The Bahatian

Not until you engage him do you realize he is not an eccentric old man as some would have it. He has a sharp mind and a knack of punctuating his talk with observations taken straight from some of books he has familiarized himself with. Though he is not as strong as his old former self, he believes his fist can pack a punch enough to dislocate the jaw of a donkey. After all, he was a pugilist and represented the country within the African continent thrice.   But Philip Mainge Wanjohi, (pictured), who is in hie early seventies, is on a different mission. He has been agitating for establishment of library services at ward levels. The man who has read over 2000 books cutting across all genres decries the lack of a reading culture especially by the young generation. He says he was Member Number782 from 1980 to 1992 at the Kenya National Library Service, Nakuru, but distance and hard economical times had conspired to keep him from frequenting the place.

  PETER KANYI is the director of Fagilia Constructors , a company that deals with construction works. However, his has been a long journey to be where he is today as he shares his story. A humble beginning is just a step to the right direction   Shortly after high school, I began working odd jobs that came in handy. My first self-employment was in baking and distributing mandazi (buns)  with a bicycle. That was during the early 2000s but I did not last long in that line. Part of the reasons being competition, and rather than compete with copycats who were supplying similar products to same customers, I had to strategize.

For those who followed the case pitting the Roberts Education Center and the United Methodist Church, perhaps the the dismissal of the case by a Nakuru court is what came as a shocker to the church. Reason being the learned judge found that the latter doesn’t even exist as an entity!   For one, the church had been operating in a rented building located in – only God knows where! Second, how a church without declared assets could acquire a ten acre piece of land and put up property worth Sh100 million defies logic. In this era where mega churches are the ‘in thing’ with most pastors, we would have seen a storied edifice of its kind that would rival the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro in the Ivory Coast - the largest church in the world!

  When a few or a group of individuals can have an influence on a state to the extent of influencing the formation of laws to protect and promote their private interests, we have a situation called state capture. These individuals, known as oligarchs, seek to strengthen their economic positions.   A look at politics at the ward level, especially the Dundori Ward, shows there is a cabal of such ‘oligarchs’, though power brokers is the apt term. From 2013, choices of ward leaders have been forced down on the electorate. Not that because the voters cannot make own rational choices on who to elect, but the power brokers, in selling their candidates, manages to psychologically capture their thoughts from the nadir to the zenith of the campaigns. It is no wonder the easily swayed ‘sheeple’ will legitimize a choice fronted by voting en masse!

  Depending on how you see it, ‘ nitawasikiliza ’ can be an ambiguous term. It is in present tense to begin with, meaning one can only be heard before an action or event had taken place, though there are differing interpretations out there. But Dundori ward representative, Machembu Chege, avers this is not a broad based term that can be taken out of context and its literal meaning is ‘ready to lend a keen ear’. This, in lay man’s term, means the leader is ready or willing to give considerations to issues dogging the ward, but only after they are raised! (My take, anticipatory leaders can identify what needs to be done and take timely action before the problem reaches an unmanageable or a costlier level).   I bet my two cents the MCA may be development oriented. Whereas his predecessor is accused of sleeping on the job, taking long to settle down before initiating few developments projects here and there, Machembu is setting a precedent. Literally, he hit the road r...

Giachong'e residents in a demo   In an earlier blog post, I posited that a water crisis that will one day spark a vicious battle for this resource was in the making. Earlier in 2017, we saw residents of places like Giachong’e village demonstrating demanding equitable distribution of this precious commodity when they marched to the office of the then Dundori ward member of county assembly. No solution was offered, other than the building of high capacity tanks which left sceptics wondering where excess water to fill them was to be sourced from.   When the taps are perennially dry, does it make sense to have ten concrete tanks littered all over the ward which are increasingly looking like ghost projects? At the time of their construction, were pipes bursting under pressure necessitating their need?   On the day of writing this, Friday, 29 th December, 2017, there was witnessed another demonstration by the residents of the said village, who threatened to...

  Courtesy photo It doesn’t take rocket science to realize that the greater Dundori ward in Nakuru County is on a backpedal progress. And this can be seen by the kind of leaders – previous and the current – that had or are representing us.   It is not an understatement to claim that a cabal of power brokers had been in the making for long going by the choice of leaders rammed down our throats. The previous and current ward representatives, claims had it, are products of a local administrator and a renowned tycoon and were forced to the majority who had no choice but to legitimize them through the ballot.   A story is told how one former councillor was compelled to step down from running on The National Alliance (TNA) party during the 2013 General Election and pave way for the former MCA by this administrator whose name cannot be revealed here. The septuagenarian former councillor opted to run on the less popular Democratic Party and lost massively to a y...