By the twilight of the Moi era, the effects of economic plunder had restructured Kenyan society. 20 years on, under UhuRuto, corruption is better dressed, digitised and speaks finer English. No family is untouched by it. For the millennial generation, the social and economic effects of moral collapse have profound personal consequences. By JOHN GITHONGO
Negotiated in secret, the deals made along East Africa’s proposed second infrastructure corridor were designed for the tenderpreneurs and their friends in Sirkal. In Lamu, an old teacher, Mohamed Ali Baddi had other ideas. Nine years ago, he and his cohorts in the Save Lamu pressure group, stood up to power. In a landmark case, the courts upheld their petition, in a case likely to recalibrate relations between communities and big infrastructure players on the winding Corridor. By L.MUTHONI WANYEKI.
The blind worship of wealth obtained at any cost and the bully-display of individualism, no matter its consequences on the collective, are the markers of a public culture at the end of its neoliberal tether. We see it, but we don’t speak about it. Because speaking about it may force us to recognise it for what it is. By RASNA WARAH.
With the suspension of the IEBC chief, Ezra Chiloba, over questionable procurement deals, the Commission’s collapse is now all but certain. Triggered by avarice and resurrecting the ghosts of August 2017, a change of guard at the electoral body will only further delay the search for electoral justice. How then, to deal with the original sin of Executive capture? By KWAMCHETSI MAKOKHA
The uthamaki code, the sense of Kikuyu elite entitlement, has defined Kenya’s politics for 55 years, a history of assassinations, blood oaths and cloak-and-dagger games. Since 1967, the Kalenjin elite have been the other protagonist in this power arrangement, offering land in exchange for a seat at the high table, and taking hostage the Kikuyu diaspora in the Rift Valley in this matrix of fear. How to break the cycle and liberate Kenya? By DAVID NDII
The Deputy President is today considered Kenya’s most frightening political figure. If he is indeed the motivation behind ‘the handshake’, that dynastic rapprochement between the Kenyattas and the Odingas, thwarting William Ruto’s presidential ambitions to protect the merchants of a half-century of impunity may well be the cure that is worse than the disease. By JOHN GITHONGO
Six decades since the wind of change blew across Africa ushering independence for a cast of new states across the continent, Pan Africanism remains more relevant an idea than ever before in today’s globalised era with its multiple challenges and opportunities for the continent argues L. MUTHONI WANYEKI
Although much ink has been spilled on Africa’s dependent position in the global political-economy, and the inability of social and youth movements to take both national and global power into account, one question still remains puzzling: What’s left of the left?’ The biggest question of all. MUTHONI WANYEKI asks.
As media freedoms take a beating around the world, and a culture of authoritarianism creeps across Africa, it was important, says NIC CHEESEMAN about resigning his column in the Sunday Nation, to demonstrate solidarity with those brave colleagues forced to endure threats from the State and censorship from the Board.
As difficult, if familiar, questions emerge refuting the West’s allegations that the Assad regime used chemical warfare in eastern Ghouta, will Syria become the next Iraq - the next theatre for ‘Shock & Awe’? As Russia objects and talk of a new Cold War rocks Big Power relations, RASNA WARAH examines the logic of war by false pretences.
