Palaver

Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka’s stylish arrival at Nyayo Stadium for Kenyatta Day, on Tuesday capped a week of early campaigns for 2012 and alliance seeking, to the extent of saying he will be the first in a Kalonzo-Uhuru-Saitoti line-up.

 He arrived at the stadium to find the professor seated. He walked up to the former VP and talked, and talked. Wasn’t Saitoti a VP when Steve was still a junior minister and party hawk? Oh, how time flies, things change!

Of the Kiambu building, like all the others before it, the rescue was left to the public using bare hands to reach the 37 people under the debris. The Israelis taught us: One, drill walls and pump in oxygen. Two, use special equipment and dogs to locate survivors. Finally, get drawings of the building and ask survivors to pinpoint where others could be. But from Sidindi to Sachang’wan, to 1998 bomb blast, we have learned nothing. What a shame!

So Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s failed to get a retired African president meeting its criteria for winning the annual Sh375 million award? The finalists were Thabo Mbeki (right) of South Africa and John Kufuor, the former Ghanaian leader. Pundits believe Mbeki was let down by his abuse of office bid to block his successor and his weird beliefs on HIV and Aids. He is said to have had untoward business deals with some Kuwaitis who now want to auction his property. Mo probably did not want to extend money to some funny debt repayment or to a benign dictator.

A provincial administrator in Nairobi answers what he calls persistent questions on Mt Kenya and the presidency. He says after Jomo Kenyatta and Mwai Kibaki, who between them will in 2012 would have ruled Kenya for 25 of its 49 years of independence, there is no doubt Central Province will again be at the steering wheel. But he quickly says the the region will decide to ‘rule’ through Kalonzo Musyoka.

And finally...

Some politicians are shrewd, and whereas those in Kenya believe bribing journalists is the easiest way to kill a negative story. Not so Mrs Hillary Clinton. She says write-ups about her hairstyle could constitute a PhD thesis and her strategy: "If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle."

A hair-raising tale indeed!

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