There’s no place to be a big shot like Kenya, and nothing announces that a big shot has arrived, like a homecoming party does.

Our music was, allegedly, once so good. Older Kenyans with access to dog-eared copies of Viva and related Kenyan pop magazines from the 70s and 80s have nostalgic memories of a better

Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, is not a very decisive man. Back in June 2012, President Kiir ‘discovered’ (that’s the word used by his office) that 75 senior government officials had stolen more than US $ 4 billion from State coffers.

Irish politicians are still shaking in their boots. Ten days ago, a historic vote was held on the Emerald Isle, with just one question: Whether or not the Irish voter wanted to abolish the Upper House — senate, of their parliament. Due to poor weather, turnout at the referendum was not so high — just 40 per cent of eligible voters showed up to cast their ballots.

Our judiciary, it seems, is one long, fat, overfed group of worthies all gorging themselves on an unending gravy train.

There are times when this country unites fervently in the face of adversity, and this was on display ten days ago when terrorists attacked the Westgate Mall.

It’s rough being an imbiber in Kenya these days. For a country that is supposedly liberal and a free-market economy, the powers that be have a decidedly frosty relationship with alcohol, that elixir of all time.

We are fast running out of things to tax, but the government is blind to the most obvious of all — the air we breathe.

The International Criminal Court is all over the news, for obvious reasons. All news organisations in the land seem to have abandoned their common sense and decamped to cold, faraway Europe to cover trials at The Hague. This is a shame, because there is so much more to cover right here at home. For one, there is the Kenya Marriage Bill, a draconian piece of legislation and a danger for every man anywhere within the borders of this lovely republic. It seeks to replace the Marriage Act of 2008, which was not a bad law, all considered.

The apple never falls far from the tree. Just like Kenyan men make promises and then never act on them, President Barack Obama is following the script of his blood — like any other Kenyan politician — very faithfully. He is shillyshallying and pussy-footing on Syria, when what is required is not prevaricating, but resolve and action.

African elders were traditionally fountains of sagacity, wise old heads that could be relied upon to fly into calm in times of crisis, and dispense valuable counsel to the hotheads that made up the younger bits of the population.

As if expelling Banyarwanda was not enough, Tanzania has been in focus the last few months for some decidedly anti-integrationist statements and actions.

Kenyans love demonising Tanzania’s well-documented aversion to closer integration within the East African Community. In playing this spoiler role, Tanzania might not know that it, in fact, is doing exactly what the rest of the EAC — especially Kenya — wants. The rhetoric aside, we are just as bad at regional integration as the Tanzanians!

The first thing visitors notice when they land in a Banana Republic is the stench. It is pervasive and overpowering, and the cause soon becomes clear — mountain upon mountain of putrid, rotting garbage, mostly strewn by the roadside. Scrawny cows belonging to one or other pastoralist, nomadic tribe — unwilling or unable to make the break into the 20th century, let alone the 21st — graze forlornly on the garbage. They eat everything from plastic bags to moulding scraps of discarded human food. The cows are not alone. Feral goats and mangy dogs are everywhere, and scavenging crows strut about on the garbage as if it is their own territory.

If the news is to be believed, we are fast running out of wild animals to gawk at. The number of elephants being butchered daily is so high. Conservationists say that we might soon be back to the 1980s levels of rampant ivory smuggling and decimated herds.

Faced with a creeping irrelevance, the CORD coalition appears to have chanced upon a masterstroke; the simmering and now nearly-boiling tiff between governors on the one hand, and central government on the other, over devolution.

Kenyan legislators and government executives are astonishing. Their ability to unerringly set very low performance bars — and then fail to beat them — is legendary. But even by our bottom-feeding standards, the recent kerfuffle over governors flying national flags on their cars is a new low.

Nairobi is not very conducive to African existence around now. The sun — which usually has a pretty decent relationship with Kenya — is on strike. Maybe it is on a go-slow due to salary issue, who knows?

“No stone will be left unturned”, we were told yet again, as investigations into the causes of the fire that gutted the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) nearly two weeks ago began.