell phones for instance is not going to reduce crime involving cell phones as some smart alecs seem to believe. Indeed those kinds of crimes seem to be on the rise because my wife received a call recently from a man who told her she had won Kshs 100,000 and she should not send money to anybody to get the prize. But meanwhile she was casually asked if she had an Mpesa account. Much later in the conversation she was asked to enter a strange code that would have cleaned out her Mpesa account.
My point is that I often hear the views of Kenya’s middle class and the rich on fighting crime and just laugh my head off. Most Kenyans are so out of touch with the realities in their own country that it just unbelievable. To start with Kenya’s escalating crime rate has a lot to do with the huge number of foreigners we have allowed into the country many of whom do not have any papers. Especially from countries like Nigeria and Somalia. Some of these people are hardened criminals who see criminal opportunities where Kenyans have never dreamt that any exist. Just to give an example. A few years back some Nigerians took a lot of interest in the Post office at the City Square in Nairobi. They place had no security and so they just walked in late at night and spend time picking the locks of mail boxes to read the letters inside. Other Nairobi criminals must have been more than a little surprised as to what their motives were. However a few months later it was reported that companies and individuals were losing millions to intercepted cheques that criminals had found a way to cash. Indeed this is one of the reasons that led to banks refusing to cash third party cheques over the counter.
Why is it that we don’t realize Kenya is now an international hub with all kinds of characters arriving here daily? Long gone are the days when the most serious crime many sleepy rural police stations had to deal with was the theft of chickens. Despite this we expect the same kind of police force equipped in the same way it has always been to deal with the new realities on the ground. Getting more policemen without looking at a number of other policies is just recruiting and sending sons and daughters of Kenyans to unnecessary slaughter in the hands of a new kind of criminal who is extremely sophisticated and more daring than ever before.
Interestingly I have not heard any of the presidential candidates address this issue so far.
You are also bound to enjoy reading…
Kibaki laughs at pretender MPs praising his rule
Cashing in on Uhuru’s troubles
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Posted by kumekucha at 7:54 AM 10 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Eastleigh matatu hijacked in broad daylight December 2012, possible solutions to escalating crime, Will Kenya’s inspector general succeed?
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Kibaki Has A Ball Seeing Through The Transparent Dressing of MPs
Yesterday Mwai Kibaki sat in parliament and bathed in the glow of tributes from various legislators across the political divide.
For anybody who has followed the president’s career closely it is not too difficult to guess some of the thoughts that were passing through his mind as he listened to the wolves in sheep’s clothing trying to outdo each other on who would give the most glowing send-off to Number 3 as he completes his second and widely believed to be fraudulent term.
The president of the banana republic receives regular intelligence reports. The reports usually leave out nothing and include who is sleeping with whom and what they said about him as well as what derogatory nickname they usually use to refer to him. That would explain the amused expression that he had on his face most of the time yesterday.
Kibaki is obviously a very different man from the legislator who used to command close attention whenever he stood up to contribute to various debates in the August house. He talks much more slowly these days and walks at a snails’ pace. When he sits down he does so rather heavily. The combination of a terrible accident that almost ended his life about 2 weeks before he was elected in 2002 is probably what is most responsible for the ill health that has dogged his presidency. Thankfully he is the last president who will ever be able to keep his health such a closely guarded state secret. We have our new constitution to thank for that. But there is no denying that the pressures of the office have also taken their toll on Emilio Stanley the staunch lifelong Catholic.
The presidency the world over always appears to be a much easier job until you get to sit on the hot seat yourself. There is plenty of evidence to prove that the president looked down on Moi’s presidency considering him a shallow uneducated man with no university degree who did not deserve to be president. And yet it was to Moi that he turned to help stabilize his shaky government barely a year into his presidency.
No 2 and No 3 have been very close since and there is little doubt that Kibaki’s respect for the Moi presidency has increased tremendously in the last 10 years. His preference for a schooled man over a street smart operator have prevailed though. Hardly surprising when you consider the fact that he would never have gotten anywhere near where he is minus his educational credentials which were rather high and rare in 1960 when the KANU party fetched him from Makerere to be the party’s first executive officer.
Clearly Moi was extremely street smart and very disciplined getting up at 4 am every morning. Moi made his decisions quickly and was always the kind of person who could think on his feet. In sharp contrast Kibaki rarely gets out of bed before 11am and often has a siesta in the middle of the day. Indeed he was late by over an hour even for his big day in parliament yesterday. Kibaki’s decision-making prowess has been non-existent and way too slow at best.
Many of those who stood to speak in parliament yesterday recalled various contributions the president made at the height of his parliamentary career. Personally I find it difficult to remove from my mind his famous Mugumo-tree-and-razorblade quip at the height of the fight for a return to multiparty democracy in the 90s against Daniel arap Moi’s dictatorial rule. Kibaki told legislators then trying to fight Moi that what they were attempting to do was akin to trying to cut down a Mugumo tree with a small razor blade. A Mugumo tree is that thick huge old tree that will often defy even an electric saw.
That particular comment stands out on my mind and tells a lot about the kind of person Kibaki is. It is interesting that those who busied themselves trying to cut the Mugumo tree with a razor finally managed but paid a big price for it. Some are dead and others like Kenneth Njindo Matiba have been maimed for life. But Kibaki remained in his comfortable non-committal cocoon and only emerged to cash in on the efforts of others.
Still the truth is that Kenya has changed tremendously under Kibaki and he was the perfect president to prepare Kenya for the next level. Everybody talks about the infrastructural changes that are visible all over the country. Sadly some Kenyans blinded by tribal hatred and the political heat of the moment can hardly see what is pretty obvious.
This blog has been rabidly critical of the Kibaki presidency but today I have chosen to tone down that criticism and have a little empathy for the outgoing member for Othaya. In many ways one of the reasons why he has not achieved half of what he would have achieved has to be blamed on Raila Odinga whom many say did not allow the old man to rule and work for Kenyans in peace. I partially agree with that sentiment but also marvel at how a man who hated politicking so much would rise to the most powerful office in the land still a novice on the basics of a political dog fight.
Mr President, Kumekucha wishes you a happy peaceful retirement and would like to thank you for what you were able to do under rather trying circumstances. Let history be the judge.
You are also bound to enjoy reading…
Cashing in on Uhuru’s troubles
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Posted by kumekucha at 3:34 AM 6 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: How will the Kibaki presidency be remembered? Evolution of Kibaki and Moi working relationship
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Guess Who Will Gain Most From Uhuru’s Troubles?
Uhuru pictured with childhood sweetheart/best friend/now wife, Margaret. Kenyatta’s candidacy for the presidency is way too emotional for Kenya’s good.
The big question that many Kenyans are asking themselves this morning is; what dark forces have such control over presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta that they can get him to do exactly what they want? Are these dark forces from another country? Or possibly outer space? (LOL!!!)
The second question nobody is asking but is terribly important is what was Musalia Mudavadi’s motive for letting the cat out of the bag? It would appear that he is cutting his own feet by making public something so sensitive. Now why would he want to do that? Surely he must have known that his announcement will sound a death blow to a pact that some think would have landed him in State house.
One of my Kumekucha raw notes subscribers sent me a very angry email recently. He was wondering why I am always writing about State house this and State house that. “Don’t you have anything else to write about?” Another of my subscribers mockingly wrote to me pointing to a report I had written about the inner circles of TNA wanting to go for a rookie candidate for Uhuru’s running mate. “Ruto cannot be described as a rookie by any stretch of the English language…” they told me.
My raw notes subscribers do not pay me to sit down and create theories or go to bars to listen to gossip and then rehash that info. They pay for insider information and I always focus on giving them exactly that. It is NOT about me being proved right or wrong. Those with a little experience in the game of politics will know that it is usually very fluid and it will get more so as we head closer to the general elections. My work is to tell you what is happening and sometimes what’s taking place now may lead people to end up in a very different destination. Does that mean I was wrong telling you what was going on then?
After what has happened in the last few days, I hope it is now clear why I have been seemingly “obsessed” with State house. That is where Kenyan politics is being driven from at the moment. I don’t like it any more than you do but that happens to be the reality. I just laugh when people come up with all kinds of fancy, clever theories and analysis of what is going on. And some of these people are senior political reporters in leading newspapers.
The dark forces forcing Uhuru into making pacts are not from Mars. Try a well guarded address along State house Road, Nairobi. Why would Mudavadi cut his own feet and make public a secret pact? Try the same address as above for the answer. For now don’t ask me why, because I am still digging around to answer that puzzling million shilling question.
What beats me is why anybody would have thought for one minute that Uhuru stepping down for Mudavadi would deliver the Kikuyu vote lock sock and barrel to Mudavadi. Why it puzzles me is because I know the people running the presidential campaigns from State house are very smart people. But what the hell were they thinking?
Uhuru Kenyatta’s votes are NOT transferable to anybody not even to wildly popular Father Christmas himself.
In my view it is unfair for politicians to say that the Kikuyu have a bad habit of never voting for anybody other than their own and trying to apply that to our current political situation.
Let me tell you a little story. I like to ask questions constantly. Indeed I am always asking questions when I talk to people. When others are busy showing how clever and knowledgeable they are I am always asking questions and sometimes seemingly stupid questions.
The big question I have been asking is how did Uhuru grow so popular so suddenly? I have asked that question a million times in forums, villages, cities and everywhere. But those who know have been too ashamed to reveal the truth. Finally I discovered it just a few days ago.
In all the Kikuyu-bashing that has been going on most Kenyans have forgotten that the community which suffered the most and indeed has suffered like no other community on the entire continent of Africa are our dear Kikuyu brothers and sisters. Imagine a situation where you are a prosperous land owner one day employing thousands of farm hands and the very next day you are begging for food or sleeping with a sweaty smelly old man for cash to buy food at some IDP camp. Would you blame any community for getting terribly emotional?
Uhuru Kenyatta being charged at the ICC to the simple Kikuyu people on the ground is grave injustice. The people on the ground are saying; “They raped and plundered us and then they go and charge us for crimes against humanity letting off the aggressor lightly where the ring leaders ought to have been locked up and the key thrown in the middle of the Indian Ocean or even better the Atlantic.”
Uhuru Kenyatta is that kind of emotional candidate and that is the reason why the ICC arresting him just now would cause serious trouble on the ground.
Some Kumekucha readers read what a Mwangi or Kamau is saying in social forums and they assume that maybe Uhuru is not that popular. They forget that some of the people saying they will not vote for Uhuru hail from filthy rich families in Kiambu. But the political reality is that on a small plot of 20 x 50 somewhere in Kiambu there are no less than 100 registered voters all saying, no Uhuru no voting while in the elitist families who read Kumekucha that is just the size of their swimming pool in a household with maybe 3 registered voters.
But having said that, for better or worse Uhuru’s candidature for the presidency is a train headed for a place called nowhere. He is a non-starter for the ballot even before the recent troubles. For the simple reason that the world is getting more serious about those whom they view as having committed crimes against humanity.
So where does that leave us? I will discuss this in the next post but let me give you a hint. For better or worse it suddenly makes one Peter Kenneth a very serious contender for the presidency.
This post is dedicated to my very good lady friend in the UK who wrote the following email to me this morning; “Chris , yu said it. Things are turning out funny. these politicians are so shameless. This Mungatana guy has suddenly become their spokesman. What a shame. Please fill me in with the latest. This is just like a movie. It can only happen in Kenya.”
You will also enjoy reading shocking revelations in the following articles;
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Posted by kumekucha at 2:34 AM 6 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Jubilee alliance troubles, why is Uhuru Kenyatta so popular?
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Fugitives of the International Criminal Court Flocking Together
Now that members of the so called Jubilee Alliance are so obsessed with contradicting Prime Minister Raila Odinga and working overdrive to act exact counter to any political step he takes, Kenyans are anxiously waiting for their next move to counter Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s gracing of ODM’s historic National Delegates Convention last week .
We expect them to be inviting Zimbabwean dictator Dr. Robert Mugabe to be chief guest during their unveiling of their joint presidential candidate after the coming pre-determined nomination exercise between the two deputy Prime Ministers: – Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi.
Kenyans won’t be shocked if the other guest of honor will be Sudan’s Gen. Omar al Bashir, the well known ICC fugitive.
And talking of delegates, when did the URP (bank rolled by William Ruto) or UDF (bank rolled by Kibaki’s kitchen cabinet), or even TNA (bankrolled by Kenyatta family) ever conduct grassroot elections to elect delegates that they are purportedly preparing to mobilise to select a presidential candidate? And why is URP’s position as running mate locked and not open to democratic competition? See the mockery of democracy?
Of interest will be the main speeches. Observers are waiting with baited breath to see Dr. Mugabe urging them to be confident he will help them once in power on how to cling on to power next year if the Western powers decide to slap Kenyan with sanctions.
We can foresee an arrogant Dr. Mugabe advising the Jubilee coalition to organize in advance how to kick out European farmer, tourists, diplomats and investors, who are nothing but agents of neo-colonialists out to exploit Kenyans. He will urge Kenyans to prepare to be eating and surviving on one meal per day during the Jubilee presidency.
Of course he won’t fail to advice them strongly to revive the old special Branch, secret police units and violent youth groups to deploy regularly to protect the Jubilee presidency from the opposition who, he says are on the payroll of the colonialists. Kenyans are eager to listen to Gen. Al Bashir’s speech a speech that will plead with Kenyan voters to vote in the Jubilee Alliance, and especially the two ICC suspects so that Kenya and Sudan can form a confederation (Political Union) as a free region detached from the new International order, including the United Nations and the ICC.
It will be delirious to hear him promise to bankroll the Jubilee Alliance’s presidential candidate to ensure maximum victory. But many will be left wondering why if he is so moneyed why he has grabbed rich oil wells from the poor southern Sudanese neighbors.
May be the two great guests of the Jubilee Alliance will sign a “Nairobi declaration” with Jubilee Alliance’s Principal Uhuru Kenyatta to be prepared 24/7 to offer any of them sanctuary and political assylum in the event he is toppled by restless masses reacting to high inflation and humanitarian crisis.
Kenyans should be getting psychologically prepared to usher in a government on March 4,2013 whose chief advisors will be Dr. Mugabe and Gen. Omar El Bashir.
Posted by Phil at 1:38 AM 15 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Club of Impunity
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Some of the things that Kumekucha does in his spare time: Kumekucha enjoys satellite TV on two continents including Direct TV
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A number of powerful individuals, some with good connections at State House, and who have all along been silently backing Musalia Mudavadi’s presidential bid are reportedly considering settling on Party of Action (POA) leader Raphael Tuju. The power brokers are said to be unhappy with the way things are going with the Mudavadi venture and are now seriously considering another plan-that of now zeroing on the former Information and Communication minister.
Kenyans See the Italian Mafia’s Hand in Worsening Drug Trade
By Brian Dabbs
Italian migrants started moving to the sunny Kenyan coast in the 1980s, but now locals say the country’s infamous criminal element has come with them, spreading drugs and prostitution to a place that already had plenty.
Angelo Ricci, a member of Kenya’s Italian community, listens as a Kenyan judges announces his still-controversial acquittal on 2,500 pounds of cocaine that had been trafficked into the country. (AP)
MALINDI, Kenya — In the days since Paul Gitau’s July 2nd article circulated through the streets of Malindi, a Kenyan coastal town 80 miles north of Mombasa, the 30-year-old journalist has kept his head on a swivel. He sticks to crowded areas. He uses alternate phone lines when discussing his whereabouts or sensitive issues. Two security guards — independently hired — guard his home from evening until morning.
Gitau had anticipated the backlash. His article, originally published in the local County Weekly, exposed Malindi’s underworld of drug trafficking, prostitution rackets, money laundering, and a for-hire service to harbor international fugitives, all within the Kenyan city’s large Italian community.
At ten in the morning on the day of publication, Gitau’s expectations proved correct with an ominous phone call from a local Italian investor.
“We have formed a committee and we have met to deal with the author. Tomorrow we can meet and, if you cooperate with us, you will be safe,” the man told him, as Gitau recounted to me in a one-room office in Malindi, the town’s lone newsroom shared by all the local outlets.
Gitau was spinning. He talked with friends, contacted a lawyer, reported the matter to the police, delivered statements, and requested protection, which he didn’t get. The Italian still hasn’t called back.
When it comes to organized crime in Kenya, corruption is often not far behind. Stories about bribing police, or even government officials, are common. When I asked Kiprono Langat, the officer in charge of the Malindi Police Department, to comment on Italian crime in the area, he refused. But he did give me a wry smile when he denied that Gitau’s report had been filed.
Gitau was unsurprised when I told him what the police chief had said. “The same person that is supposed to be protecting me says he doesn’t know about the report,” he fumed, conspiratorial as ever. “That means he’s an interested party.”
Documentation of the Italian criminal network on the Kenyan coast is relatively scant, but the international community is starting to take notice. U.S. diplomats, in a 2005 cable later released by WikiLeaks, reported that “Some long-term resident Italians are evidently involved” in drug trafficking here, which they say is “skyrocketing.” The Kenyan coast suffers from endemic poverty, poor infrastructure, and the neglect of the central government. The Italian community, though relatively young, plays a critical role in the local economy. It might be dirty money, but it’s still money, and for better or worse it’s dramatically changed the way of life in what was once a conservative and devoutly Muslim fishing village.
“If the high season is underway, the economy is booming. The buying power for the common man is very good,” said Mansour Naji Said, who’s owned a hotel here since 1989, referring to the tourist months from July to October and January to March. “The poverty level here is high. All the people in the town, from the fisherman to the tour guide, earn well when the Italians are here. They won’t look at the negative impact.”
Italians first began flocking to Malindi in the 1980s. They swept up nearly all of the prime real estate; a construction boom followed a decade later. Several thousand Italians currently live year-round in the palatial villas and cottage communities around town. During the high seasons, there can be about 30,000, according to figures compiled by Malindi’s Italian consulate.
Head of the consulate Roberto Macri dismissed the accusations of criminal activities in the Italian community but admitted that he’d heard reports of mafia involvement after the 1990s construction wave. But he said the Italian migration to Kenya was straightforward: prices are cheap and the country is beautiful.
“They thought they found an Eden in Africa,” Macri told me, taking on a mystical tone. “Financially, their dreams could materialize very easily compared to Italy.”
In the areas along the Kenyan coast near Malindi, virtually all of the available beachfront real estate is commonly believed to be owned by Italians. Italian Formula One icon Flavio Briatore, who while no mafioso was convicted in the 1980s of gambling-related fraud charges and was forced off of his F1 team over a 2008 race-fixing scandal, is currently building a Billionaires Club resort adjacent to the Malindi Marine National Park. Italians have constructed over four thousand homes and villas along the beach and on second row plots.
Much of that real estate has been purchased and developed in completely lawful ways. Those businesses now provide jobs that put food on the table for countless Kenyans. Most Italians in Malindi are in no way affiliated with criminal activity on any level. Local community leaders are quick to point out that any Italians involved in drug trafficking or prostitution are a subset of the larger, law-abiding community.
“The big percentage of Italian investment is legal and has helped us very much.
We have a good number of them who are doing a good job here, uplifting life through investment,” said Bishop Thomas Kakala of Malindi’s Jesus Care Center Church, pointing out that Italian locals have helped orphans relocate to Italy to make new lives there. “We recognize that. We have many Italian friends. It is not the whole community.”
For all the local suspicions — which can sometimes verge on conspiracy theory — their accusations can be difficult or impossible to confirm, and no one has yet demonstrated a link between criminal activity in Kenya and Italian mafia families. But there’s also been no real investigation, either, which is remarkable in itself since even U.S. diplomats in the area apparently consider the accusations to be credible. Kenyan police arrested two Italians in Malindi in connection with a 2004 cocaine seizure worth an estimated $6.25 million, one of several high-profile drug busts in the country over recent years that have entrenched local suspicions. Still, it’s also extremely difficult to determine whether or not criminal activity in the region is increasing.
For a drug trafficker of any nationality, the geographic appeal of coastal Kenya is obvious; a porous transit point between Latin American producers and international markets. And Kenyan corruption, as well as the almost non-existent security along the coast, make it an attractive spot for illicit trades.
“That’s the way the typical narcotics trade works … getting it from the producing areas to the biggest markets while trying to evade security,” said John Dickie, professor of Italian Studies at University College London.
“The obvious thing for them to do is go to where security isn’t functioning well,” he added. “It has more to do with that than geographical locations.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime claimed last year the Kenyan coast is increasingly used as a transit hub for narcotics on the global circuit. In response, the U.S. government is planning to train anti-narcotics forces in Kenya, according to the New York Times.
“We know Malindi is used as a headquarters of transporting heroin to other countries. The Italians are involved,” insisted Pamau Mohamed, Chairman of the Coast Community Anti-Drug Coalition, a local group that advocates against drug use and tries to inform authorities of incoming consignments and connects addicts to rehabilitation clinics. “There are so many people we know about working with drugs here but people can’t discuss them. It’s very risky. Some are working with [members of parliament] and ministers. They are involved strongly in this area.” Like many people I spoke to, he had strong accusations but little or no proof, and native Kenyans are of course necessarily involved in the drug trade, meaning that the presence of drugs is not proof of any Italian connection.
James Kitau is a local contractor who says he’s worked with almost every construction firm in the area since moving to Malindi in 1976. He says he he’s seen homes with secure communication satellite links and underwater tunnels that feed into palatial homes, he suspects to allow small vessels to enter the properties undetected.
“They have speedboats. They bring drugs in mixing it with other goods. They import it through the sea,” said Kitau.
Traditionally, law enforcement officials and mafia researchers have focused on West Africa, not East African countries such as Kenya, as a conduit for drugs imported from Latin America to Europe. And Turkey has historically been the major route into the lucrative European markets from heroin producing areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. But, as international enforcement focuses more on those well-worn routes, the Kenyan coast might seem more attractive to traffickers.
Mafia expert Federico Varese, author of Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories, says that East Africa is just emerging as a criminal hub. He suggests that Malindi would provide an ideal environment for another chief mafia revenue generator: money laundering.
“Traditionally, there is a lot of Italian tourism there in Malindi,” said Varese. “[Criminal networks] need to invest in profitable businesses, many times abroad. They do it in communities that they know … where they have friends and shady financial advisors.”
Many Italians have been staying in the country illegally for extended periods of time but government officials that seek to mete out lawful punishment to the fugitives face consequences. According to Julius Kobia, who used to be Malindi’s Immigration deputy officer in charge of investigation and prosecution, some Italians live here without proper visas, sometimes to avoid criminal charges back in Italy. As the 2005 U.S. diplomatic cable reported, “One Italian living openly in Malindi is facing a thirty year Italian prison sentence — if only Kenya would extradite him. Other Europeans sought on drug charges have similarly avoided extradition by political payoffs and protection. Malindi service is said to be so profitable that”
Kobia recalled his 2009 and 2010 campaign to apprehend and repatriate an Italian fugitive named De Caro Giovvani, wanted on criminal charges in Italy and sought by Interpol, Giovvani had been living in Kenya without a visa since 1992.
Kobia says that Giovvani approached him and offered a bribe. The immigration officer refused to drop his investigation, but his bosses later transferred him. He was reassigned, he believes as punishment from his bosses for pursuing the well-connected Giovvani, from his respectable job to a shift supervisor in Mombasa’s Moi International Airport.
“I refused to follow his line,” Kobia fumed, blaming Giovvani. “He wanted to compromise me. All the security services were under his control. They used to get cuts from him so he was untouchable.” Still, he was able to continue his work on the case — a high-level connection allowed him to keep on it from his new job in Mombasa, he half-explained. A few weeks ago, Giovvani was successfully repatriated to Italy.
“There are some criminals in Malindi that have relationships with senior policemen or political figures,” Kobia added. “When you touch them, you touch a live wire.”
Prostitution is a thriving industry in Malindi, as a 2006 UN study documented. Local health advocates say that Italian-run prostitution rackets sometimes coordinate sending local Kenyan women and men to the European sex industry.
“Many are promised other jobs. Then, after they arrive, they are told there are none. Their passports are taken and they’re forced into the sex industry,” said one former male sex worker, now a HIV/AIDS and sex abuse advocate. “Some are successful and return with lots of money. Some disappear. We’ve heard they’re dead,” He asked to remain anonymous over fears of reprisal from the local, conservative Muslim community.
In many parts of Malindi, Kiswahili has become a secondary language after Italian. During the sun-soaked days, Italian men ply the roads with Vespas. Italian markets sell salami, wine, and cheese. At night, the pimps ply their European clientele for business. Geriatric Italian men mingle with young Kenyan women in the countless bars and resorts, buying drinks, getting physical, and celebrating with Italian friends.
To the extent that there is a criminal subset within the larger, law-abiding Italian community, they’re exacerbating the larger “Kenyan-Italian tensions,” as the WikiLeaks cable described them, reinforcing negative Kenyan stereotypes of Italians and leading locals to associate the wealthy Europeans with something more nefarious.
“I don’t want to generalize but I’d have to say most of the Italians here are involved in drugs or the sex industry,” said the sex abuse advocate, probably unfairly. “And when they leave here, they leave their footprints. Lives are ruined.”
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/kenyans-see-the-italian-mafias-hand-in-worsening-drug-trade/260508/
Mr. Ngatia you always succeed in your messages because you speak your mind without fear about these evil politicians and their actions.
UK envoy’s speech on Kenyan corruption
Text of a speech made by UK High Commissioner to Kenya Edward Clay to a group of UK businessmen, as passed to the BBC by the High Commission:
Corruption: my major theme, inevitably, given the prominence the subject currently enjoys.
Why does it matter? After all, against a World Bank figure of US$1 trillion spent on bribes each year, Kenya perhaps accounts for only $800 million or so, annually, since the 2002 election.
It’s pretty staggering to think bribes were worth about 3% of world GDP at the time of the study I’ve just mentioned. But it is outrageous to think that corruption accounts here and now in Kenya for about 8% of Kenya’s GDP.
The science is not exact, but I think the message is clear: Kenya, which scores low on almost every indicator that matters these days, has a burden of corruption that is large compared to its people’s diminishing wealth. It is using up its own quota of 3%, plus also the unused quotas of Finland or perhaps all of Scandinavia.
‘Patriotism’
What business is it of ours? It was only a matter of time before somebody piped up with the old saw ‘keep yourself out of our domestic business’.
There was such a columnist in Sunday’s ‘Nation’ who wrote “Any patriotic Kenyan should get offended when a group of foreigners criticise the same institutions we criticise”.
So it seems that a truly patriotic citizen is one who has to defend those who abuse his ideas of right and wrong, whom he may have voted for or accepted his/her authority as legitimate, simply because they share a citizenship in common.
Behind such patriotism, an army of scoundrels could find refuge. The institution we are criticising, in case the writer has not noticed, is corruption.
Well, corruption isn’t just the business of Kenyans. This country extended to outsiders the promises it made to its own people in respect of governance. Tackling corruption was one of the pillars of the understandings they reached with development partners which saw Kenya go back ‘on track’.
We are one of the partners to those understandings. When they are broken we feel let down. And we are invited to channel funds into a government which cannot be relied upon to spend money properly, on the basis of proper authorisations, for the purposes for which it was voted. So I feel disappointed; but I also feel outraged on behalf of a country I feel an affinity for. Why?
Kenya is not a rich country in terms of large oil deposits, diamonds or some other buffer which might featherbed a thorough-going culture of corruption. What it chiefly has is its people – their intelligence, work ethic, education, entrepreneurial and other skills. That is what we mean when we talk of Kenya’s potential ability to regain its diminishing economic and other leadership in the region.
But those assets will be lost if they are not managed, rewarded well and properly led. One day we may wake up at the end of this gigantic looting spree to find Kenya’s potential is all behind us and it is a land of lost opportunity.
Corruption and poverty
It isn’t the most corrupt country in the world: Transparency International in 2003 reckoned there were ten worse countries including Angola, Myanmar (Burma), Haiti, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
It is, however, behind Uganda, well behind Tanzania, and even behind Libya, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries we’d much less like to live in.
A World Bank report in 1997 showed a clear negative correlation between the level of corruption, as perceived by business people, and both investment and economic growth. Where corruption was highest and the predictability of payments and outcomes lowest, investment averaged 12.3% of GDP; where corruption was low and predictability high, the ratio was 28.5%.
The same research shows that countries which reduce corruption and improve their rule of law can increase their national income by four times over a long run and reduce child mortality by as much as 75%.
The other negative impacts of corruption include aggravating income inequality and poverty; lowering investment and retarding growth; reducing the volume and effectiveness of development assistance; discouraging domestic saving; bent procurement processes leading to low quality infrastructure; increasing and unpredictable transaction costs; and, of course, the deviations involved in selecting national priorities not on the basis of the Economic Recovery Strategy but on the basis of what pays well in hidden kickbacks which can be concealed somehow in the national budget.
All of these features are present in Kenya’s case, as I think you could testify.
Progress
Perhaps the most insidious thing is that, spreading from the top and the inside of government outwards, a culture of corruption has spread itself throughout the country. There must be few and fortunate Kenyans who do not believe that exploiting a relationship, or proffering ‘kitu kidogo’ or having some illegitimate inside track is absolutely essential to getting some ordinary public service, on top of paying whatever the fee is and meeting whatever the legal requirements are.
Last year, we all applauded the legal framework established to try to squeeze corruption and the culture of corruption out of government. We approved of the creation of the Office of Governance and Ethics and the appointment of its Permanent Secretary, responsible to and enjoying the full authority of the President.
Now, there has been progress, undoubtedly. The institutions enjoy some credibility: we ourselves have reported cases occurring within the High Commission which appear to involve attempted fraud and soliciting for bribes. At a low level, there has been some impact: Transparency International noted this year that the public reported fewer cases of petty bribery; but an increase in the size of each bribe solicited.
Right now it is grand corruption which fills the headlines. As Goldenberg draws towards the end of its hearings, the list of the previously great and good mentioned one way or another is impressive. Yet now it is the corruption of the present government which needs more urgently to be addressed.
‘Gluttons’
We never expected corruption to be vanquished overnight. We all implicitly recognised that some would be carried over to the new era. We hoped it would not be rammed in our faces. But it has: evidently the practitioners now in government have the arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons.
They may expect we shall not see, or notice, or will forgive them a bit of gluttony because they profess to like OXFAM lunches. But they can hardly expect us not to care when their gluttony causes them to vomit all over our shoes; do they really expect us to ignore the lurid and mostly accurate details conveyed in the commendably free media and pursued by a properly-curious parliament?
The worst feature of the last year has been the repeated attempts to undermine the effectiveness of the Office of Governance and Ethics. This was established under a figure of high standing, to crack grand corruption. It was to enjoy the full backing of the President’s authority, and its boss was to have direct access to the President.
Efforts to kneecap this body culminated in the announcement, apparently in error, on 30 June that it was to be removed from the Office of the President and placed under the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. The ‘decision’, whoever made it, seems to have been reversed within 48 hours of being made.
Two consecutive decisions within a period of days, one in contradiction of the other, suggested a lack of consistency on a most important matter, or a lack of proper sense of direction, or perhaps an effort at sabotage.
Hot air
But the circumstances prompted the EU and a group of other donors to make public statements of protest. This second group, including the US, Canada and us, followed up a joint call they had made on the President on 3 June with a joint letter, accurately précised in the press. We shall be doing more. I have spoken twice to the Head of the Civil Service in the last 3 weeks, once alone and once with some other donors.
I am still trying to get rid of a sense of guilt: he made me feel I was foolish and misled. He is perhaps trying to whistle up his courage, aware that we know a lot, but perhaps uneasily aware that he does not know just how much we know; equally, he will be aware that we know how much he knows and wonder why more energetic action is not being taken on the strength of what he already knows or suspects.
The facts are – although we cannot be precise about the numbers, they are likely to be an underestimate than otherwise – that the new corruption entered into by this government may be worth around Shs 15 billion ($188m) a bit less than the World Bank’s funding of the Mombasa-Malaba road; a bit more than what [Health Minister] Charity Ngilu expects to get from the Global Fund for tackling malaria); the continuation of old corruption inherited from the last government might be Shs 80 billion.
So we are clear what the magnitude of those figures represents, let us look at the first of the two notorious contracts with… a shadowy company with links to an address in Liverpool, with links to Kenyans, not registered in either Britain or Switzerland, incapable of commissioning a garden shed and discovered never to have delivered anything more than drawings more or less on the back of an envelope, and hot air:
Just the first contract with them is about equivalent to what the European Commission might consider giving to Kenya over three years by way of budgetary support – Euros 125 million.
The value of the Shs 15 billion corrupt deals originated and negotiated under the present government would also buy 1,000 Mercedes S350s: keep your eyes open for them and their drivers (or more interesting, passengers).
Fund the construction of 15,000 odd new classrooms (just under half the number the Ministry of Education says it needs): but I doubt it’s worth the trouble your trying to spot them.
Donor fatigue
You need to love this country very much to work to make your business so successful that you can contemplate so much of its earnings being looted by the servants of the state and their friends, and possibly even some of your own friends.
But there is worse to come. Shs 80 billion is the estimated value of old crooked business corruptly carried forward in the 18 months since NARC took office. Mr Mwiraria allocated in his budget for next year a shade more than that (Shs 86 billion) for development; he banked on over half of that coming from donors. I doubt it will: the longer the government fumbles its response to corruption and tries to protect the high officers involved, the less likely the Minister’s gamble on the donors’ generosity is likely to pay off.
Or you might say that if Kenya’s governance was less corrupt he could afford to pay his own development budget, and not come to donors cap in hand and with fingers crossed. Kenya remains, after all, a country relatively less dependent on donors than its neighbours.
To put it more constructively, he could have a much larger development budget: Kenya’s own contribution and one of matching size from development partners glad to help defeat poverty in support of a government in whose policies and practices they had confidence.
These are all big sums. The comparisons of the opportunity costs they represent are staggering.
Some allegedly sober people have reproached the media for being ‘sensational’ in building up these scandals. Such calls for media responsibility are usually a way of covering up threats. The fact is there would have been no disclosure had it not been for the press. It is the truths they have laid bare that are sensational and they need no dressing up.
If the investigations went on and appropriate action followed, we might say that corruption was deplorable, we were sorry it was still going on, but we accepted Kenya was still fighting and winning the battle and that government was genuine in its efforts. Evidence that would be persuasive would be prosecutions; and the standing aside of those names recently mentioned in connection with the current investigations until those inquiries have been completed.
However, the signs are otherwise. The old dragon has turned on its tormentors just as used to happen in the previous regime: veiled threats at the media, who should behave ‘responsibly’; real red-blooded threats to fix, nobble or even damage those who want to investigate the corrupters; statements whitewashing in a pedantic, lawyerly way those who were not involved in one deal when investigations- not under the control of the Head of the Civil Service – were still under way to find out who else was involved in some way, which is much more fascinating.
And at the same time, the corrupt are still cutting deals like there was no tomorrow.
‘King’s breakfast’
Perhaps your new newsletter should run a competition inviting readers to name those they are confident are not involved: the answers could surely go on a postcard or possibly a postage stamp.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3893625.stm
Published: 2004/07/14 12:08:32 GMT
Poor Kimaiyo finds himself armed with crown but no power. Because he has the wrong DNA, he should chill for the next 60+ days. Kimemia cannot stand him at OP because he will be forced to speak in a foreign tongue.
Kibaki’s 10 year legacy, while all major TV channels were airing hour long documentaries on the same, onstesibly to showcase the so called achievements of President Kibaki’s 10 years in office.
Few were convinced.
Lipstick on a pig doesn’t make the pig something else. A pig is a pig. Kibaki’s record is his record…a colossal failure to lead…failure to unite…failure to stabilize…and failure to progress. Only success at fleecing public resources…and entrenching institutionalized tribalism.
Tribalism, insecurity, runaway corruption, the Great Somali Migration into Kenya & terrorism, PEV, extrajudicial assassinations, drug and gun smuggling, the Artur brothers, a rogue police force, impunity, impunity, and impunity ain’t anything to write home about. This fella delayed Kenya’s takeoff by years. It’s a dark legacy. Even former Kibaki stalwart Martha Karua has rated impunity under Kibaki worse than the Moi era impunity – a very fair assessment!
This goes down in history as the only regime that opened its paramilitary barracks (& uniforms and guns) for PEV operations to kill its own citizens…blood-chilling things that Kenyans previously only read about regarding Idi Amin’s Uganda. Talking about lopsided development is an understatement regarding the Kibaki era.
If roads were built, they weren’t the priority roads for the nation (Msa-Malaba or Msa-Busia border). If donor funds were restored, most ended up in non-prosecuted corruption. If relations were established with the East, it only brought a flooding of cheap counterfeit goods into our market (with simultaneous smuggling of our exotic resources). Where FPE or AIDS fund were introduced, cash cows were established for connected bureaucrats. Every noble idea was hijacked by the mafia.
10 years under Kibaki saddled the country with hundreds of billions more in debt…for the Anglo Leasings, Ken Rens, and massive transfer of public wealth into the hands of a few greedy oligarchs (the Trans Century looters)…from our Railways, our Ports, Tana Land, Airport Land, Telecommunications, Grand Regency, Oil Refineries, and almost all other public entities….all skewed to Kibaki’s cronies and connected & corrupt foreign oligarchs.
These dirty deals leave outstanding debts that Kenyans and their children WILL BE paying into future…paying for the transfer of public wealth into the hands of a few well-connected thieves aka the Shetani crew (as per Uhuru).
That same enriched shetani crew is now diving the country politically, slicing and dividing voters, in readiness to perpetuate their stranglehold on the country’s resources. After robbing the poor of all their resources (public assets and land), their next agenda is to milk from the budding middle class.
Kibaki has deliberately timed his exit with yet another resounding warning to landlords who have worked so hard (sometimes in distant lands) to invest in real estate. The handpicked KRA boss (Njiraini) is now arm-twisting tenants (starting 2013) to issue personal details of their landlords for future assessment of more taxes – to be looted by the greedy lot. It’s not as if we are not already paying annual property taxes and land rates! The fraudster in Kibaki wants such misguided economic policies to be effected under the legacy of subsequent President…to justify his current massive borrowing under taxpayers name. Talk of an experienced thief!
Yet another of Kibaki’s dark legacy is the blurring of state matters with private financial concerns (ala the hanky-panky between Equity, CBA, Family Bank, Coop Bank & CBK), dalliances which depreciated the Kenya shilling massively. Illegal overnight borrowing from CBK’s discount window has minted a few Kibaki-crony billionaires.
Kibaki and friends at Equity Bank even get to collect Tourism revenues at Kenya’s biggest tourist attraction – Maasai Mara Park. Who the heck is going to know how much cash in reality came in, or how many tourist visitors checked in? They might as well report that no tourists came this year? Ama? These people think Kenyans are a bunch of idiots to be fooled and robbed from mercilessly without consequences. Mta do? That’s their attitude.
Right now as we speak, Uhuru Kenyatta’s banking concern, Commercial bank of Africa (CBA) has been parachuted a multi-billion shilling deal to be the official Shylock of ordinary Kenyans under a program disguised as – the MShwari savings and loan product (mooted along the MPESA model) – with collaboration with Safaricom. This 7.5% interest loan SHARK mooted under Kenyatta’s tenure as Finance Minister, will virtually wipe out SACCO societies.
Kenyatta wants to mop up all little change from struggling Kenyans using the State as business anchor. After all that is how they get all their businesses…all tied to the state one way or another…if not supplying VW Passats to the government, loaning Treasury at exorbitant profits, or hosting public bureaucrats in non-essential seminars at their five star resorts. Isn’t this the real reason why they won’t let go the Presidency and levers of State?
If not thinking how to fleece Treasury… its how to fleece unsuspecting investors (toxic stocks at NSE with crooked brokers stealing investor cash and getting away scot free)…fleecing investors of their life savings at Syokimau…or fleecing folks with pyramid schemes…and now Uhuru plotting to rob jua kali traders with his Mshwari toxic loan….This is one freaking rotten and distressing legacy….as has been the last Jubilee.. It has to give way!!!!!!
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Posted by Phil at 10:18 AM 6 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Deception Galore
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Why I Will Not Vote For Any President
The behavior of Kenyan voters is also akin to the man who goes out for a drink in a bar full of prostitutes with too much make up. One blacker-than-the-darkest-night woman chooses to use scarlet red lipstick and looks like something out of a Hollywood horror movie… By the time the man’s watch says it is 2 am all the women and especially the dark-black-complexion-in-red-lipstick woman look like angels…
In Kenya it is now 2 am
Come March 4th and I will NOT vote any of the clowns thus far before us. I am through with this story of voting for the lesser evil which is what I have done in past elections.
If you look at the leading contenders for the Kenyan presidency not a single one of them is qualified for the highest office in the land so much so that we have no business even discussing their merits and de-merits. Opinion polls show that a man who has been an equal partner of the irresponsible slow-to-act-no-security-in-the-country government of the last 5 years is set to be elected. Close in his heels in the polls is an ICC suspect… and I can go on and on.
Regular readers of Kumekucha will know that I have a simple but effective system for gauging the mood on the ground and I can tell you that Kenyans are very much in an election mood. The problem is the vast majority have stopped thinking.
We Kenyans have a very serious problem when it comes to election time, we usually stop thinking and start behaving very strangely indeed. Only to start complaining about bad leadership just a few months down the road when the honeymoon is over and the clowns we have elected have to actually get down to the work of being our leaders.
Let me illustrate this for you a little more vividly. The old dukawallas (Asian shopkeepers) of Kenya were always a very disciplined lot and that is how most ended up making so much money. They used to have a saying that went like this;
Mboro simama akili potea
For those who don’t know Swahili it simply means that when a certain part of the male anatomy is gorged with blood (to be more specific the tool that ensures that you do not go six feet under without leaving heirs to your property or stupidity) you stop thinking.
This rather crude saying is loaded with truth because we all know how most people start behaving when that part of their body is gorged with blood. They forget that the object of their desire is their best friends’ wife or the age mate of their mother. The brain literally stops functioning momentarily and all reasoning flies out of the window. That’s where Kenyan voters are right now.
As you read this my information is that there are major erections in Central province over Uhuru Kenyatta. The same is happening in Nyanza over one Raila Odinga.
The behavior of Kenyan voters is also akin to the man who goes out for a drink in a bar full of prostitutes with too much make up. One blacker-than-the-darkest-night woman chooses to use scarlet red lipstick and looks like something out of a Hollywood horror movie. As the man sips his first beer he can hardly look at the ugly things. A few drinks later the very same ladies start looking very attractive, even sexy. By the time the man’s watch says it is 2 am all the women and especially the dark-black-complexion-in-red-lipstick woman look like angels.
When the man wakes up the next morning he finds that he had unprotected sex with somebody he cannot even look at without rushing to the bathroom to throw up.
In Kenya it is now 2 am. People who are known to be crooks have suddenly evolved into viable and even attractive presidential candidates. 3 months after the election it will be the next morning and we will find that we have elected the usual suspects to take us through another 5 years of hell on earth. The difference between Kenyan voters and the man who woke up next to the horror-movie-woman is that he will quickly leave the hotel room. We Kenyan voters will have to remain in that hotel room throwing up regularly in the toilet for 5 long years. Just think about that.
I am well aware of the fact that what I am doing here is akin to playing a guitar for a goat. Nobody wants to listen when there is all the excitement about the upcoming elections.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with a close friend and she told me that in 2007 she voted Kenneth Matiba and so when Kenyans were complaining about the very leaders they elected she had a clear conscience and could live with her decisions.
The truth is that I have no idea how most Kenyans live with their election decisions. Why should anybody elect any of the leading contenders for the presidency and then complain about corruption. How???
How do you keep a venomous snake in your house and then complain that it bit your children? Does that make any sense? Somebody please help me understand.
We are now at the eleventh hour and unless some miracle happens and somebody worthy stands for the president I am not voting for any presidential candidate and my ballot paper will remain blank in that particular category. That is the only way I can look at myself in the mirror for the next five years and continue to write posts here with a clear conscience.
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Posted by kumekucha at 6:57 AM 4 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: I am not voting for president
Friday, December 21, 2012
Crime Escalates In Kenya As Naïve Decision Makers Continue To Bark Up The Wrong Trees
David Kimaiyo: Kenya’s first inspector general who incidentally was director of operations at police headquarters at the height of the post election troubles in 2008. Fighting crime should not be left to the police and he is doomed to fail if the next administration approches crime in the same manner as the Kibaki administration did.
A few days ago a Matatu headed to Eastleigh was hijacked by six smartly dressed gunmen who robbed all the passengers of cash and cell phones.
As I write this post, this incident has yet to be reported anywhere in the local media.
There are a number of interesting things we need to point out about this latest incident. Firstly it happened in broad daylight (at about 2 pm). Secondly the fact that they picked a matatu headed for Nairobi’s “Mogadishu” Estate was no accident. These matatus are usually packed with traders from Nairobi and indeed all over the country headed to popular wholesale venues like “Garissa Lodge” and others where all kinds of items whose import tax and duty has not been paid can be obtained very cheaply thus assuring retailers a handsome profit. They are usually carrying huge sums of cash and it is not unrealistic for robbers to get Kshs 1 million or more from a single matatu headed to Eastleigh. What that means is that anybody hijacking a matatu on this particular route is bound to make off with a very hefty sum of cash. As opposed to robbing a No 8 Matatu headed to the sprawling Kibera slums for instance.
What should really worry Kenyans here is whether the country has gone back to the Major-Hussein-Ali policy of fighting crime by NOT reporting major crimes so as to give the impression that crime was on a downward trend. At one point the police commissioner soldier was literally editing crime stories at the Daily Nation, albeit on phone. You really cannot blame the man with military training who was made a top cop by the Kibaki administration for that kind of thinking. In a military war (as opposed to a war on crime) propaganda is such a critical weapon that it has single-handedly won many major battles and even wars throughout history and when used well can be more lethal than any guns and ammunition on the ground. This is a historical fact starting right from the beginning of time an even in biblical times when a might army was defeated by simply being given the impression that there was a very big army marching against them when in reality there was actually nothing but some serious sound effects from the Almighty himself.
The only problem is that when fighting crime, propaganda has quite the opposite effect. If I was a violent criminal and nobody was reporting about what I was doing I would be delighted. It would mean amongst other advantages, that I would be able to retain my element of surprise on unsuspecting victims. The folks who robbed the Eastleigh matatu in broad daylight can do it again and again and many on the route will not even be aware that this was something that had happened before.
Yesterday we mentioned some of the successes of the Kibaki administration but today it is worth mentioning tha one of their biggest failures has been security and the fight against the escalating crime rate in the country.
For the sake of the next administration it is worth analyzing this failure a little deeper.
President Kibaki came into power in 2003 with the firm conviction that crime was one of the easiest of problems on his long list to handle. All the country needed to do was to find the money to increase the number of policemen and women in the force. This was promptly done but predictably nothing happened. Then they came up with the idea of appointing a tough military man to scare the criminals. This too did not work. Finally the president himself took to threatening criminals during his speeches to the public warning them that their days were numbered. Of course all those in crime must have had a good laugh and escalated their activities.
While it is true that we have just gotten a new inspector general who is probably the most competent and qualified person to ever head the police force since independence, even he will not have any impact on the war against crime until the next administration come to the realization that this is something that cannot be left only to the police. The next administration needs to actively pursue policies that are designed to curb crime.
Fighting unemployment like there was no tomorrow is one thing that must be emphasized from day one. More hidden close circuit cameras all over the city and indeed the entire country is yet another step that needs to be taken. Then we need to seriously look at the budget allocated to intelligence and undercover operations which is currently a sick joke. Lastly we need to come to the realization that the fight against crime never ends and so we need to brace ourselves for that.
There are of course many other good ideas that security experts can come up with. It is important to ensure that experts are involved in the decision making process to the highest level because switching off all unregistered cell phones for instance is not going to reduce crime involving cell phones as some smart alecs seem to believe. Indeed those kinds of crimes seem to be on the rise because my wife received a call recently from a man who told her she had won Kshs 100,000 and she should not send money to anybody to get the prize. But meanwhile she was casually asked if she had an Mpesa account. Much later in the conversation she was asked to enter a strange code that would have cleaned out her Mpesa account.
My point is that I often hear the views of Kenya’s middle class and the rich on fighting crime and just laugh my head off. Most Kenyans are so out of touch with the realities in their own country that it just unbelievable. To start with Kenya’s escalating crime rate has a lot to do with the huge number of foreigners we have allowed into the country many of whom do not have any papers. Especially from countries like Nigeria and Somalia. Some of these people are hardened criminals who see criminal opportunities where Kenyans have never dreamt that any exist. Just to give an example. A few years back some Nigerians took a lot of interest in the Post office at the City Square in Nairobi. They place had no security and so they just walked in late at night and spend time picking the locks of mail boxes to read the letters inside. Other Nairobi criminals must have been more than a little surprised as to what their motives were. However a few months later it was reported that companies and individuals were losing millions to intercepted cheques that criminals had found a way to cash. Indeed this is one of the reasons that led to banks refusing to cash third party cheques over the counter.
Why is it that we don’t realize Kenya is now an international hub with all kinds of characters arriving here daily? Long gone are the days when the most serious crime many sleepy rural police stations had to deal with was the theft of chickens. Despite this we expect the same kind of police force equipped in the same way it has always been to deal with the new realities on the ground. Getting more policemen without looking at a number of other policies is just recruiting and sending sons and daughters of Kenyans to unnecessary slaughter in the hands of a new kind of criminal who is extremely sophisticated and more daring than ever before.
Interestingly I have not heard any of the presidential candidates address this issue so far.
You are also bound to enjoy reading…
Kibaki laughs at pretender MPs praising his rule
Cashing in on Uhuru’s troubles
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Posted by kumekucha at 7:54 AM 10 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Eastleigh matatu hijacked in broad daylight December 2012, possible solutions to escalating crime, Will Kenya’s inspector general succeed?
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Kibaki Has A Ball Seeing Through The Transparent Dressing of MPs
Yesterday Mwai Kibaki sat in parliament and bathed in the glow of tributes from various legislators across the political divide.
For anybody who has followed the president’s career closely it is not too difficult to guess some of the thoughts that were passing through his mind as he listened to the wolves in sheep’s clothing trying to outdo each other on who would give the most glowing send-off to Number 3 as he completes his second and widely believed to be fraudulent term.
The president of the banana republic receives regular intelligence reports. The reports usually leave out nothing and include who is sleeping with whom and what they said about him as well as what derogatory nickname they usually use to refer to him. That would explain the amused expression that he had on his face most of the time yesterday.
Kibaki is obviously a very different man from the legislator who used to command close attention whenever he stood up to contribute to various debates in the August house. He talks much more slowly these days and walks at a snails’ pace. When he sits down he does so rather heavily. The combination of a terrible accident that almost ended his life about 2 weeks before he was elected in 2002 is probably what is most responsible for the ill health that has dogged his presidency. Thankfully he is the last president who will ever be able to keep his health such a closely guarded state secret. We have our new constitution to thank for that. But there is no denying that the pressures of the office have also taken their toll on Emilio Stanley the staunch lifelong Catholic.
The presidency the world over always appears to be a much easier job until you get to sit on the hot seat yourself. There is plenty of evidence to prove that the president looked down on Moi’s presidency considering him a shallow uneducated man with no university degree who did not deserve to be president. And yet it was to Moi that he turned to help stabilize his shaky government barely a year into his presidency.
No 2 and No 3 have been very close since and there is little doubt that Kibaki’s respect for the Moi presidency has increased tremendously in the last 10 years. His preference for a schooled man over a street smart operator have prevailed though. Hardly surprising when you consider the fact that he would never have gotten anywhere near where he is minus his educational credentials which were rather high and rare in 1960 when the KANU party fetched him from Makerere to be the party’s first executive officer.
Clearly Moi was extremely street smart and very disciplined getting up at 4 am every morning. Moi made his decisions quickly and was always the kind of person who could think on his feet. In sharp contrast Kibaki rarely gets out of bed before 11am and often has a siesta in the middle of the day. Indeed he was late by over an hour even for his big day in parliament yesterday. Kibaki’s decision-making prowess has been non-existent and way too slow at best.
Many of those who stood to speak in parliament yesterday recalled various contributions the president made at the height of his parliamentary career. Personally I find it difficult to remove from my mind his famous Mugumo-tree-and-razorblade quip at the height of the fight for a return to multiparty democracy in the 90s against Daniel arap Moi’s dictatorial rule. Kibaki told legislators then trying to fight Moi that what they were attempting to do was akin to trying to cut down a Mugumo tree with a small razor blade. A Mugumo tree is that thick huge old tree that will often defy even an electric saw.
That particular comment stands out on my mind and tells a lot about the kind of person Kibaki is. It is interesting that those who busied themselves trying to cut the Mugumo tree with a razor finally managed but paid a big price for it. Some are dead and others like Kenneth Njindo Matiba have been maimed for life. But Kibaki remained in his comfortable non-committal cocoon and only emerged to cash in on the efforts of others.
Still the truth is that Kenya has changed tremendously under Kibaki and he was the perfect president to prepare Kenya for the next level. Everybody talks about the infrastructural changes that are visible all over the country. Sadly some Kenyans blinded by tribal hatred and the political heat of the moment can hardly see what is pretty obvious.
This blog has been rabidly critical of the Kibaki presidency but today I have chosen to tone down that criticism and have a little empathy for the outgoing member for Othaya. In many ways one of the reasons why he has not achieved half of what he would have achieved has to be blamed on Raila Odinga whom many say did not allow the old man to rule and work for Kenyans in peace. I partially agree with that sentiment but also marvel at how a man who hated politicking so much would rise to the most powerful office in the land still a novice on the basics of a political dog fight.
Mr President, Kumekucha wishes you a happy peaceful retirement and would like to thank you for what you were able to do under rather trying circumstances. Let history be the judge.
You are also bound to enjoy reading…
Cashing in on Uhuru’s troubles
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Posted by kumekucha at 3:34 AM 6 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: How will the Kibaki presidency be remembered? Evolution of Kibaki and Moi working relationship
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Guess Who Will Gain Most From Uhuru’s Troubles?
Uhuru pictured with childhood sweetheart/best friend/now wife, Margaret. Kenyatta’s candidacy for the presidency is way too emotional for Kenya’s good.
The big question that many Kenyans are asking themselves this morning is; what dark forces have such control over presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta that they can get him to do exactly what they want? Are these dark forces from another country? Or possibly outer space? (LOL!!!)
The second question nobody is asking but is terribly important is what was Musalia Mudavadi’s motive for letting the cat out of the bag? It would appear that he is cutting his own feet by making public something so sensitive. Now why would he want to do that? Surely he must have known that his announcement will sound a death blow to a pact that some think would have landed him in State house.
One of my Kumekucha raw notes subscribers sent me a very angry email recently. He was wondering why I am always writing about State house this and State house that. “Don’t you have anything else to write about?” Another of my subscribers mockingly wrote to me pointing to a report I had written about the inner circles of TNA wanting to go for a rookie candidate for Uhuru’s running mate. “Ruto cannot be described as a rookie by any stretch of the English language…” they told me.
My raw notes subscribers do not pay me to sit down and create theories or go to bars to listen to gossip and then rehash that info. They pay for insider information and I always focus on giving them exactly that. It is NOT about me being proved right or wrong. Those with a little experience in the game of politics will know that it is usually very fluid and it will get more so as we head closer to the general elections. My work is to tell you what is happening and sometimes what’s taking place now may lead people to end up in a very different destination. Does that mean I was wrong telling you what was going on then?
After what has happened in the last few days, I hope it is now clear why I have been seemingly “obsessed” with State house. That is where Kenyan politics is being driven from at the moment. I don’t like it any more than you do but that happens to be the reality. I just laugh when people come up with all kinds of fancy, clever theories and analysis of what is going on. And some of these people are senior political reporters in leading newspapers.
The dark forces forcing Uhuru into making pacts are not from Mars. Try a well guarded address along State house Road, Nairobi. Why would Mudavadi cut his own feet and make public a secret pact? Try the same address as above for the answer. For now don’t ask me why, because I am still digging around to answer that puzzling million shilling question.
What beats me is why anybody would have thought for one minute that Uhuru stepping down for Mudavadi would deliver the Kikuyu vote lock sock and barrel to Mudavadi. Why it puzzles me is because I know the people running the presidential campaigns from State house are very smart people. But what the hell were they thinking?
Uhuru Kenyatta’s votes are NOT transferable to anybody not even to wildly popular Father Christmas himself.
In my view it is unfair for politicians to say that the Kikuyu have a bad habit of never voting for anybody other than their own and trying to apply that to our current political situation.
Let me tell you a little story. I like to ask questions constantly. Indeed I am always asking questions when I talk to people. When others are busy showing how clever and knowledgeable they are I am always asking questions and sometimes seemingly stupid questions.
The big question I have been asking is how did Uhuru grow so popular so suddenly? I have asked that question a million times in forums, villages, cities and everywhere. But those who know have been too ashamed to reveal the truth. Finally I discovered it just a few days ago.
In all the Kikuyu-bashing that has been going on most Kenyans have forgotten that the community which suffered the most and indeed has suffered like no other community on the entire continent of Africa are our dear Kikuyu brothers and sisters. Imagine a situation where you are a prosperous land owner one day employing thousands of farm hands and the very next day you are begging for food or sleeping with a sweaty smelly old man for cash to buy food at some IDP camp. Would you blame any community for getting terribly emotional?
Uhuru Kenyatta being charged at the ICC to the simple Kikuyu people on the ground is grave injustice. The people on the ground are saying; “They raped and plundered us and then they go and charge us for crimes against humanity letting off the aggressor lightly where the ring leaders ought to have been locked up and the key thrown in the middle of the Indian Ocean or even better the Atlantic.”
Uhuru Kenyatta is that kind of emotional candidate and that is the reason why the ICC arresting him just now would cause serious trouble on the ground.
Some Kumekucha readers read what a Mwangi or Kamau is saying in social forums and they assume that maybe Uhuru is not that popular. They forget that some of the people saying they will not vote for Uhuru hail from filthy rich families in Kiambu. But the political reality is that on a small plot of 20 x 50 somewhere in Kiambu there are no less than 100 registered voters all saying, no Uhuru no voting while in the elitist families who read Kumekucha that is just the size of their swimming pool in a household with maybe 3 registered voters.
But having said that, for better or worse Uhuru’s candidature for the presidency is a train headed for a place called nowhere. He is a non-starter for the ballot even before the recent troubles. For the simple reason that the world is getting more serious about those whom they view as having committed crimes against humanity.
So where does that leave us? I will discuss this in the next post but let me give you a hint. For better or worse it suddenly makes one Peter Kenneth a very serious contender for the presidency.
This post is dedicated to my very good lady friend in the UK who wrote the following email to me this morning; “Chris , yu said it. Things are turning out funny. these politicians are so shameless. This Mungatana guy has suddenly become their spokesman. What a shame. Please fill me in with the latest. This is just like a movie. It can only happen in Kenya.”
You will also enjoy reading shocking revelations in the following articles;
Where it all started Uhuru’s secret deal with Kibaki in 2007
Just how clean is Mr. Safi Kama Pamba Peter Kenneth?
Is Uhuru Kenyatta a drunkard?
What is it that leading Presidential candidates in 2013 don’t want you to know?
Posted by kumekucha at 2:34 AM 6 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Jubilee alliance troubles, why is Uhuru Kenyatta so popular?
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Fugitives of the International Criminal Court Flocking Together
Now that members of the so called Jubilee Alliance are so obsessed with contradicting Prime Minister Raila Odinga and working overdrive to act exact counter to any political step he takes, Kenyans are anxiously waiting for their next move to counter Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s gracing of ODM’s historic National Delegates Convention last week .
We expect them to be inviting Zimbabwean dictator Dr. Robert Mugabe to be chief guest during their unveiling of their joint presidential candidate after the coming pre-determined nomination exercise between the two deputy Prime Ministers: – Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi.
Kenyans won’t be shocked if the other guest of honor will be Sudan’s Gen. Omar al Bashir, the well known ICC fugitive.
And talking of delegates, when did the URP (bank rolled by William Ruto) or UDF (bank rolled by Kibaki’s kitchen cabinet), or even TNA (bankrolled by Kenyatta family) ever conduct grassroot elections to elect delegates that they are purportedly preparing to mobilise to select a presidential candidate? And why is URP’s position as running mate locked and not open to democratic competition? See the mockery of democracy?
Of interest will be the main speeches. Observers are waiting with baited breath to see Dr. Mugabe urging them to be confident he will help them once in power on how to cling on to power next year if the Western powers decide to slap Kenyan with sanctions.
We can foresee an arrogant Dr. Mugabe advising the Jubilee coalition to organize in advance how to kick out European farmer, tourists, diplomats and investors, who are nothing but agents of neo-colonialists out to exploit Kenyans. He will urge Kenyans to prepare to be eating and surviving on one meal per day during the Jubilee presidency.
Of course he won’t fail to advice them strongly to revive the old special Branch, secret police units and violent youth groups to deploy regularly to protect the Jubilee presidency from the opposition who, he says are on the payroll of the colonialists. Kenyans are eager to listen to Gen. Al Bashir’s speech a speech that will plead with Kenyan voters to vote in the Jubilee Alliance, and especially the two ICC suspects so that Kenya and Sudan can form a confederation (Political Union) as a free region detached from the new International order, including the United Nations and the ICC.
It will be delirious to hear him promise to bankroll the Jubilee Alliance’s presidential candidate to ensure maximum victory. But many will be left wondering why if he is so moneyed why he has grabbed rich oil wells from the poor southern Sudanese neighbors.
May be the two great guests of the Jubilee Alliance will sign a “Nairobi declaration” with Jubilee Alliance’s Principal Uhuru Kenyatta to be prepared 24/7 to offer any of them sanctuary and political assylum in the event he is toppled by restless masses reacting to high inflation and humanitarian crisis.
Kenyans should be getting psychologically prepared to usher in a government on March 4,2013 whose chief advisors will be Dr. Mugabe and Gen. Omar El Bashir.
Posted by Phil at 1:38 AM 15 comments Links to this post Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
Labels: Club of Impunity
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http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article- … dors-power
RAPHAEL TUJU
A number of powerful individuals, some with good connections at State House, and who have all along been silently backing Musalia Mudavadi’s presidential bid are reportedly considering settling on Party of Action (POA) leader Raphael Tuju. The power brokers are said to be unhappy with the way things are going with the Mudavadi venture and are now seriously considering another plan-that of now zeroing on the former Information and Communication minister.
Bwana Ngatia The Govt listens . it has ears keep up the fight its too late for Mwai & company.
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2013/01/sh3-8bn-anglo-leasing-loot-pursued-vigorously/
Uhuru and Ruto are Misenge Icc is their worry and it gives them sleepless nights.Let Ruto get impregnated by Uhuru Kenyatta