Palaver

So John Michuki’s choice for Team Central in 2012 Uhuru Kenyatta was conceived in present-day Kenyatta House in Samburu’s Maralal town. Seems prison reforms did not start with the Madoka Report recommendations of yesteryear.

Turns out conjugal rights for prisoners were already a reality in far-off 1961. When were they scrapped and by whom? Inmates of Kamiti, Naivasha, Kodiaga and other jails may not afterall be chasing after the wind if they keep claiming the Bill of Rights allows them some quality time as they serve time to repay their ‘debt to society’.

In Baringo County there is an unending row over the location of the county headquarters. The battle is between Kabarnet and Marigat, but in Kisii, it is about ‘professionals’ hijacking discussion on the county business from politicians and grassroots representatives. At the Coast, Ramadhan Seif Kajembe has already decided the position he wants and even his mayor of choice. What great reading this county stuff makes.

Why won’t Prime Minister Raila Odinga instruct his colleagues at the House Business Committee to bring a Motion to discuss and impress the House on the need to scrap the quota system that is ethnicising our schools and turning them into mini-villages? Mere rhetoric from the Number Two figure in the coalition is not enough. National cohesion means children from all tribes mix and learn together. Schools must remain centres of learning and growth, not the death traps they are becoming.

Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere hit the ground running, with vigour and a resolve to clear our roads of decrepit junks and lunatics. And that was even before the President lent him a hand yesterday. But returning to the matter of disaster prevention, can someone at rudderless Kenya Bureau of Standards invoke some higher authority and seriously re-evaluate the new ferries’ safety threshhold.