Category: Issues

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Books Events Issues News Non-Fiction Personalities

How harassment by government forces ‘dynasties’ to join politics

By Mbugua Ngunjiri

In 2021, when the Pandora Papers ‘scandal’ broke, Kenyans learnt that the Kenyatta family has stashed funds in foreign accounts. Now, there are a number of reasons why certain people chose to spirit their monies in those tax havens. Chief among the reasons such people hide their money, whether clean or dirty, in secret accounts, in my view, is security.

Patriotism comes later.

On Friday, July 21, an angry Uhuru Kenyatta was on TV complaining bitterly that William Ruto’s government was targeting his family. This was after it was reported that police officers had raided one of his son’s home in Karen, ostensibly to search for ‘illegal firearms’.

During the media interview, the retired president challenged Ruto to ‘come for him’ and leave his 90-year-old mother alone. A few days earlier, it had been reported that Mama Ngina Kenyatta’s security had been withdrawn.

Uhuru said he is capable of ‘protecting’ his family’s property. Well, your guess is as good as mine, where he would take his money should harassment by government persisted.

It should be remembered that a few months back, goons suspected to have been funded by the Kenya Kwanza regime, raided Northlands Farm, owned by the Kenyatta family, stole sheep and set trees on fire.

Kenyan politics is replete with examples similar harassment. I will use the late Simeon Nyachae’s example to illustrate my point. In his book, Walking Through the Corridors of Service (Mvule, 2010), Nyachae says that he entered politics to protect his property.

Now, let that sink for a bit.

When he retired from the civil service in 1987, upon attaining the age of 55, Nyachae was already a successful businessman. “…my intention was to go into farming and to concentrate on my other businesses… I had no intention whatsoever to join politics,” he wrote.

Moi’s government meanwhile, had other plans; they wove a narrative to the effect that Nyachae was ‘a dangerous rich man, who wanted to dominate the Gusii community and Kenya.’ A sinister plot was then hatched to cut him down to size, beginning with his vast business empire. To begin with, public health officials would be dispatched, almost on a daily basis, to his Sansora Bakery with bogus allegations that it was operating under unhygienic conditions.

It also became increasingly difficult for him to import spare parts for his Kabansora Flour Mills, which had to be sourced from Germany. He had to find a way round it. “The supplier would send the parts to the German Embassy, in Nairobi, as samples, and then we would collect them for our own use,” wrote Nyachae.

At the time of his retirement Nyachae decided to reward himself by importing a brand new Mercedes 500. That is where his problems started.

When the vehicle arrived at the Mombasa Port, he was told, flat out, that it could not be cleared into the country. When his son Charles Nyachae went to ascertain what the fuss was all about “a customs official told him that the car I had imported would not be cleared because nobody in the country was ‘allowed’ to import a car that big, unless he or she wanted to have powers like those of the president!”

He had to go to court to have the car released. When it was finally released, seven months later, the Mercedes Benz had been so badly vandalised, he had to order for new parts from Germany. “This experience heightened the pressure from my friends that I should join politics to defend my investments,” wrote Nyachae.

The kamati was not yet through with him; they sent thugs to throw a dead rat into the compound of Kabansora Mills, in Embakasi, in the dead of night. The following morning health officials demanded to allowed into the compound to conduct an ‘inspection’. Once inside they made a beeline to where the dead rat had been thrown. The goal was to close down the premises under the pretext that the whole place was infested with rats, and that consumers of his products risked being infected with plague!

You really can’t make this stuff up.

Seeing as the harassment was not about to die down, Nyachae decided to go to parliament “and fight against the injustices meted out against individuals and groups who were not singing to the tune of the ruling party Kanu.”

There was one more roadblock waiting around the corner. At the time, Kenya was ruled by a single party, Kanu. To contest for any political seat, one had to be a member of the ruling party. Try as he could, Nyachae’s name could not be cleared by Kanu for the 1988 elections, which broke so many records for rigging. Mnasemanga rigging, the 1988 mlolongo elections were not only the mother and father of rigging, they were also the grandparents and ancestors of modern day rigging!

Nyachae got to parliament in 1992, ironically, on a Kanu ticket.

The late Njenga Karume, in his book, From Charcoal to Gold, also gave the same reasons as Nyachae, for entering into politics; to protect his property.

At his prime, the late Kenneth Matiba, another former civil servant, was said to be one of the richest men in Kenya. However, a tumble with Moi’s government, not only left him severely incapacitated, health wise, but at the time of his death, Matiba was stone broke.

Now, had someone advised him to hide some of his money in the Cayman Islands, or some other tax havens, his descendants would still be doing fine.

Now, based on what happened to Uhuru’s son, on Friday, would you blame him for joining politics to ‘protect’ his property or that of his family?

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Awards Books Fiction Issues News

Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature: A call for entries

The Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) has made a call for submissions for the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature. Winners of the award will be unveiled in September, during the 24th edition of the Nairobi International Book Fair.

Titles to be submitted must have been published between 2020 and May 2022. There are two levels of awards: The Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature and The Wahome Mutahi Award for Humour and Satire.

The Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature has three main categories, namely Adult, Youth and Children. Each category has an English and Kiswahili version.

The Wahome Mutahi Literary Award has an English and Kiswahili category. Writers of drama/plays can submit their entries under the adult category of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize and the Wahome Mutahi Award.

Submissions for each category should be accompanied with five non-returnable copies of the book to be entered. Each submission should also be accompanied by a fee of sh10,000 for KPA members and sh25,000 for non-members.

All entries must have been published in Kenya. Although the quality of the content will be the overriding criterion, there are other considerations to be looked into. These are: quality of binding, cover design, quality of paper used, quality of illustrations where applicable and the general layout of the book.

The Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature is the brainchild of KPA. It was established in the early 1970s and is open to Kenyan writers whose works are published in Kenya. The prize is awarded to the author of the most outstanding new book in all the categories.

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Books Culture Featured Fiction Issues Reviews

The tear-jerking experiences of a child bride

Title: The Girl with the Louding Voice

Author: Abi Dare

Publisher: Sceptre (UK)

Reviewer: Cynthia Abdallah

It is not enough that the main character Adunni will tug at your heartstrings and make you sympathize with the plight of the girl child in the novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice. Her father’s decision to marry her off to an old man in the village emphasizes the need to fight for the girl child who is vulnerable in a patriarchal society.

Adunni’s dreams of becoming a lawyer are hindered by her father’s poverty and mother’s demise and she is married off to an old man with 2 wives.

That Adunni is 14 years old does not deter the man who already cannot take care of his two wives from pushing for the young wife to give him a baby.

The broken English serves to enhance the innocence of this girl who only wants to have a louding voice.

Her singing and close relationship with her brother Kayus will tug at your heart and make you shed a tear for Adunni and especially for her brother.

The family unit is slowly disintegrating and the children again are at the centre of it.

Adunni is running away leaving her heartbroken brother behind and an enraged village pining for her blood.

Khadija is dead, Iya is dying, a slow painful death and Labake is going mad.

Despite the challenges that Adunni faces, she continues to fight and has a good sense of humor that makes you root for her all the way in the novel.

Get your copy!

About the author

Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and has lived in the UK for eighteen years. She studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and has an M.Sc. in International Project Management from Glasgow Caledonian University as well as an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University of London. The Girl with the Louding Voice won The Bath Novel Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2018 and was also selected as a finalist in 2018 The Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition. Abi lives in Essex with her husband and two daughters, who inspired her to write her debut novel.

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Arts Awards Culture Events Fiction Issues News Non-Fiction Releases Short story

Submissions for Kendeka Prize now open

Short story writers have until May 15 to submit their entries to the Kendeka Prize for African Literature.

The call out for submission for the 2023 prize was made on Saturday January 28, during the inaugural Kendeka Lecture, held at the Mount Kenya University. The lecture, titled Why Literature Matters and Literary Prizes Matter, was delivered by Prof Austin Bukenya.

Entry for the prize is free.

“The Prize will be awarded for the best unpublished short story either in fiction or creative non-fiction,” says a statement from the Kendeka secretariat, signed by Andrew Maina, the founder. “The first prize will be Ksh100,000, while the second and the third prizes shall be Ksh50,000 and Ksh25,000 respectively.”

The announcement was made by Prof Goro Kamau, the incoming chair of the Kendeka Prize for African Literature.

Entrants must be born in, or are citizens of any African country. Manuscripts should be of between 3000 and 5000 words and must be in English.

The overall winner of the 2022 Prize was Scholastica Moraa,(Kenya) for her short story titled ‘Chained’. Adaoro Raji, (Nigeria) was the first runners-up for her story ‘Star Boy’, while Beverley Ann Abrahams, from Zimbabwe was the second runners-up for her short story, ‘Isithunzi’.

The winner of the 2021 Kendeka Prize for African Literature was Jenny Robson, Botswana, author of Water for Wine. Fatima Okhousami, from Nigeria, was the first runners-up for her story, The Women of Atinga House, while Okpanachi Irene Ojochegbe, from Nigeria, was the second runners-up for her story, Au Pair.

Other submission guidelines.

  • One entry per writer.
  • Entries should be attached in Microsoft Word or Rich Text format, with the title of the story as the file name.
  • The first page of the story should include the title of the story and the number of words.
  • The entry must be typed in Times New Roman 12-point font with 1.5 line spacing.
  • Entries must be sent as attachments to an email.
  • The email to which the story is attached must include the legal name of the writer, telephone number, a short Bio, age, and country of residence.
  • Entrants agree that the prize organizers may publicize the fact that a story has been entered, long listed, shortlisted or won the prize.
  • An author of a long listed story agrees to its inclusion in the anthology, and to work with editors to get the story ready for publication.
  • The long listing of a story is not a guarantee that the story shall be included in the anthology.
  • The winners, first and second runners-up in the past Kendeka Prize, are not eligible.
  • Every author confirms that the submission is their original work, it has not been published anywhere else, and that it has not been long listed in this prize or in any other prize.
  • The entrant gives exclusive global print and digital rights to Solano Publications Ltd for the long listed stories for publication in an anthology. The author retains the copyright.
  • The judges’ decision is final.
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Books Events Issues News publishing

Jomo Kenyatta/Wahome Mutahi Literary Prizes announced

Marx Kahende (Left), whose book The Wayward Vagabond won the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, in the English Adult category, pictured with his publisher Kiarie Kamau, the MD of EAEP

Marx Kahende, a retired diplomat and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s son, Nducu, are among the winners of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.

Kahende’s book, The Wayward Vagabond, published by East African Educational Publishers (EAEP), won in the adult English category, while Nducu wa Ngugi’s book Benji’s Big Win (EAEP), won in the youth English category. Former Nairobian columnist, Sarah Haluwa’s book, Chadi’s Trip (Storymoja) won in the children’s English category.

The awards ceremony, organised by the Kenya Publishers Association, was held on Saturday evening at the Pride Inn Hotel, in Westlands, at the tail-end of the Nairobi International Book Fair.

Samuel Wachira, a Catholic priest based in Meru won the Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize with his book, Hustlers’ Chains, published by One Planet Publishers.

Other winners included Kiswahili scholar Prof Kithaka wa Mberia, whose book Kwenzi Gizani (Marimba Publications) won the Kiswahili Adult Category. In the Kiswahili youth category, the winner was Mbona Hivi? Written by Shullam Nzioka and published by Oxford University Press.

The winner in the Kiswahili children’s category was Fumbo la Watamu by Ali Attas, published by One Planet.

During the event, Prof Laban Ayiro, the Daystar Universtity Vice-Chancellor, who was the chief guest, challenged Kenyans to embrace the culture of reading if they hoped to become good leaders. He emphasised that reading is a prerequisite to good leadership. He also decried the poor reading habits exhibited by the younger generation and majority of leaders across all sectors.

Kiarie Kamau, the chairman of Kenya Publishers Association (KPA) spoke about the supremacy Kenyan publishing. “We are increasingly becoming a force to reckon with in the area of Publishing in Africa and beyond,” said Kamu, who is also the managing director of EAEP. “We sit on the Executive Committees of the International Publishers Association as well as the African Publishers Network. We publish high quality and wide range of general reading materials, most of which serve a global audience. We are already visible on the digital publishing and online selling space … the two literary awards demonstrate that indeed Publishing in Kenya has come of age.”

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Arts Books Events Issues

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s tribulations in colonial Kenya

When Ngugi wa Thiong’o left his Kamirithu village, in Limuru, to join Alliance High School, the State of Emergency had already been declared, by colonial authorities in Kenya. This mainly affected members of the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru communities, that formed the bulk of the Mau Mau rebellion.

Members of these three communities could not move from one district to another without the passbook. Young Ngugi did not have this document, when he went to board the train from Limuru to Kikuyu. It took the intervention of a railways official, who hid him in a luggage compartment, for the train ride to Kikuyu, otherwise, he would have missed the trip altogether.

When he closed school for the April holidays, Ngugi went home to find that his village deserted. The whole village had been moved to the Kamirithu Concentration Camp. He was in time to join constructing the mud house where they had to live for the rest of the emergency period.  

These anecdotes are contained in Ngugi’s memoir Dreams in a Time of War, published in 2010. In the book, he recounts an incident where his half-brother was shot dead by colonial officials.

“A few days later, we learned that some people had been killed, one of the casualties being Gitogo, my half-brother,” writes Ngugi about a military operation that took place in Limuru town, during the Emergency period.

“Gitogo worked in a butchery in Limuru. He had started running, following the example of others. Being deaf, he did not hear the white officer shout simama! They shot him in the back.”

In the other incident, Ngugi’s elder brother, Wallace Mwangi, who was in the supply wing of the Mau Mau insurgency, and his uncle, had just bought bullets, from a source, who, unknown to them, was a colonial informer. It was a set-up. Immediately, colonial forces arrived at the scene and arrested the two.

Somehow, Wallace managed to drop his share of bullets in his mother’s shamba nearby. While being arrested, Wallace told his mother, who was in the garden ‘thikirira mbembe icio wega’. On the surface, Wallace told his mother – Mukoma’s grandmother – to cover the roots of her maize with soil and mulch.

However, the truth of the matter is that Mukoma’s uncle told his mother to cover the bullets – mbembe was the Mau Mau code for bullets – with soil that thy are not discovered by the colonial authorities.

Shortly thereafter, Wallace, jumped from the moving police vehicle and ran, under a hail of bullets, to become a Mau Mau fighter in the forest. Wallace’s wife would later be arrested and jailed at the Kamiti Prison.

After he cleared his studies at Alliance, two white police officers arrested Ngugi on trumped up charges of failing to pay taxes and was remanded at the Kiambu Police Station for three weeks.

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Books Issues News

Top ten books for the month of October, courtesy of Prestige Bookshop

Kenyans are reading. Introducing; top ten books of the month, as sold by Prestige Bookshop.

   1.Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka

 In an imaginary Nigeria, a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr. Menka’s hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Dr. Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne. The life of every party, Duyole is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York, but it now seems that someone is deter­mined that he not make it there. And neither Dr. Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, or how powerful.
 
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a literary hoot, a crafty whodunit, and a scathing indictment of political and social corrup­tion. It is a stirring call to arms against the abuse of power from one of our fiercest political activists, who also happens to be a global literary giant.

2. Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio has spent half a century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history’s most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we’ve experienced in our lifetimes – and to offer practical advice on how to navigate them well.

In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings listeners along for his study of the major empires – including the Dutch, the British, and the American – putting into perspective the “Big Cycle” that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead.

3. The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber

The first Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize winner, a story of a girl’s fantastical sea voyage to rescue her father The House of Rust is an enchanting novel about a Hadrami girl in Mombasa. When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too).

 On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father, and hopes that life will return to normal. But at home, things only grow stranger. Caught between her grandmother’s wish to safeguard her happiness with marriage and her own desire for adventure, Aisha is pushed toward a match with a sweet local boy that she doesn’t want. Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s debut is a magical realist coming-of-age tale told through the lens of the Swahili and diasporic Hadrami culture in Mombasa, Kenya.

4 President’s Pressman by Lee Njiru

After President Daniel Moi’s retirement in 2002, many were not surprised that Lee Njiru, the long serving Head of Presidential Press Service, as retained as his Press Secretary.

They had walked together through the highs and lows of his presidency. Earlier, Lee was among the few pressman Moi inherited from Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s regime. He was loyal, passionate, and deliver on this challenging assignment.

The book, therefore, gives a rare glimpse of happenings in the corridors of power and illustrates efforts made to advance project Kenya.

5.  By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah  

                              

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature

On a late November afternoon Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a far away island in the Indian Ocean. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession – a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only protection.

Meanwhile Latif Mahmud, someone intimately connected with Saleh’s past, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unraveled. It is a story of love and betrayal, seduction and possession, and of a people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom of their times.

6. Finding Me by Viola Davis

Finding Me is the deeply personal, brutally honest account of Viola’s inspiring life, from her coming of age in Rhode Island to her present-day career.

In this book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is her story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path she took to finding her purpose and her strength, but also to finding her voice in a world that didn’t always see her.

Finding Me is a deep reflection on the past and a promise for the future.

7. The Path to Kaliech: The Outsize Story of William Odongo Omamo

The path to Kaliech are the memoirs of Dr. William Odongo Omamo, a member of the first generation of Kenyan African technocrats. In it, he describes his journey from the backwoods village of Kapiyo in 1928, to the heady positions of Cabinet Minister and senior government official in many different capacities beginning in the 1960s.

It will be of special interest to readers keen on Kenya’s transitions from a pre-industrial, pre-independence colony to an independent nation with a growing economy, but battling to reconcile its diverse political persuasions into a unified nation.

8. Mount Pleasant by Patrice Nganang

A majestic tale of colonialism and transformation, Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant tells the astonishing story of the birth of modern Cameroon, a place subject to the whims of the French and the Germans, yet engaged in a cultural revolution.

In 1931, Sara is taken from her family and brought to Mount Pleasant as a gift for Sultan Njoya, a ruler cast into exile by French colonialists. Merely nine years old, she is on the verge of becoming the sultan’s 681st wife.

 Seven decades later, a student returns home to Cameroon to learn about the place it once was, and she finds Sara, silent for years, ready to tell her story. But her serpentine tale, entangled by flawed memory and bursts of the imagination, reinvents history anew. The award-winning novelist Patrice Nganang’s Mount Pleasant is a lyrical resurrection of early-twentieth-century Cameroon and an elegy to the people swept up in the forces of colonization.

9.  The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Mattan, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Violet Volacki, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice.

But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. Now, Mahmood must stage a terrifying fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shoddy investigation, an inhumane legal system, and, most evidently, pervasive and deep-rooted racism at every step.

Under the shadow of the hangman’s noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, this book offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity.

10. A Mind to Silence and Other Stories: Ako Caine Prize Anthology 2021-22

A woman who carries her fate and that of her community in her hair is beguiled by the deceptive designs of Europeans out to colonise her most prized possession. A man finds happiness in the reincarnation of a lost love. A young woman risks her life for freedom through the cultural practice of a human loan scheme.

Tales of sacrifice, love, freedom, self-discovery and loss fill the pages of this larger-than-life tapestry of stories from across Africa and its diaspora. Forged in a diversity of tempers and forms, these stories range from the epistolary to the experimental, from mysteries, noirs and political thrillers to speculative fiction and futurism, and much more. In prose that moves from visual and lyrical to gritty and visceral, these writers explore fate, memory, the fragility of love and the duplicitous nature of human interactions.

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Books Education Events Issues News publishing

Longhorn now in DRC

Longhorn Publishers has expanded its operations to the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Longhorn Publishers has been serving the needs of students and educators in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda for over 50 years, and we’re thrilled to be offering our quality products and services to learners in DRC,” said the company in a statement on their social media pages.

“Longhorn Publishers is committed to providing affordable, high-quality educational resources that support student success. We offer a wide range of textbooks, workbooks, teacher’s manuals, and other instructional materials aligned with the latest curricula,” added the statement. “We look forward to working with students, educators, and parents in DRC to ensure that every learner has access to the resources they need to succeed.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo recently joined the East African Community, a move that is expected to expand business opportunities in the region.

Categories
Culture Issues News Personalities

How Hare Kuria scammed Hyena Kabogo

Gíkúyú mythology tells the story of the cunning hare that entered into a deal with the hyena to the effect that they beat up their mothers later that evening.
While it is not clear what wrong the two mothers had done to deserve such ‘punishment’, the two friends were nonetheless determined to go ahead with their dastardly plan.
Come the appointed time, hyena went ahead and gave his mother a terrible beating. Clever hare on the other hand, carried home some cardboard boxes (I am exaggerating here, but you catch the drift) and proceeded to bang them about.


Meanwhile, he had asked his mother to scream out, as if in agony, whenever he hit the cardboard boxes. That done, hare and his mother slept soundly till day break.
While the story sort of ended there, at least the version I heard, we can only imagine what transpired the following day.
Due to the heavy beating Hyena’s mother suffered, she might have found it impossible to wake up the following morning. However, at Hare’s homestead, the mother woke up fit and healthy, ready to face the day.
She even prepared nutritious breakfast for her son, all the time, exchanging knowing glances.
Such stories, mostly told to children, by their grandmothers, by the fireside, were meant to impart important moral lessons. This particular story counsels against blindly agreeing to any form of advice from ‘friends’. They might turn out to be malicious people who do not have your best interest at heart.
Now, this takes us to the curious friendship – if we might call it that – between Gatundu South MP, Moses Kuria and former Kiambu governor, William Kabogo. Both are supposed to have signed a cooperation agreement with the DP, William Ruto fronted, Kenya Kwanza coalition.
Now, the other day, Kabogo found himself in a shouting match – peppered with choice insults – with Kiambu Senator, Kimani Wamatangi, during a campaign tour of Limuru, in Kiambu County.
Kuria, Kabogo and Wamatangi are all eyeing the Kiambu governor’s seat, despite being in the same coalition. Of the three, Wamatangi clearly enjoys an upper hand, seeing as he is the one flying the UDA flag, which is Ruto’s party.
After the Kabogo/Wamatangi altercation, Kuria jumped to offer Kabogo a shoulder to cry on, as they both embarked on a lamentation tale, telling all and sundry how the UDA party has sidelined them. They also said very bad things about Mathira MP, Rigathi Gachagua, who is Ruto’s running mate, accusing him of engineering their troubles within the coalition.
They both swore to boycott Kenya Kwanza events until their ‘grievances’ are looked into. Meanwhile, Rigathi told them to go jump in the nearest sewerage pit.
The following day, Kabogo addressed a campaign rally in his Thika home ground, where he poured additional scorn on Rigathi and Ruto. On his part, Kuria booked himself a prime time slot with Citizen TV adding more fuel to Kabogo’s sentiments.
Media houses lapped this up predicting doom on the house Ruto built.
Just as Kabogo was basking in ‘their’ new-found notoriety as Kenya Kwanza bad boys, he must have been jolted back to reality when he saw Kuria happily participating in a Kenya Kwanza economic forum meeting in Nairobi. He followed it up with a rally in Nakuru.
That is when the penny dropped for Kabogo. Like the our friend the hyena, he had foolishly jumped on board Kuria’s plan to disrespect Kenya Kwanza and Ruto.
He is now out languishing in the ‘cold’, while Kuria, the hare, is having a swell time in the inner sanctums of Kenya Kwanza.
So, what is the game plan here? Well, only time will tell.
Meanwhile, the show goes on.

Categories
Books Featured Issues Personalities Reviews

Raila Odinga: My life at Magdeburg University

When Jaramogi Oginga Odinga sent his son Raila Odinga to communist East Germany, it was on the firm understanding that he would eventually study Medicine, despite the fact that the son was inclined to the arts.

This was in 1962 and Raila was only 17. He had just left Maranda School. In Germany, he was enrolled at the Herder-Institut in Leipzig, which had been a faculty of the prestigious Leipzig University.

“Students would arrive from many different parts of the world, having gone through widely varying education systems, so there was a need for them to be harmonised into the German system and to pass a university entrance exam before they could be admitted to any German institution of higher learning,” writes Raila in his book the Flame of Freedom. “The Herder-Institut was thus a combination of high school and language school.”

“I was just coming out of primary school, so I had to go through the Herder-Institut’s high school programme, taking three and a half years, along with fellow students from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and many other non-German speaking places,” he adds.

Among his colleagues at the Institute was Moses Keino who would later become Speaker of the National Assembly. Keino had however finished his ‘O’ Level studies back in Kenya, so he only spent a year at the herder-Institut before joining university.

Keino struck friendship with Etta Kirui, a Kenyan girl who had come to Leipzig to further the Nursing course she had acquired in the UK. The friendship blossomed into romance and soon, they were married, with Raila acting as the Emcee.

Their studies included a mandatory three-month basic German language course. “At the end of the three months, I came second to Ruhti in the German language exam,” writes Raila. “Coming from German-speaking Switzerland, he had an advantage over me.”

Back to the ‘Medicine course’.

The path to medical school involved studying Maths, biology, physics and chemistry. During his second year of study, the students had to do some practicals, at a local hospital, which involved the study of human anatomy. This is where a ‘problem’ arose.

“To my horror, the students were practicing on cadavers, cutting them up and examining various pieces of the dead bodies. I looked at it and just felt sick,” writes Raila. “I knew immediately that I was not cut out for medicine.”

Thoroughly traumatised, Raila threatened that he would go back to Kenya, if the institute’s administration did not allow him to change his course of study to Mechanical Engineering. “Changing courses initially put me at a disadvantage,” he writes. “The engineering students had completed courses in subjects I had not been studying… I had to work extra hours to catch up.”

Raila says that at the end of the three-year course, he passed ‘in all the subjects with high marks’ and was admitted to the Magdeburg College of Advanced Technology, which eventually became the Magdeburg Otto-von-Guericke University. “I chose Magdeburg because it specialised in heavy engineering,” adds Raila.

According to the book, Raila was at Magdeburg between 1965 and 1969.

At Magdeburg, Raila was the only African student; the only other African (a Sudanese) chose to identify himself with Arabs. He remembers a certain Norbert Shonborn who was jolly and full of jokes. He was the class clown. “He unfortunately failed his exams and was expelled,” says Raila.

His roommate and best friend in campus was Roland Obst, a German. “We would meet up again, many years later as middle-aged men, at a 2007 college re-union, we attended with our wives,” he writes.

It is at Magdeburg, Baba had his first taste of romance with a girlfriend named Huldegund Ruge, who was studying Chemical Engineering. The girl was fascinated by Africa and since Baba was the only African in a group of 300 students. It is easy to see why she was attracted to Raila.

That romance lasted only six months and Baba hooked up with another German, a school teacher named Margita. “…she used to come see me in Magdeburg, while I also visited her in Arendsee… I stayed with her several times and would take my books to study while she was working… It was a very happy and pleasant time,” writes Baba.

During his time at Magdeburg, Raila was the secretary general of Federation of Kenyan Students in Europe (KFSE). This involved a lot of travel in European countries attending student gatherings. At some point he was scheduled to travel to Moscow. Baba had written a telegram to his brother Oburu, who studying in Russia, so he could pay for their visa and clear them at the airport.

The telegram did not get to Oburu on time, leading to a lots of frustrations by uncooperative airport officials. Fed-up with the frustrations, Baba and his friend decided to hop into a taxi and get to their destination without visas. Airport officials stopped the taxi and ordered the two out. By the time Oburu arrived to sort them out, Baba had already been deported back to Berlin!

Did you know that when the famous American Jazz artiste Neil Armstrong came for a concert in Magdeburg, Baba was hired as an interpreter!

He explains that the courses at Magdeburg were extremely rigorous and that the dropout rate was high. “Of the original 40 in my group, only 17 of us eventually graduated,” explains Baba.

Baba graduated with Upper Second Honours (Gut) in Production Technology, which qualified him to register for a PhD, which he did, but failed to take up the offer.

The Flame of Freedom is published by Mountain Top Publishers.