Tigania East’s retrograde cultural renegades

By Njoroge Kinuthia

It is strange what people can do in the name of defending cultures that have been clearly overtaken by time. Very strange news has been coming from Tigania East District of late.

A gang of young men has for instance been scouring Buuri sub-location, looking for younger men said to have undergone circumcision in hospital. That, to them, is a cardinal sin. Real men, according to these retrogrades, are those who are circumcised the traditional way.

Stabbed to death

The protectors of by-gone cultures have reportedly been threatening to re-circumcise boys while demanding liquor from their parents.

The gang is accused of stabbing a Form Three student who had undergone circumcision in hospital to death when he resisted its kidnap bid.

But it’s not only men who are obsessed with circumcision. Women too have been hunting for their uncircumcised peers, and circumcising them. Some suspects were arrested in Athanja sub-location. However, there is a widespread feeling that authorities are not doing enough to arrest more loose cannons.

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Have floods interred the Internet? 

Nancy Laura of Dam II Estate in Lang’ata is among 2,000 customers of Orange Kenya who have not had voice and data services in the area since Saturday.  Nancy and others paid Sh3,000 for home Internet, but are now forced to watch their money literally go down the drain.

“This is not the first time. There have been several cases in the past when I’ve lost data service for days,” Nancy tells PointBlank.

“Their (Orange’s) technicians seem to be from another planet. They take too long to address genuine customer complaints yet pre-paid users are their bread and butter.”

She says Orange told her on Saturday that the matter would be rectified, but by yesterday (Monday) nothing had been done and the data service was still unavailable. According to Orange, the problem was allegedly caused by floodwater leaking into one of the lines.

Nancy adds: “If you want a refund for the lost days of service, their procedure for claiming the same is very archaic, and involves snail mail-type paperwork that puts you off. I have been suffering silently.”

Laura’s Orange line is 0206003613.

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A nation of scandals and investigators

The circus that is the National Hospital Insurance Fund saga would be hilarious on any day, if it was not for the fact that the lives of Kenyans were on the line, according to advocate Gachiengo Gitau.

Unfortunately, the alleged actors, he says, have started to unpack their props and related paraphernalia, and the question at the moment is just who is going to probe the muck.

“This country has so many investigating agencies that I will not be surprised if soon, for every 100 Kenyans, one would be an investigator of sorts,” says Gitau. 

In the NHIF saga, for instance, Gitau says the following might scramble for a piece of the investigative pie — and a significant amount of the same taxpayers money that we want to protect: Efficiency Monitoring Unit, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the CID, one or two Committees of Parliament, Kenya National Audit Office and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Investigative bodies

An internal investigator at the troubled NHIF might also want to chip in. “With all these investigative bodies, why do we still have scandals in these country” he wonders.

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School gate or death trap?

A concerned parent wants to know whether the positioning of Moi Avenue primary school’s gate at a bus stop along the busy Moi Avenue and about 30m from a corner, is in order.

Mr A Siganda wants to know from the City Engineer and City Education Officer what considerations are made before deciding the location of a school gate. He is worried that the primary school’s gate is a potential death trap for children.

“In terms of safety and functionality, is this (gate) in order? I have a right to know,” asserts Siganda. Mr Siganda, obviously deserves an answer. He can be contacted on 0722724427.

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DON’T YOU FORGET

Did Olkejuado County Council finally wake up?

Some residents of Ongata Rongai wrote to PointBlank on March 26, claiming that Olkejuado County Council was in deep slumber and had neglected the area. For almost one year now, they said, motorists have had difficulties driving on the busy Magadi Road due to huge potholes, especially on the section around Ongata Rongai town.

The residents also alleged that in its slumber, the council had forgotten to construct culverts at the junctions of Magadi-Sololo and Magadi-Mage roads in Laiser Hill that they said serve schools, churches and a growing population. The residents also asked the council to do something about traffic jams in the town especially in the mornings and evenings and weekends. Did the council wake up from the purported deep slumber?