Category: Public Square

Kenyans are a skeptical lot (who can blame them, seeing the sorts of governments and leaders we’ve had?). That cynicism could be interpreted in any number of ways, but in this case, I especially mean our inability to see better for ourselves. They say hope springs eternal but I think that spring came to Kenya,…

“The state is not God. It has no right to give away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire.” – Anton Chekhov On 30 January 2023, Ugunja MP and Leader of the Minority in Kenya’s National Assembly (NA) Opiyo Wandayi wrote to the Speaker of the NA, communicating his intention to…

Despite what Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua says, the Government of Kenya is not a company with shareholding. But rather, the government is a duty bearer exercising public trust according to law, staffed by people appointed and regulated by national law, and financed by the entire public. This is the short answer to Rigathi Gachagua’s jocular…

I spent Monday this week waiting for an email that never came and that’s when I knew I had gotten rejected for something I really wanted. You know that feeling when you are constantly refreshing your email? When it pings with a new message and you rush to check it, except, once again, it’s not…

Full disclosure: I have voted for Raila Odinga in every election since 2007, except during the October 2017 repeat election, which he asked his supporters to boycott, and which I obediently did.  I almost didn’t vote in the 2022 election because I had by then lost faith in him and in our electoral process –…

“It is important to expose yourself to ideas you don’t agree with from time to time. Attend a political rally of a party you do not like.” Fred Green The political rallies season is back! For some, prematurely so.  Six months after the last general election and the subsequent swearing-in of President William Ruto, many…

A permanent campaign mode; political parties that are used as special purpose vehicles for elections only, then quick to fold up upon delivery; politicians who at one point prepared to run as loyal party members then quickly swap sides to become independents as soon as they lose that golden party ticket; the bad practice of…

This month marks 33 years since Nelson Mandela walked out of prison to breathe the fresh air of freedom after 27 years of incarceration by South Africa’s apartheid racist minority regime. Mandela’s release marked a critical milestone in the dismantling of apartheid and the advent of majority rule, which would culminate in Black South Africans…

What state do our mother’s live in, constantly knowing that they have to carry their children horizontally twice – before the age of 18. Once, with joy after child birth, and in finality after a bullet has been lodged in their child’s body.  What life is this, that for a mother the most frequented rooms…