Sunday, March 31, 2013

Blogger Itumbi Seeks Law On Rejected Votes


Internet blogger Dennis Itumbi addresses journalists at the St Pauls Cathedral Anglican church in Embu. The social media journalist had petitioned the Supreme Court over the IEBC’s decision to include rejected votes in its final tally.
Controversial blogger Dennis Itumbi now wants Parliament to pass legislation on the issue of rejected votes. Itumbi, who had gone to the Supreme Court seeking a ruling on the move by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to include rejected votes in its final tally, said the legislation will help in charting the way forward on election results handling.
“I urge parliamentarians to bring a Bill to the floor of the House and introduce an amendment to the Elections Act where rejected votes will no longer be included in the candidate’s total score,” he said. Speaking at St Paul’s Cathedral Anglican Church in Embu, Itumbi said Parliament should move expeditiously and ensure the enactment of the law is effected.
The blogger said the move will protect future generations to avoid the scenarios Kenyans were subjected to in the recent General Elections. Emerging heroes The court on Saturday granted the orders with Itumbi and Kuria emerging heroes following the historic ruling of their application.
The petitions by Itumbi, Moses Kuria and Florence Sergon were the only ones which were granted by the Supreme Court judges as the others filed by Raila Odinga and African Centre for Governance (Africog) were dismissed by the Mutunga-led court. The court, however, said it does not have powers to order a re-computation of the tallies meaning the ruling will apply progressively.

Uhuru, Ruto Agree On A Lean, 22-Member Cabinet

The XYZ Show Season 7: Episode 11 | Buni TV

The XYZ Show Season 7: Episode 11 | Buni TV

After Mandela


After Mandela

There will never be another Nelson Mandela, but maybe that’s just what South Africa needs to save itself from ruin.

BY ROY ROBINS | MARCH 29, 2013

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Late on Wednesday night, March 27, former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to an undisclosed hospital for a recurring lung infection. This is the third time Mandela has been hospitalized in recent months. He spent a weekend in hospital in early March for what the government described as a "check-up," and most of December in hospital, where he was treated for a lung infection and had his gallstones removed. The last time Mandela was seen in public was almost three years ago, at the closing ceremony of the 2010 World Cup, in Johannesburg. But that doesn't mean that he's not still everywhere.
Take his "appearance" at the kickoff this January of the 29th African Cup of Nations, an intercontinental soccer tournament held every two years. The elaborate opening ceremony, celebrating African culture, was a feast of entertainment, music, and dancing; at one point, an enormous Mandela puppet took to the stage. Dressed in the former president's trademark loose, patterned shirt, the puppet swaggered, tottered, jilted, and jived. The audience applauded, for the puppet was instantly identifiable, instantly empathic, instantly adored. Everything else on the stage -- and there was much else, including hundreds of dancers in colorful traditional dress -- could well have been invisible. Yet there was something perfectly ironic about the puppet: in its  enormousness and vitality, it was somehow a better stand-in than Mandela himself, whose age and condition no longer allows him to take the stage.
The ailing former president has been squarely on South Africa's mind the last few months. At 94, he is frail and fading fast. Housebound and bedridden in his Johannesburg estate, he is rumored to be senile; some claim he no longer speaks at all. One especially devastating newspaper report, quoting his former wife, said that his "sparkle was fading."
Each time Mandela is admitted to hospital, a wall of silence goes up between Mandela's spokespeople and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government, on the one side, and local and international media, on the other. The official ANC line is always the same: Mandela is "in good health," he is "stable," his medical examinations are "routine" -- nothing to see here, folks, move along. The unofficial line is decidedly different and, by all reasonable accounts, much closer to the truth.
There's also a striking gulf between the local and international media in their reports on Mandela's health. The foreign press are more beatific -- they exhaust transcendental superlatives in attempting to describe the elderly statesman -- but also more ruthless and fatalistic. They polish the halo, or they rehearse the deathbed scene, but, for the most part, they don't seem terribly interested in any middle ground. Each time Mandela takes ill, they wonder if this hospital stay will be the hospital stay, if the unthinkable is about to happen, if the big story is here.
South African reporters are generally shrewder and tougher, indifferent to hyperbole and reflexively critical of the party line. They do a better job of portraying Mandela as an actual human being. But they have also been disciplined into deference by a government that curbs the media, threatens its freedoms, and queries its patriotism.
The ANC has been shameless in exploiting apartheid-era security laws -- such as prohibiting anyone from providing "any information relating to the security measures applicable at or in respect of any" property designated a National Key Point -- to restrict press coverage of Mandela. This extends to the current president, Jacob Zuma, whose controversially funded homestead has itself conveniently been designated a National Key Point. For the ANC, all apartheid-era laws are understandably abhorrent -- except when they can be used to enhance the party itself, protect its politicians or cover up their crimes, in which case the laws are not only acceptable, but also admirable. As the sociologist Roger Southall has noted, the ANC "blurs the distinction between party and state (and between legality and illegality)."
That the ANC has repeatedly bungled its media response to Mandela's hospitalizations, with a damage-control strategy that would be laughed at by any reputable PR company, is revealing. In December 2011, police removed three CCTV cameras that overlooked the Eastern Cape home where Mandela then lived. The cameras had been placed there by Reuters and the Associated Press, and were to be switched on in the event of Mandela's death. Following a public outcry, authorities condemned the news outlets for their intrusiveness, despite the fact that, according to the outlets, these same authorities had given permission for the installation of the cameras.
Indeed, the morbid Mandela death watch is in full swing. Writing in Britain's Guardian in December 2011, that newspaper's Africa correspondent, David Smith, noted that there "are top-secret works in progress. It would be imprudent to discuss them with rivals, and tasteless to admit their existence in polite company. But one day they will be activated -- the only question is when. These are the 'M-plans,' the euphemism for scenarios drawn up by media organizations preparing to report the death of Mandela." Smith noted that "Major broadcasters have spent years -- and 'fortunes' -- building studios, buying prime locations, pre-booking hotels and transport, hiring local 'fixers,' and signing up pundits."
It's almost a cottage industry. As far back as 1997, the South African journalist Lester Venter published a book entitled When Mandela Goes. Since then, there have been several books with similar titles, the most recent of which is After Mandela, by the Daily Telegraph's former South Africa correspondent, Alec Russell. For decades, people have worried what would happen after Mandela's death; whether the country would fall apart without this stabilizing (and largely mythical) force. In Russell's crisp phrase, Mandela's gift to South Africa was his "reconciliatory wizardry," for not only did he ease South Africa into democracy, but he encouraged unity, forgiveness, and faith in humankind. For journalist Alex Duval Smith, writing in the Independent, Mandela is "our planet's last living legend." For Time's Africa bureau chief, Alex Perry, and millions of others, Mandela is a "kind of secular saint to the world."
It seems that too many ostensibly objective journalists have forgotten George Orwell's dictum (in his 1949 review of a Mahatma Gandhi biography): "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent." Mandela himself announced, after his 1990 release from 27 years of imprisonment: "I stand here not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people" ... which is, come to think of it, the kind of thing a prophet would say.
Recovering from a bad case of Mandela Illness Fatigue in December, the Cape Town-based AIDS activist Nathan Geffen wrote on his website that "myth-making about Mandela, the continued suggestions by the ANC that he is infallible and superhuman ... coupled by the failure to critically discuss and debate his lifetime's ideas, actions, successes, and failures, does him a disservice. It reduces his life to feel-good quotes and excuses all kinds of bad behavior done in his name. This dehumanizes Mandela and actually means we fail to learn from his achievements."
Geffen sounds like the only grown-up in a world populated by eternally idealistic and overly excitable adolescents, but more and more South African writers are examining Mandela's legacy from a critical perspective, and many young people have also begun to cast a cold eye on Madiba (the affectionate nickname for Mandela), especially the so-called born-free generation, who have only ever known democracy and lack the older generation's baked-in gratitude and goodwill toward the former president.
The born-frees are disheartened by their country's inequality (which has actually widened since apartheid, and is now one of the worst in the world), its debilitating 71 percent youth unemployment rate, its broken education system, and its lack of adequate housing and healthcare. They are angry at South Africa's staggering crime (the country remains one of the most violent in the world).They are frustrated by being endlessly poor: according to the United Nations Development Program, almost half of all South Africans live below the poverty line. And they feel betrayed by a corrupt ANC elite that appears to aspire only to enrich itself, that promises everything at election time but delivers little. None of this is Mandela's fault, of course, but then nor is it the fault of South Africa's youth. One provocative 2012 born-free blog post was titled, "How Mandela Sold Out Blacks."
The truth is that Mandela never actually governed South Africa as president. From the beginning of his single term, in 1994, he delegated (or was perhaps coerced into delegating) all his decision-making to his deputy, future President Thabo Mbeki. Even then, Mandela was little more than a figurehead, spending much of his time posing for photographs with American celebrities, making seemingly meaningful but frequently vacuous statements, and, later, coaxing President Bill Clintonthrough his Monica Lewinsky trauma. (Clinton early on understood how to exploit Mandela for the subtlest political purposes. Shamed by the nation for cheating on your wife? Mention you've sought counsel from Mandela, and all will be forgiven.)
Mandela's role was necessary at the time: reassuring both South Africa and the world that the transition from apartheid to democracy had been successfully undertaken, encouraging tourism and international investment, and soothing the psyche of an anxious nation that looked to him as a stable, moral presence. Much was accomplished policy-wise during Mandela's first term, but with little input from the great man himself.
Thus, Mandela often takes credit to this day for policies Mbeki and others engineered (the relatively successful neoliberal economy; the important first steps in redressing poverty and giving homes to the homeless), and occasionally gets blamed for what were, in retrospect, mistakes of Mbeki's making (not taking a firmer stance on Robert Mugabe's increasingly tyrannical rule of Zimbabwe; a frequently confused and self-defeating foreign policy; the widening of the inequality gap).
For activists, Mandela's greatest sin was failing to speak out forcefully about the AIDS epidemic -- which has crippled the country over the last two decades, leading to millions of deaths -- and neglecting to put in place effective policy to both prevent further infection and distribute antiretrovirals to those suffering from the disease. But even here Madiba deserves some leeway. After all, AIDS was the mandate of the then-Health Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, ex-wife of the current president and now chairperson of the African Union Commission. In fact, a costly attempt by Dlamini-Zuma to draw national attention to AIDS was one of the new South Africa's earliest publicembarrassments. Besides, it is easy, with hindsight, to talk about the government's mishandling of the HIV time bomb. In the very early years of democracy, before Mbeki unforgivably turned HIV denialism into government policy, AIDS was just one enormous social issue among many.
Mandela certainly had his share of political blunders. The most public may have been his 1993 stance, ahead of the first democratic election the following year, that the voting age be lowered to 14. It was a peculiar proposal for a man who should have known his party stood to win an overwhelming majority of votes anyway, without attempting to gerrymander the youth vote. (Even some ANC militants, who thought that too many concessions had already been granted to the Afrikaners, were mystified by Madiba's suggestion).
Privately, and on rare occasions, people who know Mandela mention moments when the former president was petty, acquisitive, churlish, compromised, even craven. This is not to say that Mandela is not a great man -- he most assuredly is -- but that he remains just that: a man. As South Africa's last apartheid president and Mandela's Nobel Peace Prize co-awardee, F.W. de Klerk (himself no hero)recently said, "He was by no means the avuncular and saintlike figure so widely depicted today."
In his envy and tacit resentment of Mandela, de Klerk has an unlikely companion in Thabo Mbeki, who understood that, no matter how able a politician he was (and the young Mbeki was an extraordinarily accomplished lobbyist and tactician), he would never live up to Mandela's legacy.
Even before he became president, Mbeki humiliated Mandela, both implicitly and overtly, publicly and privately. Poised to become president, Mbeki, in a speech at the ANC party conference in 1997, addressed the question everyone was asking: how he intended to step into Madiba's massive shoes.
"I will never, ever be seen dead in your shoes," he said, speaking directly to Mandela, "because you wear such ugly shoes." It was a joke, but it also wasn't. Mbeki later mocked Mandela's "silly" shirts. Once president, he even refused to take Madiba's telephone calls. For his part, Mandela suspectedthat his successor had planted listening devices in his home -- not an unreasonable assumption, given Mbeki's well known paranoia.
The truth is, Mandela set an unreasonably high bar for any South African politician. Incapable of being better than Mandela, his successors as president seemed content to be worse. Mbeki, who was prone to quoting from Shakespeare, Yeats, and Langston Hughes, should have read more Freud. Mandela's successor became increasingly autocratic, alienated, and obsessive -- and was eventually ousted by his party as he attempted to close in on an unconstitutional third term. 
The current president, Jacob Zuma, with 783 charges of racketeering, fraud, and corruption against him, makes Lance Armstrong look like a stand-up guy. He has made tacit threats to South Africa's Constitution, to its media, and to its judiciary. He recently spent $28 million of taxpayer money on a luxurious homestead for himself and his large family. The Guardian's former Africa correspondent Chris McGreal once described Zuma as being "almost shorn of ideology." But it has now become clear what Zuma's ideology is -- it is the philosophy of self-enrichment.
Despite the emergence of a new political party in February, there is still no party that has a broad enough appeal to the majority of black South Africans to be a viable threat to the ANC. For better or worse, the party of Nelson Mandela will be the dominant party of South Africa for the foreseeable future.
And while Mandela himself may be fading from public view, the Mandela industry continues unabated. This is the franchised, fetishized, minted, molded, mass-produced, and endlessly exploited "Mandela" -- one that bears no relation to the actual human being. This is the world's Mandela, commodified in countless iterations: part Che Guevara, part Mickey Mouse.
Madiba's image adorns everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to South Africa's recently released new banknotes. There are multiple Mandela clothing lines. There is a Mandela gold coin collection marketed to wealthy South African expatriates (those who love the country enough to brag about it, but not enough to make their home there). Curio shops in touristy areas sell Mandela memorabilia, with signs advising foreigners to "Take a Part of Africa Home With You" -- never mind that it's probably made in China.
The hagiography has long been internationalized. The Hollywood adaptation of The Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela's bestselling autobiography (ghostwritten by Richard Stengel, now managing editor of Time) is scheduled for release this year. Idris Elba, the British actor of Ghanian and Sierra Leonian heritage, best known for his role on HBO's The Wire, will play Mandela in the film. Some black South African actors expressed outrage at the casting. "Mandela has already been portrayed by Danny Glover, Morgan Freeman, and Sidney Poitier," an actor friend said to me recently. "When is anactual South African going to play the world's most famous South African?" And now, of course, there's a reality show. On February 10, NBC's Cozi TV channel launched Being Mandela, featuring three of Mandela's granddaughters, who are evidently attempting to keep up with the Kardashians.
Meanwhile, a letter leaked to the press last July revealed a rift between the ANC and its most famous family. In the letter, Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, complained that, "No one has cared to establish how we are doing as a family. It is quite clear that we do not matter at all, we only do when we have to be used for some agenda." That's rich, considering Madikizela-Mandela was herself was one of the earliest exploiters of the Mandela name, selling soil and other knick knacks from her husband's Soweto property to tourists for exorbitant prices.
Still, Madikizela-Mandela has a point. In today's South Africa, Madiba is little more than a puppet tossed about between the ANC (which uses his name to rally its base or remind supporters of its glory years), opposition parties (which brandish his name as a weapon), or by the international media (which mentions Mandela as a shorthand to point out how the country has failed to live up to its ideals -- nevermind that they were impossible, anyway).
Perhaps Mandela's death will occasion a compassionate assessment of where South Africa is as a country right now, where it should be, and how to get there. The hope in a post-Mandela South Africa is that younger leaders can find their voice anew, liberate the political parties from the sins of self-enrichment that have robbed this country of moral authority, fight once more for the rights of the poor majority, and deliver to South Africa a vigorous democracy once again. It's sad that it might take the passing of Madiba for that to be possible.




Baba must keep walking


The new motto for baba is 'keep walking'. We plan to represent a 1,000,000 point petition as to why baba must keep walking for Kenya.

Reason number one why baba must keep walking is UK and WR and what they represent.

Reason number two is the 'Six People' and what they have come to represent. A judiciary that succumbs to the so called 'tyranny of numbers' project?

Reason number Three is IEBC and the institutional rot they represent.

Please respond by giving reasons why baba must keep walking.

....And to President Elect Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta ponder upon this


....And to President Elect Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta ponder upon this;

First, Whereas we respect the supremacy of the constitution and fully accept the verdict of the supreme court, Many Kenyans do not believe that you actually won this election fair, square and straight.

They actually believe that Raila Amolo Odinga was the victor. They feel disenfranchised and have lost faith in elections and our sense of fair play. How will you renew their faith in you and make them feel the legitimacy of your government which is what gives you the moral authority to rule them ?.

Secondly, The 2013 General Election was a hard fought election that created deep fault lines that divided us along ethnic, ideological and sectoral lines. How does your government propose to heal these rifts and renew our sense of one nation and one people especially amidst the storm surrounding your re-election?

Thirdly, The ICC trials are still ahead of us. They will talk about how we butchered each other in 2007 and further raise national tensions amidst a nation trying to heal and come to terms with itself. What will your government do to ensure that we remain united and cohesive, whatever the ICC verdict or outcome?

These are a few among a Miriam challenges your young government will face.

I submit that your first priority and order of business must be to heal the nation of Kenya before we can move forward.

May health, strength and courage abundant be blessed upon you to rebuild Kenya and help us keep faith in the Kenyan Dream.

Uhuru’s victory gives East Africa its second youngest president



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President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta addresses a press conference after the Supreme Court upheld his election.
President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta addresses a press conference after the Supreme Court upheld his election.  
By SEKOU OWINO Special Correspondent

Posted  Saturday, March 30  2013 at  21:55
IN SUMMARY
  • At 51, Mr Kenyatta will become the second youngest president in the East African Community after Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, who is 49. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is the oldest at 68, followed by Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, 63, and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, 55.
  • Mr Odinga accepted the court verdict and wished Mr Kenyatta and his team well, an hour after the president of the Supreme Court Willy Mutunga read the judgement.
  • The judgment now paves the way for Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto to embark on delivering on the promises contained in their campaign manifesto.
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Kenya’s Supreme Court on Saturday, March 30, dismissed two petitions challenging the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the country’s next president, ending an anxious three weeks’ wait for the country and the region as they awaited the court rulings.
The Supreme Court of Kenya rejected the applications filed by Raila Odinga —Mr Kenyatta’s main challenger in the March 4 election—and the African Centre for Open Governance (Africog) whose prayers were that the presidential election was not validly conducted and tallied, and therefore should be nullified.
Mr Odinga also contested the declaration by the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that Mr Kenyatta had been validly elected as president.
At 51, Mr Kenyatta will become the second youngest president in the East African Community after Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, who is 49.
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is the oldest at 68, followed by Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, 63, and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, 55.
Uncertainty had gripped the country over the as the country’s top legal minds considered the possible scenarios around the outcome of the case.
Meanwhile, Kenya’s landlocked neighbours—who experienced bruising shortages after delays in releasing results in the country’s hotly contested polls slowed business activity, hurting supply chains—have keenly been watching the unfolding events in the country, in the hope the transition period would end smoothly.
Their biggest fear was that had the petition sailed through and the Supreme Court called for fresh elections, the polls would have had to be carried out in 60 days, further extending the transition period. There were also fears the outcome of the court cases would trigger widespread violence.
Mr Odinga accepted the court verdict and wished Mr Kenyatta and his team well, an hour after the president of the Supreme Court Willy Mutunga read the judgement.
Diplomats from the European Union as well as Britain congratulated Mr Kenyatta following the verdict of the Supreme Court. When Mr Kenyatta was declared President, fears were mounting in the diplomatic community especially around the ICC issue.
The diplomats’ persistent interest in the issue had left analysts and politicians concerned that they could be planning to impose sanctions on Kenya.
Although there was a third petition, the focus was on the two petitions mentioned above because of their prayer for the nullification of the elections and their call for fresh elections.
At the heart of the two petitions were issues as to whether the electoral process, from registration and the compilation of the register, to the voting and the tallying of the votes was conducted as required by law.
The judges summarised the issues raised by the petitions into four questions or issues that the court was required to determine.
These were: Whether Mr Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto were validly elected; whether the presidential election was conducted in a free, fair, transparent and credible manner that met the standards required by the Constitution; and whether the rejected votes ought to have been included in determining the final tally of votes. The fourth issue was on declaration orders and reliefs the court should make after making determination on the above issues.
The court unanimously decided the first two questions in the affirmative, meaning that having looked at the evidence and the law, in the judges’ view, the elections had been conducted in a free and fair manner and that the persons declared elected had actually been lawfully elected to the office of president and deputy president respectively.
The judgment now paves the way for Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto to embark on delivering on the promises contained in their campaign manifesto. Besides this, the two are facing charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague over their suspected role in the 2007/8 post-election violence.
Both leaders have stated that they intend to co-operate with the ICC to the end.
The judges further declared, on the third issue as to whether the rejected votes should have been included in the final tallying of votes, that the rejected votes ought not to have been included in the aggregate of votes for the purpose of calculating whether a candidate had received enough votes for the purpose of the requirement that the winning candidate had received more than half the votes case at the election.
As a consequence of the findings, the judges of the Supreme Court declared that the two petitions that had sought to challenge the declaration of election of the president and the deputy president be dismissed.
The decision, however, was rendered in summary in that it simply outlined the effect of the judgment but without giving the reasons for the decision and how they resolved the competing claims by the parties as to the effect of the evidence or the interpretation of the law.
The main reasons for the decision will be seen when the full judgment is delivered and handed down within 14 days as the court promised at the time of delivery of what were effectively highlights of the judgment.
It is therefore not possible to determine how the competing claims were resolved by the judges and the basis on which they determined the case, such as whether the petitions did not succeed because the petitioners did not muster sufficient evidence or whether the judges took the view that the evidence presented even if credible could not justify the prayer by the petitioners for a fresh election.
Another important issue that the judgment will need to reveal is what the judges defined as “a free and fair election” and what it entails as of necessity.
Equally important is the issue as to whether the judges were persuaded by the point made by the respondents to the effect that they ought to act in restraint and consider among other things the economic and political effects of the orders that would ensue from the orders by the court, especially with regard to a fresh election.
Sekou Owino is Nation Media Group’s head of legal services.

We Can Go Back To Our Lives Now


It is all celebrations.
Folks, I am beside myself with glee. Not because Uhuru Kenyatta has been declared properly elected as head of state by the highest court in the land. No. My reasons for celebrating are myriad, not least because Kenyans have been on tenterhooks ever since March 4th when they braved the chill of dawn and the subsequent scorching heat of the sun to cast their votes.
I am excited that the petition, which has occupied the collective psyche of Kenyans for the last three weeks and five days, is finally over. I am glad that the decision of the Supreme Court is not appealable, or we would engage in endless litigation at the expense of nation-building. Yes, although we have been waiting with bated breath for the decision that was delivered yesterday, we also refused to agree to disagree.
The most talked about issue, from dingy village pubs all the way to five star establishments, from the villages and hamlets all the way to the city, from morning to evening, was the presidential petition. And it was in order that the matter is finally decided so that Kenyans can now get back to the serious business of working for their keep. The business of politicking, save for a motley group of idlers who congregate near City Hall daily to engage in endless banter about politics, is not for us, for majority of us have tasks that must be achieved.
For the ordinary man in the street, it mattered precious little which way the petition would go, yet, he was the one most engaged in daily discussion of the merits and demerits of the case. Folks, the matter has now been decided, can we get back to work? It was okay that we were rivetted to this most talked about issue since we have never had a case like that. It was okay that we became, overnight, political pundits, dishing out opinion like confetti, to all and sundry. But it’s now over.
What bothered me most was the tension that stalked us while the case lasted. I chanced into a supermarket early yesterday and witnessed how folks had kept away from town and city streets. It was also a matter to contemplate that the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo warned that some nefarious fellows were planning chaos, rekindling memories of the so-called hotspots where violence raged five years ago to scales unimaginable in recent times.
It was reassuring that Kimaiyo said police were on top of things and were monitoring the situation. That means that there were guys who were bent on formenting trouble. That is cause for worry. It is crucial that whether we see ourselves as winners or losers, we maintain a high sense of level-headedness so that together we can move on as a nation. We are the biggest winners in this case. Those who were in the petition just got themselves a job. And others lost a chance for those jobs. Period.
Nothing more, nothing less. For the rest of us, we must still engage in our daily task of putting loaf on the table. And it’s no easy task. My take is that our lives will hardly change dramatically just because there is a new occupant at State House. Tomorrow, you must report where you have been reporting to, regardless of who is Head of State. That is the bottomline. Our lives must continue. Can we get back to them, please? V
The writer is the Editor, The People, Weekend Editions

Ghasia Mathare baada ya uamuzi wa mahakama kuu

MRC wamtambua Uhuru kama Rais wakitaka atatue shida zao

Magavana waonywa kuweka bendera kwenye magari yao

Wito wa amani kutoka kwa Rais Mteule Uhuru Kenyatta

Mkasa wa Longonot, wawili wafa

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Longonot Tragedy

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News: Mt. Longonot Tragedy

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8 students injured as trailer demolishes Pangani bridge

Sunday Live 31st March 2013

Raila: Kenya needs a solution


By Standard Digital Reporter
Nairobi, Kenya: Following the Supreme Court ruling on the presidential election petitions, CORD leader Raila Odinga came out to accept the verdict and wished president elect Uhuru Kenyatta luck in governing the country.
Raila had moved to court to petition against Uhuru’s election, citing malpractices in the electoral process.
Raila has however stated that he is going to spearhead a process of ensuring a resolution to the dispute is arrived at.
“I am going to tell my people that we should look at peaceful ways of resolving the dispute,” Said Raila.
He was speaking during a live interview with the BBC World Service on Sunday.
Raila who does not agree with the manner in which the Supreme Court handled the case said he would look into avenues to try address the issue and pursue justice.
“What has happened here is a replica of what happened five years ago,” said Raila.
“I fear five years from now there will be voter apathy, people will not participate in elections anymore,” added Raila.

Where's the laptop Mr. President?


Laptops hold great promise



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PHOTO | FILE Pupils from Thawabu Primary School in Kayole huddle around a laptop during a workshop organised by CCK on Internet security.
PHOTO | FILE Pupils from Thawabu Primary School in Kayole huddle around a laptop during a workshop organised by CCK on Internet security.  NATION MEDIA GROUP
By KIRIMI MITAMBO kmitambo@sanaayetucreatives.co.ke
Posted  Sunday, March 31   2013 at  02:00
IN SUMMARY
  • By 2022, we may have ICT-savvy youth who can make money online
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Politics notwithstanding, the promise by President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta that his government would give a solar-powered laptop to every class one pupil could be the push this country needs to make e-learning a reality.
However, education cannot be left to government alone. In fact, the main role of government is to create a learner-friendly environment.
Approximately 1.2 million pupils would access computers annually, but for this to be achieved, the private sector and NGOs must also chip in. The implication is that by 2022, we shall have a young, ICT-savvy populace that can read, research and write online.
However, for the fruits of ICT to be realised, there is need to tackle the challenge of ICT-illiterate teachers by equipping them with the requisite skills.
If they can be made to see the bigger picture, teachers would be more than willing to practice and use their newly acquired skills. Doesn’t this sound like killing two birds with one stone? Any change or transformation must have supporting pillars.
Teachers are the pillars of any change in the education sector — they are the implementers of the policies.
The journey towards e-learning has been relatively smooth. Having began just over a decade ago, the ministry of Education, through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), has engaged well in both policy and training.
There have been numerous e-learning seminars for education stakeholders that have seen publishers and ICT experts present papers on the way forward. In addition, KICD has led by example by offering e-materials both on its website and libraries.
As a matter of policy, the ministry of Education has an ICT department whose mandate is to formulate and supervise ICT guidelines in schools. It is this department that needs to be empowered to tackle the e-learning challenges that will arise with the adoption of laptops.
According to Mr Peter Mugo, the publisher relations manager at eKitabu, embracing ICT at lower school levels would spur the consumption of e-materials. 
“If the material is available and consumers have the skills to access it, eKitabu would guarantee safety in transmission and access through Adobe Digital Rights Management. This is software that protects the digital content in any e-book available on the eKitabu website,” he said.
However, he notes that the government would have to make sure that the appropriate content (however expensive) is available. Could this be a wake-up call to education stakeholders to revisit their policies on e-learning?
In his book, Changing Kenya’s Literary Landscape, e-novel author Alexander Nderitu notes that “e-books are the literary world’s version of fast food”.
Once this generation embraces e-learning, e-books will mushroom on the Internet like fast food cafeterias, he says. This means mainstream publishers as well as self-published authors will be forced to produce most of their books in e-formats just like Penguin and Pearson do via Amazon.
If fulfilled, the “laptop promise” would see Kenya join Rwanda, Mongolia and Nepalm, among other countries, where children use laptops to learn, play and access information on different subjects and in a variety of languages.
The writer is the director, Sanaa Yetu Creatives, and a publishing consultant.