Politics is dirty; players shouldn’t make it dirtier

Politics is a dirty game, and Jubilee and CORD don’t have to make the Kenyan game dirtier. At least they are, if their conduct in the run up to the Makueni senatorial by-election scheduled for July 22, is anything to go by.

What they are engaging in is bad enough to deny Makueni residents the right representation at the Senate, and PointBlank considers their propaganda worth of a yellow if not red card from a fair referee.

Recently, Wiper a member party of CORD accused Jubilee of employing unorthodox measures to ‘lock out’ their candidate Kethi Kilonzo. And, a day after CORD publicly unveiled the candidate in a rally in Wote town, by coincidence or plan, Jubilee leaders now claim Kethi is not a registered voter in Kenya, she didn’t vote in March elections, and as such can’t contest the seat.

Before judging either side, Kethi is a prominent lawyer, who took part in the presidential election petition two months ago. She should know better to participate in elections even as an aspirant, you must be a voter. Or does Jubilee want to tell Kenyans this was the reason Kethi was reluctant to take up the challenge to reclaim the seat her father left vacant following his untimely death in April?

PointBlank wishes all parties in the race safe game with a fair referee. May the best win!

Kosirai DO doing business unusually

During this period of transition to devolved system of governance, a Mr Kemboi of Eldoret wonders to whom, between the Uasin Gishu County Commissioner Abdi Hassan and Governor Jackson Mandago, to recommend for investigation a DO he considers ‘rogue and unprofessional’ and whom he simply can’t understand his mode of operation. However, of course, Kemboi says, he won’t mind who acts first and convincingly to solve the problem.

Kemboi says, among his many complains about the conduct of Kosirai DO Yusuf Mohammed, is the manner in which he conducted an eviction of a woman involved in a domestic row with her husband, from the homestead.

He claims, “When a dispute arose between Mzee Kiptogom arap Lagat and his wife of 57 years, Mama Rael Lagat, 70, the DO disregarded prior caution on the matter, some involving his seniors, to evict the woman and her three sons from the homestead.”

According to Kemboi, the incident was “so ugly” that it almost caused breach of peace in the area. “I read arrogance, unprofessionalism and ineptitude in how the DO handled the matter.”

Kemboi also has another problem with this DO. He owns several businesses here and unjustifiably “uses his office and power to intimidate competitors to dominate the market. Doesn’t this amount to conflict of interest?”

Did police finally arrest highway robbers?  

Mr Haggai Aura wrote to PointBlank on November 6, 2012 saying  he had lost faith in the Police Service. Last year, Aura was attacked by criminals, along with 40 other bus passengers and robbed of  his effects, including a mobile phone. Most passengers too lost their money, phones, laptops, clothes among other valuables.  They reported the incident immediately, and even made follow-ups, but finally Aura gave up after he realised that the officers he was dealing with “were not interested in pursuing the gang”. And he had a good reason for making the conclusion. His stolen phone had a tracking function, which alerts him every time there is SIM-card change. “My phone circulates among seven users, which is the same number of gunmen who robbed us,” he said, wondering why police wouldn’t arrest them.

We manufactured the Chinedu saga

Mr Justin N Nkaranga from Mombasa claims the diplomatic row facing Nairobi and Lagos over the controversial deportation of Anthony Chinedu and two of his colleagues was a problem of our (Kenyans) own making.

“We should be ruled by law and not ‘orders from above’. The Chinedu deportation, just like the Artur brothers’, did not follow procedure. The perceived criminals should first have been tried in a court of law, convicted and made to serve jail terms here before deporting them,” he argues.

Nkaranga claims Kenya landed into the problem after officials blindly followed an ‘order from above’ without a thought on international law on deportation.