Ajabu Africa Blog

Joram Gichuki, founder of Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group.

NYERI, Kenya _A man who was recently reported in the Kenyan media to have attempted to kill himself by jumping from a 50 meter high telecommunications transmission mast has denied the suicide theory.

To the contrary, Joram Gichohi Gichuki says he climbed the towering Safaricom mast in Nyeri town to draw attention to the media and public at large, over mistreatment of a group of street children he had helped rehabilitate and make decent productive members of the society.

The reported incidence took place on December 16, 2011 when word went out that a man had been spotted a top the mast.
Local media reporters rushed to the scene but ignored the victim’s side of the story- creating one of their own – “suicide attempt”.

What made a 35yr old father of 4 “attempt suicide”?

The emergence of the booming recycling industry in the Central Kenya town of Nyeri

brought rise to an elite class of middle men who milk the vulnerable street children for near slave labor to maximize their profit.

By purchasing recyclable materials from street children for pennies, they

then sell them to the recycling industry for a tidy profit.

It is against such a backdrop that Gichuki claims his endeavors to have the street children,

sell their merchandise direct to the recycler is not auguring well with the middle men, hence the effort to sabotage the groups activities.

Gichuki insists that there are attempts by some operatives in the Nyeri Municipal Council to hijack and cartel the operations of Jijenge Sanitation Youth Group, a private garbage collection initiative he started by mobilizing the street children in order to help them improve their lives.

Speaking to AjabuAfrica.com on a trans-Atlantic telephone interview, Gichuki, a professional graphics designer whose stint in jail transposed him to an aggressive street children rights advocate, said that the activities of the group have proven to be effective in cleaning up the town and its environment, while enabling the street children earn a decent living.   Recap full story >>

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture.

In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished.

In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”

“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up.

“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.

“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.

From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”

“There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they

were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”

For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”

I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”

I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.

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Stephen Kenja Kagotho and sister, Mary Wambui

Stephen Kenja Kagotho, a Kenyan man in Worcester who faced a dim future with a mysterious kidney failure is back on his feet with a smile, thanks to a successful kidney transplant donated by his younger sister.

A truck driver, Kagotho barely made it home in April 2011 when he started to experience severe pain. His feet swell, his mouth dried and he had difficulty seeing during a return trip from Atlanta to Worcester, Massachusetts. 

Kagotho, 44, was diagnosed with a kidney failure last year that doctors said was rare at his age leading the medics to suspect possible poisoning.

Both of his kidneys were damaged and the search for an organ donor began.

His young brother volunteered to donate his kidney. After initial tests, doctors thought that his younger brother was a possible donor.

However, several months later, it turned out that the brother’s kidneys were no longer possible matches.

The new testing results revealed that his brother’s organ conditions had changed and that there was no perfect match.

Later, his sister Mary Wambui, a mother of one volunteered to be tested as a possible donor.

Doctors found a match but they warned her that it wouldn’t be in her best interest as a mother to donate the kidney. Doctors cited a higher risk of death in women with babies.

However, with so much love and desire to save her brothers life, Wambui decided to take the risks. She told the doctors that many people died from other causes even with both of their kidneys.

“To me the risk was worth it if I could save my brother’s life”, she told Ajabuafrica.com.

Recap full story >>

LOWELL, Mass.,_A section of the committee members in the New England region involved in raising money meant for the hungry Kenyans presented a dummy check to the Kenyan envoy to the U.S., H.E.Elkanah Odembo amid continuing controversy about accountability and delays- with no end in sight- at least yet.

The oversized check that is believed to have cost donors $120 to print was presented during the 2011 Jamhuri Day celebrations in Lowell on Sunday December 11.

Though the money was reportedly sent to the hungry, there are still lingering questions about the total amount raised and the reasons for the delay.

There is a discrepancy between the actual funds raised and the money released leaving donors to ask for an audited report.

Receipts from the receiving bank have also not yet been disclosed to the public.

More than $ 1,000 is believed to be unaccounted for.

Dr. Joseph Kimatu, fundraising committee chairman, didn’t return calls to AjabuAfrica.com while Paul Muite, one of the fund raising committee officials, declined to comment on the way they are handling public funds.

Kimatu sent a press release to the Kenyan community last November, but declined to make the audited report public. Many Kenyans have been angered by the officials’ behavior and they have questioned the murky way the funds process was handled.

Several Kenyans who donated money in the region are still calling for the audited report.

The committee however, through its chairman said that the reason for the delay to remit funds was in part, to secure a photo opportunity with the envoy as a way to showcase the effort by Kenyans in New England towards the hunger problem.

Reliable sources told Ajabuafrica.com that the officials held a closed door meeting on Wednesday last week at the Saint Stephen’s church in Lowell to discuss on a way forward.

However, the officials have yet to communicate to the Kenyan community on the outcome of the meeting.

While receiving the check, the ambassador publicly asked the committee members whether the $14,000 was actually in the bank.(watch Ajabu Video here )

He also sought a clarification as to whether the accounts related to the funds drive had been subjected to an audit report.

The officials reiterated that the money had been audited.

However, Peter Mwaniki, the treasurer of the funds drive committee, has denied the allegations that the funds were audited.

It is not clear how the divided committee plans to resolve the embarrassing fiasco that has left many donors furious with the mishandling of the funds meant for urgent relief of starving fellow Kenyans.

Police in Bugiri,  Uganda, are hunting for a 32-year old woman who poured hot porridge on her husband accusing him of failing to buy her a gomesi (traditional dress) for Christmas day.

The woman identified as Jennifer Auma a resident of Bugeso village, LIwemba sub county Bugiri reportedly showered her husband Joel Njumaine with very hot porridge from a charcoal stove.

Neighbors said they heard the man crying for help and ran to see what was happening only to find Njumaine in pain in his bed.

According to the LC I chairman, Bugeso village, Peter Okware, the couple have on several occasions engaged in quarrels and fights as each accused the other of cheating on the other.

Okware said the woman had earlier left her husband and only returned two months back after their parents settled their differences.

Auma is reported to have asked her husband to buy her a gomesi on Christmas eve but was shocked when he returned on December 26 after spending the day out of home.

“The woman asked the man where he had slept but the man kept quiet, she then picked the saucepan of porridge from the charcoal stove and hurled it at me,” Okware narrated.

The woman fled after committing the crime leaving her husband in pain.

Njumaine is admitted at Bugiri main hospital in critical condition. His face, chest and private parts were severely burnt.

The deputy officer in charge criminal investigations department at Bugiri central police station, Joseph Lumbambo said the accused will be charged with attempted murder once she is arrested.

Kenyans in the US are becoming sceptical about their chances of voting in the 2012 General Election.

They accuse the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission of not doing enough to ensure they take part. 

A US-based group, the Kenya Diaspora Vote, is launching a petition on Thursday to gather online signatures seeking assurances from the Kenyan government that they are not denied their constitutional right to vote.

Mr Peter Kerre, who is spearheading the push, said the aim is to call on the government to avoid implementing measures that will curtail a free and fair process.

He said the petition can be found on http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/kenya-diaspora-right-to-vote.html.

In March, Mr Kerre organised a protest against Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka’s visit to the UN to request the Security Council for a deferral of the International Criminal Court cases facing the Ocampo Six. (READ: Kenyans in US protest over Kalonzo shuttle)

In a related development, two Kenyan lawyers in the US said a recent trip by the IEBC only heightened fears.

Mr Henry Ongeri of Minnesota and Ms Regina Njogu of Washington DC said they were concerned at the slow pace at which a framework to allow the Diaspora to vote was being laid out.  Recap full post >>

BOSTON, Mass., _ About 1,000 Kenyans in Boston attended three parallel events to mark the 48th Jamhuri Day celebrations last Sunday afternoon. Though echoing the same theme of an independent nation and a stronger Kenya, the organizers favored different venues and each of them was attended by loyal members.

In Lowell, a city with the largest number of Kenyans, an event was held at the Lowell auditorium organized by the New England Diaspora Advisory Council.

The invited guests included the Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission team as well as Kenya’s Ambassador to the U.S, H.E. Elkana Odembo.

Addressing a group of about 300 Kenyans, the electoral body chairman, Ahmed Isaack Hassan said that putting the structures in place for Kenyans in the Diaspora to vote in the upcoming general elections will be expensive to cover all the US states with large Kenyan population.

According to Hassan, the process also has to overcome the legislative procedures in the Kenyan parliament which may take long to achieve.

However, Hassan added that the most ideal situation would be to use the U.S Embassy in Washington D.C as a polling station and the ambassador as the returning officer assuming that there is legislation in place.

“If you can drive for more than five hours to Las Vegas, why not make arrangements to go to Washington D.C and cast your vote?” asked Hassan to the perplexed Kenyans who hoped that polling centers would be established in most major cities.

The event saw the Kenyan Ambassador receive a dummy check of $14,000 representing funds raised by Kenyans in the region during the 2011 Mashujaaa day celebrations. The money was raised towards alleviating hunger that has ravaged Kenya

The Ambassador sought to clarify whether the funds drive process was audited by qualified auditors before he accepted the check.

Dr. Joseph Kimatu the chairman of the funds raising committee  assured the ambassador that the funds have been audited.

It was not immediately clear why Dr. Kimatu provided the assurance while there is a disagreement between the two factions of the fundraising committee.(Read: Officials abruptly release “bank statement” after media report)

One faction wants more transparency and accountability leading to a dispute on the amount of funds wired to Kenya.

The funds were not subjected to any audit unlike the Kenyans for Kenya initiative.(View audit report)

Guests at the event were also entertained by the Jamhuri band as well as several gospel artists.
About half a mile away, the Kenyan Catholic community in Boston held another Jamhuri Day celebrations in line with their long standing tradition.

About 400 Kenyans from four churches made up of the Kenyan Catholic Community and Friends in Boston congregated at the St. Michael’s Catholic church.

Father Joseph Kiarie led a Jamhuri day catholic mass in the morning prior to the event in the afternoon.

“Learn how to continually forgive each other and help build a stronger Kenya,” Kiarie urged worshippers.

Guests who mostly came from the Lowell, Winthrop, North Quincy and Lawrence parishes as well as their friends from other Kenyan churches were later treated to traditional dance, entertainment and food.
The event was coordinated by the chairman of the St. Michael’s Kenyan catholic community, Alloys Njenga.

And in Worcester, about 300 Kenyans packed the St. Peter’s Catholic Church to mark the event.
The event was hosted by the Kenyan Catholic Community of Worcester in conjunction with the New England Kenyan Association (NEKA).

The event has been held for the past five years.
.
However, it was the first time the organizers came together to join the new Kenyan civil society organization in New England to host the event.

Guests were treated to a wide range of entertainment including nostalgic patriotic and traditional songs and dance.

Dancing to the Kenyan tunes, older folks joined the traditional clad dancers and hordes of young Kenyan American children gazed in amazement at the spectacle, while snapping pictures to preserve memories of their ancestral culture. Read full story here >>

WAKEFIELD, Mass.,_Kenyans living in the Diaspora have been asked to take an active role at influencing who will be elected into office during the upcoming 2012 general elections since they have become more educated and exposed to holding leaders accountable for their actions.

If this happens, Kenya would start getting onto a fast track for ending the “demon of tribalism” which has resulted in slow progress in all spheres of life, said Hon. Bishop Margaret Wanjiru Kariuki, Assistant Minister for Housing and founder of Jesus is Alive Ministries (JIAM) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Bishop Wanjiru was speaking to several dozen Kenyans last Monday at the Rapture Harvest church in Wakefield, Massachusetts, USA in a town hall meeting organized by Pastor Joshua Wambua who is also the director of the Diaspora Advisory Council in Boston.

The Bishop attended a 3-day revival conference hosted by the church that ended on Sunday
where she challenged Christians to ready themselves to vie for leadership positions in next year’s general elections. The theme of the conference was cry heal and move on to destiny.

Wanjiru said that the failure by Kenyan leaders to effectively address tribalism has denied average Kenyans a better way of life while the leaders continue to live in luxuries. For example, a Member of Parliament makes about KSH 800,000 ($8,400) a month while most Kenyans can hardly afford two meals a day, she said.

She said that tribalism was largely responsible for the 2007 violence that claimed more than 1,500 lives while leaving thousands without homes.

“Let us kill this demon of tribalism before Kenya goes the Rwanda way. Let us destroy tribalism.” she pleaded with the small Kenyan crowd that was mostly friendly, referring to the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Wanjiru advised Kenyans in next year’s general election to do a background check to find credible and responsible leaders committed to developing their regions. She asked Kenyans not to vote for someone with no track record to show.

The bishop asked Kenyans in the Diaspora to lead the way by showing Kenyans back home how to hold their leaders accountable since it is hard to corrupt a Kenyan in the Diaspora into voting for candidates with nothing to show as happens with many voters back home.
Recap full story here >>

By Jeff Kanani
The Kenyan public universities’ lecturers’ strike has entered its second week with concerned parties choosing to spend more time publicly ripping each other apart. There is no scheduled official meeting between the employer – the government of Kenya – and the union representatives – at least for now.

Communication channels have completely broken down. It seems like the unions are tired of talking while the government is tired of listening. Both parties are now spending more time with their families rather than talking to each other.

In fact, since the strike began eight days ago there hasn’t been any official meeting besides the one held between the junior union officials and the Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Senior union officials have since publicly disowned the meeting as a photo opportunity for the prime minister. It turned out that the meeting was not only a disruption but also that both the junior officials and the prime minister had little knowledge about the sticking points.

In the meantime, students, parents, scholarship providers and university related research project funders are waiting and calculating the new costs of a public university education and conducting research in Kenya.

While the lecturers’ demands are like any other working person would like to have, the issue isn’t about the quality of education. It’s not even about research and the discovery of new knowledge at our universities. Neither is it about the denial of free speech nor free expression as it frequently happened in the 80s.

Rather, the unions are angered by the goofy promises that the government made about money. More money.

The biggest losers and perhaps the most important component of a university community are the students and the funders of related research projects. If both of these groups are deleted, the universities cease to exist. The two stakeholders provide revenue to justify the existence of a university. If they stay away from public universities because the institutions have become tense, uncertain and too expensive, the lecturers will have no jobs. Recap full post here>>