We cope with the oppressive system of Capitalism by eating our children’s futures before eating them alive. Grace Ogot captures us in her 1968 classic Tekayo, literally a story of cannibalism, metaphorically one of abuse of trust by a man in a position of authority. Authority of kinship where girls now live in fear of […]
The 2017 elections remain one of the most contested, memorable and divisive elections in the history of Kenya. The second elections under the 2010 constitution, it witnessed staggering 15,082 aspirants for just 1,882 elective positions. These were just the ones who actually barely survived the revolving knives of the shambolic party primaries. From the very […]
“Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent” ~ Glen Cook Before the Friday, March 9, 2018 famous handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga, Kenyans in opposition were swimming in schadenfreude as the government declared that it was broke. Prior to the nearly comical announcement, the Auditor General declared […]
I wanted to write about sex. My theory was that Kenyans are having more of it. It is one of the ways we deal with the onslaught of political and social trauma to seek out intimacy. That in order to go out and live life every day, we numb ourselves to the pain of what […]
So here you are, Too foreign for home, Too foreign for here, Never enough for both’ ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo When I acquiesced to the idea that the solution to our problems was to be conquered with the patience of waiting for the Baby Boomers to die off by virtue of fate, I forgot the likes […]
I grew up with barely any assurances and almost no sense of security, whatsoever. Do not, misconstrue what I mean by security or assurances. There is hardly a trace of either one when one is raised in an environment that offers absolutely no guarantees of safety in your home, of your home and your […]
*This reflection is dedicated to my spiritual son, Jesse Masai, and several others like him who constantly wrestle with the question of their responsibility to the Republic in this season. An old proverb says, “We have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children.” Here, we are debtors and […]
The Inspector General (IG) Joseph Boinnet’s recent pronouncement that the police had formed a special squad to deal with the Jubilee government’s critics confirmed what many believe to be a plot by the government to clamp down on opposition politics and what it considers to be individual “dissidents” and provocateurs. The police’s daring move of […]
January 30th 2018 enters Kenya’s history books alongside September 1st 2017, the day when, for the first time, an election in the country was nullified. Many dismissed the opposition coalition NASA’s threat to swear in the principals Raila Odinga and his deputy Kalonzo Musyoka as a PR gimmick. Yet, as the new year rolled in, […]
I drive a taxi in Nairobi. This has led me to see the world from behind the wheel, the one position I have occupied for close to ten years now. My wealth of information comes from endless interactions, observations and experiences in the driver’s seat. In our world, we are advised to see no evil […]
Who am I? Am I “Catholic”? Am I “Christian”? Am I Kikuyu? Or am I “Kenyan”? Or am I all of them at once? Or the other way around? Am I “African”? Or am I “Bantu”? Or does it depend on time of day? On place? Or on who’s asking? What is an African? Who […]
I packed my belongings and left. Found myself heading west. Kisumu. Home. Away from Nairobi, the green city under the sun. Funny, that once all I wanted was to get out of Kisumu, move to Nairobi and feed on the proverbial green grass but the past years have left me with an itch that has […]
At a cybercafé somewhere in Nairobi’s South B estate, stone-faced male clients are glued to their computers. They are youthful, the type that ought to be attending college, or if they are working, should be at their respective work places. It is mid-morning on a weekday, the cybercafé’s computers are all occupied and the young […]
In January 2018, The Star newspaper splashed the headline The Ship has Sailed, It is time to Move on. The report quotes the US ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec urging Kenyans to stop discussions on the 2017 election and rally behind President Uhuru Kenyatta’s four pillar development agenda. That was the first time I was hearing […]
Presently, you can divide Kenyans into three groups. There are those who are ambivalent, unsure of which political direction the country should take, trusting neither the Jubilee side nor the NASA side, even as the unity of the principal is under intense scrutiny following the no-show of the three other principals for the much-hyped ‘swearing […]
I was named after my great-grandfather, who by all accounts, was a big scoundrel with an even bigger heart. I hail from the land of the original ‘boda boda’, so styled during the days when black mamba bicycles were the preferred mode of transport from the Busia-Kenya border, across no-man’s land, to the Busia-Uganda border. […]
We are at the Modern Coast bus station, waiting for the night bus that goes to Kisumu to pull up. I have decided that perhaps it is a good idea to go back home to decompress after the profound mess that was the election(s). I am standing at the counter, asking the chap in uniform […]
Human beings have a certain amount of emotional energy; you know, that psychic fuel that keeps your body, mind and spirit animated and engaged. Right up to August 8, 2017 my bank of energy was overflowing. Against all good judgement, my heart was full of hope. See, at first I had been sceptical because the […]
Kenya is on the brink of plummeting into the abyss of political catastrophe. The government and the opposition are locked in an existential contest for Kenya’s leadership. Either the government will cement its hold on power by employing all means possible (illicit not excluded) or the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) will wrench power in […]
Kevin Mwachiro pens a poetic tribute letter to Geoffrey Mutinda, a 7 year old boy shot dead after a police clash with NASA protestors in November 2017 and questions the normalization of the murder of children as collateral damage during election contests in Kenya.
