Tuesday 30 August 2022
Monday 29 August 2022
Lessons for Africa from Kenya’s just-ended polls
Lifetime member of the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and author of over 20 books
What you need to know:
Why spend billions on something unproductive? How much money would Kenya have saved had it used manual ballot papers? What does this say about the country? Does it mean that some African countries have decided to divorce technology the same way they did with democracy that they tamper with like diapers?
While this matter’s still sub judice–it’s still before the court–considering some of the affidavits filed before the court to prove that there were hacking and tampering with technology, Africa needs to revisit its quest for spending money on technology that doesn’t deliver as expected as was in Kenya’s just-concluded elections.Technology is inexorable. However, for the countries that can spend billions on something that doesn’t deliver, it is another type of corruption.
It’s sad to find that pebble-dependent elections in the Gambia can deliver dependable results, but Kenya integrated election management systems (Kiems) kits couldn’t. Why spend billions on something unproductive? How much money would Kenya have saved had it used manual ballot papers? What does this say about the country? Does it mean that some African countries have decided to divorce technology the same way they did with democracy that they tamper with like diapers?
What good can a president produced by forgery, hacking, and rigging do for his or her country? Can such a president serve his or her people instead of his or her hankering for power and wealth? What would Africa do to avert the dangers corrupt systems pose?
Although there are many ways of foiling political criminality, ethics is the first frontier Africa must explore. Instead of allowing rich criminals to run for presidency and other positions, there must be a system that will deny such characters to participate in politics.
Africa’s constitutions and systems need to make presidents accountable to their people instead of being accountable to their masters abroad and tummies. If this is introduced and entrenched in the constitution, presidency will soon cease to be a life-and-death matter since it places heavy onuses on whoever wins it.
Also, we need to have the presidency that can be easily expelled from office whenever it goes wrong. This is what I call the deconstruction of presidency. Without deconstructing the presidency and its powers to offer latitude to those elected to plunder their countries instead of serving them, Africa hasn’t seen the worse yet.
Actually, presidency in Africa is a tool with which to use and exploit the mass instead of serving them. African presidents serve their families, friends and tummies but not the electorate. They are like demigods that are above the law.
Currently, African presidency isn’t only a tool by which to plunder the country but also to ruin it and its people without those doing so being brought to book provided they remain in power or install their stooges to take over after them.
Here’s where the dangers and root causes of dictatorship and abuses of and tampering with the constitution lie. Because of the ability to abuse and misuse power and countries, African presidency becomes something for which people are ready to kill or die.
If anything, that’s why political criminals go to great lengths of hiring other Tec criminals to corrupt and manipulate systems in their favour as it is alleged to have happened in Kenya. If proved that some candidates hired hackers to corrupt and defeat the Kiems, they must be banned from running for public office so that this can be a good lesson for others envisaging the same.
Why Kenyan elections? We all know how presidency saved the outgoing president and his deputy from the ICC’s scaffolds after being indicted of crimes against humanity. To survive, the duo had to clinch presidency by all means possible and thereby secure immunity against criminal liability, which they got. Remember. The ICC’s case has never been legally disposed. It means, the ICC can come calling anytime.
Thus, for William Ruto to secure his freedom, he must also become president by all means possible even if doing so means to wreck the country economically and financially. Even if it means abusing such expensive systems bought by poor people’s taxes. Those are virulent lessons from Kenya’s elections.
Source: Daily Monitor today.
Saturday 27 August 2022
IEBC, the house Chebukati put asunder
The electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati (centre) with fellow commissioners Prof Abdi Guliye (left) and Mr Molu Boya during a press briefing at the IEBC headquarters in Anniversary Towers in Nairobi on April 20, 2018. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Only two elections have ever been “free and fair” – reflecting the will of the people – in Kenya. That would be the 1963 and 2002 general elections. All the other elections – and I mean all others – have been shambolic. Even where the balloting was relatively free of illegalities and irregularities, the end result has often been an election that is stolen, or irredeemably compromised.
Election year in and election year out, voters come out in large numbers to choose their leaders, only to have their spirits murdered at the ballot box. The 2022 election hasn’t been any different. Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati, and a tiny minority of commissioners – Prof Abdi Guliye and Mr Boya Molu – have given the country two horribly fatal elections.
Mr Chebukati cuts the figure of an inflexible statue. He neither smiles nor exercises the muscles on his face. His walk looks pained and stiff. His demeanour and temperament are mulish. You can never tell whether he says anything with conviction because he doesn’t emote. Prof Guliye, who has been dubbed by some as “Mr Chebukati’s brain”, appears to have a permanent scowl. He’s witty and scrappy, but underneath lies a cold calculating man. I don’t know much about Mr Molu. I think he’s just one of those who follow the leader, no matter over the cliff.
Iron grip
Imagine this trio, out of the seven commissioners, with an exclusive iron grip on the IEBC. I don’t know what makes Mr Chebukati tick. If I were him, I would have resigned after bungling the 2017 presidential election that was nullified by the Supreme Court. But true to his immobile nature, he stuck around.
In 2022, he appears to have bungled another election, which is once again the subject of cases at the Supreme Court. But rather than exit hanging his head in shame, Mr Chebukati has stuck to his guns, impervious of his sins. Instead, he’s chosen to run the IEBC with his two mates. He’s been taking most decisions to the exclusion of the majority in the commission.
He’s become the Vladimir Putin of the IEBC. His term mercifully comes to an end in January if he’s not ejected from office before then. The end is nigh. Institutions don’t often function as written on paper. Human beings run them and mould them to create tradition. In Kenya, the institution of the national electoral agency has been a Frankenstein. An ogre, a monster bent on the consumption of humans.
Happy middle
But in democratic countries, important institutions negotiate a happy middle between the role of the leader and the integrity of the institution. This negotiation is supposed to confer legitimacy on the institution so that it can effectively carry out its mandate without being suffocated by the leader. Otherwise, the institution becomes malevolent.
Kenya’s electoral agencies have never found this “happy middle”. They’ve either been handmaidens of the Executive, or putty in the hands of a dictatorial chair. The result is that Kenya’s electoral agencies exist to subvert the will of the electors. I remember well the 1988 ‘mlolongo’ (queue) elections. In that sad but comical affair, voters were required to line up behind the imagined effigy of their candidates. The polling officer would then take one look and declare that one line – picked arbitrarily and not by its depth of humanity – was for the winning candidate. The matter ended there.
That’s how politically undesirable candidates were sent to their political deaths. The barometer was usually who was more pro-Kanu than the other. Any whiff of disloyalty sent you packing. No ballot papers, not tallying. No Kiems kits. It’s not even clear whether poll officials checked for IDs.
I hate to imagine this, but the ‘mlolongo’ elections were probably more transparent than the recent high-tech affair. At least ‘mlolongo’ rigging was done in broad daylight. You were rigged out transparently in the full glare of the hot sun as you watched. In Mr Chebukati’s IEBC, you are rigged out through fake Forms 34A – as alleged in court papers – which are plucked from orbit and replaced on something called a portal. It sounds like a place where lobotomies of the brain are done.
Tech infrastructure
There’s information, which has been presented in court, suggesting that the IEBC tech infrastructure was being run from elsewhere – in a place not called Bomas. Some say abroad. Perhaps we captured the Venezuelans but forgot that they had left the real IEBC from whence they came. It’s sickening. What kind of a patriot takes one of the most important institutions in a country and puts it asunder?
Was it a design problem of the IEBC that has made a monster out of the IEBC, or has Mr Chebukati simply been a malign force? If so, how can we deal with him, and prevent his facsimile from overtaking over the IEBC? More importantly, how does the country make an example out of the IEBC leadership? Something needs, and must, be done. We cannot simply let them walk away without facing the full weight of the law.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.
Source: Sunday Nation tomorrow
Saturday 20 August 2022
Wafula Chebukati, the IEBC dictator
What you need to know:
.Chebukati's performance as the head of the IEBC can only be described as dismal and catastrophic.
In illiberal societies, public institutions often create monsters. These are individuals who assume that the public trust invested in them makes them demigods; state factotums who seek power to prosecute agendas and vendettas contrary to the institution’s purposes.
In the past week, we have witnessed the textbook definition of such a functionary. Chairperson Wafula Chebukati of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has shocked me with his singular obsession to husband – and I use the term advisedly – all the most important powers of the institution. He has done so in total disregard of the Constitution, the laws of Kenya, and the applicable case law. His performance as the head of the IEBC can only be described as dismal and catastrophic. Truly, incredibly sad.
Transition from autocracy
Laws are written for specific purposes to cure or address, specific issues. That’s true of institutions created under particular laws. There’s no law, or institution, that’s created to orbit in space without a social, political or economic anchor. None. But laws are born of historical and local contexts. Importantly, laws don’t exist without a path to their implementation. This is especially in societies that are in the process of transitioning from autocracy to democracy.
Kenya has been in such a transition since the late 1980s. Moving away from an imperial executive and bureaucracy, a rubber legislature, and a captive judiciary, to a freer society.
However, institutions are only as good as the people who run and manage them. A morally decrepit person must never be allowed anywhere near children. A corrupt official must never be given keys to the public purse. A politically greedy manic must not be given executive power. That’s why individuals who haven’t internalised the values of democratic governance must never be allowed to run public institutions.
But what do you do when such people are in short supply, or where cartels have captured public institutions?
Or where a nincompoop finds himself at the head of a public body? I submit that it’s up to the public to eject such a misfit from office. Such an official can do great damage to society. He can precipitate a national meltdown with one action. The IEBC was created in the 2010 Constitution to cure the colossal failures of its predecessors. Some people may be too young to remember the debacles of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), the predecessor to the IEBC. The ECK was in law, spirit and structure the exact opposite of the IEBC. It was an institution controlled in law and fact by the Executive.
It had no independent existence from the State House. Its main job was to keep Kanu and subsequent regimes in power in perpetuity, especially before term limits. The chairpersons of the ECK were “poodles” of the executive. They, and their fellow commissioners, had no minds, or ideas, of their own. They existed to do the bidding of the president. One remembers with pity the sad spectacle of the last chairperson of the ECK, the late Samuel Kivuitu.
In 2007, the poor fellow disappeared from his office in unclear circumstances only to appear at dusk at State House to swear in President Mwai Kibaki after a stolen election.
We know what happened next. The country exploded in genocidal violence. Only a “Handshake” between ODM’s Raila Odinga and Mr Kibaki stopped Kenya from going the way of Somalia.
A year later, I bumped into Mr Kivuitu and asked him where he had disappeared to before showing up at State House. The wisecracking lawyer said that he had no recollection of the events of that day. My jaw dropped to the floor.
The ECK-Kivuitu problem
The IEBC was created to cure the ECK-Kivuitu problem. To make sure the chair of the electoral body was neither a dictator, nor a poodle of the state.
'Brazen dictator'
I don’t know what else Mr Chekubati is, or isn’t. But I know this – he’s a brazen dictator. The law is clear that Mr Chebukati is only the first among equals in a democratic institution, not an unaccountable overlord. He’s not a king. He has no legal powers to carry out unilateral decisions or to commit the IEBC to his personal commands, or wishes.
The commissioners as a corporate body do the IEBC’s works – by consensus, or a vote of the majority – not by the fiat of the chair. He can’t issue edits. This is especially true in presidential elections, one of the most consequential decisions any public body can make in Kenya. That existential decision can’t be made by Mr Chebukati alone, or with a tiny minority of commissioners.
Such a decision is void and null. It’s unconstitutional and a legal nullity. At least four of the seven commissioners are required by law to make such a decision, which then Mr Chebukati is allowed to communicate to the public.
This week four commissioners rejected Mr Chebukati’s announcement of UDA candidate William Ruto as President-elect. In law, this means Kenya doesn’t have an official of the elections or a President-elect.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School. He’s Chair of KHRC. @makaumutua
Thursday 18 August 2022
TOWARDS A NEW CONSTITUTION : PRESIDENT KIKWETE’s REASONS FOR INTRODUCING A NEW CONSTITUTION.
The expression ‘constitutional change’ is actually a twin concept, which implies two distinct processes: one is the enactment of an entirely new constitution; but the other is the introduction of changes in the existing constitution. In their recorded history, countries like the United States of America, and India, have not enacted any new constitution, they only have been making amendments to their existing constitutions from time to time, as the need arises.
In a refreshing departure from the normal practice and procedure described above; President Kikwete introduced new additional procedural steps to be taken in the process of implementing the constitutional change that he had decided to initiate; which he did through a new law enacted by Parliament, titled “the Constitutional Review Act, 2011, which was designed to govern that constitution - making process.
It can however be said, that this matter of issuing ‘guiding principles’ in constitution-making, Tanzania has taken a distinctly different approach of its own. This is because, in the making of their independence constitutions, countries like Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa; their ‘guiding principles’ actually represented a consensus of the different social groups involved who held differing vested interests, and were each seeking guaranteed protection of its particular interests.
Tuesday 16 August 2022
Ruto Win: What Kenya Did Was Kenyan but Not ‘UnAfrican’
Before I delve into what I’m to aver, I must make some clarifications. I’ll do so by asking a few questions to help my readership to decide if what Kenya recently did is ‘unAfrican’ or just Kenyan.
Considering the imbroglio that hasn’t been addressed and resolved yet, are the results that the Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) announced recently legally binding? Do they hold water considering that four out of the seven electoral commissioners openly distanced themselves from the results? Why did the IEBC chair, Wafula Chebukati, override the four commissioners? Why did he hurry to announce the results? Do we need to listen to the commissioners and the Azimio to know why this occurred so that we can know more before passing an informed judgment? There are more questions than answers.
The other day I read an article by Charles Onyango-Obbo (East African, 14 August, 2022) saying that Kenya did something ‘unAfrican’ to mean electoral transparency as if it totally were. I see nothing new here if I remind myself and refer to what’s been transpiring in Botswana since 1966 or what transpired in Malawi and Zambia since 1992. I feel bad when some of our people become their own enemies and portray Africa including themselves as an inferior society that’s to be tutored by the West on everything. I don’t want to say such characters are bought. My understanding is that the problem is ignorance if not coloniality or personal inferiority complex. Such people must underline the fact that pre-colonial Africa was democratic and peaceful. That’s why history has never recorded any war of any magnitude compared to Europe’s WWI and WWII or genocide in Australia and the Americas.
Secondly, when COO, as he’s known for those who have worked with him for a long time, asserts that Kenya did something ‘unAfrican’, he doesn’t define what African and what ‘unAfrican’ mean. COO writes “what happened in Kenya was different and new in that it went over the top, and weaponised electoral openness, at a time when Africa is facing a democracy crisis.” Seriously? Let me play the devil’s advocate. Can you compare the slapdash conclusion of recent Kenyan elections with those of Malawi and Zambia since the introduction of multipartyism? Is it because some people like to see everything by replicating what’s happening in their countries without even thinking rationally based on history? What type of openness is this if four commissioners out of seven can boycott the results issued by their own commissioner? What does openness imply and mean when competitors refuse to concede?
Kenya’s elections would have contributed something to Africa’s democracy had it not ended the way it did. I hate generalization. It is wrong to ignore the examples above of the countries whose elections have always been credible and peaceable. If COO is talking about a warring country as a replica of Africa, which also is wrong, maybe he might have a point, though a weak one.
Stating generally that Kenya has become a harbinger of electoral openness is an understatement if we remind ourselves about what Botswana’s been doing since gaining independence or what Malawi and Zambia have perfected. Those who know the history of Kenya’s chaotic elections and rigging allegations will agree with me that the problem always is not how voters vote but how results are received and reached at. That’s that.
If I can be honest to myself, Kenya did what it’s been good at, doing things in a Kenyan way, which means that its transition to democracy is still premature. How can we take a pride on such a thing while some of the participants view it as a sham or something abnormal?
Another thing that I’d like us to consider are the CVs of the competitors. As I’m writing, nobody knows if the President-Elect with his Deputy President will be sworn in. This is because there’s a sub judice issue on the legality of Rigathe Gachagua’s fitness to hold public office after being convicted of a criminal offence. What does this say? Kenya might have a very progressive constitution. However, it is a paternalistic system. If we clinically view the CVs of the contenders, especially the frontrunners, who are ethical?
Practically, electors choose the leaders that look like them. If they’re corrupt, they’ll elect corrupt people. If they’re clean, they’ll elect uncontaminated leaders. I’m not a judge on this matter. I remember. When I was in Kenya, I would hear some Kenyans say that ‘it is our turn to eat.’ They would exonerate a thief and say proudly, “even if he’s a thief, he’s our thief.”
Democracy also revolves around ethics. If democracy is a heaven, those entering it must be ethically clean and trustworthy. They must be like the wife of Caesar who, when was accused of wrongdoing, her husband told her that he knew she was clean. However, being the wife of Caesar, she’d to be beyond any reproach. Therefore, what Kenya did isn’t ‘unAfrican’ but Kenyan.
Monday 8 August 2022
Barua kwa Rais Samia Suluhu Hassan Tuachane na Uchukuaji Uitwao Uwekezaji
Kwanza, nikiri. Juhudi zako za kuleta maendeleo ni za kupigiwa mfano. Tangu uchukue ukanda, hakuna kilichoharibika. Sana sana kilichokosekana ni kubadili mfumo wetu wa hovyo uitwao uwekezaji wakati kiuhalisia ni uchukuaji unaowawezesha wageni kutuibia kwa kisingizio cha uwekezaji. Je hapa alaumiwe nani iwapo tumejiwekea mifumo ya kujiiibia na kuibiwa?
Mheshimiwa Rais, niruhusu nitoe mfano toka hapa Kanada na baadhi ya nchi za Kiafrika nilizodurusu mifumo yao ya uwekezaji. Ukitaka kuwekeza hapa Kanada, unapaswa uwe na si chini ya Dola za kimarekani 200,000 au Dola 75,000 kama umewekeza kwenye kampuni ya Kikanada chini ya kinachoitwa designated Canadian angel investor group. Ukiwa na kiasi hiki, unapewa visa haraka haraka kuingia na kuanza kuishi na familia yako huku ukipewa ukazi wa kudumu au uraia––––kama utautaka––––baada ya kuishi hapa kwa miaka mitatu bila kutoka. Hapa wanao watasoma na kutibiwa bure sawa na wakanada. Hii ni kwa mujibu wa tovuti ya serikali ya cic.gc.ca.
Mheshimiwa Rais, ukitaka kuwekeza na kuingia Botswana, unatakiwa kuwa na ima Pula za Botswana milioni moja au Euro 82,000 au Dola za kimarekani 93,000. Kwa Tanzania, kama si mtanzania, unapaswa kuwa na Dola 500, 000 na mtanzania Dola 100,000! Kwa Namibia ni Dola za kimarekani 135,000 au NMD 2,000,000. Kwa nchi zote tatu, raia wao hawahitajiki kuwa na kiasi chochote. Je sisi tunafanya hivyo kumkomoa nani? Jibu ni kwamba ni kwa sababu tunawanyima watanzania wenye uraia pacha fursa ya kuwekeza kwao na kuendeleza nchi zao baada ya kusotea fedha ughaibuni. Matokeo yake, wanatafuta nchi nyingi kwenda kuwekeza wakati wanao uwezo wa kuwekeza kwao. Kwanini tusiwamotishe watu wetu wenye uraia wa nchi nyingine lau kwa kuwawekea sharti katika kupewa uraia pacha kulingana na uwezo wao wa kuwekeza nchini badala ya kupoteza muda tukibembeleza wageni wakati watu wetu wanazo fedha nje lakini wanahofia kurejea nyumbani na kuibiwa kwa vile hawaruhusiwi kufanya baadhi ya mambo?
Mheshimiwa Rais, niliwahi kuandika makala juu ya namna Waziri Mkuu Mstaafu Mhe. Mizengo Pinda anavyoweza kusaidia watu wetu wengi wasio na ajira au wastaafu kuishia maisha bora huku wakianzisha miradi inayoweza kuwasaidia wao na familia zao huku wakitoa ajira kwa wengine na kuwa vyanzo vizuri vya kodi na maisha bora. Baada ya makala hiyo kusomwa, nilipata maombi mengi toka ughaibuni yakitaka niwaunganishe na gwiji huyu wa kilimo na uwekezaji bila mafanikio tokana na kutokuwa na mawasiliano yake. Nilijaribu kutafuta baruapepe au simu yake toka kwa rafiki yangu Spika Mstaafu, Mzee Pius Msekwa, bahati mbaya hakuwa nayo. Nilikwamia hapo na kushindwa kuwasaidia wenzangu waliovutiwa na uwekezaji wa Mzee Pinda.
Mheshimiwa Rais, naomba ujiulize. Je mfumo wetu wa uwekezaji unatusaidiaje kama nchi wakati wezi wengi tena wa kigeni wanautumia kwa kusaidiana na wezi wasio na uraia pacha wala uzalendo kuingia na kupiga fedha na kuondoka? Rejea kilichotokea wakati kampuni ya kihindi Rites Consortium lilipojifanya kuwekeza kwenye Reli na kuishia kutupiga mabilioni na kuondoka. Je mfumo wetu wa uwekezaji unatusaidia kama taifa au kutuumiza? Kwa nchi za magharibi, ukiwekeza, watakutoza kodi, utaajiri watu wao na kuwalipa kiwango cha juu cha mshahara, kulipia bima na mambo mengine. Mfumo wao, kimsingi, ni wa kuwahudumia na si wa kuhudumia matapeli kama ilivyo yetu iliyochakaa na kujaa ujanjaujanja. Mifumo ya hapa haina huruma na mgeni. inamhudumia mwananchi kwa mgongo wa mgeni. Nitoe mfano wangu binafsi. Mie na mke wangu tuna nyumba hapa. Tumeinunua kwa kulipa aslimia 30 na zinazobaki tunalipa taratibu kwa kutozwa riba kubwa tu. Tunafanya kazi na kutozwa si chini ya aslimia 30 ya mishahara pia tunalipa kodi ya manunuzi.
Mheshimiwa Rais, hapa wanahimiza watu waongeze ujuzi. Ukianza, unapewa tuzo kwa sharti kuwa lazima uchukue mikopo ya masomo ambayo hutozwa riba pindi tu ukimaliza masomo. Mfano, katika shahada yangu ya uzamivu, nadaiwa karibu milioni 100 za kitanzania. Japo huu ni uwekezaji kwangu na familia, umeiingizia fedha nyingi Kanada kwa sababu tu imenipa fursa ya kuongeza maarifa.
Mheshimiwa Rais, sasa turejee kwa wanadiaspora waliowekeza ima kwenye ajira, biashara au elimu. Je tunawasaidiaje na kujisaidiaje kama nchi inayohitaji uwekezaji uwe mkubwa au mdogo? Tumeshindwa kuwa na mfumo hata wa kuhamisha fedha za watu wetu bila kukatwa na kuibiwa. Hivi, mfano, kama mtanzania anataka kurejesha nyumbani Dola za kimarekani kiasi chochote. Kwanini tusiwe na utaratibu wa kupeleka fedha hizo kwenye ubalozi wetu akapewa risiti ya malipo zikatumika kulipa wafanyakazi huko, akaenda kuzipokea nyumbani ambako atakuwa ameokoa aslimia kumi ya fedha husika? Mfano, nikiweka Dola 200,000 ubalozini zikalipa mishahara nikaja kulipwa na serikali sitakuwa nimeokoa Dola 20,000 kiasi ambacho, kwa mikoani kinaweza kujenga banda au kuanzisha kijibiashara ya ufugaji hata wa kuku, mbuzi au samaki.
Mheshimiwa Rais, hii ndiyo njia inayotumiwa na wageni wengi nchini kuhamisha fedha zao bila kupoteza hata senti. Hebu wachunguze wawekezaji au hata wafanyakazi wa kigeni walioko nchi kwa vibali vya kufanya kazi. Utakuta kila wakisafiri kwenda kwao hawahamishi fedha. Lakini ukiuliza fedha yao iko wapi huioni. Inapitia kwenye balozi zao ambapo huenda kulipiwa kwao.
Mhe. Rais nisikuchoshe, nashauri uanze kudurusu namna ya kuwavutia watanzania waioko nje. Kuna fedha inaweza kuingia na kunufaisha taifa. Chukulia mfano mtu ambaye anapata mshahara wa Dola 100, 000 kwa mwaka. Huku anakatwa kodi si chini ya 36,000. Je anaweka akiba kiasi gani? Je kama anaruhusiwa kuhamisha fedha yake baada ya kuamua kurejea nyumbani atakuwa na fedha kiasi gani na zinaweza kusaidia taifa kiasi gani? Naomba tutafakari pamoja.
Chanzo: Raia Mwema leo.
Photo from Nkwazi Magazine, which I happen to stumble on when I was reading stuff
Sunday 7 August 2022
Will Africa Learn from Ukraine Conflict on Food Security?
As per the Al Jazeera (11 April, 2022), the Ukraine conflict’s likely to adversely impact on African countries vis-a-vis food independence and security. I didn’t know that Africa still depends on a small country like Ukraine for its supply of wheat. This doesn’t add up for a country that covers only 603, 628 km2 compared to Africa’s 30,370, 000 km2 to feed Africa. Something is wrong somewhere. What does Africa supply to Ukraine that it produces? Don’t tell me the minerals. Does Africa own its own minerals while they don’t benefit it? Does African countries with oil own it while the multinationals benefit while the so-called owners suffer? Compare the lives of citizens in oil-producing African countries with those they supply? If anything, African countries with oil and minerals own mine holes and the pangs of pollution while foreign companies enjoy the profits.
Africa’s goofs and quandaries need profound explanations to understand. It doesn’t convince common sense for the country that’s 1/50 of Africa to feed Africa. The analogous allegory I can give here’s of a baby breastfeeding its mother. But again, Ukraine does feed Africa. Then what’s iniquitous here? What’s the miracle here? Are Africans like elephants? Elephants are huge. They’ve huge body mass and brains. Yet, they’re destroyed by a small human to the verge of extinction. Again, elephants are beasts. They’re not human. Again, who are Africans in such an equation?
To avoid being seen as I’m dissing my people, look at the picture of African leaders. Most of them are fatter than their donors. Their lives are posher than those of their donors. They pay themselves bigger salaries than their donors. The other day I was watching UK’s parliamentary session. What a simple affair that it is! Thereafter, I watched my country’s parliamentary debates, huge hall with all avantgarde gadgets and grandeur. Again, if you listen to the representatives in the two, you understand why ours are gigantic. It is because we’re reckless and selfish since we serve ourselves as opposed to our donors’ representatives who serve their countries and people.
The other day I read somewhere that countries in West Africa were importing onions from the EU! I also read somewhere that Kenya, despite being surrounded by the mighty Lake Nyanza, was importing septic fish from China whereas some Chinese traders were exporting clean fish from Kenya to China! How do you call this folly and futility? When push comes to the shove this must be said that it is more than a shame for such a humungous country to be fed by any country while it has everything for producing for its people except a will to do so. Whom do such bestiality and comportment help dear African brethren?
Bovines, ewes and goats can comfortably depend on one type to feed them since they’re faunae. No shame at all for such brutes to be fed by human even by another ogre but not humans. For Africa even a part of it to be fed by small countries like Ukraine is more than a disgrace for whoever whose marbles upstairs are still intact. How come while African countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zambia, and Zimbabwe, all except Kenya, Madagascar and Botswana are bigger than Ukraine grow wheat, yet this tiny country beat them? What’s wrong? Asper Gro Intelligence (16 April, 2015), the World Bank identified 3.84 million hectares of land suitable for wheat production in Sub-Saharan Africa, the vast majority of which is in East Africa. This is almost equal to the amount of land dedicated to the cultivation of wheat in Argentina, one of the world’s major producers of the crop.
I don’t get it for a humongous country like Sudan covering the area of 1, 886,068 km2 to starve simply because a country like Ukraine that’s less than 1/3 of the same’s at war and thus can’t feed it. Is the problem here natural or nurtured? What are all heads of Sudanese as a replica of Africa doing? Ironically, while Sudan’s starving and weeping for wheat from Ukraine, the same’s the guts to pointlessly lease out its land to Gulf countries to produce food for their citizens while its own people are starving to death! What are the hands of Sudanese doing? Food’s power. S/he who’s able to feed oneself is a free person. Hunger’s slavery. This has become evident to Europe whose power dependency on Russia turned it into a laughingstock when it failed to fully apply sanctions against Russia. Had it dared, its economy and posh life would become the things of the past.
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s founder, used to say that for the country to develop, it needs three things namely land, people and good policies. What is missing here? Sudan like Africa’s the land, people and policies. What else is missing? Are our people abnormal? Is our land barren? Are our policies wanting? The first two are Okay. The third ingredient seems to be the matter. It is the missing link. Our people are normal and land productive save that our policies are abnormal so to speak. Take Sudan, for example, how’d it feed itself while it ruled instead of being led? The same applies on many African countries. Many African countries lack leaders. They’ve tons and tons of rulers but they’re bankrupt when it comes to leaders. They’ve policies. Yet they lack sound policies. When it comes to sound leadership and policies, Africa’s bankrupt. Leaders are accountable. So, too, they feel shame. What do you expect out of shameless rulers whose powers are but a private estate for them, their tick-like bloods, courtiers, and cronies? What do you expect of beggars in chief? What do you expect of such shameless men and women who take pride in aid and begging even from smaller countries by land and people than theirs? When’ll Africa see the light if it can’t even learn from such a simple matter as the Ukraine conflict? Why’s Africa at home with chicken mentality. The chickens eat what they don’t produce and produced what they don’t produce. The needle sews many clothes, but it is forever naked. The spoon scoops tons and tons of food yet, it is forever hungry. Who wants such a life? These are beasts and tools. Africans, to the contrary, are humans. Again, is it the same way others understand us? Refer to the treatments of useful Ukrainians compared to Africans and others.
In sum, there are no important lessons Africa needs to learn from the Ukraine conflict like feeling shame, starting rethinking about its future, frugality, and above all, loathing and stopping dependency and extravagance. We’ve what it takes to feed ourselves. Again, what’s amiss is self-worthy and sense of humanity. We’re living and thinking like animals as if we’re animals. A few examples above speak to this anomaly. Suppose––––God forbid––––the conflict in Ukraine drags in for year. You can take this to the bank. Many countries ruled by corrupt and swindling rulers will crumble since hungry people will take over. Instead of being fired up by their humanity, deprivation and destitution will do the show.
Source: Daily Monitor today.
Political revenge of the Kenyan nerds
Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.
What you need to know:
- As our education system failed, so did the state and society. Back in the day, the nerd used to get the girl.
- Azimio will take a good look at our education system and restructure it to bring sanity and credibility to it.
Our education system has collapsed. International employers no longer believe in Kenyan academic credentials.
Colleges and universities in America used to take transcripts from Kenyan schools as gospel truth. No longer.
Today they hold them under the proverbial magnifying glass. Often, they discount the grades and knock them down a peg. If you doubt me, listen to some of our “graduates”. Many can’t string together a coherent sentence. Our universities are tawdry diploma mills. Anyone and I mean anyone, who wants a degree gets one. “Nerds”, or so-called “bookworms”, went out of fashion eons ago.
As our institutions of learning – from kindergarten to college – have collapsed, our country has slowly decayed in virtually every facet of life.
"Screwed up"
The economy is on its deathbed. Traffic rules mean diddly squat. We can’t grow enough food to feed ourselves. Official impunity is at an all-time high. Morality and honesty are a distant whisper. We no longer respect our parents or elders. Our senior politicos mouth the vilest epithets at rallies. Our moral code as a nation is no more. PhDs are despised by dropouts and make less than MCAs. We are a country that’s screwed up.
Royally. That’s why the August 9 elections mean everything. We are at an inflection point. We must get a grip. Let me recall my idyllic early education and how nerds were the bomb then.
First, the usual opening line by folks of my generation. The school was far away, miles over several valleys and rivulets. But we got up at the crack of dawn, took cold baths from buckets in outhouses (running water was only a rumour in the village), and then trekked into the horizon to school after a bite of breakfast.
Often, many went barefoot, the only thing distinguishing them being the bright-coloured uniforms. At six o’clock sharp, we reported to school. Guess what? We were truly happy campers. The entire school day was one great adventure. We loved it. Then we happily trooped home hopping and skipping. My children roll their eyes every time I tell this story of “hardship”. Teachers were stern then.
The rule was spare the rod and spoil the child. There was more corporal punishment than I would’ve liked. The education system was a copycat of the harsh British public education, only without the benefits of industrial democracy. But I will say this of the system. It forged character, the excesses notwithstanding.
I remember disciplined school culture percolated all the way to the University of Nairobi. The idea of cheating in exams, for example, never even occurred to us. That’s how innocent and naïve we all were. I can see more eye rolls. That system made us who we are today.
A broken people
But those who came after us are broken people. The 8-4-4 system was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The state has so tinkered with the education system that nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing.
Today it’s the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). Who knows what monster is next? As our education system failed, so did the state and society. Back in the day, the nerd used to get the girl. Then the nerd was dropped for the villain, the vagabond. Then the flashy but empty-headed dresser took charge.
Materialism took over. Soon, it didn’t matter how you acquired your wealth. Only that you were morally inferior – a fool, an idiot – if you weren’t rich. The nerds were pushed to the margins of society. Kenya became an anti-intellectual society. We are largely governed by our inferiors.
People who are moral dwarfs and intellectual midgets. That’s what sells in Kenya as long they have cash in their pocket. But lately, I have seen some incipient changes. The nerds are coming back. It’s what I call the revenge of the nerds. In the political campaigns of the major candidates, for example, nerds are increasingly valuable.
It’s the nerds who crank out manifestos. They organise “thinking” retreats. They write “think pieces”. My suspicion is that the next government will pay more attention to what nerds think, and say. That’s partly out of necessity because the country has to think its way out of the mess it’s in.
But it’s also because in Azimio, for example, flag-bearer Raila Odinga and running mate Martha Karua are intellectuals. The campaign is driven by data, evidence and facts from impeccable research. They interrogate their advisers repeatedly and think with them. They don’t shoot in the dark or act on a hunch.
I believe the Azimio government will have its fair share of nerds. I also believe because of this, Azimio will take a good look at our education system and restructure it to bring sanity and credibility to it. It will modernise it while making it competitive internationally. It will make sure we are no longer an international laughing stock.
As Azimio restores the education system, banishes corruption and shuns impunity, the country will return to moral sobriety.
Let the nerds return to respectability.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.