Showing posts with label Guest Blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guest Blogger. Show all posts

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Profile: Maurice Ogur: Former KPL defender hangs his boots to train youngsters

Maurice Ogur, in red cap talks to a group of young players before the kick off of Ligi Ndogo tournament in Nyatike.

By Nick Oluoch

Former Premier League outfit Kisumu Posta defender Maurice Ogur quit active soccer at his prime a decade ago to stop the young boys who were abandoning school for the easy money in the lake fishing through soccer, and ten year later, he has definitely managed to turn the
tide.

At his prime, Ogur was one of the best defenders in the country, first turning out for Lake Basin development Authority FC in the Provincial League in 1988 before joining the then Kisumu based Premier League side Kisumu Posta between 1989- 1992 during one of the best periods in
the clubs’ history.

Born 38 years ago in Sori area on Nyatike district, Maurice did his primary Education at Sota primary school within the district before proceeding to Kakrao High school in Migori. He then transferred to former soccer powerhouse Kisumu Day where he sat for his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in 1987.

He was then recruited by the Lake Basin Development Authority who, on top of signing him for their team which was then playing at the Nyanza Provincial League, also gave him employment at their offices in Kisumu.

It was while here that his talent blossomed and fame spread in Kisumu and the neighboring town and within eight months, he was plying his trade in the Premier League.

“Kisumu Posta came calling and it was impossible to ignore the opportunity” He says adding that they however agreed that he would always be available whenever he was not occupied with the team, and hence his

After two years, Premier League Giants Gor Mahia FC, who had been keenly following his progress and who were by this time rebuilding their after the great team that won the 1987 Mandela cup identified him as a potential player who could help in steadying defense.

They then followed their interest by making a formal offer to take him to Nairobi and he was then allowed by his club to talk to Gor’s representatives.

“That was the most difficult decision I have had to make” He says adding that just like most footballers at that time, the chance to play for a club as popular as Gor was almost impossible to turn down because of its history and the type of players it had, and what’s more, turning out for Gor at that time almost guaranteed one a call up to the National team.

But again, he had a job at LABD and it was obvious he had to quit the job if he was to link up with Gor and so, as much as he wanted to play for Gor, Ogur opted to remain in Kisumu and continued at Kisumu Posta for another three seasons under veteran coach the late Oloo Gadafi who went ahead and coached Scarlet, (currently known as Ulinzi)

And during his time there, Ogur recalls some of the most memorable games he took part into, like the games about Mumias Sugar FC were always memorable because they always had an air of a ‘derby’, the same with the games against Scarlet.

In 1993, Sony Sugar FC, who had been promoted to the league and were seeking to boost their defense, an offer Ogur would let pass once again because he had already decided to stop active soccer and come back home to develop the game from there.

“I had by then been approached by people back at home to come back and start a program which could help develop soccer in the region” He says adding that he the needed to this call and in 1994, aged 23 years old, he left Kisumu Posta and went back and formed ‘Ligi Ndogo Nyatike
Initiative’, an initiative aimed at improving the level of soccer in the region.

It was a sacrifice to do this he admits, but says with high number of boys leaving schools every year to go and work in the nearby Lake Victoria as fishermen, he also acknowledge it was a move he had to make for the sake of the of the community.

The initiative identified youth football, as an area of focus and for the past fifteen years, has been organizing annual tournaments bringing together boys who are below the age of seventeen from all beaches in Nyatike to the tournament.

“We make sure that all team which participate get uniform since it’s not much of a competition” He says adding that they also try and showcase the talents to the Premier League team by inviting scouts during the tournaments.

Last year, one of their best players Tairus Omondi, a strike was signed by Gor Mahia while another two joined the armed forces, something that had never happened before in the area and every year during the Secondary school ball games in the region, graduates from the initiative who are spread all over Migori and Homa Bay counties are always the star players.
A section of the boys under 17 years who took part in the tounament.

And the boys, aware of the sacrifice Ogur has had to make for them ever grateful with the few who have left always coming back and trying to help the young e ones also make it.

“We hope to have our boys joining the professional ranks soon” he says adding that with the talents being witnessed at the games, It is only a matter of time before the graduands from the initiative start playing in foreign leagues.


©Nick Oluoch, 2012

Friday, February 24, 2012

Preparing for African Diaspora Summit this summer By Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey

Wedding celebrations by Maria Onyegbule, Courtesy
“There is now clear recognition that the African identity is a global one,” said Cheick Sidi Diarra, UN Special Adviser on Africa, at a preparatory meeting in New York for the first African Diaspora Summit, slated to be held in June in South Africa. African leaders in all spheres and Diaspora need to connect more and better for advancement of the continent.


Diaspora has done amazing things for Israel and now even the Palestinians. For the Armenians, Chinese, Greeks, Indians, Croatians and even Bosnians/Herzegovinians where only two decades earlier there was no recognized Diaspora. It's also important to see African Diaspora in waves, during slavery. colonialism and in modern era.


“People of African descent are dispersed to all parts of the world due to forced migrations through slavery, colonialism and war and more recently to voluntary migrations due to globalization. These pockets of African people scattered around the world can now play a significant role in Africa’s growth, development and empowerment,” according to Mr. Diarra. See Film Report – “Brazil-Africa Link” - http://diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/movie/brazil-africa-link/29582


Diaspora Summit in South Africa a First:

This will be the first time that the African Union (AU) holds a summit with heads of States on the subject of diasporas, and the event seeks to create partnerships between African legislators and legislators in diaspora communities worldwide. The summit also aims to draw the attention of global decision-makers to shared issues between Africa and its diaspora communities, and to provide lawmakers with an understanding of the challenges faced by each diaspora community, as well as enhance their capacity to lobby at a national and regional level.


Politics &; Economics:

“Parliamentarians and other elected officials have an important role to play in shaping the policies of their countries. Their role is central when it comes to economic and social development but also conflict prevention. More importantly, diaspora parliamentarians can play a crucial role in influencing their countries policies toward Africa,” said Mr. Diarra, who is also the UN High Representative For Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.
Debt burden for landlocked developing countries (LDC), many of which are African, has decreased as a result of initiatives such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. But he also stressed that much more needs to be done to prevent LDCs from being hurt by trade shocks due to commodity price volatility and other external factors.


Challenges of Infrastructure &; Trade Barriers:

At the launch of the preparatory process for a Ten-Year Review Conference of the Almaty Programme of Action – which aims to galvanize international solidarity to assist LDCs to better participate in the international trading system – Mr. Diarra said LDCs still experience high transport and trade transaction costs, and that their transport infrastructure is still inadequate.
Amb. Muhamed Sacirbey
He added that these challenges are exacerbated by rising food and fuel prices, economic and financial crises and climate change, and called for policy reforms that seek to remove physical and non-physical barriers to their effective participation in international trade. See Film Report –“Africa Development Governance” - http://diplomaticallyincorrect.org/films/movie/africa-development-governance/29637



Ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey is a EX-Foreign Minister/Ambassador at UN, Agent International Court of Justice, SVP of Standard & Poor's. Current: commentator/writer/lecturer/publisher-editor at http://diplomaticallyincorrect.org/
Follow him on twitter @MuhamedSacirbey and twitter account for his website at @DiplomaticallyX

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Travel: Out and deep into the Rift Valley…….By Okoth Oluoch

A lonely man satnding over the Rift Valley, Kenya
‘Welcome home’ Jean Paul Fourier, warmly greets me moment after I had just stepped out of the car and into the neatly mown lawn at the Kerio view point, the pint, any visitor will attest is the best to have a glimpse of the breathtaking Iten landscape.

I couldn’t help but notice that Jean had put a slight stress on the word ‘home’. I had called him a day before and informed him of my interest in having a look at the Iten landscapes, famed for its stunning mountainous scenery and he assured me he was more that ready to show me around.

The short ride from Eldoret town to Iten was uneventful. Either side of the road farmers tilling on the farms, a clear sign that the timeless rhythm of the agricultural life which has been associated with the residents of the ‘bread basket of Kenya’ has not lost a thing.

As we take the final bend and into the valley, a group of athletes on practice zoom past us, a reminder once again that I am at the home of some of the countries best athletes. The driver, following my gaze promptly informs me, his voice filed with both mirth and pride that before me lay the former Jelimo’s and Tergat of this country.

Inside the valley, I take the opportunity to fill my lung with the fresh air, slightly scented with wildflowers but extremely refreshing.

My view inevitably shifts to the valley, which the area has been fro along time famed for. For five second or so I am lost in my own world.

The valley, about 2000 feet away is just breathtaking. From the colorful landscape, golden rock surrounding it and covered by the blue skies, its just fascinating to stand and look at it.

‘I felt the same when I came here, and I still feel the same whenever I see it’ Jean tells me following my gaze, his voice bringing me back as we move towards the edge of the cliff.

Robert’s Rock

Our first stop is at a rock standing just on the edge of the cliff. This rock, he informs me is referred to as the ‘Robert’s Rock.

Robert Creten, he explains to me is a Belgian who used to like reading at the rock when he stayed there in 1997 although he has since gone back to Belgium.

‘Whenever anyone wanted him they only had to come here’ He explains adding that from here, Robert could then watch the agama lizards and the behaviors of monkeys deep inside the forest.

I muster just enough courage to sit on the edge of the rock but flatly decline the request to state down the cliff despite several pleas from the other couple who had just joined us.

On the other side, not too far away a group, definitely braver than me are engrossed into their hiking.

Going by the between the valley, 1300 meters above the sea level to the escarpment forest at 2400 meters and eventually to the cold heights of Cherangani at 3500, I have to admit the area will give any experience hiker a run for his money.

‘People are always coming here to test their hiking and biking abilities’ Jean says adding that given its terrains, its the bets place fro the hikers.

Monkeys can be heard chattering as we leave the rock and head for the other side of the view. On our way, more athletes are passing by and I ask Jean if they have a training facility at the valley.
High Altitude training.

‘We accommodate a number of athletes here during their training’ he explains adding that the athletes however train by themselves at the valley.

Athletes training in the high altitude in Iten town
The place, I am told has also been frequented by a number of international athletes who are eager to learn the reasons behind Kenyan’s dominance in the middle and long distance running.

The likes of Saed Shaheen, formerly Stephen Cherono who is the former world 1500 meters champion is one of the athletes who have used the facility and I promise to come back late and use it for preparation for my Standard Chattered marathon debut.

We leave and on the way, we pass the Elnino hut, a special place for barbeque on the valley. Set above the steepest cliff on the view, Jean explains to me that it was named Elnino after the rains of 1998 when a digger load machine which was being used to make it slid and stuck on the edged of the cliff.

‘It was quite an incident, very scary’ Robert say, his mind visibly still on the incident which happened about a decade ago. He later informs me the place is mainly used for bird watching and also watching the colobus monkeys below.

A few meters away, a family is having their lunch at a nearby traditional hut while three children are clearly enjoying the swinging game. They invite me and for a second I am tempted to join them before deciding against it; there is still a lot of the Iten to view.

We move to what is referred to as the pajero point, the largest view point in the area.

Down, I can see beaters and hornbills slowly going about their businesses. On top of us are the hovering buzzards and the lanner falcons and Jean informs me that there are occasional high altitude eagles.

As we walk away from the scene, he explains to me why the area was named ‘Pajero point’

‘Unoccupied Pajero once took off from packing and crash-landed here’ He explains adding that the pajero wasn’t damaged and is still on the road.

We pass the monkey house, a barbeque hut with one of the finest views of the valley below and here, another couple is having their meals. True to is name, I can see several monkeys just behind it and he informs me they come to look for fresh fruits and leaves everyday.

On our way to the dining room, Jean decides to show me around the Furier room. A conference room partially underground, the room equipped with a television has got capacity of about thirty people.

Just above the door is a stationed glass which I am informed has got a history dating back to 1939.

‘It was a sign in front of a hardware shop in Belgium’ Jean says in matter-of-fact manner. The shop was owned by Eugene, Jean Paul’s father and his three uncles.

It’s almost time to leave the view as I inform Jean I still have to go over to Tambach. As we settle down for a bottle of cock, Jean makes yet another revelation to me.

Paragliding
A tourist paragliding over Kerio Valley

‘Care to paraglide?’ He inquires. He then goes ahead and explains to me that a number of Para gliders come over to the view each year to have the opportunity of paragliding into the valley and fly over the Kerio view.
‘Most of them are Germans’ He explains and goes head to take me to the room fully equipped with parachutes and other equipments.

‘I wish you could try it. It’s real fun’ He explains after I had decided to put off my maiden paragliding to rush over to Tambach. On our way to the gate, he explains to me the regular patrons they host at the view.

‘Former President Moi was here just last weekend’ he explains adding that Prime Minister Raila Odinga is another visitor they had hoisted recently. He is however quick to add that the view was just to ensure people had the perfect view of the valley.

He bides me a heavily accented ‘Kwa heri’ and soon I am on my way to Tambach, on the other side of the view.

Tambach

On either side of the road lie beautiful hills illuminating the sun, the hills forming steps from the road. Occasionally the driver has to sop to let the cattle cross over and I have to admit the way the road has formed zigzag on the floor of the view is simply amazing.

We are soon in Tambach and I realize that just like Iten, it is on the valley.

‘This is the last frontier at the valley’ the driver Tambach informs me as we walk to the edge of a cliff.
Hundreds of meter below, people are going about their normal businesses as usual although one can hardly make them up from this far.

I decide to ask been, the driver it is true the myth I heard in college that the locals used to bring up old people on top of the cliff and throw them down in time of wars to stop them from being captured.

‘I have heard the same myth, nothing true about it anyway’ He replies laughing as we walk around the stiff cliff. He informs me paragliders also come here but that the place is best known for hiking.

We decide to go down the view and have a feel at what it feels like to be in there. Three or four monkeys quickly disappear from the road when they see us and on our way, three groups of athletes trying to get accustomed to the high altitude passes us.

The air is just fresh. And save for the chattering o the monkeys here and there and bird cries, its dead quiet inside the valley. Both sides are surrounded by hills and for the next one hour, I have my maiden hike, Ben having turned into very able teacher.

It’s getting late and we join a group of ten athletes into a warm up before leaving for Kerio valley.

Naiberi Campsite

A guest at Naiberi Campsite
The next morning, I decide to spend some time at the Naiberi campsite, just 17 kilometers off Eldoret town and famed for its natural camping sites and serene environment.

On the gate, I am received by Jacky, one of the stewards at the site and I am immediately struck by the silence in the entire site.

‘Anyone home’ I enquire as we make our way through a stone walled tunnel with hanging lanterns on either side, a question which elicits a grin from her. Off course there are people, she explain adding that the site has mainly thrived of the peace and the tranquility it offers.

The tunnel eventually leads to a surprisingly modernized opening; Jacky calls it a ‘modern day cave’. In front are a water fall and about three streams, stone pillars and wooden bridges on top of either of the streams.
Our first stop is at the swimming pool, which I have admit is nothing but impressive.

Surrounded all over with indigenous trees, it’s simply fits into its surrounding. Just on the edged of it are a water fall and a stone carving and on the other side are a beautiful table surrounded by some four seats. She informs me this is for people who would like to enjoy their drinks by the pool side.

The sky blue water is simply inviting and when she asks if I can swim, I momentarily toy with the idea of jumping right in the water.

We then make our way to the disco hall, just in the heart of the site. It’s not crowded but the air is of carnival and I, this time round fall to the temptation to grab the ice cold drinks served here. We settle on a table as she gives me more information on the site.

Naiberi, she explains has be mainly a camping site for cooperate bodies and families interested in having some time out of the busy town life.

‘Its Nature’s own creation’ She explains to me adding that it had been designed to take its guest far back to the stone age with little touch of modern day luxury.

I take a look around the site and I can’t help but marvel at the irony. Here is a place where almost all constrictions are on stone. But the disco hall is truly modern. There is a pool table, darts, a card table for eight, and even a digital satellite television.

She then leads the way to the campsite. From the quietness surrounding it, to the well maintained lush green lawns set aside for the campers to pitch their tents, and the soft sound of the waters of the streams passing by the site, the site simply offers a resting place.

A group is trying to erect their tents at the site and we join them for a moment before passing over to the stone cottages, another feature Naiberi is so well know for.

The cottages, about fifty meter from river Naiberi are all made from thatch stone and precious cedar wood, the same material used in the constriction the disco hall.

We the go through the dormitory o large groups, the cabins before paying visit to the fish pond, also just within the camp.

On our way, she insists that I have to taste the meals at the camp. I just have time for a bite and the meals, she explains are served to the guest’s convenience in the designated dining areas.

It’s getting late and as she escorts me to the gate, two more groups are just getting in for a camp over the weekend. She forces me to promise to come back for a weekend next time, a promise I am honesty keen to fulfill.

Who won’t like to spend a night at Naiberi!

Nick Okoth Oluoch

All photo credits from online

(Okoth Oluoch is a travel blogger and writer with The Standard in Kenya. This post was first published on his blog link: http://nickoluoch.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/out-and-about-and-deep-into-the-rift-valley/ )

Friday, February 3, 2012

You and Mr. Me in this trivial life of economic recession By Charles Jomo


The month is still twenty hungry with a delay of the pay slip. When a wall refuses to smile at you even after inserting a plastic card in it means the world is spinning like turning a ‘O’ upside down.

So we are walking downturn me and a colleague we will call Mr. Me, for the sake of this post. Being an extended twenty hungry period of the month, the description of our wallets, and workers drawing a salary is dismal. We couldn’t afford a hole in the middle of the doughnut t have two coins to rub together!

It's was late in the evening as a writer’s muse got me thinking on the greatest phenomenon in the world agenda has always been; the world moving on unmoved, unfazed at human kind hustles and bustle to define its place herein.

I mean, the world?

The economy stings creating a domino effect in people's wallets, with lies aligned with masks to hide their faces of oblivion from cruel reality in this time of the month. The humankind; women , men and children are in a merry go ground to transform corn, that is if afforded, into a corn meal we call ugali in East Africa.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy PM got his ass kicked out from power, Barry Obama is getting Republicans sniffing his ass in White House because of the bloated economy. Guy Fawkes mask has got a reconnaissance of sought because of economic down turn.

If the big of the world can squirm why not a common mwananchi wa kawaida like you and me? Even encountered, which brings me to our friend Mr. Me, someone who try’s to look economically sound even in the face of economic disglut (cooked this one from disquiet)?

Earlier yesterday Mr. Me, a good time buddy, asks me if I could spare some roasted stuff. Those roasted maize found in every road side in Kenya and rake more millions than roasted meat, nyama choma, but since they are left for hoi polloi will never feaure in marketing the country.

You see, just to digress, nyama choma going down with beer is a social meal, but mahindi choma by the road side is a means of deprivation, a meal that cant be shared in a merry mood. First of all there is no water to wash your hands, making one to disregard his health over germs filled hands (at the back of hand washing campaigns) which is a sign of personal neglect!

Take a test with me Kenyans who chew on the roasted cob always look down trodden and in a pensive mood. Just take a cursory look today!

So back to my friend, the first ones we come across are rather stout and small in size and so we neglect them altogether. We soldier on and good heavens, we come to the next vendor (are they really vendors or roasters) and we go about to pick our like from the still hot.

It’s here that Mr. Me intrigues me. I pick a small rotund cob which looks young and succulent despite its size.  On the other hand my main man (stolen from Obama’s Dreams from my father) fuses with the roaster like a broke window shopper before settling for a big mature cob, with me picking the ‘bill’.

Being presumably richly well endowed with concern 4 human kind, I decide 2 let him have that which he desires in life because this way only, do we become great achievers.

a few steps from the point of purchase, Mr. Me complains about his cob.

“This damned maize is hard and tastes funny. I feel like throwing away this piece of shit!” He complains.

I'm then like: what the hell is wrong with you? You insisted in picking this cob as aligned with more grains?

“This cob will upset my stomach with this funny taste” Mr. Me complains, quietly feeling the hurt from his obnoxious behaviour towards my kindness.


What made me like his reaction rather than getting irritated is how he sounded more of a nag looking for attention from the reality of the economy than having any justifiable course.

Mr. Me complains, like lower middle class families facing inflation and completely disowns his role in accountability, or so I think.

And so I get a pissed off with the lad’s tirade and leave him alone as I retire to my abode, which is humble like the hackneyed phrase with a parting shot:

“My main man, i think your insolence has worked me up, see you morrows.”

That was earlier in the evening do now as I wait for my bachelor’s supper to cook it makes me think what really is the concern of man?

Life under recession, I muse, is a vicious cycle accorded to humankind all the days of its life. Inflation hits and the poor suffer most. They try to cover a hole from a leaking wall, but with powers against his strength the water ultimately rushes in and cover his life.

Without a leaning shoulder to guard against politicians insolence, the weak shilling (wherever it is) and skewed international trade balance the poor are completely caught unawares in the daily pangs of life and as a result, they never just anticipate any next, worthy courses of actions.

You live life as it comes; no planning for a tomorrow whose rouse is beyond your grasp.


May be, if only you and me force ourselves out of the boxes we're contained in and get to think outside these boxes, the world would then become one heaven of a place.     

(The writer is a graduate of English Literature from Maseno University, Kenya. He teaches at Migori Boys School)

Thursday, February 2, 2012

A play: Bitter Sweat by Mwangi Wilson Murimi


Synopsis
A convergence of animals in Kikulacho County is called by the Development Committee, under the watchful eyes of the county governor Mr. Lion.
The Baraza is called to discuss possible implementation of a new produce deductions policy. The policy recommends a 25% seasonal deduction of members’ produce for five consecutive seasons.
 The convergence, however, turns out to be a forum for members to demand answers on earlier cases of resource misappropriation. This culminates into the quest for the formulation of a new Development Committee.

CHARACTERS

LION - King of the Kikulacho County.
CHAMELEON – Member of the Kikulacho development Committee.
HARE – Member of the Kikulacho development Committee.
HYENA – Member of the Kikulacho Development Committee
TORTOISE – Citizen of the Kikulacho County.
CHICKEN – Citizen of Kikulacho County.
ZEBRA – Citizen of Kikulacho County
FOX – A law expert at Kikulacho County.
GIRAFFE – A technician at Kikulacho County.

(As lights fade in, the Lion, Hare, Hyena, Monkey and Chameleon sit on the front bench as other animals assemble at the Mikutano Square for a public Baraza. The Hare, who is the head of the ceremony stands at the podium. The other animals take their seats at the auditorium. He takes in a deep breath before picking the microphone from the giraffe who is the technician for the meeting)

HARE (Moving his gaze sideways): Ladies and gentlemen today’s meeting will be short as we all know the agenda. (The animals nod in agreement, as the hare picks a file from the table, and proceeds to read from it). Kikulacho Country has recently faced a severe drought that has claimed the lives of a good number of us. With me is a proposal of the austerity measures to contain the situation, and avert such a catastrophe in future.

HYENA (leaning to the Chameleon): Learn to stay put today and leave your colour changes to the trees.

HARE: Honourable members, the Development Committee of which I am a member sat and drafted a proposal of a Kikulacho County Granary. All members will contribute to the granary. (Low toned murmurs follow) Pursuant to the Kikulacho County constitution, members of the Development Committee will be excluded from the suggested produce deduction due to their inflated budgets occasioned by their service to Kikulacho County.

CHICKEN: Don’t committee members eat and empty their bowels like the rest of us!

HARE (Ignoring Chicken’s outburst): Honourable law abiding citizens, we at the Kikulacho Development Committee have never frustrated Kikulacho County before. This new austerity measure is the best solution for famine in Kikulacho County. 

TORTOISE:  (In a high-pitched tone):  What developments have you initiated beyond your homes. The hyena and his family are ever growing fat as our children cry out their rumbling tummies.

HYENA: My family only eats to their proportion just like the rest of you. (Satirically) Maybe you are on a weight loss prescription!

HARE:  Honourable members let’s not demean the acclaim we have recently received at the recent conference at Ufisadi County. All other counties are longing to emulate our cooperation in Harambees.

TORTOISE: Why did your wife accompany you to the conference? Was she a delegate? And by the way were you harvesting cotton at the conference? You have since bought your family new cloths!

CHAMELEON: The new produce deduction policy is as important as the lives of our loved ones whom the drought snatched from us. Let’s not contradict ourselves with baseless allegations.

TORTOISE: There comes the white sepulcher that waivers with his every colour change!
(A loud laughter follows Tortoise outburst)


HARE: Order! Order! Order honourable law abiding citizens…

CHICKEN: Too much silence makes the mouth stink!

HARE:  Etiquette is a virtue. Kikulacho Development Committee exists as your mouthpiece we cannot all talk at the same time.

TORTOISE: Is that so called Development Committee a mouthpiece of Kikulacho County or the mouth to feed the committee members?

ZEBRA: Have the findings of Monkey’s maize saga ever been tabled?

HARE: Honourable members please lend me your ears awhile.

CHICKEN: Go ahead and pluck mine out. Do I even have any?
(Earsplitting laughter follows)

CHAMELEON: Honourable members, investigations on the case are ongoing. Let’s not get ahead of the times

CHICKEN: Debate with yourself. You seem to have two different personalities.
(Air tearing laughter ensues)

TORTOISE:  We demand a statement from Monkey right now. Since the maize scandal was uncovered his wife has been making more trips to the posho meal. The hare has since been increasing suits on his closet, as our children wear tatters!

MONKEY: The fact that I am becoming healthier is no reason to be called a thief. The peanuts I get from the Development Committee are barely enough to meet expenses of my administrative duties.

CHICKEN: Endorse me chairlady in your place!

HARE (The irritated hare walks back to the podium. Anger almost chokes his voice): Before the meeting took a twist, were setting logistics for the establishment of a Kikulacho Granary. Prior to my interruption, I was about to mention that all members of Kikulacho County are to pay 25% of their produce to the national granary for a period of 5 seasons to contain the famine occasioned by the two dry spell. (Murmurs ensue but the hare opts to proceed).  Of the 25% proceeds paid to the granary, five percent will go to the Development Committee’s kitty…

TORTOISE: Who authorized that committee to make resource deduction decisions on our behalf? That’s a breach of the Kikulacho Animal rights! We are the most supreme authority on taxation matters! And by the way how important are the tummies of the Development Committee members?

CHICKEN:  Some of the committee members are too old. They should go home to look after their wives!

HARE (Irritated by the satirical outburst of the chicken): We never converged for an election. We were here to endorse the new austerity measures. The election can wait.

LION:  You have bickered enough, can you now listen (Murmurs continue, before Lion angrily clenches his canines).  Shut up. You’ve had enough time wag your tongue. Listen here!

CHICKEN (In a whisper): We use the ears to listen not the mouth.

LION: The mud you have smeared on my Development Committee is founded on incoherent and false allegations. Move forward if you have any evidence validating your allegations or learn to shut your rowdy bickers and listen! (Silence ensues, as the fox strolls into the Baraza venue. Nobody seems to notice his entry.) We never rendezvoused here for a political witch hunt concert.

CHICKEN: Where are the witches?
(Prolonged laughter follows, before it is sternly stopped by the lion’s loud roar. By this time, the fox has moved up close to the podium awaiting a turn to speak)

LION: First things first. This granary policy has to be endorsed, no compromise about that!

FOX (Other animals are surprised by his unprecedented entry): Kikulacho constitution has deeply ingrained principles of resource accountability that resource misappropriation whatsoever. (The rest of the animals nod in agreement). On the provisions of leadership, the committee members are bequeathed the power to lead and no to rule!

CHICKEN: We’ve now started talking!

LION (angrily): This is not a convergence of constitutional experts. It is a crisis Baraza to save Kikulacho County.

TORTOISE: Yes the salvation of the chosen few, by devouring every bit of our bitter sweat!

FOX:  The constitution calls for elections if 65% of Kikulacho’s citizens pass a vote of no confidence following gross corruption by the incumbent government. I believe we have a quorum to demand for polls!
(The auditorium claps, as Chameleon confusedly rises to speak.)

CHAMELEON: Let’s not heckle each other…, Law abiding citizens; dialogue is the mother of concurrence. Let’s agree to talk and disagree to disagree.

CHICKEN:  Stop confusing us.

FOX: Polls, polls, polls, polls…

AUDITORIUM: Polls, polls, polls…

HARE: You won’t like it. That’s tantamount to incitement.

FOX: Mass action is democratic. We will protest anything short of a new committee and resource accountability!

LION: So be it, early tomorrow we will be back here. You will appoint a new Development Committee.

FOX: Let it happen right now!
(The lights fade out as the entire auditorium surges towards the podium)

(The playwright is a third year media student at Maseno University and a sub-editor of Equator weekly.)

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Do not polarize nation against Kikuyus by By Mwangi Wilson Murimi

Wilson Murimi

The raging debate over the amicability of a third kikuyu president and the legitimacy of a kikuyu inspector-general of police is eminent but being indecently conducted.
This crucial debate has surpassed purviews of decency, not only in the mainstream media but also in the social media, to the extent that GEMA candidates for top posts are being viewed with cynical criticism.
The debate is gratuitously charging the country towards a Kikuyu-phobic attitude, which is unhealthy considering that the country is healing from the 2008 post-poll chaos.
Whereas it is true that domination of a country’s government bureaucracy and armed forces by a single community in a heterogeneous society is dangerous, it is more perilous to create a tribal rift in a nation healing from post-poll chaos.
The danger of tendering an anti-kikuyu attitude is that a repeat of 2008 chaos in 2012 will lame the country’s ailing economy owing to the fact that very many businesses in the country side are owned by Kikuyus.
I am shocked that even Omar Hassan, one of the expected panelists in the selection of the next police boss, could so imprudently display his anti-Kikuyu viewpoint yet he will be expected to be impartial during the candidates grilling exercise.
In his viewpoint that a Kikuyu should not lead the police force, Hassan created an impression that a Kikuyu’s candidature is illegitimate. It creates an impression that the grilling exercise should be veered towards eliminating Kikuyus from the police boss race! What law segregates a community from producing a police boss?
Into the bargain, this Kikuyu-phobic attitude seems to be brewing a ‘Kenyan Spring’ against the election of a Kikuyu president even if he/she captures the seat in a democratic and a constitutionally justifiable election.
Democracy might blossom in a society where the citizens are free to engage in debate on key issues, but this discourse must be done in an admissible manner without infringing into the rights of any section of the society, or messing up national unity. The way out is empowerment of the recently created electoral body so that the 2012 elections are democratic.

The writer is a communications and media student at Maseno University and a sub-editor of Equator Weekly.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Kirinyaga: Jombi ataka kujitoa uhai baada ya kunyimwa chakula na Mwangi Wilson Murimi

Picha kutoka kwa tovuti
Kalameni mmoja katika eneo la Kirinyaga ya kati aliwashangaza wengi, pale alipotishia kujitoa uhai baada ya mzozo na bibi yake kuhusu chakula kugeukia mweleka wa kifamilia.
Mzozo huo ulianza pale jombi huyo aliporejea nyumbani nyakati za  asubuhi akiwa mlevi chakari, na kudai apewe chakula na mkewe. Hata hivyo bibi yake aliyekuwa amechoshwa na ulevi wa bwanake wa kila siku alimwambia peupe akatafute chakula kwa mama pima. “Nenda ukatafuate chakula huko unakolewa kila siku”, alisema bibi yake.
 Tamshi hilo lilimkera jombi hiyo, aliyemkaba koo mkewe alitumai kuwa hili lingempelekea kuubadili msismamo wako wa awali, lakini kinyume na matarajio yake, mkewe akinyakua ukuni na kumgonga.
Na huku jombi huyo akiachilia shingo yake, mkewe naye alimvamia kwa chochote kilichokuwa pale jikoni, zikiwemo sufuria na vikombe, jambo lililowavutia wanakijiji wengi kujitamazia mweleka wa bure.
Hakuna aliyefanya juhudi zozote kuwatengamisha wawili hao, labda kwa hofu kuwa kufanya hivyo kungeukatisha mweleka huo wa bure ambao ulikuwa ukijiri.
Katikati mwa vurumai hilo, mkewe alisikika akinung’una kuwa mmewe alizoea kutoka ulevini na kulala bila kutekeleza wajibu wake kama bwana. “Mwaname wa saa ngapi huyu, anayejilaza kama mfu?” alisema mwanamke huyo.
Mambo yalizidi unga pale, mwalimu mmjoa wa shule ya msingi kuoka eneo hilo anayedaiwa kuhusika mapenzi kisiri  na mwanamke huyo alipofika pale na kujaribu kuwatenganisha.
Mawazoni pa jombi huyo, wawili hao wakinuia kummaliza ili kupata nafasi kuendeleza uhusiano wao, ndipo akadai kuwa angejitoa uhai. “Kumbe mwatataka kuniua ndio niwaondokee na kumpa nafasi sivyo?” alisema Jombi huyo, “Afadhali nijitoe uhai mwenyewe”
Kicheko cha waliokusanyaika kilikatizwa na mshangao pale bibi yake alipodai kuwa angemhakikishia kuwa amelala pema peponi akijitia kitanzi, jambo ambalo lilimfadhaisha jombi huyo, aliyetoka na kwenda zake akidai kuwa angerejea akiwa mfu.
Mwandishi ni Mwanafunzi katika taaluma ya utangazaji na uanahabari chuoni Maseno na mhariri wa jarida la Equator Weekly

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Poem: The age of innocence by Kuchio Asonga

Her mother never loved her
she kept wishing she never had her
A love child, in truth a bastard
From whence she could remember
Life was always hard
She rarely ever smiled
She was often sad
They treated her harshly
They said she was bad
Her mother loathed her
Because she resembled her dad
So she runaway, as soon
as she could find away
She packed her bags
and fled to the city
Hoping to find a prince charming
Who thought she was pretty
But all the men she met
Wanted to use her body
To tell her lies to confuse her
then misuse and abuse her
Quickly she learned their game
And began to make them pay for her charms
To be held for a moment
In the warmth of her arms

Still she dreams of settling down
and starting her own home
But that is hard
When selling yourself, for your,
Daily bread is the norm
Gone is her age of innocence
Lost to life's experience

James Kuchio Asonga/ Superb Wun 2011©

To read more of the poet log onto http://www.infinitevision.blog.com/  or http://www.chrismukasa.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Poem: Me and My Beggar by Otiato Guguyu

The Poet: Otiato Guguyu
it was in my ears -
the tingling coin
in his empty bowl
every empty dawn.

It was in his routine -
the timely nod
in grotesque gratitude
every begging morning

Today,
it was that same clanking coin
but there was no nod
my heart pride cherished gratitude
"but why"
"sir in the budget read yesterday
prices have inflated
but you still give me the same coin
I would be pleased if you raised your charity.

I walked away
tomorrow there would be no clanking

It would be a note!

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

The poet, Otiato Guguyu is a Communication and Media Technolgy with IT student at Maseno University Kenya, The Managing Editor of Equator Weekly and a Blogger at http://otiatoguguyu.blogspot.com

Poem: Bedroom Technology by Otiato Guguyu

The Poet: Otiato Guguyu
Man why are you still basking in past glory
why are you still in celebratory robes
of the reign over the down trodden
can you rival the sperm bank
in production of likable features
single parenthood single conception
can you even dream of vibrating
like a chinese toy in the electronic shop
self reliance self satisfaction
and you still had the audacity
to let past your power fed eyes
same sex marriage
now the daughters of eve come together as one
will you allow to be pushed to
homosexuality and bestiality?
or will you with nostalgia
discover the joys of your palms
let us fight bedroom technology
lest we be rendered redundant
and allow the race of amazons
in the second millennium

©2008 Otiato Guguyu

The poet, Otiato Guguyu is a Communication and Media Technolgy with IT student at Maseno University Kenya, The Managing Editor of Equator Weekly and a Blogger at http://otiatoguguyu.blogspot.com 

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Guest Blogger: Carbide used to ripen bananas causing cancer scare by Aquinas Nyakundi

Photo: Courtesy
I received an email earlier about the use of carbide in ripening banana away from the natural cycle so as to attract more customers and reap maximum profit i  would wish to share.

Have you ever wondered where some vendors selling sweet bananas like the ones using wheelbarrows on Nairobi's Airport North-Ring road roundabouts source them in such huge supply and uniform ripeness!

Some readers who love bananas and eat a lot of them needed to realize that the bananas available in the market are 'forced ripe' by dipping in water mixed with Carbide. 
The consumption of these bananas is 100% sure to cause Cancer or some other infection in the stomach. Therefore, such type of bananas is to be avoided.

But, how does one recognize the bananas ripened with the help of Carbide?
Bananas which are ripened naturally are dark yellow and there are small black spots here and there on the bananas and the stalks are black. While those which are forced ripe with Carbide are lemon yellow and their stalks are green and moreover they are clear yellow without any black spots.

Now, what is Carbide and how is it harmful?

Carbide is a chemical which if mixed with water, emits heat and the heat emitted by a Close tank mixed with Carbide is even more than that emitted by a LPG Cylinder, so much so it can be used for Gas Cutting (which means the calorific value is so high that it can replace LPG gas).

In the same way, when the bunch of bananas is dipped in the water mixed with Carbide, the gas gets absorbed into the bananas and they get ripe.

However, the banana vendors are not that literate and so they do not know the exact proportion of Carbide to be used for a dozen of bananas.

As a result they end up using excess quantity of Carbide which gets absorbed into the bananas and ultimately enters our stomach. Due to this excess use of Carbide, tumors can be formed in our digestive system.
Aquinas Nyakundi is a graduate of Communication and Media Tech from Maseno University in Kenya. He is a journalist based in Kisii running an agriculture based blog: Small-Scale Farming Commercialize

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Guest Blogger: Kenya will do Africa a favour by voting in Kingwa Kamencu by Mankind Oyewumi

Kingwa Kamencu
"She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies." George Gordon Byron.

"And he gave it for his opinion,that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of
grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better
of mankind,and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians." Jonathan Swift.

The recent announcement by a 27 year old Oxford University student, Kingwa Kamencu to stand as the President of the republic of Kenya in next year’s election has attracted my attention.

As a Nigerian Samaformistic I am not only interested with events in my country but also globally, with a bias to the beautiful continent Africa. As a scholar these events attract my intrepid comments when they go wrong, challenge my brave interventions before they are made wrong.

It’s with this reason that i draw the collective attention of Kenyans to do Africa a favor by shunning sex, age, tribal, religious and ideological biases to elect this young, intelligent, ebullient, clue-filled,plan-fraught, passion-driven lady as their president in the 2012 elections in Kenya.

Let's consider her profile which has made her accomplish a lot:

"I am a poet, novelist, philosopher, on and off journalist and perpetual student. I love ideas and the magic of words and I try to use them as a thread to sew and re-piece humanity back together. Words create images which then create reality."

Her dream for Africa speaks for itself:

"I am a young emerging African leader and a part of the movement that is working to make Africa great and ensure all its people have dignity and good standards of living. I am looking forward to a united Africa in my life time, an Africa that can make more grand contributions to the world. I feel the dream of Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere among others. I believe this dream will come true"

This profile is courtesy of WorldPulse, a global,online communication network connecting and empowering women for all-round relevance as enviable force for sustainable change in modern societies.

To add Kingwa Kamencu is a published writer whose first novel, To Grasp at a Star, won 2nd prize in the 2006 Wahome Mutahi Literary Award and the National Book Development Council Award (2003). She is a published writer and poet working on her second novel.Currently she is a journalist, a budding scholar and a social and political critic.

At her age with the passion for emergence of Africa as a world power and the complete emancipation of women from political, social and economic setbacks makes her as a young ideal leader to push the continent in this century. This passion to make the continent a better place may see her shape the continent's politics the way Margret Thatcher shaped Britain and world's politics.

Prior to study in Oxford University she got a first class honors from University of Nairobi win in Literature and History which shows her leadership qualifications.

But she is a Kenyan, known more by Kenyans than by anyone else as a daughter and friend, student and above all, citizen. My view is that being untainted she deserves a chance to serve as president which will put the youths in a spotlight. The country should see what she did in a short period not to judge her as passing cloud.

Her leadership at students SONU, different levels of her development participation coupled with her global membership in groups to server humanity she needs support logistical, financially, morally and spiritually to be the leader of new Kenya.

The old guard has not tackled corruption, poor infrastructure, illiteracy-rate, poor healthcare and mortality rate often being recycled among the same elites at the elm since independence, can Kenya embrace rest and change by voting her?

Winds of change that brought Barrack Obama to White House,started the Arab revolution and torments the 'apartheid' of Israel over Gaza may spill to sub-Sahara Africa by youthful president in the offing. Kingwa is a symbol to reckon with.

That is why in this post i wish to challenge Kenyans to vote for Kingwa Kamencu next year and do Africa a favor the way an unemployed youth in Tunis set himself ablaze with a snowballing effect of Arab revolution. 

(The Guest Blogger, Mankind Olawale Oyewumi, is a Nigerian philosopher, teacher (of language and literature), journalist and former student of University of Lagos. He is the author of Songs of the Law (poetry), Immortal Instructions, A gift to Nigeria at Fifty (Ed) He is the father of SAMAFORMISM and the founder of Humanity Day.)

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Guest Blogger: The African Reformer By Mankind Olawale Oyewumi

“What is man born for but to be a reformer, a re-maker of what man has made; a renouncer of lies; a restorer of truth and good, imitating that great nature which embosoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, and with every pulsation a new life?”
—–Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the long list of trite and tragic words some true saints, scholars and sages maybe tired and ashamed of, reformation, change and freedom dominate and reign. Having remorselessly and frequently fulfilled their semantic and syntactic emptiness in dismal socio-economic and political literature of collective ignorance, war, hunger, diseases, death, and yet, renewed pledges of tacit but sure directionlessness in the continence haunted continent of Africa, the eminent fraud, nay jazziness of these practically hackneyed words cater to scholars’ loss accruable from the august guts of their undisguisable disgust towards them.

But man is the maker of words; man is the appointer and alerter of meanings to suit his ambition, actions and organizations, slightly involving or absolutely excluding the stipulations of natural justice. Do you see how parochial intellectuals, criminal nationalists, confused Africanists, satanic African leaders, and the so-called omnisciently free nations assisting Africa narrow the holds of our better Europe by thinking they betray just words and not drag their dignity in unclean-sable moral mud and their souls in irredeemable filth when they dedicate their golden silence and commercialized multiloquence to the dearth of our race, speak no universal good, offer dwarfish heights as sacrifices, impose and increase hindrances as policies, pursue sectional agenda and act the polar opposites of their documented intentions to the detriment of millions?

Reformation brings about change, and change cannot boast any essential existence without first passing through the needle-eye of proper reformation. Change is the instinct, reformation the action, change is the only reliable ideological parameter mortals historically use in judging claimed reforms, in gauging the air published to have been stored up in the banal tube of any reformation. In eras when the conscience of man was potent, and his humanism truly humane, publishing agencies were hardly required to convince those concerned, the beneficiaries of created public benefits, that some change has occurred in commerce, art, politics, etc., because one man, or a venally venerable host of his fine species had spoken, acted and achieved nothing to the disadvantage of their collective goals.

Away in ancient Sparta through Rome dwell annals’ approval of this claim. The Americans and the English, the French and the Germans, the Norwegians and the Spanish, all are doubtless proofs of moral oaf well spurred to construct the roofs of popular good. Their reformers in these countries, whether they be scholars or soldiers, pontiffs or monarchs, never ejaculated in vain selfishness, did not fall on mere veins in days of historically decisive actions.

Except for causes created by, and kiosked in personal principles as pointing or required necessities towards specified greater ends, feeding, housing and good health, care-facilities and kind activities were not tabooed; men’s external accoutrements glorified their inner worth; and none, except poverty itself suffered any variety of poverty. Whatever changes our days fosters the coming days. If this day prepares no way as great grace for our grazing wants tomorrow, it is not change. Let the reformer be an African who teaches philosophy to the grand children of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Greece, African reform is knowing and altruistically working to quarantine barriers from the survival – reach of Africans! Let the critic be our son or daughter legislating conceits that guide language, literature, politics, religion and economy at colleges and Universities built by happier shores and more, reformation is struggling to serve the needs our critiques so stylistically paint for politics, education, justice and dignity for our people.

With change, our aches must ape after our health, in all sections of possible health. Change is eternal jailing of our biased jaundices, either within any conglomerate produced by an irreversibility sealed by fear, ignorance and irresponsibility, or by the regulation of souls whose refulgence of flowing sanity expedients cannot controls.

Man militates in soulless but forceful awe to place perfection upon the senseless maxim that “…the end justifies the means”, mooting criminally in favor of social sins, and booting dishonorably for the spreadsheet of spiritual eccentricities. When it favors his truncated soul, man acquiesces to the nobility of general good, and frowns, with unbelieveable switch and dangerous resolves, at this good when it is no longer in the well-being of his dwarfish interest to treat man as man. In the soul of man dwells the wholesome whole, whereby himself, digs for himself, some unholy holes. With unintended but ineluctable holes, the Initial Energy and Sustainable Ray of the intended holds scatter in concerted ruins, and the salvaging of its pieces affect his peace, with violent ease.

Man becomes conscious of change when he is sincerely vexed by the wrecks of old, unprofitable order which orders his destiny for thriftless misuse and reckless abuse, and is ready to say and to do all that may be necessary to snatch himself away from the perilous reach of attendant crises caused by the former era. Whereas, change is conscious of man when in the name of withdrawing society from the woes of lies, fraud and theft, man plunges his existence in more quagmire and mire, and every frequent remorse displayed as sobriety constitutes an empowerment for the development of man’s disappointment. In this immorally spiritual complexity lies the knurly imbroglios of reformation: man’s consciousness of, and willingness for holy change is often ignobly changed by his unconsciousness of, and unwillingness for holy courage and genuine will that are central to the possibility of sought reformation.

The maximum abuse of man by man is man most constant courtesy to the world which noble sentiments had enthusiastically but irregularly protested in every generation. When man perceives correctly, the spate of social ruins in his society and puts up some formidable tools to mop and later squish the evidence of his painstaking observation-squalor into the vast sea-bed of purposeful revolution, he achieves a temporary target and loses the permanent victory to the ignorance he bequeaths posterity on the essence of existence.

Change, beware, may not necessarily guarantee freedom for man. Worse evil may succeed bad one in the clumsy course of any transformation. Yet, no freeing freedom ever arrived the society of man without change. The role of all men is to guide conscientiously along the deadly path to the succor that its fine effects may paint our world. Change is the health of reformation. When change is sick, reformation is the physiological uplift of its entire cells. The fact that another salutary dawn is, or can be, is a sign of the truth that the reformation of man truly has the facilities to reform. This new dawn being the change of former change which was once assisting, may have lost its touch, not necessarily with man, but with those inevitable aids and laws which nature hands down to man, and without which man cannot be rationally capable without some question against his reason and dent atop his manhood.

The nature of reform and change thus meticulously mastered, I go a step higher to humbly introduce them to any mortal, African or non-African, who dare to take and work, live and die for this maximally defiled and heartlessly exploited region of the world-Africa. We cease to yield to any pyramid of filths veiling as conditions that the African reformer must satisfy; our projections this day, now out do some ancient folly, or uncanny fraud to set in motion the inner vehicle that pursues the African future with vision, courage, wisdom, perseverance and kindness. The African self assertion and development is historically desecrated by the four hundred years of anti-freedom exercise symbolized by slavery, defiled by another hundred years of unjust and forceful foreign socio-economic, cultural and political domination (colonialism), and further marred by the increasing commitment of African leaders to lies, sabotage, visionless-ness and fraud which divert the natural rights of Africa from peace, prosperity and happiness. Through colonialism, vibrant African hopes, human and non-human, were forced aboard the ships to various harbors, banishing parents and societies to tears, incapacitating the endowed capacity of the black to greatness by truncating their germinating order and acrimoniously castigating their future with the sick sophistry that they are incapable of true civilization.

The colonial devils and thieves thrived in the destruction and stealing of all that was dear to Africans, enriching their empty empires (or what but an empty empire exploit and cheat other for fullness and fulfillment?) with the sweat of our fathers and increasing their hope on the preposterous promise of our own kidnapped hope.

Can any of their generically chaotic claims which explain Africa’s exaggerated incapacity for sanity and others be less than fallacious? Africans of the past, like their counterparts in Europe, America and Australia, were not just organized, they were a focused, progressive and prosperous region of planet earth. They had ambition, which they never sought to fulfill misanthropically against the development of others. They had expectations, but only within the confines of convictions which constituted their cultures. And if certain portion of these cultural convictions and practices were morally erroneous, errors were not the intentions of the upholders; with utmost faith in the superiority of what they held sacrosanct all African empires and regions had tackled the challenges of existence.

When one or a group of Africans saw fault in any given norm or tradition, he or they inspired required change through peace, through war, just like a Lincoln and Kennedy, or an England or France of the West would do. Africa loved the world more than any region of the world, going by the deep spirit of neighborliness and kindness they showed, even to their mortal adversaries. Except when strangers disregarded the demands of their ways of life, Africans hardly struck. In art, science, and politics, Africa can never be less gifted by God if not richer than any region of the world. All that today constitutes impossibility of doing domestic or industrial chores, of conquering deadly diseases, and of invoking the buried spirits of life in virtually dead or dying sectors of human endeavors the African practices, deeds and sayings stored the wonders of achieving.

Africa is a bustling barn of human and material resources. And like any other continent, her development was supposed to be from wild conjectures and errors to reality and perfection, which foreign vermin and home rust had discarded, vandalized and engulfed with flood-bringing rain. All writers and preachers who ever composed a sentence, or even formed a sermon against the realities of Africa for obscurantist or racist reasons must have their names wreathed in ungolden gold, in the museum of ignoble deeds in the world.

In “Wind of Change”, the speech Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of Great Britain delivered to the South African Parliament in 1960, it was recorded that, how fantastic Africa and Africans are, and all American Bill Clintons know too, that this earth is a piece of favor to our general world. Today, it seems slavery was merely changed to colonialism and colonialism operated in the garb-guise of imperialism. Whatever the fraud-label, the West seem to know how best to rubbish, cheat and exploit Africa!

Causes which wreck the rise of Africa are both internal and external, and the ruler, intellectual or activist who only talks about one without taking cognizance of the effects of the other is either myopic or fraudulent, or even both. The roles played by African leaders in the shipwreck of African hope is not less inhuman than the inhumanity exhibited as the ideal symbol of humanity towards Africa. Ranging from kerekou of Benin Republic who, besides foolishly accepting that his nation serve as dumping ground for toxic wastes from foreign companies for financial reason, freely looted the people’s treasury, Doe and Taylor of Liberia, Lansana Conte of Guinea, Mousa Traore of Mali, Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, Ousmane of Niger, Mobute of Zaire, Amin of Uganda, Santos of Angola, to Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, Obasanjo and Yaradua of Nigeria alone, more than one trillion dollars was stashed off the benefits of Africans in their different regimes and countries, between 1960 and 2007! Why not? What is wrong in caging Africans in the zoo of wild and irredeemable pauperism to satisfy African leaders’ beastliness, greed and shame? The loss above comes from their dishonest and uniform criminal instinct alone, in thousand folds would the theft and damage be, if calculated by the indices of their foolishness and arid plans! Or is it not the truth that there is no limit to the fortune sacrificially pursued vision of collective survival can bring? Who then thinks that what Africa might have forfeited in a voyage with her numerous captain Kids from time immemorial can be anything short of nine hundred trillion dollars if not more {definitely more!}?

More satanic feats can be recorded of African leaders in the areas of unjust jailing of truth’s advocates, Human Rights Activists, and government oppositions. They have maimed for hate and multiplied the rate of murder for greed. Who can adequately compute the figure lost in Nigeria from this variety if killings. And if, for refusing to exaggerate, history should record eight hundred thousand for Uganda, one million for Rwanda, one million for Liberia, six hundred thousand for Sierra-Leone, two hundred thousand for Ghana and two hundred thousand for South Africa! Whoever considers these figures overstated, let him or her give consideration to indirect death directly directed by governments’ dumb speeches and inadequate actions in the areas of food production and supply, health facilities and Africans’ education!

Oh my God(!), Africa has suffered more than suffering, for the punishment inflicted on brothers by brothers is the worst of all wickedness we know!

Some kitchen African scholars always institutionalize bias through fake foundations and extinction-bound books, announcing a one-sided revival for Africa by denigrating a party and patting the other with inferentially deliberate indifference which must be corrected if baked by limited thinking, and ridiculed if engendered by fraud. “Africa is poor because she is not free”, says George Ayittey of Ghana. But reason insists that “Africa is enthralled in viscious vassage because her influential scholars are gangsters, because her reformers are betrayers!” How can any seasoned scholar call just the African leaders the chemistry of African imbroglios while the daily impacts of foreign actions and inactions maim this region? Is it reasonable in any way, to also insist, for any reason, that external evils alone constitute the malaise generations of Africans had historically bewailed? Did the Africans of yesterday, just like the heroic Mao Mao of Kenya, not have the right to valiantly kick against any invasion with their blood and remained in history, like Ethiopia or Greece, a marvel and beauty to billions? Do the African leaders of today possess, or do they not have the right to commit all of their ambition and association to the development of Africa?

An ignoble merger of moral bareness and mental emptiness in native and foreign men-monsters and leaders who always parade themselves as African fore-runners and leaders is the assurance of Africa’s collective backward-speeding stagnancy and impotency; the perfidy and foolishness we know we host but which our perverse beast-sense spare in all of our spheres to form some poison-filled social spears that speedily pierce and harass our focus off the route of victory and hope.

Who is any fraudster and fool to dupe and drag the world backwardly down with the untrue belief that African leaders alone are Africa’s problems? In Africa and outside Africa lived the evil spirit of African perdition. Our focus then must take care of these sources. Let it seen in our action, let the world read it in our stories. In the weighty words of James Baldwin, “For while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There is not any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.” So let the musicians sing, let writers mount an irresistible attack and on bastards and quislings through our drawings, prose, poetry, of how natives and non-natives had vandalized the African hope. To attack a region of African enemies is not evil if the attacker does not hope to benefit from such blunder. To offer a sparsely shaft as criticism even if it frowns against all quarters, is to paste on our race, the stickers that auction her achievable revival. Mistakes may be made, but let not evil be disguised as blunders from those who advance the African cause as crusaders of African salvation. This ought not to, as well exclude how sincere Africans and non-Africans had labored for man to alter the squalid African plight to hope, to real bliss, and to endless laughter.

If the fifty-four independent political units of Africa were a dessert continent fraught with the fruits of fatal pains, and prominent with permanent incontinence in all the cheap bliss that life offers to un-resourceful and resources-scarce zones in earth’s geography, utterly penurious and practically loyal to the criminal communion applied by the dominion of winterish woes, still may be deadly, but ought not to seem so impossible as it now seems, to diagnose and know her existential ailments, and tow her out of her current structural and systemic abnormalities.

Let the African reformer extol the truth and bring to book in his analyses and in his actions the untruthful books and actions stated as modern models for African happiness. No matter who they are, these engineers of tears and clerks of politically juggernauted ambitions of shame, who are always optimistic of African death, the African reformer must double-cross and surpass, and endure all penalties to destroy and then, lure the wrong thinking masses to the clear coast of African hope!

Only one thing is sought as the virtue of the African reformer: a functional soul. With his working soul, the African reformer can know and hope for African good without any unjust injury to persons he must hurt and powers he must question, despise or attack. He may be a farmer, he may be a lawyer, the man with good soul alone, boasts the best wisdom and fortitude to advance the world to happier season through Africa. Is he a man whom Africa has reduced to shred and ghost, with no home and hope? He is the African Reformer if he has a working soul! Does he shuttle between pain and poverty despite his vast volume of paper-qualification as a literate or an instructed elite? For him the African woes have been reserved to combat. Let any man or woman with passion for African revival and renewal stand tall among others in kindness, morals, knowledge and courage; let him not enjoy any unjust patronage or pleasure, but let him never deny their beautiful benefits when they come to him through moral means, in the course of living like a man who he truly is. The sacrosanct conscience, which his positive principles represents, is the first and the final ritual of African reform.

The African reformer shall understand the African nature, master her structure and study her literature in absolute devotion and humility. Nothing about the African history, philosophy, culture and psychology is hidden to the versatile and fertile mind of this fantastic person. He does not guess whatever he is yet to learn about Africa. He must plunge his soul into the African soul to know the objectives of African hope and weigh these agenda with the normative standards for the universe, by the laws of nature, by the Soul of all souls.

The mortal who cannot afford to abandon the African native in poverty is the African reformer. At any degree, he must inspire greatness in all Africans he daily meets. At any rate, he must assist moral projects not necessarily emanating from him, but also, because he is infinitely good, belonging to his own heart. The African reformer is the angel whose actions liberate Africa from subjectivity and passivity. As a teacher he creates and sustains hope for the African children and youths; as a social worker, he is the hope of widows, orphans and the old. The African reformer may speak, may be silent, his purpose is louder than the means he uses, and whatever his calling is, he is who he is because Africa can be better in that field of existence which adores his mind and maintains his life.

His writing may be in English or French, German or Latin, but his focus is Africa. In his dreams, he sees and plans Africa. For Africa he can morally dishonor rulers and boldly call organizations to question. He may be wealthy, he may be poor, all of these he can use to avert the collective quietus of the black race. His love for Africa is borne out of his obsession for humanity, so he cannot profane other continents and peoples for Africa. For him, they are his family in other lands of God. He loves the truth and will not be fulfilled without bathing in its fine fluid. He cannot be a racist, the African reformer is a global moralist who seeks to redeem his African planet for the safety of every man’s humanity. For him, negritude, Africanism or pan-Africanism is a customized humanism for Africans whose sense of kindness towards the world finds application in native African situation. Against Africa’s happiness he can hate and love, only when nobility is trampled under the foot of any human devil or devilish group; for Africa’s greed he cannot lead, for his sane soul rings beyond the beauty any fraud can give. For him, every inhuman tradition is wickedness; every immoral culture an abomination constitutes to the true African reformer!

Africans and non Africans who cannot be moral, who cannot love fellow mortals, are his good enemies and the foes he vows to fight with his achievements and justice. The UN, the AU, ECOWAS, NEPAD, he may write, speak and act against if they falter, but the interest of the truth these humanely alloyed aims and commitments represent.

The African remormer is not the leader who liaises with foreigners to dupe Africa (A foreigner in this context is any person, group, company or nation, whose agenda imply disaster for Africa!). He is the father and believer of any theory or principle framed in appreciation of African humanity. The African reformers is not the popular scholar who forms several fora and foundations through which his partial approach and betrayal – portrayal of Africa glues reward, he is the conscientious radical who do not mind dying in hunger in the duty of preaching and preserving the truth about the African story. The African reformer is not the man who sufficiently displeased people’s plan for justice in honor of expedients, he is an ally of discontented global class who feel for, and boundlessly invest in the survival Africans.

The African reformer is the man excluded from the list of basic survival. She is the woman whose wealth is elusive hope; while the fake reformer is the foolish politician or criminal, or thieving expatriate thieving expatriate who wrap dishonesty in sincerity and act backwardness in the crucial cause of people’s happiness. The African reformer is the reformed man or woman whose inner beauty is transferred to the outer African premises. He or she cannot be distinguished or celebrated for nothing; his or her success he or she makes into an asset for all of African children; his or her inheritance in material context, is the invisible value of former children his elastic generosity has grown into manhood in every aspect of manhood. As a social scientist, his expertise in Political Science, Economics or Sociology he squanders on those with similar African ambition. As a guru in the humanities, he has not learnt language, literature, philosophy and others without theoretically and practically making it possible for others to do the same with full satisfaction in African aspiration.

As a scientist of whatever endeavor, he is worthy of his all because the purpose for which science is learnt and taught, the well-being of many he excels at fulfilling. All of his awards and honor, he spends on the rearing of greater geniuses. He cannot deserve any merit for himself; awards must be won, and not only dedicated with mere words of mouth accompanied by uproarious applause and clumsy songs, they must be seen at the work of uplifting goals the artist may have written or drawn or performed to lament their dearth or death. The African reformer writes, sings and draws, because these are the expression of the function of his immortal consciousness in original African reform. If he sweeps or tills the soil, or he cooks or mends our shoes, this same impulse makes his state wonderful and his status enviable if he exists for others. He must also act, and action is very fundamental, more needed and easily estimated than other means, and ought not to antagonize his secondary means.

The reformer whose life-ledger reflects some irreconcilable items to the general purpose he feigns or parades to the world must be solitude of good soul and heart. For his kind, millions had died in African history, buried in the bellies of vultures! For his kind, millions languish in the lonely cells of wretchedness, with no hope of survival! For his kind, brains had been squandered, who were doubly capable of helping the world from Africa. For his kind, statans had won elections and still nominated and rigged in favor of their allies to deepen our communal follies! For his kind, African schools, ideas, convictions and image cut the picture of inferiority and worse in the imagination of every vastly immoral non-Africans!

When the African reformer goes into an institution, his Samaformist perspectives rule over all biases and expedients; he acts to reform, not that which necessarily affects him or others, but that which is unjust and evil, regardless of the names and number of those it favors, irrespective of the investments and sacrifices of change. Reform is not carried out, only when the need for it kills and maims the people, it is easy when the reformer speaks and acts against anticipated obstructions that may style itself as evil capable of feeding on the comfort of man.

The African reformer may or may not plant people and places in the loamy soil of his agenda, but eternity is his destination {and is man not more favored in the agenda of a reformer who all bows for eternity?}. Even after the cycle, which produces and takes him back to nature has ceased, his essence, also the essence of those who once committed the self to earth’s, lingers and prospers more without interruption. Whatever his parents may have named him, or whatever he may have decided to bear, becomes the better half of that universal identity which breathes life into those mighty concepts and circumstances all exceptionally heard destroyables had initiated. Those he shall not, and can never see, but whose judgment of his life and living they have the freedom to pass, he unknowingly acts to favor. But the favor he hands down in preparation of the life’s stage for these troupe of coming actors, is not done in anticipation of reward; for every good is self-rewarding, and every evil possesses the worst agents acting against the most seducing forgiveness – application from any erring man.

He may be patronized, he may be persecuted for believing in the survival of one billion or more people, the Africans, but let him not patronize any filth even if stealthily; he may be invited for collaborations by other men, he should not give the clean bill of ethics to the filthy deeds of any Brutus or IBB, or OBJ because he is well-placed in his society, or because he appears noble in his relationship with Africa. The African reformer must be very wary: only towards him does the fattest generosity flow, and this generosity stems from the ambition of the misanthropists to buy him up, to enrich his soul with moral poverty which poisons his passion and truncates the work of African reconstruction. Does he wish to travel out of his country and the means escapes his reach? Let him not rely on the evil mercy of any Aso Rocker! Is he interested in furthering his education abroad and funds delay his plan? Let him not dupe any foreign institution with fake credit cards, let him always reject offers from all questionably Ayitteyish philanthropists. Is any immoral man the key to the level he must ascend? Let him shun the man and hope to ascend still with the key he gets from his love for the truth! How can the African reformer suffer because of what he cannot achieve through evil when what he can achieve through good shall humiliate every so-made achievement? Let the reformer aspire on our behalf, but let not his ambition bring us some bane.

The African reformer is a weakling if, due to fraud, he defers the foundation of the glory he may lay for Africa today. The African reformer is a thief, if born and bread in Africa, or in African natural cloth, thinks the vaunting of his elitist picture in the world is the peak of action that must be taken in redeeming Africa from her smiling foes. The African reformer is a bastard if any of the biases he once barked, whether or not he had a return for it, whether or not it harms any African, remains a yardstick fool-foreigners now use in measuring the African social outlook with. Is the man still the African reformer who can afford to help, but neglects the African person in evident need? Is the woman still an African reformer, who shamelessly sleeps with unscrupulous politicians to prove her self -perpetuating points? How can the man with no belief in all of mankind ethically live and adequately reform the stinking effects of African decay?

The African reformer is that constant human figure whose ideas and views of life are nobler than the region which gave him life. He considers the whole world his family. He scolds and corrects, not because it is expedient, but because it is right to do so. He cannot malevolently put other peoples and nations to the service of Africa, but other peoples and nations he cannot spare when these dupe eternal reason by excluding Africa, overtly or covertly, from the list of humans worthy of others’ respect and love, and qualified for survival and hope on earth. The African reformer is not moral because he is legitimate; he is legitimate because he is moral. He is an eternal moralist whom no pretty face subdues, the only prophet other prophets may inspire but cannot limit or control.

Poverty and pains shall be common in the experience of the African reformer, but these he must bear on behalf of man that the African humanity too could be happy and fulfilled. To cry or wail is the destiny of a man hindering the success of collective ruin; but this tears remains the noble fluid that flows to cleanse the people in the altar of utter wrecks. Honor he shall have, which he usually does not bargain for; wealth may be his, which accumulates from no dirty source, but his action is more honorable than any honor, let all men and institutions of his days traduce and underrate his stand and deeds!

The African reformer, when he speaks, criticizes or acts, guides himself with the moral weapon from eternal consciousness and currency which emboldens him to fault traditions and disregard norms erected on, and generously permeated with absurdities and abnormalities. The number of years these had spent, and the generation of men they had nurtured matter not to the African reformer who is armed with the convincing truth that something is wrong with the ways some things are being done in his Africa.

Is it just to honor some irrelevant chiefs and officials with the peasants’ sweat? Are human beings still being squandered before some inanimate spectacles the mis-directed instincts and creativity of man elevates to the status of deity? Do Christians and Moslems still insist only their ways lead man to the truth, neglecting other equally fine ways, shunning other beautiful truths God Himself inspired and sustained as considerations for eternity? What are the roles of gods in the salvation – story of Africa? Where were these gods when foreigners captivated their worshippers as slaves? Do some group of Africans, after spending centuries with others in a given geographical enclave still being viewed as strangers and second class citizens whose all increase that area’s wealth and happiness? Are Africans still being slaughtered like animals as tradition to accompany a king or a chief to the grave? Are men still being flogged at a ridiculous contest organized by culture to test their manliness as husbands before marriage when other variously sensible and humane ways exist to achieve similar objective? Do elders still consider themselves perfect and must not be kicked against even when they are morally wrong? Do African youths mistake literacy for indecency and happily disrespect elders and others? Is material wealth still held more valuable than values which give the African humanity and other mortals their value and worth in some African quarters? Do some other parameters, other than morality and magnanimity determine the beliefs and actions of Africans? These the soul of the African reformer must morally decide and boldly obey for the progress of Africa.

The fish offers itself for the fulfillment of its fellows, man maims his men to maneuver earth’s fortunes to his side. I do not like Mr. Angola, but I can combine the best in him as marginal energy required in getting to the human best. I once disagreed with Mr. And Mrs. Ivory Coast, but their great qualities refused to pay homage to bereavement. If I neglect the best man because of their ‘best’ weaknesses, the best dream will die and will be buried in the worst caskets and graves provided by the ‘best’ evil doers! Let us therefore, deal with one another based on what we can offer, not on what we wretchedly lack, upon our group strengths alone, not our scattered weaknesses can the promise of a great Africa be realized. And note that no individual, no organization, no single nation of Africa can boast, although may lead, the absolute possession of African vision. All who constitute Africa is as African as any African! The evil we can destroy must not main us, the tragedy we can prevent must not terminate the realization of an era for which the angels and the Creator had labored and lived! The African reformer must intelligently and vigilantly work with others in the strict business of African revival!

The final freedom of Africa requires the unflinching commitment the dutiful generations of daring Africans can give. Every region of this God’s world shall peak in glory, and together with others, decorate the earth’s stage for eternal agenda. We are not as hopeless as we think, only if we are as hopeful as we should be. Hope is the only unlimited, illimitable boundary in all of our miserable history. Reconstruction, which our past inactions and negligible actions enthrones, requires consistently informed action for realization. Whether or not our counsel is wise, let humanism and sincerity spell our ways. We must prove to posterity that we are dedicated fosterers of African humanity. The development of Africa without dishing disaster for others’ consumption, is the essence of African reform; and this the African reformer must study hard and sacrifice incalculably to ensure. Let the African reformer never love out of hate, but let him never hate to love all that reform morally and humanely warrants on African planet and beyond.

Remember, pressing necessity inspires change, just impetuosity and moral tenacity attain it. This impetuosity being the inner justice and the outer moral balance of the reformer whose consistency is the sustenance of true reform, the hope of man when the tides of time sweeps off the essence of current change. It involves poverty and pains to remain in the calling of reform, but the man to be used as reformer bears all traumas to fulfill his goal against global dilemma. Good soul, the African reformer must know, is the foundation of all moral principles, freeing freedom is its fruit. If you are not good, you cannot be free; if you are not completely free, you cannot inspire and lead the world to lasting reform.

(From the Authors book Immortal Instructions)