Dispatch from Mombasa

The road to political Siberia for Mvita MP Najib Mohamed Balala began when he dared criticize the political high priest of the Orange Democratic Party Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga by claiming that the party lacked internal democracy and stifled dissenting voices. On top of that Balala went to bed with the sworn political enemies of the Prime Minister and especially the group allied to William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta. For him it was not a matter of if but when he would find himself out. This would be confirmed by a show he did with K-24 dubbed “Face the Nation” in which it came out clear that the relationship between him and the Orange was damaged beyond repair. The forces allied to Baba worked round the clock to ensure that he was severely punished for daring the gods of the most popular party in Kenya. So as Balala retreats to his cocoon to count his loses one by one, and to also strategize how he is going to rise from the ashes there are those who are busy toasting their...

I am writing this like a man who grew up in an era when men were men. It was a time where if a man took out a woman for dinner he would foot all the bills regardless of whether they had enough money all not and still leave with their ego intact. It was a time where taking out a woman was the pride of the man and he would look forward to it. It called for psychological and financial preparedness. Again not just any woman would be taken out for dinner, only special ones would. Enter the era of poking, connecting, sharing, and everything becomes virtual including relationships between men and women. It is also at this time when a principle called equal equal emerges. If you didn’t know, equal equal is a new found practice (I am not sure whether it was invented in Nairobi) where men and women split bills equally depending on who is in the party. The woman is not the man’s burden and neither is the man the woman’s burden. I had read about equal equal in Wanjohi daily (by the way ...

I am writing this from my hotel room in Kisumu. Well there is nothing to write home about the Hotel which though a masterpiece of its time, it is now run down and a litany of complaints is what I have heard from my colleagues and those who have been here before us. In fact one of the thoughts that hit me was that it must have a connection to Government and which was confirmed by one of the employee who told me that it’s a ministry of tourism run establishment. What hit me was that the government has been spending millions to promote tourism abroad for the benefit of the private sector but its very own establishments are run down. What a contradiction. However what concerns me is not the discomfort of my room and that I have had to shift rooms because an attendant broke a key to the lock while I was out, but what is happening in Kisumu. In 2008, Kisumu was at the centre of the post election violence. We saw images of wanton looting and burning and to an outsider this was the ...