THE SLEEPING LIONESS

Put on your dancing shoes and get ready to move your body. The sleeping lioness is in the studio. She can’t wait to do a cover version of a song originally done by P!nk. Allow her to sing the lyrics and please if you want in, sing backup vocals. Or sing the guitar riffs. Or better still, play the air drum. Here we go:

“…right from the start

You were a thief

You stole my heart

And I your willing victim….

I let you see the parts of me

That weren’t all that pretty

And with every touch you fixed them…”

The song goes on and on till she hits the chorus

“…Just give me a reason

Just a little bit’s enough

Just a second we’re not broken just bend

And we could learn to love again …”

Kiambu County is hurt. She is crying. I believe she is in the studio not just for the sake of it but because she has genuine reasons and legitimate concerns. She has been robbed off her dignity and consequently become a victim of mockery, suspicion and distrustful glances. The concern that tops her list is ‘tainted image’. We need to hire a public relations director to restore the pride of Kiambu County in these times of cruelty against animals. We cannot have every dirty story originating from her. Methinks people are using this name ‘Kiambu’ loosely. Members of the fourth estate are not doing us any good. Some of these stories seem to be fabricated. The less I talk about those stories, the better. Kiambu County is not that bad. We can all learn to love her again. Some parts of her are not all that pretty but we can fix them. We need a combined effort to track down that thief that has degraded our moral fabric and put him behind bars for a very long time so that we can deal with the real issues that affect the County.

The county is facing serious social, economic and governance challenges. We need ideological clarity, intellectual rigor and commitment to transform this county to an economic powerhouse that it ought to be. With the inevitable comparison and contrast between Kiambu and Machakos, a raft of measures should be put in place with regard to policy making. The residents of Kiambu need to see that something is happening. It’s like a sneeze that gives a false alarm that it’s gonna happen but it doesn’t happen only to put a stupid look on your face and then just leave!

I know what ails us. We have so many people in our core institutions who are either incompetent or irredeemably corrupt or both. Traffic police officers have a thing for bribes which undermines the integrity of the whole system. This cancer is so wide spread that people have become accustomed to bribery which makes a bad situation worse. Passenger service vehicles have to part with ‘toll fee’ every time the boys in blue put a check sign on the road. Instead of playing mind games, we should stop fooling each other. Usually, matatu conductors or drivers put a 100 or 200 shillings note in the driving license pack and pass it to the officer who discreetly removes the money while pretending to check the validity of the insurance policy. If anyone has the slightest shade of doubt with regard to rampant corruption on the roads, just take a visit to Kiambu. Along Kiambu road, you will meet traffic police officers. They will wave for your matatu to stop. Observe what happens in the next one minute. All the passengers in the PSV know exactly what is happening yet the officers try to conceal the action. The boys in blue are public servants charged with protecting public safety, a difficult job that merits our deepest appreciation. However, when they allow money to exchange hands, the safety of the public is compromised. We need a Mohammed-Ali kind of investigation on that particular open secret.

There have been numerous complains concerning leadership. Governor William Kabogo cannot be wished away. It is prudent that he takes a consultative approach involving as many ordinary Kiambu residents as possible. What will gauge the success or failure of this regime is mainly the standard of living. If it goes up, the governor will have made a remarkable contribution to growth and development. If it goes down, he will have failed the County at large. We need to see greater access to knowledge, better nutrition, improved security, transparent and equitable distribution of resources and better health services. People need to feel protected from chronic threats such as hunger and abrupt disruptions including joblessness, famine and conflict. We need to partner with other counties because we are heavily interdependent and no society evolves in isolation.

In order to come up with relevant policies, the governor and his team should involve a core team comprising technical officers drawn from all parts of the county, research institutions and consultants and together they should organize workshops with various firms, investors, farmers and both formal and informal business people in all major sectors. The experts should use the input from the aforementioned stakeholders and their own economic analysis in order to wake up the sleeping lioness that is Kiambu County. The necessary social and political reforms should be put in place to ensure that economic goals are realizable and sustainable. As a matter of urgency, we need a policy that will facilitate the process of land administration which will consequently implement the computerization of land registries. Is it very sad that there’s not a single serious project being undertaken that I’m aware of (I stand to be corrected).  Investment in physical infrastructure should be given the highest priority.

Why don’t we start with an anti-corruption programme? Why don’t we show all incompetent municipal council workers the door? Especially those hired on who-you-know basis. Those hired out of nepotism. We need a qualified team that comprises a competitive and adaptive human resource base. Without an efficient, motivated and well-trained public service, we will be treated to fist fights, chair hurling and other embarrassing sideshows that characterize council board meetings.

I am optimistic that the sleeping lioness will wake up and rise to the challenge

The Glamour, The Roasting And Some Housekeeping

I have been away for the longest time. I really need a day between Saturday and Sunday because the relationship between my blog and I has become complicated. We hardly have time to converse and it’s killing me. The silent treatment. Who knows how to solve relationship problems? I know! Those who are single! Single people give the best relationship advice, as paradoxical as it sounds. We all have that one friend who has the best advice yet he/she is so single. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. There are things that matter and which I wish to give my take on. Brace yourselves, for I bring down this post with a gavel! I have no major topic to discuss; instead I’ll touch on several issues that have happened in the recent past.

Who else has realized what I have. Nowadays there’s clearly more content in the 9pm news. It’s no longer about the news. It’s about the sassy female presenters. Strutting their posterior gracefully cat walking across the studio holding tablets or iPads. Swaying hips from screen one to the other. In the mass communication class, I guess one is disqualified if they are not easy on the eyes. I mean, if you are not attractive enough, the popularity of the station is compromised.

Moving on, I have a bone to pick with some facebook page administrators. Never in this or any alternative universe did I expect a ‘Who killed Mutula’ page to update a post starting with: “Please hide my ID and it goes on and on pulling a Maina Kageni breakfast show kind of a scenario, a repugnant, infectious bigotry we have become so accustomed to…” that’s when I hit the unlike button like yesterday. I’ll not over emphasize on this topic for today.

BET AWARDS 2013

Let’s talk about the 13^th annual Black Entertainment Television awards held last weekend at the Nokia Theatre in L.A. I don’t know what inspired the change of venue as it is usually held at the Shrine Auditorium. At least from 2006. The host was Chris Tucker. I dare say that he did not disappoint at all. While there were plenty of style moments, it was actress Meagan Good barely-there gown that stole the show. I knew her wardrobe choice of a bright blue gown with a plunging neckline was going to cause a stir. Reactions ranged from shock to amazement. What with the super high slit? This tore apart whatever shred of dignity that remained! What got people talking is the fact that she was tasked with presenting the night’s holiest honor—Best Gospel Artist Award. We are not going to hear the end of this story for a long time.

BBA THE CHASE

Coming closer home, I remember the day Alhuddah Njoroge a.k.a Huddah Monroe was evicted from the big brother house. Kenyans on twitter didn’t mince their words. But during her interview on NTV hosted by Larry Madowo, I realized just how strong a lady she is. And the smile! There’s no weapon in the feminine armory to which men are so vulnerable as they are to a smile. But how can so much hate be directed at one person? She is one girl everybody enjoyed hating on. We ridicule these women but we are obsessed with them, clicking every article published about their latest publicity antic, following their twitter feeds and all. An amazing trendsetting achievement was seen on twitter where Hudda was trending round the clock. I envy her accomplishments so far. At 21, with a diploma in programming (I need to see one project she has done though), a vast business empire which includes instagram and twitter and of course modeling, she is way beyond her age. Having successfully auditioned to represent Kenya is that house is a remarkable achievement. But wait a minute. Who else gets paid to attend events? That is one reason why people should not hate on her so much. Allow me to pull this line I learned from a philosophical anthropology class: “Objectively, anything that exists has unity, beauty, goodness and truth”. Before I rest my case, consider in the song “Look At Me Now”, where Chris Brown starts by making a very insightful statement: ‘I don’t see how you can hate from outside the club….You can’t even get in!’ Therefore, if you are not in the big brother house, stop hating from outside the house.  

Someone might wonder whether I support the whole big brother idea. The answer is yes and no. Why I’m I breaking the principle of non-contradiction? I have various reasons to do so. Ever wondered what the BBA is all about? Is there something to learn from the programme? Nothing in the entire world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Does Big Brother Africa add any value? One who condones evil is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it. Well, this is a controversial question. Can Africa youths ask DSTV to give us a BBA where people across the continent go and discuss, proffer solutions to solve Africa problems or something along that line? People will say that might be boring to death. Blissful ignorance is good at times but very embarrassing at other times. For instance, who knows how many millennium development goals there are? When is the implementation deadline?

In my humble opinion, Tusker Project Fame has more value than Big Brother Africa! At least the music is real. The drama is relatable.

The Kenya 7’s Rugby Team

I’m a rugby fanatic since high school prior to which I didn’t have the slightest idea of why grown up men rough up chasing some trapped air in an oval shaped skin mostly branded  ‘Gilbert’. Now I know the rules of the game thanks to one high school bully called Bruno. That guy was not even in the school team. He was a substitute yet the game was his drug. Bruno couldn’t get enough of it. He made form one’s cram the entire 15’s team. I’m tempted to write two pages about Bruno but I’ll resist the temptation and instead take this time to big up our Kenya 7’s team. I congratulate my former classmate Michael Wanjala jersey 9 for making such a remarkable contribution in that squad. The team has continuously performed incredibly, consequently putting Kenya on the world map as far as rugby is concerned. England cut our joy short by beating us 12-5 in the semis at Moscow. We are not giving up. We put a spirited fight. And we are still on them. Yes I said it. That their forefathers colonized Kenya does not intimidate us. England be warned. We will perfect our skills, we will look for you, we will beat you in your territory and we will carry the medals due.

Finally, I conclude by saying that there is an acute shortage of great leaders in Kenya, read Kiambu County. You don’t have to be an expert in leadership to see that. On my next article, I’ll say what I think about the management of my county.

Over and out.

If Keyboards Could Talk

The blogger is back. Brace yourselves ladies and gentlemen. Many people are tired of politics but allow me to mention a thing or two on the same. Today, I want to speak about the recent effects of the elections. I want to address the international community. I want to give the international media (especially the Cable News Network) a piece of my mind. I want to talk about the IEBC. I want to talk about the petition. I also want to address the current trends on social media, especially the ‘online violence’. I also want to talk about the International Criminal Court!

To those presidential candidates who gloriously conceded, thank you. They fought a good fight but that good was not good enough. To me, Dida came out on top! He made history by surpassing the iron lady, having been known for less than a month to the polls. This is when I get the chance to brag a bit. That man taught me in form 3T, class of 2009, Lenana School. I will not lie about how I used to carry chalk for him or rub the blackboard when it was his time to teach. He was very good at skiving!

This whole election process has taught me a thing or two. I have devised another hook up line that might get me the one! It goes like: “Hey babe! I am planning to run a family; can you be my running mate? Would you take my contact and save it as FH (Future Husband), hoping one day you will knock F out”

I deeply sympathize with any foreign journalist who was intending to cover an award-winning story on March 4^th. The Maasai Mara is open for you. We have wildlife here. The national geographic channel could do with a few footages of carnivorous animals devouring the herbivorous and that kind of thing.

THE SUPREME COURT AND THE ICC

The highest court on the land is going through a litmus test.  The global audience is waiting for that ruling. The ruling will leave an indelible mark in the history of this country. The case before the bench has substantial gravity in and around our borders. Instead of only the attorney general requesting to be considered in the hearing as amicus curiae (friend of the court), methinks the Supreme Court could do with a little help from the telescopic vision of one Paul Muite who has the ability to see right through that evidence presented before the judges constituting the bench and determine it’s validity within just a glance! This will save the country a great deal of time, resources and butterflies in the stomach. I doubt whether it is humanly possible for six people to comb through thousands of pages in two weeks and have the time to deliberate on the issues raised exhaustively. Isn’t it too just too hectic?

What the election free and fair again? We may want to see things not as they are but as we are and that will be a bad intellectual mistake. I will not speculate. Let us all wait.

FOREIGN INTERETS

In my humble opinion, I guess it’s time the Hague-based court gave us a break! Can’t we put our house in order? Do we need to wash our dirty linen in public? Aren’t we a sovereign people?

Prior to the poll, European envoys had issued statements that clearly suggested which side they were on. Does Britain still want us that badly after we divorced back in the 60’s? Why do they still want to bully us around every now and then? What does “essential contact” mean? I’m not only talking about Kenya here, I’m talking for Africa. Do we interfere with affairs of our envoy friend’s from UK, France and Switzerland?

The international community (read UK, the Embassy of Finland, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Kenya, and Germany among others) is waging a form of warfare against Kenya’s electoral results. If you have the slightest shade of doubt, visit the website of the civil society group (www.africog.org/content/funders-and-financials) that unsuccessfully sued the IEBC to stop the vote tally following the general election, and now is part of a civil society lawsuit to nullify the results of the presidential poll.  That group is almost wholly funded by the aforementioned. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Now, more than ever, the social media platform has changed the game from manual to digital. Status updates and tweets have become the new machetes, arrows, G3’s, AK47s and the like.  I will sincerely give up any Facebook and Twitter “friends” and “followers” engaging in this criminal behavior.

I’m even considering changing my username.  Stereotyping is at an all time high.

 Just because my name suggests my ethnic background, it does not automatically imply that I subscribe to a particular school of thought. I am, and will always be a critical, autonomous and most of all, a free thinker. Yes I have my reasonable level of prejudice and bias but please, resist the temptation to assume my political inclination. If you are that kind of person (perpetrating negative ethnicity) and you are in my friend’s list, I’ll cut you off so quick without you even knowing it, delete your number today and hit you with a “who is this?” tomorrow. I’m saying that I will purposefully refuse to remember you. Call it deliberate memory loss.

At the end of the day, whether it is jubilee or cord that ascends to the mantle of leadership and the house on the hill gets a new occupant, we need each other badly. Remember Raila and Uhuru are in a political competition. It is highly likely that they will be swilling champagne and cutting business deals in the same members’ clubs. Clubs you and I cannot afford to lounge in! Do not throw all caution to the wind and put yourself on the line out of some misplaced sense of ethnic comradeship. Let not the violence shift from the keyboard to an actual machete.

On a lighter note, social media ethics have dwindled. Many are times jokes and ideas are copy pasted without acknowledging the source. Fan pages duplicating each other every other time is quite boring. Well, I’m quite aware that no one has the monopoly of ideas or jokes for that matter but it is sufficiently annoying. Plagiarism must be discouraged.

PARTING SHOT

What’s up with this new advert that pops up just before prime time news? It is clearly encouraging cheating. It used to be “wacha mpango wa kando”, now it is turned to “weka cd mpangoni”. The society is working with some dynamics I have no clue about. Is the ad in bad faith or is it plainly realistic?

Over and out!

Facebook And Relationships

         "Oh, I knew you you were trouble when you walked in, so shame on me now
           Flew me to places I'd never been, now I'm lying on the cold hard ground
          Oh, oh Trouble, Trouble, Trouble
          Oh, oh Trouble, Trouble, Trouble..."
That is what happened to me the other day while doing a continuous assessment test. I caught myself singing Taylor Swift's 'I knew you were trouble'. It was playing in the back of my mind at a time when I should have been solving mathematical problems. I don't know whether it was because of the way the question was phrased... It read: "Solve for dy/dx..." Here I was. Stuck. Frozen! My life instantly turned into a music video. In the original video, Swift wakes up on an abandoned desert, surrounded by trash and debris, and wearing dark makeup. In my video, I get this flashback with events that had characterized my week. They are all there in black and white. Terms like quotient rule, product rule, power rule, chain rule, implicit differentiation, composite and exponential functions and such like words associated with calculus. Snapping back to reality, I realize people in the exam room are furiously scribbling something down. Turning pages. Having wasted close to five minutes in my reverie, I fight against the temptation of trying to figure out the moral of the song. Maybe it is communicating something but surely it is not suggesting that I knew maths was trouble. Shame on me now.

Away from my uneventful and sometimes eventful life. Among other titles that I have-political analyst, sports commentator, relationship adviser,the list is endless. By the powers that be, and the bachelor's degree on Relationship Counseling conferred on me by the university of Life, I'd like to reinstate my commitment on matters pertaining to relationship advice.I know exactly what men really think about love, relationships, intimacy and commitment, courtesy of Steve Harvey. Well, I have an idea about it.

First of all, I have a bone to pick with young lovebirds. I have beef with those that have made my facebook news feeds be more dramatic than a reality show! If feels like I'm in the big brother house. With CCTV surveillance all over the place. You are head over heels with this fine lass (for guys) or this dude (for girls) and you cannot wait to let the world know all about it. Every single detail. You are more annoying that people who update posts that have the effect of wanting to give them an instant Hi 5. With a chair. On their face. Posts like, " I'm having breakfast, wow it's so yummy..." I mean, who cares? We all have breakfast but we don't rush online to talk about it. Back to this dramatic flare of lovebirds.  My point is that the world is not necessarily excited about where you are being taken to this weekend by your boo. It is not necessarily excited about what happened last night between the two of you.

Second of all, Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook team had a reason to code that button called 'Messages'. Kindly make use of it. It is meant for private stuff that essentially should not be on the public domain. As much as we (allow me to speak for people who hold a similar opinion) are 'friends' on Facebook, we do not really care that much about your problems. We have a reasonable amount of our own problems. Deal with yours. And as much as we would like to help, we cannot offer much assistance to you. All we will do is probably get a bowl of pop-corns, refresh the page several times over and enjoy the drama. Sometimes we might sympathize though not genuinely.

Important to note, the malady is often found among girls. Note my choice of words. Girls not ladies. After a breakup, she updates her status : "All men are dogs! I hate men #TeamSingle". That consolation sentence has 1,001 errors in it. Can someone please explain to be how being single is a team. Single, in it's most basic definition means only one. The hashtag #TeamSingle is paradoxial in every sense of that word. It is also ironical. Like saying that Henry Kosgey and Ole Ntimama are the youthful leaders we want for a change. I will not bother to point out the hasty generalizations, fallacious presumptions, and the other 999 errors in aforementioned status update. "All men are dogs...". Who told you to sample all men in the first place?

This week I will not talk about the political arena. I would have loved to but time is not on my side.

I will also not talk about sports. And when I say sports I mean how arsenal has continued to lose major games.

Have a fantastic weekend y'all!

Unchained Edition

To my avid readers, I apologize for taking an unusually longer Christmas break. My regular blog posts will keep trickling more often.

This is a critical year that will determine how history will judge this nation. Africa has been one of the most exploited continents in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the present day Africa is still sadly experiencing neo colonization. Most governments across the continent are not ‘democratic’ in every sense of that word. I fear for this nation. Looking at how nominations were conducted yesterday, the skirmishes that characterized them, the hooliganism, the violence and the whole disorganised exercise, hope dwindles and I'm left wondering what March 4th will bring. Tolerance is all I can hope for.

DJANGO UNCHAINED
This latest Jamie Foxx movie ‘Django Unchained’ clearly demonstrates the fact that I’m trying to put across. In case you have not watched it, I would strongly suggest that you look for it. The cast is nothing but fit for their respective roles. Leonardo Dicaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington and Jamie Foxx.

Last week, our honorable members of parliament were strategizing on how to loot the treasury by awarding themselves hefty amounts of tax-payers money in the name of gratuity. What beats me is the fact that when it comes to the political class, they never get the usual phrase extended to other civil servants: “The government does not have money”. The manner at which treasury processes their allowances is remarkable. When this people are not galvanizing us along our ethnic lines, they are busy plundering our already suffering economy. They do not care about our deficit budget; we will pay for their funerals after all and continue to service the debts.

AKI SERIKALI
What I love about politics is the sweet tongue that almost always does the trick. Making promise after promise is what lawmakers know best. The other day, a presidential aspirant whetted the rhetorical knife before twisting. “I’m going to see that residents of Moyale get a road that will connect them to Lodwar and Mandera.” He continued to suggest an airfield to the residents. The masses are hungry and you intend to put up an airstrip? They cannot even afford bicycles for crying out loud!

With a budget that runs into billions of shillings, a large staff and extensive reach and influence, where have you been all along? You want to tell Kenyans that now you have seen what you ought to do then or what? What prevented you from using your office to pursue some of those commitments? Five years after taking up office and still behaving like an opposition activist, complaining about the ‘government ‘, despite being one of the leaders of that same government.

Thank God our country is not located near the North Sea like Holland. Imagine what this woman would have asked ‘serikali’ to do.

Holland is one of the wealthiest nations in Europe but unfortunately it is sitting on a time bomb. Killer floods claim tens of thousands of lives and takes up thousands of square kilometres of land. The Dutch are fighting back so aggressively. Building a series of unique and complex mega structures designed to shut out the sea. Together they are bigger, most sophisticated flood defenses ever built. Just like Kenya, the kingdom of the Netherlands has agriculture as one of the major drivers of their economy. Being the third biggest agricultural exporter, land in Holland is as precious as land in Kenya. We are very privileged as it is. Indian Ocean does not pose a threat. We do not need to put up sosphisticated enginnering work to shut out the see, yet here we are harping on endlessly and dividing our energy ethnically!

I cannot forget the two gentlemen who appear below this text, courtesy of Citizen Tv’s #Truthmeter by Willis Raburu. Apparently, stand up comedy is one of the untapped talents this nation has.

YOU GUY
The girl who got “You Guy” video banned on Citizen Tv has a bum the size of Mt. Kenya. The management cited explicit content and too much of the video girls, especially this girl, Vera.
The most interesting bit is that her Mt. Kenya has a name…

P.S. I have always wondered why people type ‘lmao’ knowing fine and well that their ass is firmly attached

END OF THE BEGINNING OF A YEAR THAT WAS

My dear and abiding friends, the world is no more.I arrogate myself the role of a myth buster. Whoever predicted the end of the world must know by now that tequila based cocktails are not a good idea after all. Well, I guess this is the alternative universe, different from what it was yesterday.  Technically we are still on the same awesome and sometimes not-so-awesome planet we were in yesterday but it is the close of business. Almost every person is taking time to cool off.

OVERWHELMING GRIEF

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Last Friday morning, in a small peaceful town of Newtown, Connecticut, a heinous crime claimed 27 lives, majority of them being elementary school children. Imagine a shooter spraying bullets to 20 innocent children! Those children had not done anything to deserve such cruelty. They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays, graduations, weddings… My heart is broken for all the families affected. This reminds me of the tragedies America has had to deal with in the past few years. Remember the shopping mall incident in Oregon, the temple incident in Wisconsin, the movie theatre and the numerous incidents in street corners in Chicago. May God bless the memory of the victims.

This story more or less has the same characteristics with the Kenyan version, only that it is of a higher scale. The numerous grenade explosions in Eastleigh have become the norm. Almost every Sunday evening, the “BREAKING NEWS” section has been dedicated to that specific kind of news. Is it that the country lacks a competent intelligence base or there’s a general laxity in the body responsible for alerting the security apparatus of any queer activity being organized secretly within the borders? I’m of the opinion that we need a general overhaul in the entirety of the police force. We need skilled undercover agents. We need computerized distributed systems. We need to analyze, evaluate and synthesize the whole system .Being caught off-guard time and again is such ridicule! Now that we almost have a new inspector of police, I think he should introduce a programme that will allow field agents to benchmark with the FBI and CIA.

Late this week, the high court sentenced 6 police officers to death. The ruling came as joyous bacon light of hope to Kawangware families of taxi drivers who were murdered in the dead of the night. It is indeed a night that will forever remain in their hearts. The evidence presented in court not only served to expose the gross unjust treatment of civilians but also added to the ugly record of police brutality. It was proved that the officers fired 61 live bullets to 6 unarmed civilians. Those are among the hard, brutal facts of the case.

KTN reporter Lulu Hassan covered a feature entitled ‘secrets in solitude’ on Sunday night that exposed the biggest open secret that is hidden behind the high Kenya prison walls. Homosexuality is rife in these correctional facilities.

PUT KENYA ON THE WORLD MAP

If there is a president who will go down in history as one of the most hilarious comics of all time, our very own head of state beats the rest hands down. This is especially manifested while delivering keynote speeches in Kiswahili. Forget the English speech written for him by the salaried team who will not miss the opportunity to whip it with excess cream. The real talk gets on when he’s done reading and starts talking from his heart. I remember sometime back when he was talking about family planning. He said: ‘Siolazimawewekilausiku, kilasikuyapiliyatatuatilazimauproducemtoto. What the hell…………haaapaana…..hiyonikukosaadabu’

As his tenure as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the republic comes to an end, Kenyan’s on social media took time to tweet him best wishes and to acknowledge his legacy. Truth be told, the man has upgraded our infrastructure. I’m well aware we are far from putting Kenya on the world map as far as infrastructure is concerned. For instance, Dubai is famous for its audacious engineering projects as well as the neighbouring United Arab Emirates countries like Abu Dhabi which has the most inclined skyscraper on the planet! That leaning tower called ‘Capital Gates’ has rewritten the skyscraper rule book. It defies gravity in all aspects. Abu Dhabi has joined the giant city super league yet it rose from a desert. With the discovery of oil, Kenya ought to undergo a makeover that no East African country can imagine. In Abu Dhabi the Sheikh splashed over $ 200 Billion to transform the metropolitan. Is Nairobi Metropolitan ministry up for this kind of challenge? We would love to see Nairobi become a world class business and tourist destination! I am yet to hear what policies the politicians of the day have crafted in order to put this nation on the world map. It’s all about who is going to be the next occupant of the house on the hill.

SPORTS

Arsenal Football Club was delighted to announce that five of its young internationals have signed new long-term contracts. The quintet of Kieran Gibbs (23), Carl Jenkinson (20), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (19), Aaron Ramsey (21) and Jack Wilshere (20), who are all full internationals, have all committed their long-term futures to Arsenal. I hope the team will invest more and strategize. We need trophies now, more than ever before.

PARTING SHOT

Has anyone else ever locked themselves out of their own systems? Or is it just me? I have just wasted slightly over 60 minutes of my life trying all the possible combination of numbers to unlock my suitcase with no luck at all. This reminds me of another incident where I put some very valuable item in a secure place and I ended up losing the item. It was so secure that I could not remember the location. I guess everyone has had a share of some of those kinds of moments.  You put a password to your own device and forget it. Well, I never forget passwords but I know people who do.

Moral of the story: don’t hide stuff from yourself!

Wishing y’all a merry Christmas and a happy new 2013! Be sure to extend a hand for all those in need.

WEEKLY DOSAGE

When I was away, I took time to register as a voter for the forthcoming general elections. In case you have the slightest shade of doubt, my elector’s number is 011277121125141-9. I couldn’t help but notice the wanting quality of those cards the IEBC team is giving. The card I owned before was more durable, more or less like the quality of an Identity Card. I have only used it once, during the referendum and I believe my vote counted because we passed the new constitution.  I’m waiting for the day the whole country will embrace information technology so that we don’t have to queue to vote. I have a dream that one day the click of a mouse button is all that will be required to cast a vote. Why can’t we vote via email? Talking about emails, why was I asked for my email address by the clerk when registering? I also don’t get why they asked for my phone number since I have been receiving text messages urging me to register as a voter way after I registered. Aren’t they supposed to tell Safaricom to customize my text like “Whart up Lucs, howz u holding up… Thanx for registering with IEBC. Your current M-Pesa balance will be credited shortly. Know wat, tell others peeps to follow suit!” If you are reading this blog and have not yet registered to vote, shame on you. Yes I know you think your vote doesn’t count but remember it is your civic duty to contribute.
I have been spending a considerable amount of my time on TV. Watching too much of it! Suits. How I Met Your Mother. Revenge. Nikita. Some documentaries…and the list goes on and on. When I’m I going to read? I know exactly when. The night before exam. That is one of my most guarded little secrets! Unless karma comes biting and the official ‘mpango wa candle’ sponsors, also known as KPLC decide to switch off the lights.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
Girls, when you grow up, does anyone want to be Caroline Mutoko? Not the job description part which is extremely inviting, I mean who minds laughing all the way to the bank to cash in some six figures. I’m talking about the Caroline Mutoko who rattled the internet community the other day. It still beats me how ‘idling’ we can all get. A hate Facebook page getting over 10,000 likes less in less than 48 hours?? Legendary! She did diss us no doubt. And when I say ‘us’ I mean the youth. I’m thinking somebody should create a Wikipedia page for her. The popularity, actually the fame she has amassed is incredible. Just so we are clear, I’m not for or against her. The tongue, if not put to check can jeopardize reputations, top-notch jobs, egos and so many other good things. They all come tumbling down. Remember our deputy chief justice? The tongue my friends.

FOOTBALL ANALYSIS
I am so bitter because it’s now common knowledge that my team has continued to disappoint me in every single game. We are still languishing in the 7th place on the league table. What worries me most is the series of losses we have embarked on in the recent past. On Tuesday night, we were beaten on penalties by league 2 side Bradford at Valley Parade. I know majority of you are wondering what team that is. It is in league 2. Mind you they beat us so bad. I believe the lack of spending has now gone too far. The team is decreasing in quality every year since 2009. I do not know what strategy the C.E.O Mr. Ivan Gazidis has in mind. The club needs a lil bit of investment, and when I say investment I mean players. The sponsorship deal with Emirates Airline is not doing us any better.

GOOGLE ‘How to’
Apparently, google.co.ke has just released a report analyzing the most persistent searches by Kenyan’s. The query that garnered the highest traffic and is obviously the trending one is: “How to abort”. The report says that the number one trending search is the “how to” category. If you want to experience how distracting google can get, just search “how to” and read the suggestions that pop up. Out of the top four results, am as sure as it will get dark tonight that 3 will be about things like … oh my!! That is your homework.




Till next week, I'm out!