Another African strongman has slept. Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia died on Wednesday this week in exile in Saudi Arabia. He joined several other African strongmen who have died in disgrace in exile. Outstanding among them are Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Idi Amin of Uganda and Milton Obote also of Uganda. There are […]Read More

We move frightfully towards crude reductionism and intolerance. Virtually everywhere in the global community, we see things in black and white today. There are no grey areas, no room for conversation. We imagine that our challenges have only a single cause and one answer. We isolate individuals and communities and see them variously as the […]Read More

This week’s activities by the leaders of the Jubilee Party, the Orange Democratic Movement and Wiper Democratic Party leave you gasping. Is the country not going back to Methuselah? Against all pressure, there is a determined tripartite effort to make Parliament the rubber-stamp of a few individuals – basically the fellows at the top. Chinua […]Read More

I have been asked again, “Where is Kenya going?” And I suspect that I now know the answer. We are going the Burundi way. Burundi, a landlocked tiny country in East Africa’s Great Lakes Region, totters precariously on the brink of total state collapse. Could this be where Kenya is headed, despite denials to the […]Read More

When Rodgers Rop turned to Christopher Cheboich, Francis Kiprop and Mbarak Hussein, to hurry up and catch up and take the memorable photo finish at the 2002 Boston marathon, winning more than 20 seconds ahead of the rest, every Kenyan, who watched it, including myself, felt like a winner. In the pub where I was […]Read More

I owe my writing to the late Prof Ali A Mazrui who inspired me to write and to Mundia Muchiri, who availed the opportunity. I was a youthful publishing editor in the early ‘90s when Mazrui published an essay in the Sunday Nation, revisiting his pet theme of the trinity of the African condition. The […]Read More

Making Public Money Count by Enforcing Accountability Presented at the Public Finance Management Conference for Africa Pride Inn Paradise Hotel, Mombasa on 20 April 2017 Under the Aegis of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK)     By Barrack O. Muluka (B.A, PGD Mass Comm, M.A. PhD Researcher (Leicester) FMKIM),   Abstract […]Read More

The season of anomy is here, yet again. It is time to throw away what is left of standards within us, both as individuals and as a people. Election campaigns in Africa herald carousal and degeneracy. It is a time to eat, drink and make wild merry. It is a season of treachery and suspension […]Read More