Raphael Tuju Could Be the Best Pick for Neutrals

Many presidential wannabes have flooded the fast-populating battling arena to State House. Some, especially the first-timers, have started selling their crude, naive, too-wishful, glorified manifestoes while the old boys and girls are busy transcending valleys and hills trying to re-polish their past in a bid to attract would-be new voters come next year and remind staunch supporters of their flamboyance and capabilities.

The newest entrant, Raphael Tuju, is one individual worth his salt and if Kenyans wanted a man of principles to lead them from next year then they have that leader in Tuju. A principled man is that one who stands with those principles even if an adulterating hand is hovering around. Such people stick to what’s in their hearts, follow their beliefs and refuse to be compromised by most of all, their bosses. Tuju did that against Nyanza idol Raila Odinga.

Tuju can stand tall and say he denied Raila a chance to force him worship his ego-often bloated. Instead he chose to get stuck to his guns but better or worse he went ahead and bravely shot Raila’s ego even though that was suicidal. He was literally killed by the Prime Minister’s popularity in Nyanza when he chose to oppose him and fight a lonely battle which he lost before he threw the first missile in 2007.

Rarieda constituency, home to Tuju and where he was Mp (2003-07), is entangled in the region having a more or less single political idol in Raila. If another voice, like Tuju, emerges they are abhorred and treated similarly like John the Baptist and their desert-calls rejected. That’s what happened to the former cabinet minister who spent stints at Information and Foreign Affairs dockets before being halted by determined fate in 2007. Nonetheless, Tuju knowing he was writing his political will decided to kick Raila out of his political life. The outcome was nothing unexpected-he died, politically. That though might have been a blessing in disguise now he’s thinking of selling himself to all Kenyans other than to adulterated inhabitants.

For neutrals, those sober voters who don’t worship any political idols, Raphael Tuju could be that prefect pick for them; the one you vote for and be safe from being branded tribal. Others like James Ole Kiyiapi and Mutava Musyimi who would likely try to endear themselves to independent or undecided voters would certainly find hard to battle for those votes with Tuju.

Considering the current status of local politics, though still marred by tribal idolism there’s a general feeling that could be changing and 2012 elections could be a turning point. Such tweaking would set free voters from voting for enforced political kings and instead vote for deserving, better candidates. Raphael Tuju could be one of those beneficiaries of this looming change.

Moral Lesson: Stick to what your heart presses you to even if it’s considered suicidal by outsiders. That might turn out to be a blessing later.

Don’t Just like that Bluish Facebook Like, Please

It’s gory, scary, heartless...to do that. Just insert any other adjective representing an obnoxious thing and you’ll truly capture how it feels to blindly like that update.

Facebook is a fun place just like most social sites. A place where you let your mind out without first engaging second parties; you know, a perfect groove where one downs official attire and adorn a casual mode on anything-posts, chats, status updates, photos etc. It’s mostly meant to while away literally doing nothing-yea, you can say winding down or wasting time.

Now, there’s a crop of individuals that is getting abundant credit for mastering the art of ‘liking’ update statuses. They normally disturb the peace of that bluish four-word icon ever placed below any status. By the way, it’s also well placed just adjacent to ‘Dislike’ which is apparently the opposite of ‘Like. Comment is its other neighbour. By the way, why don’t those people who worship like rarely comment? Isn’t it fair to comment than to distress someone with unneeded likes?

Anyhow, so what’s the beef here? It’s squarely about carelessly, recklessly, or wittingly pressing on that icon-Like-without engaging your good mind. That egregious habit escalating like a Kalahari-Desert-fire.

Someone out of their working minds decide that their troubles are too big to be accommodated in their minds and that Facebook would suffice in their quest to provide extra storage, posts those troubles and within a few hours s/he gets several likes. What the hell, the person needs consolation rather than getting excited of (liking) whatever they are going through.

Like, as in the word, generally means a state of agreement, happiness generated by something. For example, I like Manchester United-in default it means you are happy with that English team and probably agree with how they play or their history. That word-Like-possesses other meanings which are of no use for now.

Going by that, a bereavement post or tragedy status or one that embodies misfortunes should not be liked. In fact it should be disliked. The big question is, how can you be happy about a tragedy like the recent loss of 23 lives in a grisly road accident in Machakos? The Daily Nation posted the accident and the number of deaths yesterday on its Facebook page and oh my, you should have seen how the likes streamed like a rejuvenated river? Gruesome. Nutty. You mean some people like hearing of other’s deaths? In Kenya?-other than Al-Shabaab?

And this one. A friend pastes a loss of someone close and some friends expecting friends to be sorry and offer their worthy condolences. However others rush to like that. Clanger. Silly. For soberness sake, why should one like that? And why shouldn’t you be expunged from someone’s list for doing that?

Moral Lesson:  Basically, Like (especially on Facebook) is for showing concurrence not adding pain. Please consider that before you click on it next time.

Hussein Mohammed, the Yearned Saviour of Kenyan Football?

He has been seriously asking for the headship of Kenyan football. Seriously is the word here. 

A keen follower of the elections campaigns ought to have realised by now that we only have one serious contender-Hussein Mohammed-for chairmanship of Kenyan football come 13 August poll. Others are mere jokers, the common heads whose faces are smeared with all spots of dirt spewed out of recent local football mess; most of these lazy, not-so-clean individuals have screwed up our beloved game and now have tendered their names for a last chance to totally destroy our football by wiping the very last of the remains. These old guards are now singing holy, holy in sheep skins yet inside they are wishing there were no elections so they could continue with their sucking habit coated in self-seeking hyena skins.

This coming Saturday is the lyrical red day for Kenyan football enthusiasts. It’s either the day we’ll redeem this game’s leadership from the brink of total demise or we’ll allow it to slide into the dogs’ den. For lovers, it’s their big wish that the game get spruced up sooner than later and that August 13 proves to be a stepping stone towards that dream.

Reading the mood, one easily realises that Hussein could be the saviour coming at the right time. He might not be so pushy or having a forceful, affirming voice, nonetheless he has some enticing reasoning.

For those who will vote this Saturday, here’s what Hussein tells you: "I believe in football. I believe it has the potential to change lives and communities all over Kenya but this potential remains untapped due to mediocre and visionless management of the game at the highest level."

Much is known about this guy football-wise. Nairobi’s Super 8 Soccer Tournament has been labelled a perfect model to nurture young footballers. He’s the brainchild behind the tournament. Apart from this he has also shown some commitment in him to take Kenya’s game to the next level. In Sammy Sholei, a former Kenyan international, as his deputy, football leadership would be firing from all cylinders come August 14.

Quick fix: What does Sam Nyamweya has for us? After many years at the top of Kenyan football and neither doing anything worth engraving in any memorable part of the mind nor giving a worthwhile act to spur growth in this sector, he should just hang his boots. No one wants old wine when new, promising and sweetness-oozing wine is copiously available. After all the man was busy inviting ‘chiefs’ from his countryside to grace his official launch recently.

Others are just messed up heads whose excitement springs up every moment Kenya’s rating drops down. They are not after the good of the beautiful game but only craving for a chance to satisfy their bloated ego born out of doing nothing for the good of football in the country.

We don’t even have space for Hussein Swaleh, the recognised Fifa chieftain in the country. Do we?

Moral Lesson: it’s time Kenyans tasted new wine made by fresh football brewers. Let the old brewers bury their old heads in their stinking wine.

Sanitary Towels for Girls, Shoes for Boys

It’s a worthy deal by the government to budget for supply of sanitary towels to all girls in primary schools. Those girls are put through hardships by the natural dissemination in addition to trying to convince their parents-some poor, are drunkards, or some just don’t know (fathers, really?) to give them money for the necessary tools to counter the monthly thing. It’s indeed a good thing for the state to think of buying the instruments for the young women and relieve them of stress from dealing with the natural act.

For the uninitiated, Finance minister, Uhuru Kenyatta, set aside sh301million for this endeavour in the 2011/12 financial year. Though, critics have started mumbling something next to the cash being inadequate, it’s fair to think that there was no such allocation in the past years. This alone is historic and deserves much praise. But NGOs are never satisfied, they will grumble, grouse and whine at everything-its fine, poking holes is their hobby for their financiers increase allotments when they increase their levels of noise decibels even where it’s not needed.

The idea mused by the state for a while, possibly is meant to keep the young girls safer from disturbances borne by menstruation, which as reported often distort their learning formulas.

Girls have been sorted here. Hooray! But, wait a minute. What about boys? Them in primary school and who face mountains of challenges too. Well, they do not have monthly cycles of trauma like their female counterparts but they also face different difficulties which at times wriggle them out of the learning system. Such obstacles are many. If you count, you will get drugs, cattle-keeping, circumcision and its adversities, getting wealth (read cows for dowry) etc.

The topmost, though, is lacking shoes. Yeap, you heard it right, shoes! They are vital tools if boys are to be kept in school. This tool is indispensable for both boys and girls. However, girls ought not to be having many problems in getting them. You know, girls’ shoes are cheaper- ranging between sh50, 70, mostly sh100 and they get a good pair of shoes. Boys’ go for at least sh200 and above to even thousands. Tell me which primary school boy has such amounts to get a good pair. And with their boisterous nature, the cycle to buying new ones is shorter than that for girls. That means an active boy requires several pair of shoes each year.

Now that girls will get sanitary towels, let those shoe-less boys get some supply of shoes too. They will be happy and will know government’s thoughts are with them.

Moral Lesson: Don’t discriminate against anyone, give them equally and all will be ever happy.

“I Accuse the Media.” Dr Alfred Mutua Might Have Been Right

 Today, this is going to be a case of a termite biting within.

So the media went ballistic towards the end of last week after government spokesman, Dr Alfred Mutua, said something about the hunger situation in Kenya.

This is the something issued by Dr Mutua: ...“The number of needy Kenyans is expected to get to 4.5 million in the next few months. So far, the Government does not have any official reports of a Kenyan that has died as a result of hunger. We are asking everyone including the media to let us know of any confirmed deaths of a Kenyan due to starvation not old age or diseases. It is wrong and unacceptable for any Kenyan to sleep hungry let alone die and there is food in the country.” It’s one of the eight paragraphs in his statement.

The italicised, ‘reddish’ phrase is what incensed many Kenyans, who responded with mountains of insults, piggish and self-righteous character-injuring phrases that went beyond imaginable levels.

Let us interrogate this sentence: So far, the Government does not have any official reports of a Kenyan that has died as a result of hunger. For any layman, the sentence means that up to the day Dr Mutua said this, the government-the institution he speaks for-had not received any information about Kenyan(s) who had died from lack of food. This could be true. Even though the media or any other organisation might have had some accounts of people dying from hunger, they are not the government, they are them. Dr Mutua’s employer didn’t have (maybe it has now) such info. Period. And he did kindly say so.  

The hullabaloo, was just a mere hysterical, emotional, theatrical reaction occasioned by hatred or ignorance. The idea that, Dr Mutua said that “No Kenyan” had died from the ravaging drought that has born a disastrous famine in the North, as mis(represented) by a huge section of both the mainstream and social media is misplaced and qualifies for misuse of the media. Unless there’s something missing here, he did not say that. He just said he (plus the government) had not picked out any death that had directly died from failing to eat. Of course, someone might mention echoes, connotations, feelings, arising from this statement but they would remain those and those only: echoes, connotations, feelings and other reactions.

Enough of that. Back to Dr Alfred. Honestly, the guy did not do himself any good by saying such a statement that could be easily misunderstood as reckless, uncaring and propagandist-most reactions pointed to such adjectives immediately Dr finished uttering the statement.

We can suggest a better statement that would have sufficed without attracting controversies or hurting people at this emotional moment but relaying the same message: “So far, we have been on the ground distributing foodstuff and collating information about the causes of death reported in the media. After our thorough investigation we have found out that the deaths might have been initiated by other causes but rushed by starvation. However... then the rest of the statement... “It is wrong and unacceptable for any Kenyan to sleep hungry let alone die and there is food in the country” that would have been better, or don’t you think so? Other than just implying that the government was not capable of doing its role and that it was ready to abdicate its duty of collecting such statistics to the media. Furthermore, that it (government) was not so interested in getting its machinery to help the hungry people.

Dr Mutua’s statement might have been hurried with an intention of showing government’s commitment in fighting the disaster. However, it has done more damage than face-saving. People on the social media (Twitter and Facebook) didn’t do better by spurting out vitriol directed at the spokesman. The mainstream media didn’t counter the statement with right information; they jumped into the vitriolic social-media bandwagon.

Moral Lesson: It’s always safe to consider the kind of words you use to express something. They can be construed or misconstrued and the originator takes the blame in whole.