Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit-What Nairobi Needs Like Yesterday !

For the past two weeks Nairobians have been bogged down by heavy traffic  Jams especially on the main feeder road; Mombasa Road and Uhuru Highway. I have been a strong proponent on the need for an efficient and reliable public transport system that can by necessity replace the usage of personal cars within the CBD. Rather than heavily invest on Roads the priority should have been rail and trams that operate on predetermined schedules as is the case in many developed Countries that use subways and Metro's complemented by trams.

The economic, environmental and social benefits of non motorized  systems cannot be underscored. With less cars on the road there will be less pollution,less time wastage, certainty in movement of goods and people.At the same time if the Rapid transport Rail system is implemented on a national scale it will be easier for the large scale movement of unemployed labor force to arrears where seasonal economic opportunities may arise such as tea picking.When it comes to security movement of persons and can be easily monitored on the track system as compared to the Matatu and public vehicle system.I always wonder why our economists and leadership have not given enough focus on such systems instead of investing in capital intensive road systems that have heavy recurrent maintenance cost and punitive carbon foot print levels .


Well Kenya can take a cue from the Addis Ababa Electrified  Light Rail Transit (LRT)system that was initiated in 2011 and is now on trial test runs only 4 years later.

Many Kenyans would prefer such a system rather than be engrossed in traffic always for 3-4 hours.

This is certainly do able in Kenya and has been long in coming. Unfortunately projects of this magnitude are always mired with corruption , however the Government that will accomplish this will certainly score points and leave an unmatched legacy. It is therefore a priority for the Government of the day to ensure that their plans to introduce such a system achieves 100 % fulfillment at least cost to the taxpayer.


With such rapid transportation system who will bog themselves down driving in traffic? We certainly can do this and it should have been done like yesterday.Putting drums on round-a bout's Nairobi Governor Mr Kidero certainly was not a wise idea .It was like using Elastoplast to patch together a broken metallic piece. Nairobi's perennial traffic jam issues need long term solutions and strategic plans not little thought out knee-jerk reactions. If its not broken dont fix it- let it be until you can upgrade..Mr Governor and your team...visit our next door Ethiopia and learn from them.

Nairobi Hawkers City Riots:Rethinking Strategies!

A woman's life was snuffed out in yesterdays June 3, 2009 Nairobi City riots between hawkers ,the Kenya Police and Nairobi City Council Askaris. Unfortunately this is not the first time that an innocent person has died by a stray bullet due to the frequent riots by hawkers determined to continue selling their wares in the Central Business District streets! Its hardly a month when a Ministry of finance driver and a shop steward were shot in such circumstances.(PHOTO :Courtesy of DailyNation)

My take on the issue is that the Police need to re think their strategies in dealing with riots .I witnessed the whole incident from the confines of my office in Moi Avenue and can confidently say that the police exercised a lot of restraint and hardly shot directly at the rioters cum thugs who went robbing passersby and vehicles ! I believe that the Police should employ the itchy water cannons,fortified riot trucks, placed marksmen atop buildings with rubber bullets/pellets,anvil technique etc. Most certainly i am not a security expert but firmly believe that tear gas and shooting at the mob with live bullets is not helping in any way save for killing innocent civilians.Often the Police are repulsed or run out of tear gas forcing them to retreat! It is indeed a shame that following the post election violence the police force is still resorting to past methods that were ill effective.

Brigadier Ali please send you officers to South Africa or else where for riot and crowd management training and make sure they implement the training. There are modern crime management techniques which can be employed, there is indeed no need to re invent the wheel.At the same time i believe each Police station should be equipped with one modern optimum computer with more than 500 Gigabyte disk space and a digital camera. Every person arrested should be taken photos ,profiled and indexed in the Stations database which can be networked to a central database. What this will accomplish is the indexing of repeat offenders , their particulars, movement and location.The world moved forward with technology almost 25 years ago.Kenya Police should too and it doesn't need to cost much. A good computer is less than Kshs 50,000 and a camera is Kshs 15,000/= is that too much to ask...?

( here is a copy of the riot news report video)

Electoral Violence Reaches A Notch Higher!

Tis sad to see a flare of violence with women especially being the target.It is indeed regretable to see politically instigated ,ethnic oriented violence continue to rock the country(Kuresoi,Mount Elgon..etc) especially when the election is hardly a month a way.It was hoped that some thinks would be left in the past but it seems the trend still continues with "fuata nyayo "and the new Kazi euphemism.There simply must be a stop to certain things such as clashes and coruption! It is especially sad to see that politicians caught transporting arms intended for violence get released after a white washing stint of questioning!

When will man stop dominating man to his own injury!We sincerely condole the family of the late Alice Onduto a lugari politician brutally murdered on Saturday by uknown assailants.
Violence begets violence and the innocent women,children ...etc suffer.Lets sincerely stand up against any sort of violence especially against women and may the Kenya Police prove their commitment to protect and serve without favour or bias!

Nairobi-City Within A Market

When the Narc Government took power in 2002 an all out campaign to rid Nairobi city off hawkers was commenced with great vigor and determination by both civic authorities and the Kenya Police. For a most part of the Kibaki administration the city was a glowing gem with the presence of albeit few to almost no hawkers. Security and movement of citizens was at a prime and the beauty of the city was restored. That has changed drastically!

For the past two weeks from around four p.m in the evening, masses of hawkers like a plague of locust have thronged the city streets bringing human traffic almost to a stand still due to the overcrowding. The city can aptly be said to a city within a market! With the prelude to elections on December 27th 2007, a sinister attempt has been made to bribe hawkers for their votes. With a former Nairobi mayor eluding that allowing hawker’s back to the street is a ploy to garner votes.

As a parent I am concerned with the kind of morals are being imparted to the youth, children and nation as a whole by virtue of such acts or apparent inaction by the authorities. It is apparently open that the unbridled spirit of competition at all costs has been let loose. The prevailing philosophy being one should do all that he can including subverting and breaking his own principles as long as they get what the want. Elections must be won at all costs despite backtracking on any gains that may have been made. This will be replicated in the upcoming generations leading to violence and short cut measures to get what one wants at all cost and shortest time and we always wonder what has gone wrong. It’s important to note that we lead by example.

And that is the folly of human leadership! No wonder more than two thousand years ago the wise man Jeremiah under inspiration of the holy spirit wrote at Jer 10:12 “it does not belong to man who is walking to direct his own step” the gist of that statement is that man was simply created not to lead himself and as such he cannot lead others. Frequently his incapacity to lead others is manifested by acts of violence, strife, hatred, ethnicity, murder, lack of ethics etc

While indeed hawkers have a right to earn a living! Time and again when allocated places of operation they have simply declined to use the allocated zones. Their crowding the city centre frequently results in increase in violence and theft since many thieves masquerade amidst the crowded streets and use opportune moments to snatch, pickpocket or even strangle their victims in their attempt at stealing. By allowing the hawkers back into the city without designated lanes and a modus operandi the interests of the everyday nairobian has been periled at the altar of vote seeking.

At the same time the hawker’s plight for affair share of the market will be short lived since once the authorities are elected back into power the daily battles between the city council Askaris, the police and hawkers will resume with loss of innocent lives in the skirmishes. But who cares anyway!

We simply must not forget the injustices and the value of life that results due to faulty policies. For the Nairobi hawkers it may be the proverbial two months of honeymoon and four and a half years of hell. With the political leadership hoping to ride on the ignorance, forgetfulness and hunger of the hawkers.

Simply put even if the hawkers are allowed to operate within the city the same must not be an attempt at getting votes but should be under well laid out and thought out plans that adequately cater for the continued development of the city, enhanced security and benefit of the citizenry by and large!

Google Jobs!Nairobi, Kenya

It was only recently that Google appointed a Kenyan to run its first office in Africa.It is nice to see that this step has borne fruit as google seeks to recruit the following positions in its Nairobi office(more opportunities available also for the jo`burg office):

• Associate Product Marketing
• Geographic Consultant
• Geographic Supervisor
• Strategic Partner Development(SPD) ,Local Markets
• Technical Support Associate -Google applications

Nairobians if you are interested and are apt to the challenge apply to jobs@google.com or visit the website at :http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=intl.html&jobslc=africa All the best!

NB:Googles local office is located at 7th FloorPurshottam Place(an exquisite new building next to Club Afrique at Museum Hill Round about)
15% off perfume

A Kenyan Blog Carnival !

Blogs are powerful tools for communicating on almost all aspects of life.
More and more Africans are joining up the intenet bandwagon to blog on areas
that concern their daily lives from politics,to social affairs,hobbies, interests etc.
While this is laudable much more must be done to capture the diversity that permeates the
African diaspora.

While more and more africans continue to embrace the use of the internet,emphasis
needs to be placed on encouraging people to blog on their social issues and
topics of utmost concern to the African people.I would sincerely appreciate
more blogs focusing on the demerits and evils being perpetuated by outlandish
cultural practises such as female genital mutilation as practised among various
Kenyan Indigenous communities such as the Ameru, Abagusii, Somali,Rendile etc.
It would also be much appreciated if we can have more and more blogs detailing the
perpetrators of ethnic animosity, political hatred or sharing information and intelligence
on such heinous deeds.

Certainly im yet to read on a blog espousing the benefits of traditional medicine, food etc of the Kenyan people.Perhaps i am naive on this issue but even a perusal of the posts on the Kenyan Webring or using search engines specifically for blogs onsuch issues yields not much results.

Itis estimated that there are 10 million bloggers earthwide with more joining each second as it counts.This is indeed alot of web space that we need to scramble for and partition.Ironically when the colonialists came to Africa, they did not hesitate to grab and partition to themselves our land.We now have an opportunity to maximise on the 'land' that the internet has created so that weare not left behind in this modern phenomena.

Coming closer back home to Nairobi,Kenya one can state with certainty that
we are yet to embrace the potential benefits that blogging can generate to businesses, organisations,political parties,banks et cetera.We have few pundits willing to comment on issues that the mainstream media views against their 'strategic interests'.This in itself curtails many rights and freedoms tht should be embraced.It is with such background that i propose the development not only of a webring but a blog carnival for the Kenyan people.

A blog carnival is basically a post with links narrowed down to a particular topic, such as fashion, traditional food, cars, herbs,politics etc.I would love to post articles on river wood, Gikomba market,Kiondo Basket, Jua Kali Industry, Need for toilets in South Nyanza,Poverty eradication in Kenya, Youth employment .With a blog carnival people basically post blogs on a specific topicthat has been highlighted by the carnival.The net effect is that the different bloggers with a shared interest then get to raed each others items,share ideas, etc.The main purpose for blogging is for ones blogs to be read;to generate aiudience and thus use of blog carnivals should be embraced especially in Kenya.