For granny, with love

Love is when u lose someone
And actually feel that a part of you is gone
Life is when you spend your time on earth
With all your loved ones by your side
A fulfilling life is when you spend your life
With little or no regrets at all

Mrs. Alice Okello was a wife, a mother, a sister, an aunt
A grandma (my grandma) and a great grandmother to many.
Today we come together; we are drawn together because of her
But today is a day that we weep not cos of her passing
But instead celebrate a life well lived

So we mustn’t tie ourselves with tears
But instead be happy that we had these precious years
Grieve for a while we have
Tears have stung our eyes
But all this has been comforted by trust
That it is only for a while that we must part

And since life must go on
We are saddened by the fact that
You no longer will be a part of it
So to God we pray, we beseech Him
That your spirit continues to live on
Among us, within us
That what u stood for in life
May be carried on by us

For when our time too will reach
And we must start our journey to come your way
We just hope that you’ll be there
To receive us with a smile
And say, ‘welcome home’

God bless you grandma.

Why Kibaki is NOT a statesman

Kibaki will never cease to amaze me! First of all I still don’t believe he actually pulled it off by stealing the 2007 election. (yes it was a stolen one and even they that voted for him have gone on record to say, ‘enyewe hio aliiba’. The international community could not agree any more too. Havin seen people die as a result including his kinsmen who were murdered and/or burnt to death in the great rift, he still goes ahead to defend the perpetrators. Amazing!
The latest shocker, is the KKK issue. In naming the appointments, or nominations thereof, he ensures that all three tribes are catered for. Muigai a kikuyu, Kioko a kamba and that Kalenjin whatever his name is. Would it be wrong then to say that Kibaki is just but an old tribal goon who wants to leave power having imposed his choice on us?! He wants to have people work for him even after his retirement. The best he shoulda done was to leave politics pole pole. This to say the least, is impunity at its best and its not even funny!
Martha Karua in yesternight’s news also went ahead to say the same and express her disagreement wit the president’s way of exercising his power. And by the way people should know that right now Karua is the one person in Kenya who has our interests at heart *am just saying.* Even if they say that consultations do not have to come to a hundred percent agreement between the parties, there should be some consensus on the same. I do not agree with the President and if I could, I would tell him to his face!!! Ethnicity is okay, but not if it is attached to political issues.
Another thing we as Kenyans should not tolerate is the matter of endorsement in political parties. For example kibaki goin out of power and saying that his blessings are with the KKK…. (and that term has everything wrong with it. Remember the Ku Klux Klan?) I loved the way in 2002 the way we the people showed Moi that we didn’t care whether his choice was Uhuru cos that was simply not our choice! The only point I come to an agreement with Mr. Moi is the fact that he is also against the tribal alliances that seem to be cropping up.
People, with every year that comes it’s only logical that we become wiser…. The rest of Kenya is bigger than the KKK. Let that be known to the KKK affiliates

Tribalism is here to stay

Lemmie break it down. Here’s the thing. We all (or at least most of the readers in this forum) are Africans. When one is born therefore, s/he is born into a particular community. These communities associate themselves with different cultures and practices that form the backbone of the community thereby defining them as a people. These people in their day to day associations communicate through a common language that is the tribe.

Now there is a thing called allegiance. This is what one pays to his/her most immediate source of sense of belonging. In America for example, we see on t.v people sending shout outs to their homeboys and/or those in their hometowns. This is usually immediately broken down to the ‘hood’ if they are groups of people from the same hometown. Similarly for Kenya, if a Kenyan goes abroad, s/he will pride herself in the fact that s/he is Kenyan and automatically so. If we are still in Kenya, a luo will pride himself in his tribe just as much as a luhya or kalenjin or kikuyu would (politics aside). And they all have something to bring to the table. There is no lesser group (and this is what we fail to understand (politically)).

Going back to politics and any other scenario, let us try and think about this. Since we all owe an allegiance to our tribes and ‘tribemates’ thereof, we will always strive to ensure that we protect our own. It gets to a point that we even extend the sibling status to people from our tribes and call each other brothers and sisters. Why then would one be expected to extend a hand to a foreign person yet ‘s/he is in the same dilemma as my ‘brother?’’ one would ask. Consider the fact that in Kenya, career progressions highly depend on one’s ethnicity.

Maybe (just maybe) this is what presented the President and the PM with a dilemma in the much contested Judiciary nominations. Maybe (just maybe) this is what informed the appointment of Justice Gicheru as CJ in 2003 by Kibaki (though most Kenyans were happy with his appointment at the time. Anything to do away with Chunga at the time). And it is also probably the reason behind the public outcry from every corner of the nation with people asking when it will be their ‘time to eat’. Tribalism is here with us to stay. Sadly, it is for both the wrong and right reasons.