Compliments, Comments and Complains... Youth Morale is vital

From a young Kenyan point of view, today I want to focus more on positive deeds happening in the country that have a positive effect on the youth and youthful Kenyans. 

To begin with, I’m celebrating the 41000 students who sat for their KCSE last year and will be joining public university this year.  The number is 8,000 more than the 34,000 students who were admitted last year. Indeed it's a commendable record breaking on university enrollment by the Joint Admission Board, JAB. In addition, JAB has also cut the two year waiting period for these candidates and this year candidates will be joining in October.

I'm confident student's demand to have HELB loans increased will be considered

Much credit also goes to the Ministry for Higher Education for facilitating this record enrollment by upgrading nine technical colleges to university campuses which will admit their batch of students this year. This is a clear indication that the government is determined to educate the future of this country. I’m also confident that the recent demands by university students to have their HELB loans increased due to the rising cost of living will also be considered.

But this journey to a learned nation has not been easy since it was ignited in 2003 by the Narc government when it launched the Free Primary Education program. Challenges such as scandals and allegations of stolen FPE money have not deterred us from going for the goal. In 2008, the government launched the free tuition secondary education, a step further towards our goal. Now we’ve seen how those who excelled in the secondary education have been rewarded.

And with so much praise on the Government for credible uplifting of the education sector, I cannot rest my case before warning the government that the journey doesn’t end once these young Kenyans have joined the universities. It is up to the very government to create an economy that will nurture and facilitate development of graduates; an economy that will breastfeed innovativeness of graduates with relevant opportunities.

Learned youth with no opportunity is a pending disaster

Joining universities and colleges is not as vital as knowing how beneficial that enrollment is to the life of the young scholar. I believe there are thousands of university and college students who are waiting to graduate yet they have no idea what they will do with their courses. I therefore, strongly believe policies should be put in place to ensure that these graduates later become useful and accessible sources of human resource for development of this country. These policies should exhaustively address the youth unemployment crisis we are currently facing in the country.

 I would also take this opportunity to commend our athletics team for such a commendable performance in the biggest ever London Marathon. Special congrats to Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany for completing a classy Kenyan double in the elite races with Keitany becoming the quickest African of all time as she retained her women's title with a re-run of her sparkling solo win from 12 months' ago. World silver medalist Priscah Jeptoo completed a Kenyan sweep of the medals - the first ever in the women's race.

At the same time I would like to apologize on behalf of the Kenyan media for not giving such a victorious moment for Kenya much coverage and in turn opting to focus more on divisive politics. I hope you bear with us as that’s the nature of our media; we are more attracted to bullshit than to glorious news.

As I retire on this article, it would be unusual for me to sign off without criticizing the current system. I thought once we endorsed the new constitution, we had done away with inhuman handling of the members of public by the police. But it seems I was wrong. On April 19 my eyes could not believe the images of police firing live bullets and teargas canisters to the youth who had attended the Limuru 2B meeting. I witnessed with dismay several young Kenyans who were arrested in the meeting being roughly beaten by police officers who passionately carried out the act in front of cameras.

Are we going back to where we were a decade ago? I thought the Utumishi kwa Wote theme had been restored in our police force. It irritates me to see a ruling class that Kenya has entrusted in implementation of the new law reviving the old, ugly and undemocratic tactics of police brutally dispersing meetings. In addition, the police force has also been accused of brutally beating and causing severe injuries on yet another young Kenyan in Turkana County. I personally watched the video and didn’t give a damn about the wrong the kid had committed because I believe no wrongdoer deserves such an inhuman punishment.     

So dear Mr. System, there is no way you clean the right hand and stain the left one and expect I to approve your cleanliness, I will tell it to your face, the left hand is stained.  

Crack on the GEMA wall, is this the begining of the end?

Central politics has been determinant factor in the National politics

The much hyped Limuru 2B meeting did not take place yesterday as expected after police officers sealed off the venue of the meeting. The meeting which was attended by thousands of youth from the central region, was to be used to counter the GEMA initiative and air a different opinion on the leadership of central Kenya. However,  this didn’t happen as Police came in to disperse the attending crowd  lobbing tear gas canisters and live bullets and consequently, calling off the meeting completely.

Now, this has attracted tough reaction from leaders who had organized the meeting saying they will seek legal action. The leaders allege that there are certain leaders in the central region who are out to ensure residents don’t enjoy their constitutional given right to hold meetings. They also reacted negatively on ethnic groupings such as Gema and KAMATUSA saying they are out to divide Kenyans. But, all these are political defense statements from the mouths of politicians.

What I would like to highlight in bold colors is the emerging crack on the GEMA wall. On my previous article I had expressed my dissatisfaction with ethnic groupings being used to ferry politicians to their desired political destinations during election period. How I passionately engaged in a campaign to devalue GEMA and KAMATUSA as grouping prone to propagating ethnic based violence. Little did I know of a crack developing on the wall of GEMA.

Apparently, the death of Former Kiambu MP Njenga Karume left a very influential seat vacant and now it’s time opinion leader from the region are battling to see who secure this highly valued seat. This situation has welcomed in an unseen revolution in the grouping whereby the long-ignored, covered and hidden pregnancy has grown so big that it can’t be hidden no more. On one side is the formal GEMA, a group that is currently gaining recognition courtesy of the unlimited support from the current group of central leaders and Uhuru Kenyatta. On the other side is the Limuru 2B which is popular courtesy of the large number of youth drawn to it by former mungiki leader Maina Njenga. And in the middle is a developing crack.

This revolutionary group under captaincy of Maina Njenga has posed an infinite challenge ahead of the GEMA leadership and as far as my eyes can see the push has just began and I can clearly see a tsunami raging behind. The Limuru 2B, as it is popularly being known, has the advantage of numbers a factor I believe will cause sleepless nights to the GEMA. I am aware of the toughening GEMA went through in the 70s, 80s and the 90s but I’m not sure of how it will succeed on this one.

Last March during GEMA Maina Njenga was denied a chance to address the gathering and by doing so the grouping revealed a crack that has developed to expose Limuru 2B, a group that has the advantage of the large number of youthful members. 

From a neutral point of view, a solution between Maina Njenga and Uhuru Kenyatta could seal the crack and consequently, affect the system of leadership at GEMA.

But what about the youth, whom their statistics is the prime factor in this whole equation, will they benefit?

I highly doubt!

That’s why I rest my case, vowing to remain an independent voter who is free from tribal grouping influence.

May I have a word with you, Dear Mr. Politician?

Mature politics requires Insight.

Today I want to talk about ethnic politics, an issue or rather a topic that is apparently giving our politicians a hard time to understand its risks. A recap on 2007 elections will show you how miserably our dear politicians performed on this delicate yet critical test/issue. Due to carelessness when practicing ethnic-based politics, our dear politicians fuelled hatred in the minds of united young Kenyans and consequently thousands of innocent Kenyans and their families were registered as IDPs. Poor performance in ethnic-based politics by our politicians resulted to masses being killed and before restoration of peace; we had a grand coalition government of over 40 cabinet ministers.

Honestly, after the peace restoration I expected a serious Nation healing process would follow and never again would a repetition of the horrific incident happen. The least I expected from our dear politicians was to shun ethnic-based politics and instead preach peace and nationalism. It was never in my wildest imaginations that in April 2012 we would still have IDPs in camps. Neither did I ever thought that the same batch of politicians responsible for IDPs in Kenya would still be wooing the very same batch of voters to vote for them to even higher political posts.

Kenyans, when will we ever learn?

Anyway, let’s not dwell on the past! It’s 2012 and in less than twelve months we shall be having polls. Campaigns are gaining heat and once again our dear politicians have embarked on the old-yet-ill campaign strategy - ethnic-based violence.

They have revived every ethnic grouping that used to operate, in an effort to bag maximum votes. Groups like GEMA and KAMATUSA have resurfaced aiming at consolidating votes of their respective communities’ members and propel a single candidate to state house.

But again I ask myself, who comprises these groups if not you and me? Can’t we make our own individual decisions on voting basing on issues being addressed and not what our group says?

Once again our dear politicians are failing the test. It is my opinionated view that more risks than benefits lie behind these ethnic groupings as they can be easily manipulated by politicians to fuel false propaganda and incitement.

To my surprise, these ethnic groupings have launched a dangerous move to comment on the ongoing ICC cases facing two of their presidential aspirants. They have even decided to petition the international court to post-pone the cases affecting two of the presidential aspirants, a move that I judge will be fruitless. Indeed if anything, more comments are likely to land the ICC four in much trouble. In my opinion, Uhuru and Ruto should borrow a leaf from Hassan Ali and Henry Kosgey and learn how silence can sometime ease situation.

Although politics is a game of numbers, I want to believe politicians can still get required votes while still practicing politics of unity and nationalism. Again I want to believe that the youths can ignore baseless arguments by politicians who have their selfish interests ahead of national interest. Surely, at this age and stage, I fail to understand of what benefits to the nation are groups such as GEMA and KAMATUSA. 

Yesterday Kamatusa endorsed Ruto as their presidential flag bearer, and when one defines for me KAMATUSA as the Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and Samburu, I wonder whether the opinion of the few members I saw on the screen is the ultimate decision of all Kenyans under those communities. If the answer is Yes, then, allow me to form another ethnic group known as young Kenyans 4 change. And if you are under my bracket, our stand on ethnic politics is: let’s have a united Kenya.

More lessons on this topic will come to you as I continue to monitor your move dear politicians until then try to emphasis on issue-based politics, will you?

Turkana Oil got to be a blessing, Come what may!

Creativity at its best; demonstrating the excitement in Turkana Oil discovery

“At least now Turkana County will refund the Kenya 4 Kenyans money,”

“Now I’m sure we shall achieve vision 2030,”

…These are just some of the numerous optimistic opinions that Kenyans has on the news about Turkana Oil discovery. Such opinions have chromed the social network with some creative Kenyans going ahead and designing edited photos that communicate their optimism better.

Yesterday’s announcement of Oil findings in Turkana County by the President has aroused discussions prospecting future benefits this country is about to bag. As a matter of fact, Kenyans with eye for business opportunities have all over sudden rechanneled their ambitions from the upcoming Konza city to Turkana County. Yes, even some have suggested creation of another city in the Northern region.

However, there is something economists call Natural Resource Curse that mainly affect countries with deposits of Oil or immense natural resources. Such countries are posed with political instability threats and often end up in the hands of dictators and autocrats. And with the recent oil discovery in Turkana Kenya has no choice but to avoid this curse that many developing and developed countries have been unable to avoid.

The Turkana Oil will be drilled by two companies, Tullow oil Plc and Africa Oil, who are expected to make Kenya an Oil producer in probably the next three years. Report has it that despite the oil having similar properties to that of Uganda, the Kenyan deposits seem to have deeper potential. In addition to this awesome story is the fact that Kenya already has a refinery and with the LAPSSET pipeline passing through those areas, the process might be much faster than we think. Definitely, these optimists have a reason to post all those positive messages.

To reap maximum benefits from this project, Kenyans have a duty to elect responsible leaders in the next general elections who will turn this fortune into a blessing and not a curse. These leaders should learn from countries who have avoided the curse, a good example of such a country is Norway.

Some of the tactics employed by Norway to avoid the curse was to hand out just a couple drilling permits a year. In an even more stunning act of self-restraint, the Norwegians decided not to spend most of the oil money. Instead, they put it in an oil trust fund that's now worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The Norwegian government only spends the interest that the fund generates.  

In my opinion, this seems to be a wise move that the government can employ, restraint itself from falling into traps of capitalist-greedy-opportunistic West ready to leap where they never sowed. How I wish our politicians could for once put Kenya’s interest first and set guidelines that would make Turkana Oil a blessing.

Since we were discovered or rather since Kenya was structured I’m very sure we’ve been supplying the Northern Kenya with resources. And despite feeding its people year in year out we’ve managed to get where we are as compared to where we were 50 years ago. Now kindly picture where we are set get once Kenya starts pocketing resources from the Northern Kenya. A positive mind will definitely tell you that the future is bright.

I need not to say more.

December or March, Peace is paramount

The announcement of March 4, 2013 as the date for the next general elections has triggered various reactions divided between the supporters of the date and those that support a December date. Led by the Prime minister, those for a December date have cited risks of running in a constitutional crisis once the next polls are held in March.

Raila says the budget process will be disrupted if elections are held in March next year. According to the constitution, the estimates of revenue and expenditure should be submitted to the National Assembly at least two months before the end of each financial year. And in accordance to this, Raila believes the new treasury cabinet secretary will not have enough time to prepare and submit the financial estimates to the parliament by April 30.

Raila's support for a December date polls has been echoed by KNUT and KUPPET saying the March date will interfere with the learning process. The teachers say the campaigns and subsequent elections would fall in the middle of learning term and significantly affect the examination registration process. The education sector has recently gone through radical changes that have replaced the 8-4-4 system with a new 2-6-3-3-3 system and according to the union of teachers, March election would alter with the implementation of the new system.

These sentiments from teachers, however, have been brushed off by the Education minister Sam Ongeri saying the election process would only affect the learning process for two days.

Led by President Kibaki, those supporting a March date for elections believe the country is not well prepared for a December date. They also flank their argument saying the parliament's current term legally ends in January 15 hence the elections should be held after 60 days. CIC has supported the IEBC March date and urged Kenyans to respect the electoral body verdict.

BUT…

My main concern is not whether a March date or a December date is suitable but rather, Is Kenya prepared to uphold peace and unity through the election process?

Day by day politicians have diverged focus from promotion of public good to propelling ones individual political interest. This has consistently been demonstrated by the manner political aspirants have been exchanging accusations and counter-accusations with less interest on the impact they have on the public unity.

Kenya is coming from a dark stage where reckless public statements by politicians saw us experience the worst post-poll chaos in our history. A repeat of this should never be allowed to happen. It is therefore the obligation of each and every Kenya n to guard the peace and stability reigning today.

Holding the next polls either in December or March will have no difference if we fail to recognize the importance and the value of a stable KENYA.

In my opinion, a good leader should not be giving a damn about the election date; instead he should be preaching national unity and engaging less in politics based on unnecessary accusations.

How I would like to see these presidential aspirants work together first to reallocate thousands of IDPs still in camps before asking them for votes.

Maturity in politics will not only sustain the essential stability we are enjoying today, but will also attract investors in our country. And we enter the next governance let us beware that potential investors from both east and west have their eyes on us. We are obligated to implement the constitution, tackle hard corruption and conduct politics with maturity in order to woe these investors.

We need Engineers to maintain our infrastructure once the 'chinaman' has left.

The ongoing accreditation tussle between the Engineering Registration Board and Engineering graduates from Masinde Muliro University has more than meets the eye.

Despite pushing for recognition by the ERB for over four years, the engineering students as well as graduates from Masinde Muliro University are still having sleepless nights. According to the ERB the varsity’s engineering curriculum has flaws hence the board’s decision to decline recognition of the varsity’s products as engineers. This has led to students who graduated between 2008 and 2011 going to the court to seek justice.

I would try to picture the devastation that a student can experience after going through six years of training and examining in an engineering class only to graduate and lack employment opportunity because some board does not recognise him. From my point of view, this is unfair, noting the amount of testing and trials the students go through before being promoted to the following academic year and later being awarded the title ‘Graduate.’

Tarmacking with recognised papers in Kenya today is an uphill task regardless of the course you undertook, nonetheless I wouldn’t expect tarmacking with unrecognised papers to be easier. These qualified, ambitious, yet unrecognised brains from the faculty of engineering in our eighth Public University are crying for help and it’s up to each and every stakeholder to save the show because we need engineers to facilitate national infrastructural growth.

It is my opinionated view that someone has been intentionally standing between these engineers and their dreams. It’s beats my understanding how such a simple and clear issue can take the University, The ERB and the Commission for Higher Education so many years-and still counting to resolve. Every year since 2008, there have been demonstrations by engineering students in Masinde Muliro University airing the same old grievance- recognise us. These demonstrations have always been silenced by a cheap yet unkempt promise of change by relevant authorities.

Now, these students’ patience has grown thinner with time and the ultimate solution seems to lie in court.  Yesterday, these ex-students filed a petition arguing that prior to elevation of Masinde Muliro University to a fully-fledged university, it used to operate as a satellite campus of Moi University and the inherited the curriculum from Moi. They therefore view ERB’s decision to decline recognising the varsity’s curriculum as discriminatory.

In Kenya it is illegal for a graduate to practise or call himself an engineer if he or she is not registered with ERB. It therefore means for these ex-students to earn a living through their course they must work under particular registered engineers. This makes me think that there must be someone, most probably in the ERB and registered, who intends to benefit from exploiting these fresh brains. Otherwise what else could be cooking behind the scenes?

Let’s think about it, today we are importing engineers from China to construct roads for us, how long do we (as Kenya) intend to import engineers yet every year we award thousands of our young engineers with degrees in engineering only to deny them the channel to develop career wise. Really, Are we headed in the right direction?

 At the same time, I find it vague when the board argues that the quality of lecturers, coursework, workshops and other training facilities are the reasons behind their decline to register the graduates. I believe this conclusion has been arrived at without first checking the real situation on ground. Since 2007 when these protests started, the University has taken drastic measures to improve facilities in the varsity. I personally, have been in Masinde Muliro and if there is a single faculty I know of that is full of doctors and professors it got to be the faculty of Engineering.

As we await the court ruling and the mentioning of the case scheduled for March 27, let us ask ourselves (as Kenyans) Is this how we intend to curb unemployment in Kenya, training our youth for over five years later to deny them the capacity to gain employment?

The future of our country is more important than any individual’s interest and we shall ever remain vigilant of those ill-minded Kenyans willing to gash the dreams of upcoming engineers.    

       

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NCIC should be more vigilant for we need to safeguard peace and stability in our country.

By the look of things, it is that time again when, unfortunately, politicians make reckless remarks without caring much about the impact such comments have on the national stability. To most of these politicians their main aim is to get the target votes and consequently ruin their opponents’ chances. For the last two weeks the media has consistently carried stories depicting the ugly side of a tug of war between the presidential aspirants with involved parties uttering remarks that raise the political temperatures capable of breeding division and intolerance in the country.

Editors have entertained subjective stories, political statements and opinion pieces on their papers and bulletins that promote negativity in the political arena. It is with great concern that I condemn such negligence of duty emanating from the media. The media has an obligation to inform, educate and inform the public unfortunately, this duty is being neglected as day in day out columnists to write accusations and counter accusations by politicians.

And after following political accusations and counter-accusations by power-hungry politicians over the media, I got stuck at the question: Where is Mzalendo Kibunja?

It puzzles me how long it takes National Cohesion and Intergration Commission (NCIC) to prosecute people who go round the country preaching hates speech and flanks the accusations with columns on the newspapers. Nobody is above the law despite his position in the society and it’s upon Kibunja to bold and prosecute those promoting hate speeches. In addition, Media editors should not abuse freedom of expression which is vital and should be protected and nurtured. It is therefore affirmative for Kibunja team to show more actions and not words.

National peace and unity is more valuable than any of our dreams and aspirations. Unfortunately some political individuals are getting the limelight to continue with their ill-driven speech right under the nose of the NCIC.

So sad it is to a deeply concerned Kenyan to hear NCIC defend their effort saying they are carrying out investigations on the suspects. I ask, “How long do these investigations take to get sufficient information.” It is imperative to note that Kenya belongs to all of us therefore it is the obligation of each and every one of us to be vigilant in embracing peace, unity and non-violence.

Kenyans are getting worried to see leaders or politicians put their interests ahead of national interests by making statements that could threaten the stability of our country.