Was IEBC the real problem?

I am a worried voter. It is not peculiar but when the opposition and those who form the government of the day agree on something I tend to pay a little more attention. If you have not realised by now that CORD and Jubilee are in agreement that IEBC must go you are yet to wake up! What began like an opposition war against IEBC has now become a war of the political class against free and fair elections.
Kid me not, none of the two sides is interested in an elections body that will preside over free and fair elections because that will not take care of their interests. So dear Kenyans this is where we come in . We are getting into the electioneering period at a time when this country is highly polarised.
At a period when we are increasingly being made to believe that our safety either lies in the last name we bear or the communities we come from; we are slowly but surely creeping back to our ethnic enclaves as the count down to the next polls begin. Of course issue based politics has never been our cup of tea. Why should it be when politics is only about clans, tribes and last names, right? After all we go to the polls to elect tribal chiefs who will represent our last names out there and that alone is enough to improve our well being as voters. We must wake up to the reality that politicians put their interests first and so should we put ours. We must wake up and protect this country, even if it takes the little sense of patriotism we have left. We should be on the streets, apparently that is the language we all understand, it is perhaps the only thing we have in common with the political class, to demand inclusion in the ongoing process. We cannot afford to have an elections body that is chiselled to satisfy the whims of politicians. 2017 will not be an election year like any other we have had before. It will be the election after people have realised that MCAs can also be chauffeured in fuel guzzlers and they also wield significant power, *read they can arm twist governors and blackmail them*. It might just be the election where we have MCAs election petitions reach the supreme court, yes the stakes are that high. 2017 cannot be business as usual and we are only courting disaster by letting the political class to marionette the most important institution in our country at this point.
I may have no solutions at hand but this is a conversation we need to start.

Nchi yetu ya Kenya Tunayoipenda tuwetayari kuilinda. 

Matiangi is not the problem: Give the guy a break!

Lets all cut Matiangi some sluck and stop behaving like the spoilt brats burning schools are not our children.This is a reflection of how well our children learn, the violent very destructive demos by our political leaders have been good lessons. I almost forgot the top students from all over Kenya who made it to the University have also been good examples,do I even need to go there. Then we go closer home and see how teachers behave in the name of industrial action.I am not a saint and I am not adding my voice because I am the best example.I am adding my voice and calling out the society that has failed in parenting. The reason I could never ever even dream of starting a strike let alone burn a school is because I knew a little to well that I would have no where to go. My father would surely kill me and yes I said kill! Those that know "Mwalimu" know he does not mince his words.
Lets face it the reason this young people are so easily burning down schools is because "baba" and "mum" have a place to run to and parents who will have their backs no matter what. We are the enablers of violence and unrest in our society. We have raised spoilt brats in the name of love and now morality has been sacrificed at the alter of "love". Until we wake up to the failure of society in raising responsible human beings then the number of closed schools will go higher. We may soon have no high school unless we ask the tough questions. Meanwhile can you live Matiangi alone and realise already that his children are not in those schools!!! Its you and I we are the major stakeholders.
‪#‎Unrestinschools‬ ‪#‎letstakethebullbythehorns‬ ‪#‎nchiyetuyakenya‬ ‪#‎myvoice‬

The Cry of a Comrade...

Those who truly feel the pain of the recent UON drama is us who have the name stuck with us forever. Even if I went to another university and did the exact course I studied in UON nothing will ever change about the fact that I spent solid four years of my life at UON.

I have been on record many times saying that demos at UON are pointless and will never achieve anything not in the way they are done! Never mind that SONU and food cannot be ignored (really!).

Dear comrades being in university should set you apart from each and every other villager out there who has never had the privilege of setting foot there. Being a university student means you were among the best in more ways than one. It is expected that you have a certain thinking capacity that millions out there do not have. But guess what? We have just given life to the old joke of "selling a cow to educate another cow". No sober university student burns buildings because they are throwing a cheap tantrum, didn’t your mother spank you enough when you threw tantrums at two!! Then you need to meet my mother! So how many solutions did you get when you burnt down the SONU office? After burning down the Mess, how many lecturers or the UON administrators went hungry?

About the vandalism at what was to be an event by the US Embassy, really comrades did we have to stoop that low, hadn’t we gone low enough already?

The ramifications of our thoughtless actions will be dire my friends and trust me Sam Gichuru only showed us a tip of the iceberg. Mo Sounds will never employ a UON graduate not because we are all violent but because once beaten twice shy. You can insult Sam Gichuru all you want but if you know what he does you should be peacefully matching to his office with a bouquet of roses and perhaps attempt to appease him. Trust me when more players in the private sector pick up the same spirit and attitude concerning this matter and they speak in one voice we will all wish we studied at University of Matopeni.

You do not stone cars that belong to a potential future employer.

My dear comrades we are surely better than that! We have allowed a hand full students decide the fate of more than 500,000 others. We have entrusted our legacy to a few people who stumbled and found themselves in UON. Let the law take its course and let’s see real action, let people be jailed and do not put them in a cell and allow them to take a selfie with a bottle of whisky. It’s okay IG Boinet I took note of that and now I know there exists classes of criminals. Last I checked electronic gadgets let alone alcohol were not allowed in cells, but again not all animals are equal, RIGHT?

Dear Dr. Matiang’i, I liked you, your energy and enthusiasm. Perhaps I still do. I had this illusion and a really good dream that sanity would eventually return to our institutions of higher learning. Sir we need you to stop acting like UON does not exist, let people answer and take responsibility for slowly but surely degrading the reputation of that great university. If for nothing else, do it for your grandchildren. They need to have a better narrative about their mothers and fathers so that they not only read about their ability to hurl projectiles and brave the torture of tear gears. It’s an institution of HIGHER learning, please let it remain so. Don’t kill the little trust I still have in you. It’s a cry from an innocent young girl who shaped her life in UON. She also knows that there are many incredibly great minds back there and still, a handful that only stumbled and fell there. They neither value intellect nor the reputation of an institution whose name they will carry throughout their lives. 

ITS YOUR LIFE

I am far from perfect but I am work in progress. I am perhaps too young to talk about my generation and its weaknesses but who is better placed to talk about this than a sister who wants and desires to see a better tomorrow for my generation? 
I have watched people close to me and others i do not know, make choices not too good for their own lives. Don't get it twisted, what they choose to do with their lives is not my problem, trust me I have enough going on in my own life to care about what people decide for themselves. What bothers me however is the excuses we form to justify our misdoings. So you came from a dysfunctional family and this has been the excuse you keep peddling for being an abusive partner. Make me understand how this is the same brain that makes you realise that the cause of your abusive nature is your family experience yet that same brain cannot tell you to get help and change that nasty narrative.
Why does your absent parent have to be the reason you cannot do well in school and decide to drop out? Is it because we all dont know how bad a dad your father was or how much your mum did not care about you? It is your life and you are punishing yourself and not them by using their mistakes to justify your bad choices. The best punishment to those that do not wish you well is not proving them right by making a wreck out of your life, its actually making it better and leaving them surprised.
When you turn 18 you have a responsibility to make decisions that can either make you or ruin you. No one can make decisions for you no matter how much they try. It gets to a point where its about me and what I decide to do with my life. My father can be the military general for all I care but it is my choices that make me stand out not his status in society and his supposed authority to kill in case I go astray.
‪#‎ITSYOURLIFE‬

ETHNICITY WILL SURELY BE THE DEATH OF US!

The time has come and we are now gathering in our tribal cocoons, once more! We are crawling back to the places someone made us believe is home and even after whole 16 or more years in school you still believe the greatest possession you have is an ethnic identity.  Well done Kenyans let’s see how long we survive by doing things the same way and proving beyond doubt our insanity, guess what we shall surely eat the fruits of our great labour, we shall be paid handsomely so it’s not in vain after all. Whether good or bad the pay day will come. We have sank even lower and its now inter tribal wars! Its clanism. We thought it would be a better idea to bring our little wars closer home so why not start realising that even that which I thought was my ethnic group also has other groups and then why not begin superiority wars and try proving who more “Meru” than the other is.

As I have said time and again its either we unite or we will perish together as fools.

If what I am seeing is anything to go by then 2007/8 was child play. We are prepared for war we have put our tools together and we are waiting to be called and we will diligently report to duty to protect our own. Our own who forget about us the moment they get the coveted political offices. They disappear on us and after 4yrs they crawl back to us and since we are very faithful we embrace them and we protect them as if our next breathe depends on them. It’s called an abusive relationship but it’s too sweet to leave so we are hanging in there for reasons we also do not know. We are just faithful, we submit and we don’t question.

We forget they presented us with promises and not only that but a full manifesto and we were taken on a full dream  of how we would live in heaven if we gave them the only power we have, our vote. But we are too naive and we have forgotten all that and now we want to give them another chance to make this dream turned nightmare longer.

We love our politicians more than we love life and that we keep proving without fail. And for sure we will be true to that Kenyan spirit unless we transform

By Sarah Makena

A Letter to my brothers

In the past few months I have found myself in conversations about violence and cruelty against women. I thought I had heard all the mediocre reasons as to why a man could possibly abuse a woman but here is the newest excuse in town; "We African men...blah blah blah" and that’s a statement I have heard a little too many times that i want to believe that it was only part of a terrible nightmare which I have since woken up from, unfortunately the reality is that there is a breed of men who have found a new excuse for abusing women. So the reason is that you have a very small ego; to feed it and stroke it you must fight with a woman, and the excuse is that you are an African man? Please give me a break! Perhaps the next time you want to give that flimsy lame excuse try to do it while in hides and skin, may be then I can begin to understand. At the very least I will then have an imagery of the African man you purport to be.

I may have failed my history class but at least I can remember what my mother told me about her father, a true African man. I can remember my own father, the epitome of a true African man. African men were protectors, providers and proclaimers. And that power was lost the day African men of today sat in a house whose rent he had no idea how it was raised and ate food he had no idea how to look for. That power was lost when many men started rolling down the windows of their mothers’ Range Rovers to snare at and intimidate women who were in their own Toyota Vitz.

I have nothing against men I have too many in my circles, neither am I starting a battle I cannot finish. All I am doing is asking us to wake up beyond "MAWE" and realise that the bar was set very high for the men in our society today by those who came before them and guess what? To reach that high bar you need to stop waiting to be a millionaire by playing Sportpesa, boy please! What I am saying is that the real African men killed lions as a show of might, went out literally in search of danger to demonstrate their manliness but that was then and it worked at that time! Today my brothers you must report to duty and be the men we want in society; Men that are not intimidated by the success of their female counterparts but men that are challenged by this and turn it into positive energy to propel them into higher notches of success.

This, my brothers will not be achieved through physical or emotional abuse. It is not achieved by stepping all over the women you come across. The only thing that abuse does is it creates competitors and not partners. It makes women bitter and they choose to focus on competing with you. But when you show up for duty and work twice as hard as she does she respects you and creates a heaven for you to operate.

Men call out the boys in men’s skin who are letting all the men down, call out the men in these boys. Ask them to wake up from the dream that one day while sitting lazily doing nothing they will win a betting jack pot! This annoying betting obsession is a story for another day!

By Sarah Makena

If you wake up at ten you are lazy not sleeping beauty.

A letter to my sisters

Snow white is no longer white, Cinderella is now in high heels and sleeping beauty woke up. 

I don’t make sense right now but let’s take a walk together and chat. There is a fairy tale fantasy that girls in their 20s today are living in.  The idea that there is someone somewhere who wakes up very early every day while they are still asleep and at the end of the month Mr. X owes them a salary for being pretty, for being sexy, for looking good.  While your mother is somewhere in a tiny village at the foot of mount Kenya, the shores of Lake Victoria or the plains of the Rift Valley saying a prayer each day for you after she invested in a good education for you, you are busy sending messages to married men who for God knows what reason should pay your rent, fund your weekend getaways with your girls, foot your shopping bills and fuel that car which is not registered in your name.

My dear sister, as you indulge in deep slumber there is a woman Supreme Court judge who earned that position out of merit, so trust me sleeping beauty woke up. Stop whining and wondering why you are 27 and there is no sign you will ever get married any time soon. Those men you hang out with every Friday are only with you because they don’t have to try so hard to get you to tag along. The women they worked hard to impress are treated to exquisite dinners at Sankara because darling you reflect what you attract. You are with him at that dingy joint on Moi Avenue because to him that’s what you deserve. Are you still wondering why he treats his wife better? Are you wondering why you are an underground secret that cannot see light of day? Are you wondering why his escapades with you must be kept under the wraps and must take place at some secluded house he takes every cheap woman he picks from the streets?

Why should we talk about equality when some of us sit in houses the whole day and keep up with the Kardashians? I am sure those American girls would be very grateful to know that you spend half your day’s life watching them live theirs. They earn a living from your laziness darling. Again those girls work extremely hard. Perhaps you could try keeping up with them by at least setting up a socks line of your own.  Those that fought for gender equality wanted to raise a woman who could compete at the same level with the men. They wanted girls to go to school so that they could unlock their full potential. So that women could rise to positions such as senators, governors and even President without being told ‘’you got it because you are a woman’’ or ‘’you must have slept your way to the top.’’ They hoped to raise a woman who did not need a man to achieve small things like having her hair made. They envisaged a society where a woman would be respected for what she brings to the table and not merely because of what lies between her legs. They hoped for a woman who could bargain with her neck upwards.

So my dear sisters when you sit and wait, wait for a man to finance your lifestyle simply because you can offer an already battered part of your female anatomy, you are an embarrassment to the spirit and legacy of women like the late Prof. Wangari Mathai and the rest who struggled to elevate the African woman and indeed the entire human female species.  If it’s 2 am and you happen to lose your shoe sweetheart you are not Cinderella, you are drunk! If it’s Monday morning and you are still in bed at 10am, you are lazy not sleeping beauty! As you approach 30 continue smoking sheesha, weed and everything else that your lungs can take then keep wishing for prince charming to come and kiss you out of imminent destruction and death.

Let’s snap out of the dream my dear sisters and prove to our mothers that their efforts to create a better tomorrow for us was not in vain. The only way for women to prove to the world that there is more to them than trophies to be won for simple bodily gratifications is to change from within ourselves. We must prove that we are worth all the opportunities that are being put out here for girls and women. Let us rewrite a new fairy tale and show the men that we can be partners and not just partakers. Until you can prove that you are more than just a partaker in a man’s success the man has no reason to perceive you differently from the way he does today.

Look around you and pass my letter to other sisters too.

With love,

A caring sister.