The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Kenyan

  • Exporters’ scramble for Kenyan nut

    Over 450 macadamia farmers Cultivation for Kenyan nut may double due to its disease free and organicenvironment.Infact, over 450macadamia farmers  in Taita Taveta county are now increasing acreage under cultivation following a market deal with a foreign company that could see farmers sell the produce at double the price in the local market. This could open up cultivation of the nut in other areas as multinationals chase the highly valued Kenyan nut

    Under the umbrella of Taita Macadamia Farmers Association (TMFA), the farmers have signed a deal with Tencents African company to purchase macadamia at Sh70 per kilo.

    The farmers have expressed optimism in the deal and agreed to increase cultivation of the nut they had abandoned on poor pay. A kilo of the nuts retails at between Sh30-Sh35 in the local market even after tedious growing process that doesnt let a farmer recoup the expenses. But incentives like high buying price is enough to spur farmers into the lucrative venture as the appetite for the nut reaches fever pitch. One macadamia tree has the potential of producing 50 kilos.

    “We are guaranteed that Tencents Africa will give our farmers a reliable market since farmers will now have a reliable market which is a departure from the past where the market was unstructured and disjointed,” said Baldwin Mwangoji the chairman of TMFA. The farmer group has received the fairtrade certification that shows that their nuts abides by good agricultural practices and their farming preserves the environment. As a result of this demand for the nut by other international buyers has risen in the recent past to an extent that they cannot match.

  • New Kenyan law allows men to marry many wives

    KENYA has introduced a law to allow polygamy. The controversial measure will let husbands have as many wives as they wish – and they do not have to consult any of their existing wives.

    Male lawmakers brought in the measure to merge civil law with tradition in the East African country.

    Traditionally, men seeking more than one wife always had to consult their first wife before taking another spouse.

    Female lawmakers were disgusted with the male-dominated parliament’s passing the new law. They walked out of the Kenyan parliament in disgust during the vote. There are 69 women in Kenya’s 349-member parliament.

    “When you marry an African woman, she must know the second is on the way and a third wife… this is Africa,” Mohammed Junet, the lawmaker proposing the change was quoted as saying.

  • Kenyan sentenced to death for murder, kidnap of Britons

    A Kenyan judge has sentenced a man to death for the murder of British tourist David Tebbutt and handed him a separate jail term for abducting the victim’s wife from a remote beach resort near the Somali border.

    The murder and kidnap in 2011 shook Kenya’s tourism industry. The wife, Judith Tebbutt, was taken away by boat and held by Somali pirates for six months. Soon afterwards, Kenya’s military launched an offensive against al Shabaab militants then controlling much of Somalia.

    “I have sentenced Ali Babitu Kololo to death for robbery with violence and I have also sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment for abduction,” magistrate Johnstone Munguti told Reuters by telephone after issuing the sentence late on Monday.

    Kenya has not carried out a death sentence for years and most people on death row spend the rest of their lives in prison.

    Kololo had been sacked from his job at a safari village several months before the attack. He protested against the sentence, shouting his innocence from the dock, witnesses said. “At some point we shall all die,” he said as police handcuffed him.

     

  • Kenyan women to break glass ceiling in cabinet

    Kenyan women to break glass ceiling in cabinet

    KENYA’S nominees for cabinet secretary positions, which include an unprecedented number of women – six out of 18 – will undergo a gruelling public vetting process by the Parliamentary Committee on Appointments Thursday.

    Despite the appointments – which are yet to be confirmed – women’s rights organisations in this East African nation say President Uhuru Kenyatta’s new government must do more to seriously mainstream gender issues in the country.

    Kenyatta made history on Apr. 25, when he nominated the six women to the cabinet – the highest number the country has had since independence.

    The nominees include former diplomat Raychelle Omamo, who was proposed to head the sensitive Ministry of Defence, a docket which has never before been held by a woman.

    First woman to be nominated head of Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Credit: Brian Ngugi/IPS

    And Anne Waiguru, an economic and public policy expert, is expected to head the critical Ministry of Devolution and Planning, which will coordinate the implementation of Kenya’s new devolved system of government in 47 counties.

    Charity Ngilu, a former government minister, was nominated to head the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development; Phyllis Kandie, an investment banker, was nominated to head the Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism; and Judy Wakhungu, a former associate professor of science, technology, and society at Pennsylvania State University, was tapped to head the Ministry of Environment, Water and National Resources.

    Earlier, on Apr. 23, Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto had announced the nomination of Amina Mohamed as the first woman to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    Twenty-three men, including Kenya’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, have held this key post since 1963.

    But ahead of the vetting process, which will pave the way for the tabling of the list of nominees in parliament for debate, approval and subsequent confirmation, Maria Nzomo, the first Kenyan woman to obtain a Ph.D in political science and international studies, from Dalhousie University in Canada in 1981, told IPS that despite the historic appointments, women here still lag far behind men on a number of fronts.

    She said many of them continue to suffer from restricted access to health care, education, political participation and cultural life, as well as legal protection and economic opportunities.

    Consequently, Nzomo, who teaches at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies at the University of Nairobi, said the government must do more to address the plight of Kenyan women.

    “Women lack required skills, access to affordable credit or even better education, meaning therefore that they are perennially disadvantaged to men and can only survive by plying informal sector jobs,” she said.

    Her comments were echoed by Grace Mbugua, the executive director of Women’s Empowerment Link, a non-governmental national women rights organisation, who told IPS that empowering Kenyan women would take more than the nomination of the six women to the cabinet.

    “While we must say that we appreciate that President Kenyatta’s administration actually complied with the constitutional requirement regarding appointment of women in public offices, this is not the glass ceiling for Kenyan women and the state must do more if we are to bridge the gender gap in Kenya,” she said.

    The nominations mean that once the nominees to the 18-member cabinet are finally vetted and approved by parliament, the cabinet will meet the one-third gender threshold provided for in the Kenyan constitution as part of a principle of affirmative action.

    Article 81 (b) of the constitution provides that “not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender.”

    The Kenya Supreme Court ruled in December 2012 that a constitutional provision calling for a mandatory one-third gender representation would not apply to the 2013 general elections but instead should be implemented progressively by August 2015.

    According to the World Bank’s annual World Development Report 2012, efforts at empowering women in developing countries like Kenya have over the years considerably paid off, yet despite achievements in the advancement of women’s rights and privileges, gender inequality gaps between men and women in key areas of society still persist.

    Highlighting this, Mbugua told IPS that the government must now create and implement mechanisms to bridge the existing gender inequalities.

    “It must for instance create the proper structures to encourage women in leadership through continually reforming laws surrounding elections to enable more women to participate fairly in elective politics and ascend to decision-making positions,” she said.

  • Kenyan polls re-enact history’s quirkiness

    Kenyan polls re-enact history’s quirkiness

    The two leading contenders for the Kenyan presidency are Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, sons of Kenya’s two leading nationalists, Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga. The two equally eminent children have not only followed in the footsteps of their late fathers, they have also sustained the rivalry between their fathers that hallmarked the turbulent post-independence history of their country. But much more quirkily, and as if history sometimes likes to mock its great statesmen, it is easy to imagine how things could have turned out differently had Kenyatta senior and Odinga senior taken a different fork in the road in the mid and late 1950s.

    By yesterday, Uhuru Kenyatta, 51, of The National Alliance (TNA) was leading Raila Odinga, 68, of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in vote count by as much as 12 percentage points after Monday’s presidential election. Before the end of today or tomorrow, it is expected that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) would have tallied all the votes and announced the final results. Analysis of the tally so far does not fully indicate that Kenyatta, who is currently a Deputy Prime Minister, will win. This is because early returns have come from Kenyatta’s Kikuyu and allied strongholds while Odinga’s Luo and allied strongholds have been slower in reporting returns. Odinga is Prime Minister. Of the eight contestants for the presidency, the winner must win more than 50 percent of the votes to avoid a runoff.

    If Kenyatta wins, he and his running mate, William Ruto, will spend most of their time in office facing trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity as a result of their indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) following the 2007 polls in which more than 1000 people were killed. Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of instigating the violence that followed that year’s disputed election. Indeed, their victory would mark the first time anyone accused of crimes against humanity had been voted into office in spite of ICC indictment. In a veiled attempt to influence the direction of voting on Monday, a few Western nations sent out signals that they would be loth to interact with Kenyatta should he emerge winner today. It remains to be seen what part those subtle hints would play in the election.

    But the real quirky part of the election and rivalry between the two sons of eminent Kenyan leaders is how the pre-independence politics of the country continues to shape the current political and electoral struggles between the two families. A few years before independence, Kenya’s British colonial rulers indicated very strongly they were reluctant to hand over power to radicals or anyone associated with the Mau Mau rebellion. Jomo Kenyatta had been arrested as one of the famous Kapenguria Six in 1952 at the onset of the rebellion. After a six-month trial, the six – Bildad Kagia, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, et al – were jailed for leading or sympathising with the Mau Mau. But rather than offer himself to be propped up by the British, Oginga Odinga remained faithful to Kenyatta and held the fort for him until he was released in 1961.

    Not only was Odinga, an engineer, also charismatic and highly respected, he was even much truer to the sentiments that motivated the leaders of the Mau Mau rebellion, some of whom were Dedan Kimathi and Waruhiu Itote a.k.a. General China. Indeed, after independence, Kenyatta all but scorned the leaders of the Mau Mau.

    It is remarkable how history could have turned out differently had Oginga Odinga offered to be the liberal face of Kenya sought by the British between 1957 and 1961. Had he befriended the Mau Mau leaders who survived, worked the crowd as deftly as he evoked reverence from the Luo, and exploited his friendship with Tom Mboya, a fellow Luo like Barack Obama’s father, he would have stood a fair chance of replacing Jomo Kenyatta and becoming the first president of independent Kenya. He would have been aided by the fact that Kenya is an ethnic pastiche, with no tribe dominating the others. The kikuyu, the most populous ethnic group, are only 22 percent, while the Luo, Lubya and Kalenjin are 13, 14 and 12 percent respectively. But Odinga kept his principles, never became president in spite of all his subsequent efforts, and his son has struggled against even greater odds to be relevant. The younger Odinga is best placed to win today, for he is respected domestically and internationally, but he faces tough, almost insurmountable hurdles. However, it remains to be seen whether the principles his father kept during decolonisation would prove to be an enduring jinx on the family or just a mere hiatus.

     

  • The problems with Kenyan elections

    THe Kenyan election committee yesterday said it was bothered by the high number of votes rejected during this week’s presidential election.

    Kenyans voted Monday in the first national elections under new laws meant to address the violence that erupted following 2007 elections. Thousands of people were killed in political violence in 2007.

    Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga is in a tight race for president with Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyatta could face trial at the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the 2007 crisis.

    Monday’s elections were described as relatively peaceful, though more than a dozen people died during clashes with rebel forces along the Kenyan coast.

    Ahmed Issack Hassan, chairman of the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission, said Tuesday that more than 15 percent of the 4.8 million votes have been rejected, reports Kenyan newspaper The Daily Nation.

    He attributed much of the problem to a complex ballot. Kenyans cast votes for five other positions ranging from governors to senators, in addition to president.

     

     

     

  • Kenyan attack worries Keshi

    Kenyan attack worries Keshi

    • Confirms studying Harambee stars videos

    Head coach of the Nigerian national team, Stephen Keshi says he has been watching videos of the Super Eagles’ opponents in this month’s 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifier, Kenya’s Harambee Stars.

    Keshi and his backroom staff have been consistently monitoring the progress of playing personnel of the Harambee Stars ahead of the tie which could see Nigeria stretch their lead at the top of the standings.

    “I know Kenya. They have some good players,” Keshi told supersport.com.

    Kenya’s last international was a 1-2 loss to South Africa’s Bafana Bafana on October 16, 2012 and the ‘Big Boss’ revealed that he watched the game with keen interest.

    “I saw that game and I could see that they (Kenya) are a good team that like to attack so we will see how it goes,” he said.

    Nigeria currently lead Group F of 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying on four points from two matches.

    Namibia, Malawi and Kenya are the other sides in the group.