Palaver

Isn’t it ironical that William Ruto’s immediate former ministry won an award for sterling performance, but it was his successor that collected the trophy? Unfortunately, there was no similar ‘gesture’ from Dr Sally Kosgei’s former Ministry of Higher Education.

Reminds Palaver of Kibaki’s basking in the limelight after his ascent to power just when the handshakes of the Moi-brokered Sudan peace deal and Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government were being given.

Our snappa Stafford caught former ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu hitting the street in Nairobi on Tuesday. What he failed to ask the Solomonic lawyer of the infamous 2007 General Election was whether he was out and about searching for a voter’s card.

This man Yagnesh Devani. First he is reported to have fled to a neighbouring country across the ocean, then he jets in through Sharjah in UAE (they of the university degree fame). Upon landing at JKIA carrying seven passports like a gambler’s deck of cards, he interrupts us from our babbling on the Proposed Constitution because nobody knew whether he was the real thing or a ‘counterfeit’ Can the real Devani please stand up? There is still that small matter of some petrol that wafted into thin air.

Poor Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian leader, who just served 20 years in a US jail. He was quickly bundled into an Air France jet and extradited to France. His pleas to be spirited to Panama from where he was literally abducted by US agents fell on deaf ears as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed his ticket to Paris. Luckily, he was not bundled into the aircraft with a black hood over his head like they did the renditions during the George W Bush years. And after life in a French jail, he also faces a 20-year sentence at home imposed by a Panama court.

And finally...

Last Friday, the man who outsprints our cheetahs and adopts serious canines like lionesses, 23-year-old Usain Bolt, turned up at a Pennsylavania race track. The roar of appreciation was so deafening the 54,000-strong crowd had to be implored to remain silent long enough so the starter’s gun could be heard. Such greatness thrust at one so young.

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