NASA Principals Have Kenya’s Future In Their Hands

In NASA Principals Have Future of Kenya In Their Hands, I make the case why:

When Hillary Clinton announced her second bid for the presidency in April 2015, she was immediately faced with hostile opposition from within the Democratic Party by a wing that to this day, has never really liked her for a number of reasons, among them her being wife of former President Bill Clinton.

Others didn’t want her to be the Democrats flagbearer, arguing she was not progressive enough, while others deemed her not qualified simply because she’s a woman.

To make sure Hillary did not see the inside of the White House, Republicans on their part embarked on a relentless campaign to discredit her as “untrustworthy” by cooking up and peddling various false claims against her, key among them being the bogus claims that she somehow was responsible for the deaths of Americans in Benghazi, Libya, when the American embassy was attacked by terrorists back in 2012.

Republicans, who controlled the House, brought their entire party machine to tear down Hillary, courtesy of the sham Benghazi Committee, in which one of their member would later admit in a classic Freudian slip that the committee was, indeed, “a sham committee setup to damage or destroy Hillary”.

When they were not busy with their onslaught on Hillary on this ground, the Republicans, joined by Hillary haters in the Democratic Party, used their loudmouths in both radio and television to drumbeat the notion that she was being anointed without opposition, which, in their logic, was not a good thing. So much that many Democrats demanded an alternative to oppose her and thus the emergence of Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders provided home to disgruntled and short-sighted Democrats, who to the end remained loyal to him, and refused to support Hillary even after she became the party nominee.

Whatever their reasons were, most of these Democrats now regret not having supported Hillary because the outcome was having a President Donald Trump — a clueless man who stands for nothing they believe in and is certainly worse than Hillary could ever have been.

We’re faced with the same situation in Kenya where opposition chief Raila Odinga, like Hillary, is being resisted from both within and without.

There are those in and outside the opposition who begrudge Raila simply for who he is — the son of Jaramogi Oginga — who in his own right went on to become the icon and doyen of opposition politics much like his father was.

Many would like Raila to exit the world of politics and probably from this world altogether, without the title of President.

Then there are those who, like Hillary haters, simply dislike Raila for no apparent reason other than simply believing the smears and lies peddled about him.

Jubilee, like TNA before it, has done a superb job in profiling Raila variously as a “dangerous” or threat to the Kikuyu community.

While Raila is obviously not dangerous by any measure, he’s certainly a threat to those who have looted or illegally gained from the public coffers, regardless of their community.

This is a good thing for Raila to be feared for that must not only be applauded, but all progressives and well-meaning Kenyans must rally behind. The choice here is either being behind him or the corrupt who have looted this country.

Which brings us to the NASA principals: To each one of you, you hold the future of Kenya in your hands for if you don’t do the wisest and only right thing and make Raila the joint opposition flagbearer and rally the nation to defeat Jubilee, you’ll forever carry the cross of being the worst among the political class.

Worse than the very worse you’re very well-placed to uproot from power and present an alternative vision and leadership for this country.

 

Avoiding Pitfalls That Lie In Wait for NASA Flagbearer

In Avoiding Pitfalls That Lie In Wait for NASA Flagbearer, I suggest what the NASA principals need to do to ensure smooth sailing to nominating one of them–and the obvious one and onward to ejecting Jubilee from power.

The oped in full:

When now US President Donald Trump descended on the escalator at his Trump Towers and declared Mexico was sending its drug dealers and rapists to America — as a way of reintroducing himself to the Americans and setting in motion wheels that would propel him to the presidency — most parts of the country went into shock they’ve quite never recovered from.

So much that his first 100 days in office have thus far proven right those who feared Trump was not ready and could not be ready for the big office.

What most people did not know is there was a strategy behind the madness that got Trump elected as President, and part of that was tapping into the anger voters had with the so-called “establishment,” meaning usual politicians doing the usual stuff to please their benefactors, normally special interest lobbyists.

In other words, Trump tapped into, and revved up the Republican base as well as others who shared in the anger, and didn’t care having a traditional politician holding office as President and had all these voters voting for him, a task made easier given it was toss-up as to who American loathed the most, him or his opponent in that election — Hillary Clinton.

The strategy paid off and we now have President Donald J Trump.

Odd as it is for a progressive to say this, but NASA should borrow a leaf from the Trump playbook, if not the whole book altogether, to send President Uhuru Kenyatta home on August 8.

This is because there are commonalities between what happened in the US and what needs to happen in Kenya.

Chief among them is widespread voter dissatisfaction and anger in some cases in the country, much as it was in the United States.

Indeed, the entire country to a man is fed-up with the Jubilee government and politicians who take them for granted. Always peddling lies during campaigns, only to disappear and loot, self-promote or otherwise, doing everything else that does not better the lives of these very voters they purport to represent.

That’s not to say there are not among the populace a bunch who would carry banners and go to the streets chanting slogans in favour of the same failed government and politicians. We have them and in millions, which is shame but not much can be done about that.

However, there’s much that can be done with the rest who are absolutely disenchanted or disgusted with one government after another doing little, if anything, to improve their lives. And these outnumber those, who for one reason or another but mostly blind following, wouldn’t mind the status quo.

As was the case with Trump, NASA principals need to channel this anger into a vehicle by which one of them can be elected and sworn in as President.

Let’s be realistic here: Everyone, including all the principals, knows there’s only one person who can defeat Uhuru and that person is Raila Odinga.

Question is, how does NASA anoint him without the other principals coming out of the process as lesser men?

The answer is simple: Let each principal organise community leaders and invite the de facto opposition leader to come to a small gathering with them — not a rally — in which they’re told the truth stated above and let them shower their blessings on the man and at the same time, give cover for their son to say, “This was not about me being the lesser man but it is what my people said.”

If each of the principals does this, NASA will have flagbearer seamlessly selected and shall go on to remove Uhuru and Jubilee from power. Kenya will become the peaceful and prosperous country it has always yearned to be, only to be thwarted by the forces that have the current government in place.

 

 

Gang Violence in Kenya Is A Problem But Extrajudicial Killing Is Not Solution

In Gang Violence Is A Problem But Extrajudicial Killing Is Not the Solution, I make the case how the recent execution of two suspected gang members is not the solution to gang violence. I also make the case Jubilee government has failed to provide solutions for this and many other problems so it’s time to be booted from office and let the opposition led by Raila take over power and let them have a crack at fixing these monumental problems all prior governments have failed or have been unwilling to address.

And now the oped:

Donald Trump deployed uncouth tactics to win the presidential race, including blatantly appealing to racists on the far-right of American politics.

One way he did so — and this is how he launched his presidential race — was by leading efforts to discredit and undermine the legitimacy of President Barack Obama by advancing the bogus claim that he was born in Kenya and therefore not qualified to be US head of state.

The other tactic was to constantly trash the city of Chicago as the epicenter of black youth violence, as part of his attempt to appeal to racists and others as being the tough “law and order” candidate, who would get rid of the problem.

Seventy days plus into his moribund presidency, President Trump has not set forth, let alone even suggested, a single proposal to address the gang violence problem.

Nobody expects that he will, ever!

Neither is the man expected to do anything to address the problem of police brutality aimed at mostly the black youth and other minorities in the US, which increased last year and at the height of his candidacy.

There’s anecdotal evidence that youth and gang violence in Kenya is increasing to uncontrollable levels on President Uhuru Kenyatta’s watch. His Jubilee government is doing nothing to address this problem.

However, in the absence of any effective government intervention, summary execution or extrajudicial killing of even known gang members by the police, as recently witnessed in Eastleigh, doesn’t offer any solutions.

Granted, most people were in support of the executions of the two apparently well-known Super Power gang members by a plainclothes police officer because they’re fed up with these criminals who terrorize people in the area.

In other words, most people have no sympathy for these gang members, given the menace they have become in society.

That’s all true but let’s also focus on where the problem really lies — failure by the Jubilee government to create employment and other opportunities for the youth, who end up joining criminal gangs,where they commit all manner of crimes, including murder.

Jubilee has also totally failed to curb corruption, which has not spared programs intended to help the youth of this country. Indeed, the looting of more than Sh1.8 billion at the National Youth Service, which led to the resignation of the then Devolution CS Anne Waiguru stands as one of the monuments of corruption in a Kenya gone amok, though dwarfed by the Eurobond heist, of more than Sh215 billion that cannot be accounted for by the Jubilee government.

The solution to the escalating gang violence problem is therefore not extrajudicial killings, but ushering in a new government come August 8. A government that can address not just gang violence but the rampant corruption that’s now the worst ever in this country, and has prevented the government from addressing the needs of the people.

As Prime Minister, Raila Odinga was instrumental in the establishment of programs intended to alleviate youth unemployment and food insecurity, with the flagship project being the Kazi Kwa Vijana initiative.

KKV quickly became a casualty of corruption kingpins in the then Grand Coalition government. And later, as Raila would point out, senior officials who controlled the Ministry of Finance and aligned to President Mwai Kibaki killed the KKV program, along with others for fear it would succeed to the credit of Raila and his ODM wing of government.

Raila says he’s committed, now more than ever, to not only resume where he left off as Prime Minister with his half-loaf in finding lasting solutions for the country, but also promised to deliver immediate solutions to address the disgraceful high levels of youth unemployment in NASA.