Saturday 31 March 2018

Plan to sell three State-owned sugar mills hits a snag

Mr Henry Obwocha, Privatisation Commission chairman. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Mr Henry Obwocha, Privatisation Commission chairman. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By GERALD ANDAE
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Privatisation of government owned millers is in doubt after farmers and political leaders opposed the sale of three of the five factories.
Planters in Sony, Nzoia and Chemilil sugar zones have opposed the sale, demanding they get shares through respective county governments.
This could be a blow to the Privatisation Commission, which is rushing to sell the five millers ahead of conclusion of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) safeguards in February.
“So far Kisumu County has agreed to the sale of Miwani but there has been opposition in Nzoia, Sony and Chemelil,” said Henry Obwocha, the chairman of the Privatisation Commission.
Mr Obwocha says the commission will now start with Miwani as they try to settle emerging issues of the other factories.
“We did not want to sell all the factories at the same time as that would be hectic. We want to do it in bits,” he said in an interview. This implies the commission will in the meantime only be able to sell highly indebted factories that are not active in production such as Miwani (which owes creditors Sh28 billion) and Muhoroni (Sh27 billion) and are in receivership.
The Commission said last week that it will re-evaluate the assets of the five millers following calls by stakeholders for fresh audit.

Friday 30 March 2018

Dr. Robert Ouko begged for his dear life...

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On the morning of February 12, 1990, Dr. Ouko told his wife Christabel to travel to Nairobi by road and that he would join her by air the next day. In the evening of that day, Dr. Ouko entertained the company of sister Dorothy Randiak who had to check on the Minister.
After Dorothy had left, the Minister checked on his poultry. That day, he had received a brood of 500 chicks. Dr. Ouko was with his home servants, selina Were, the house maid; Zablon Agalo, the AP officer guarding home; and Philip Rodi, the farm manager.
Meanwhile, in Kisumu, Michael Owiti, the civilian driver of Nyanza PC, Julius Kobia, received an unusual assignment. He was called by his boss who instructed him to drive the PC’s white Mercedes to Sirikwa Hotel in Eldoret to pick some guests at the Hotel.
At Sirikwa Hotel, 3 people approached him,they identified themselves as the people that he had been sent to pick. They left Eldoret at 8.00 P.M. and drove to the PC’s residence where he found a fleet of top government officials .
At the PC’s residence, he saw Mr. Hezekiah Oyugi, Mr. Jonah Anguka, and Nicholas Biwott. There were five cars at the residence.
At around half past midnight, he (Michael Owiti ) was instructed to lead the party driving along Kisumu – Kericho Road. In his vehicle, he carried the PC and two of the guests he had picked at Sirikwa Hotel. They turned at a junction towards Muhoroni
At a certain point, they were instructed to put off their lights and wait for a signal for them to proceed. Near home of Dr. Ouko, all passengers alighted leaving the drivers alone and walked towards Dr.Ouko's home.
At around 2:00 AM, Selina Were, the housemaid, was awakened by a loud bang.
When she heard the first bang, she sat up on her bed, and then she heard three gunshots on the bedroom side of the Minister’s house. At first, she did not come out due to fear and because there was an armed guard in the compound.
She curiously and with fear peeped through her window, she saw Philip Rodi (farm manager) tiptoeing followed by men who were in green uniform moving towards the store. After a while, she saw Hezekiah Oyugi standing in front of her door. The security lights were on then.
There was no single vehicle in the homestead. After an hour or so, she came out of her house and went to the open visitors shed where she saw a white Mercedes Benz with dim lights turn at the lower main gate.
In the morning, Selina went to the bedroom and saw Dr. Ouko’s pyjamas on the bed and the window fastener broken. The spectacles of the Minister were on the table at the sitting room.
The Administration Police Constable tasked with guarding the Minister’s home, Zablon Agalo, claimed that on that night, he did not see anything, since he was guarding the cattle boma.
On his statement he said that at 2:30 AM that night, he saw Mr. Oyugi standing near Selina Were’s house, and Mr. Jonah Anguka was with him. Anguka who wore a blue suit with a tie was moving towards the cattle boma gate. He greeted him but Mr. Oyugi gestured him to keep quiet.
A short, stocky, black man was standing at the verandah of Dr. Ouko’s house hiding behind a pillar. Rodi confirmed later that the man who stood behind the pillar at the verandah was Nicholas Biwott in the statement he recorded to the Sunguh committee.
He also saw the white car that Selina had referred to and heard the loud bangs and gunshots. ( These shots were fired by Dr. Ouko at his abductors. Unfortunately, they cornered him and pinned him down before he could shoot any of them )
Michael Owiti, the civilian driver to PC Kobia confirmed the Minister was grabbed from his house by 3 guests he had picked in Eldoret. Once he was captured, they forced a gag into his mouth, tied his feet, handcuffed his hands behind his back, and dragged him to the vehicle.
Two of the guests and PC Julius Kobia entered the vehicle and instructed him to drive to State House Nakuru, a distance of 180 kilometers. At Kericho, the convoy stopped briefly to refuel. All this while, Dr. Ouko was struggling and groaning in the boot.
At State House Nakuru, they found gates open and all the 5 vehicles whizzed inside. All the passengers in the vehicles alighted and Dr. Ouko, who was now nose bleeding, was literally lifted from the vehicle into State House. They were in Nakuru until around 3.00 P.M of 13 Feb.
Inspector James Lando, an intelligence official in Nakuru whose duties included compiling intelligence from State House Nakuru, came across secret intelligence documents showing that Dr. Ouko was murdered in State House Nakuru.
According to the Inspector, Dr. Ouko was carried into state house, he begged for his life as his captors beat him up and slammed him against the walls. One of the men who had been hired broke a leg from a seat and used it to crash Ouko’s legs.
All the while, the Dr. was lying painfully on the floor begging and pleading. To finish it off, Biwott took a gun and shot him in the head.
Mr. Wajackoya, who was working at the ‘music room’ (phone tapping room), happened to have tapped and recorded a phone conversation between Daniel Moi and Nicholas Biwott on that day Ouko was killed.
In the conversation, Biwott confirmed to Moi that the problem of Ouko had been taken care of for good, and Daniel Moi thanked him (Biwott) for it.
Mr. Wajackoya handed over the tapes to the British Intelligence people in exchange for asylum.
On 13th February 1990, Dr. Ouko was scheduled to fly to the Gambia. His secretary and bodyguard were waiting for him in Nairobi.
In the afternoon he had not shown up, people at the ministry and at home started to raise eyebrows. His wife Christabel Ouko, who by that time was at Loresho, called Selina Were.
Unbeknownst to Christabel, at that very moment she was calling home to enquire on whereabouts of her husband, a Kenya Police helicopter was hovering over Got Alila Hills, just 6 kilometers from the Minister’s Koru home, carrying the lifeless body of the Minister.
It took less than 10 minutes to drop the body and arrange the few items, some of which had been gotten from the Minister’s home, with the help of Philip Rodi, the farm manager.

Elite GSU team escorted Miguna on Dubai flight

Miguna Miguna
This photo, shared by Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria, shows Dr Miguna Miguna preparing to disembark from the plane on landing in Dubai on March 29, 2018. PHOTO | COURTESY | FACEBOOK  

By ELVIS ONDIEKI
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By FRED MUKINDA
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Dr Miguna Miguna, the self-declared general of the National Resistance Movement, was bundled into a plane and dumped in Dubai by two officers from the elite General Service Unit on Wednesday night, the Nation has established.
The two officers, drawn from a squad that specialises in escorting deportees, sandwiched Dr Miguna during the five-hour journey from Nairobi to the United Arab Emirates.
And, while Dr Miguna claimed he had been drugged before being put on the Emirates plane, a senior security officer denied the claim.
The denial, however, did not subtract anything from Dr Miguna’s long nights of isolation, humiliation and sheer brutality as police tried to silence the controversial lawyer at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), where he was held for two days after refusing to sign immigration papers and have his Canadian passport stamped.
CITIZENSHIP
Deported in February, Dr Miguna claims Kenyan and Canadian citizenship, but the government says he renounced his Kenyan birth right when he acquired his Canadian passport.
Our reconstruction of the events leading to his second ejection from the country is obtained from the accounts of a human rights activist who spent more than five hours with Dr Miguna, Dr Miguna himself, and an immigration official.
Mr Kamanda Mucheke, the principal human rights officer at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), was the only civilian granted access to Dr Miguna on the day he was deported, and says police officers pounced on the opposition activist after he left to buy him food at 8.30pm on Wednesday.
Before that, he said, all seemed calm, although there was no sign that Dr Miguna would be released from a “very hot and stuffy” toilet meant for the disabled that was his cell at JKIA for more than 24 hours.
POLICE BRUTALITY
It was while he was at a café within the terminus waiting for the food to be packed that events started unfolding.
The first was a frantic run by lawyers Nelson Havi and Julie Soweto towards the café.
“They were in panic,” Mr Mucheke said. “They had been beaten and wanted to quickly exit the airport because GSU officers were pursuing them.”
Sensing danger, Mr Mucheke ran towards his car but before he could get in, Dr Miguna called him in distress.
"They are killing me," he told me. "Please come quickly and inform everyone."
But the phone was abruptly switched off. He rushed back to Terminal 2, where Mr Miguna was being held, only to be confronted by more than 100 GSU officers “armed to the teeth”.
EMIRATES
Unable to access Dr Miguna, Mr Mucheke retreated to his car and called his supervisor, KNCHR chairperson Kagwiria Mbogori.
He left the airport a few minutes past midnight.
About an hour earlier, at 10.58pm, pro-Jubilee blogger Pauline Njoroge, who last December got a Head of State commendation, had tweeted that the lawyer had “made himself comfortable on seat 45J” of the Emirates plane to Dubai.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria also took to his Facebook page at 11.23pm to announce that Dr Miguna was on the same flight as him.
Airport data indicates that the plane left Nairobi at 11.19pm on Wednesday.
DETAINED
Mr Jimmy Edwin Nyikuli, a legal officer in the investigations and prosecution section of the Immigration Department, said in an affidavit filed in the High Court in Nairobi that Dr Miguna could only be deported on an Emirates flight since that had been his carrier when he landed in Kenya on Monday.
“He was declared an undocumented person and the Emirates compelled to return him to his country of last embarkation,” Mr Nyikuli, who also denied that Dr Miguna had been held incommunicado in a toilet at JKIA, said.
Dr Miguna says about 50 “heavily armed thugs” led by a uniformed policeman who had commanded them on Monday “violently broke into the toilet I had been detained incommunicado in at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport” on Wednesday night.
“They didn’t identify themselves and wrestled me to the ground, held onto and sat on me as a group of four different thugs injected substances to both my soles, arms, hands, both sides of my ribs and basically all over my body until I passed out,” he wrote on his Facebook account on Thursday.
POLICE OFFICER
After they landed in Dubai, he asked the person seated next to him where they were, and he was duly informed.
He says the stranger looked like a “Flying Squad police officer”.
He said he had pains in his chest, left wrist, right elbow and feet, and checked into hospital in the country.
KNCHR, which has been following up on the Miguna case because of a court order and will be filing a report in court, also said it was disappointed by some of the lawyer’s decisions.
“I was disappointed with Dr Miguna because the court order had allowed him to use his Canadian passport to gain entry into the country,” Ms Mbogori, the KNCHR chair, said.
“I had expected him at least to use it to gain entry into the country, and his refusal boggled us. There were some missteps on both sides.”
PASSPORT
The Department of Immigration had on Tuesday issued application papers to Miguna to enable him start the process of enabling him regain his Kenyan citizenship as ordered by the courts, and to also facilitate his entry into the country after he refused to produce the Canadian passport he had used to travel back to Kenya.
But when the application documents were delivered to him in the presence of the Consular Officer of the Canadian High Commission to Kenya, Ms Fiona Jarvis, Mr Miguna refused to fill in the relevant details and sign the forms. Instead, he tore the official documents and was denied entry.

‘Mine Boy’ writer Peter Abrahams found dead in Jamaica

21.January 2017.
IN SUMMARY
  • The newspaper said Abrahams had experienced at least five break-ins at his home in four months in 2016, which resulted in an alarm system being installed.
  • Mine Boy, which was a literature set book in Kenya in the 1990s, is considered the first African novel written in English to attract international attention.
Peter Abrahams, a South African-born Jamaican novelist, journalist and political commentator most popularly known in Kenya for his novel, Mine Boy, was found dead at his home in the Caribbean island nation on Wednesday, the Jamaican daily The Gleaner reported.
According to the newspaper, police reports said the 97-year-old was found dead in his remote Red Hills, St Andrew home in a pool of blood and investigators were uncertain about the cause of his death.
“They (police investigators) don’t have any reasons to suspect foul play, but they are not ruling out anything at the moment,” Superintendent Stephanie Lindsay, the head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force Corporate Communications Unit, told The Gleaner.
“Blood was found at the scene, but based on what the investigators are saying, there is a possibility he could have fallen from the wheelchair, but there is a lot of blood at the scene.”
The newspaper said Abrahams had experienced at least five break-ins at his home in four months in 2016, which resulted in an alarm system being installed.
Mine Boy, which was a literature set book in Kenya in the 1990s, is considered the first African novel written in English to attract international attention.
The book follows the life of miner Xuma and his humanitarian act of defiance against white brutality.
It highlights labour discrimination and appalling housing conditions in South Africa, exposing the conditions of blacks under white regime in the country. It was published in 1946.

Update:Dr Miguna Miguna

I understand that someone is spreading a malicious rumour that I am “headed to Canada right now.”
False!
I’m at the Dubai International Airport, waiting for the Kenyan judiciary to ENFORCE and EXECUTE their numerous orders in my favour.
This is a golden opportunity for the Kenyan judiciary to demonstrate its commitment to its independence, its authority, the rule of law and the principles of constitutionalism.
Judicial actions that fail to bring those in defiance of court orders to account undermine and subvert the judiciary, rule of law and democracy.
The High Court has ordered several rogue state agents to deliver a valid Kenyan passport to me; facilitate my return to Kenya; release me from illegal detention; and to respect my rights.
Each order has been flagrantly disobeyed by those directed to obey them.
This is the time to end this obnoxious culture of impunity by the usurpers of power.
Dr. Miguna Miguna
Dubai International Airport
March 30, 2018, posted 1hour ago

Thursday 29 March 2018

Botswana’s president leaves power 18 months before end of term

March 29, 2018
Botswana’s President Ian Khama has wrapped up a nationwide “farewell tour” as he prepares to step down on Saturday after a decade in power.
The 65- year-old who has ruled the world’s second-biggest diamond producer will be replaced by his deputy, Mokgweetsi Masisi, until next year’s elections.
He is stepping down 18 months before the country’s next election is due.
Khama visited all of Botswana’s 57 constituencies in a tour that began in December, to bid farewell to his supporters.
While on his last stop in his ancestral village, the president rejected pleas to remain in office, saying he only took office because his predecessor Festus Mogae persuaded him to do so, AFP reports.
“I was a soldier, I didn’t have interest to join politics, I had future plans, away from politics,” he told the crowd of thousands.
Khama’s replacement, Mokgweetsi Masisi is a trained teacher and worked as an education project officer for the United Nations Children’s Fund for eight years before quitting in 2003 to enter politics.
He was appointed assistant minister for presidential affairs and public administration after being elected as a lawmaker in October 2009 and given the same ministerial portfolio in 2011.
Khama named Masisi minister of education and skills development in 2014, a portfolio he retained when he became vice president that year.
Botswana law limits the president to serving two five-year terms, and provides for the vice president to automatically fill the post should it become vacant.
The National Assembly will elect a new president after the elections scheduled for October next year.
SOURCE BBC Bloomberg

Godec responds after President Trump replaced him

Outgoing US ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec on Thursday welcomed the decision by his boss in the White House, Donald Trump, to recall him.

Mr Godec in a STATEMENT TO THE PRESS, said that one of his great privileges has been serving in Kenya as the U.S. envoy, which he says has helped him to deepen the "special partnership between the United States and Kenya."
“After more than five years in the position, I welcome President Donald J. Trump’s nomination of Illinois State Senator Kyle McCarter to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Kenya. 
“While the U.S. Senate considers Senator McCarter’s nomination, the U.S. Embassy team and I will continue to advance our shared U.S.-Kenyan goals and prepare for a smooth transition,” he said in a notice.
Statement from Ambassador Robert F. Godec
March 29, 2018

One of the great privileges of my life has been to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya and to help deepen the special partnership between the United States and Kenya.  After more than five years in the position, I welcome President Donald J. Trump’s nomination of Illinois State Senator Kyle McCarter to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Kenya.  While the U.S. Senate considers Senator McCarter’s nomination, the U.S. Embassy team and I will continue to advance our shared U.S.-Kenyan goals and prepare for a smooth transition.
Together, the United States and Kenya have woven an extraordinary tapestry of ties.  During my time here, we have made progress in health care, education, agriculture, trade, investment, security, governance, and many other areas.  To cite just three advances: we have put books in the hands of every early primary school child in Kenya; every day we help keep a million HIV-positive Kenyans healthy with anti-retroviral treatment; and, we welcomed to Kenya a sitting U.S. President for the first time.
Kenya holds a special place in my heart.  I offer a warm “Asanteni Sana to the Kenyan government, Kenyan people, and my Embassy colleagues for their extraordinary friendship and collaboration over the years.

Court suspends Kinyua's directive to scrap CEOs' retirement age

Joseph Kinyua.
State House Chief of Staff Joseph Kinyua. A court has suspended a directive he issued exempting parastatal chiefs from the mandatory retirement age of 60 years. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

By SAM KIPLAGAT
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The Employment and Labour Relations Court has suspended a directive by Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua, which scrapped the mandatory retirement age of parastatal chiefs.
Justice Onesmus Mutua on Tuesday issued a temporary injunction, prohibiting chief executive officers of state corporations from implementing the circular issued on February 28.
LEGALITY
The judge also certified the case urgent.
He directed Mr Okiya Omtatah to serve the Attorney-General with the court documents by the close of business on Wednesday.
In the case Mr Omtatah is seeking to determine the legality of the circular issued by Mr Kinyua, exempting CEOs of state corporations from the mandatory retirement age of 60 years.
The circular also said the CEOs can serve more than two terms.
Mr Omtatah also wants the court to determine the designation of Mr Kinyua as the Head of the Public Service.
In a circular dated February 27, titled “Terms of service for state corporations chief executive officers”, and addressed to all Cabinet secretaries, the Attorney-General, and all principal secretaries, Mr Kinyua exempted the said CEOs from the mandatory retirement age of 60 years and from the six-year term limit.
But according to Mr Omtatah, the office of the Head of the Public Service does not exist in law and only existed under the old Constitution.
MANDATE
He said Mr Kinyua, who is also the State House Chief of Staff, was handpicked by the President Kenyatta to serve on his private staff and was not vetted by Parliament.
In the circumstances, therefore, he cannot superintend the public service, outside the President’s private staff, he argued.
“He has no powers over principal secretaries or authorised officers, or in any way whatsoever, to take over, control, or to direct the functions and operations of the Public Service Commission,” Mr Omtatah said.
He said Mr Kinyua’s designation as Head of the Public Service is irregular as it undermines the mandate and authority of the PSC.
He accuses Mr Kinyua of usurping the powers and mandate of the PSC.
“The petitioner is aggrieved that the 1st respondent has given himself powers and a mandate unknown in law as the occupant of the non-existent office of the Head of the Public Service, and has issued a statutory instrument purporting to amend existing subsidiary legislations on the mandatory retirement age,” Mr Omtatah said.

Briefing from Dr. Miguna Miguna himself from Dubai - 29.03.2018 (via Facebook)

For immediate release
By Dr. Miguna Miguna
Arrivals section, Dubai International Airport
I’m sore. I’m exhausted. I’m feeling ill. But my spirit is strong. My mind is focused like a laser beam. My determination is iron-clad.
Fear isn’t part of my DNA!
The struggle against police brutality, social injustice, electoral fraud, looting of public resources and elite conspiracies must continue.
We must defend the rule of law, constitution and our nascent democracy.
We must tell the despotic duo - Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, together with their surrogatic minions - that power belongs to the people.
Weapons the despots wield and use against the people demonstrate their cowardice and desperation; not genuine power.
It’s more than 13 hours since I was violently dumped at the Dubai following my assault, drugging and being placed in Emirates Air unconscious.
So far, Air Emirates has refused to return me to Nairobi. It argues that the illegitimate Uhuru Kenyatta government has threatened to deny them landing rights if they fly with me to Nairobi.
Emirates Air has also claimed that it was forced to carry me unconscious with no travel documents because the “state had refused to allow them permission to leave.”
In other words, Emirates Air is claiming that it was forced to commit the serious crime of carrying an unconscious passenger who hadn’t purchased a ticket with them, hadn’t been processed through immigration and customs and had been brought to them in an unconscious condition by heavily armed thugs.
There is absolutely no justification for that kind of inhuman treatment and violence against an unarmed man.
I have read reports that Governor Joho and other ODM members of parliament had visited me here today.
That’s a blatant falsehood.
I have neither seen nor received a call from any ODM leader since I was violently assaulted, drugged and dumped here!
Finally, I am appealing to the Kenyan youth and other patriots to come out in the streets of Kenya in huge numbers and demonstrate their abhorrence at the ruthlessness of the thugs in power and in order to expose the hypocrites who have previously pretended to be vocal over human rights abuses but have suddenly gone mute.
Some of those hypocritical NGO mandarins shamelessly toasted and dinned with the agents of the brutal state at high end hotels yesterday as I was held incommunicado, physically tortured, drugged and forced flown out to Dubai against my will.
It is me today. But tomorrow, it might be some of those silent NGO activists, hypocritical commentators and cynical and duplicitous politicians.
This is the time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
We must fight together as patriots and defeat the despots.
Viva!

Dubai to redeport Miguna back to Nairobi

UAE Foreign Affairs Secretary Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has temporary cancelled all flights from Nairobi to Dubai and fro.
Sheik has further ordered Miguna Miguna to be deported back to Nairobi by the same flight that took him to Dubai.
In a tough letter seen by Aljazeera Zayed has further directed Kenya’s Ambassador to Dubai to appear in his office today at 11am.
Miguna has since refused to be taken to a London flight by the Dubai airport authorities.
More to follow


Wednesday 28 March 2018

Kenya deports Miguna Miguna, again



IN SUMMARY
Miguna Miguna
  • One of his lawyers, Mr Nelson Havi, confirmed that Dr Miguna was taken out of Kenya via a Dubai-bound EK722 flight.
  • Lawyer Cliff Ombeta, who also represented Dr Miguna, confirmed that his client was deported via EK722 to Dubai.
  • He alleged that Dr Miguna “was sedated, handcuffed and taken away”.
  • Dr Miguna Miguna's court that was allegedly torn as police roughed him up. PHOTO | COURTESY.
  • Miguna MigunaLawyer Miguna Miguna has been deported, again, despite a court order directing the government to release him from detention at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi.
    The fiery lawyer and National Super Alliance (Nasa) activist was ejected on Wednesday evening after spending more than 72 hours in a tiny room he described as a “toilet” near Terminal 2.
    ATTACKED
    One of his lawyers, Mr Nelson Havi, said Dr Miguna was taken out of Kenya via a Dubai-bound EK722 flight.
    Lawyer Cliff Ombeta, who also represented Dr Miguna, confirmed that his client was deported to Dubai.
    He alleged that Dr Miguna “was sedated, handcuffed and taken away”.