Palaver - 03/09/2010

Palaver

Even rumours need to be anchored on reality, but not so with fatal calls from strange numbers. In Machakos the rumour was that at least 27 people died after receiving calls from 'unknown' numbers flashed red. But no one could tell who the dead were, and there were no reports from their friends and relatives. And no one could claim to have seen the bodies. In Migori six people were said to have died, but no one had seen the bodies and no police station or hospital confirmed the deaths. The losers in the out of season hoax have been mobile telephony service providers. Palaver now understands the potential commercial cost of rumours.

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Staying with phones: It seems Kenyans indeed have peculiar mobile phones etiquette, after all. A hoax that you should not receive calls from strange numbers had rumours that the numbers on the screen were red. Now, all numbers appear in black on our phones, but some had believed the trick and feared taking calls. Palaver also thinks the cheeky fellow who started the prank has won after all the attention the trick has aroused from the CCK, ordinary Kenyans, and Information and Communication Minister Samuel Poghisio.

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Palaver has been contemplating hiring Paul the Octopus to explain how North Eastern Province recorded the highest population increase in a decade despite the region having the highest child mortality rate. That was before Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya came up with a scientific explanation for the surge in numbers. The good minister said elderly members of the community filled in the questionnaires, and in the process inflated numbers. But this also beats logic. Haven’t we been told majority of these oldies are illiterate? And then again, if that age group are the minority in any given region, how come they inflated the numbers to over a million? Is it possible one elderly man wrote (illiterately) that his household had, let’s say, 500 human beings? Palaver is more confused than ever.

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And still on matters population, Palaver thinks it is time men from Central Province called for compulsory paternity tests in every family. Just recently, women in the province have been crying foul, saying alcohol had turned their men into zombies. They have complained their men only drink and have lost any interest in the matrimonial bed.

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