The Bahatian

  Each year, we are used to receiving annual reports on the state of toilet use countrywide whenever World Toilet Day looms. Surprisingly, a nation like Kenya, one amongst the developed in Sub-Sahara Africa, scores poorly when it comes to personal hygienic matters.   A 2009 census on toilets in Kenya revealed about five million Kenyans lacks these vital facilities and makes do with bushes for their long and short calls. Others uses the bucket type ones on shallow dug holes which rapidly fills up with the filled human sludge discharged in soil posing health hazard in the long run.

  Acting is something that comes naturally to him. And while many in their final years in high schools were busy preparing for their final exams, ‘Chris’ Patrick Ng’ang’a was producing his first movie, Point of No Return . That was while at Mwiruti Secondary School in Nakuru County with a one of his teachers, who had seen his potential in acting, nurturing him. As the movie title says, he had reached a point of no return in his acting, literally, and the way forward was to keep on marching!   To match on he did, and in the process had produced several movies. Not until you watch one that you realize the 26 year old man, a talented scriptwriter, is going places. Though he confesses he is a lover of Nigerian movies, a fact which has played a significant influence to his productions, he digresses his plotlines follow similar scripts but are informed by every day happenings around him and the country in general.

  That death forms part of a human’s life circle is a known fact. Whereas some sees it as a rebirth or reincarnation to a new being or a better life in the hereafter, others hold it death is the cessation of life altogether with superstitions shrouding the dead having grown a life of their own. Regardless of your take on death, it is an inescapable fact we all will face it as a final bow of exiting this worldly stage.   A visit to cemeteries or mausoleums conjures the memories of the departed ones or evokes a dread fear. It seems there is mysticism surrounding souls resting places that not many would pay visits to graves of their loved ones leaving them in neglect. A careful look will, however, reveal the importance many regards the resting places of dear ones as far as entombing or burying their remains is concerned.

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!