Adrian Blomfield
@adrianblomfield
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Nairobi-based journalist writing in The Economist and The Telegraph. Previously in Moscow & Jerusalem. Described on X as “the pure prophet of doom”.
Kenya
Joined May 2008
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Kenyan newspapers reporting a lot today about the impact of Uhuru Kenyatta’s lockdown on the BBI referendum and ask no questions about why Uhuru offered his people no financial help. The Kenyan press are, once again, complicit in the elite exploitation of the Kenyan people.
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Uhuru Kenyatta has just shut down the economy of much of the country without announcing a single measure to alleviate the financial pain that will be felt by many, many people over the coming weeks.
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The difference between the entitled oligarchy of haves and the have nots in Kenya. Until Kenyans rise up in righteous fury at this type of grotesque excess by our elected officials (supposedly servants of the people) we will never flourish as a nation.
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David Ndii, arrested in Kenya today, is one of the country's most prominent economists and anti-corruption crusaders. He is also the opposition nasa movement's main strategist and intellect. For the government, he is a very dangerous man.
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I have witnessed the kind of protests we saw in Kenya before: in Tahrir Square, in Libya, Bahrain and Syria. The style of protests, the nature of the protesters and the incompetent, brutal response of the authorities are all out of the Tahrir Square playbook /1 of a short 🧵
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Taliban takeover in Afghanistan carries downside risks for Kenya if it leads to a rise in heroin production (a leading source of income for the Taliban). Kenya is a major transit point tor traffickers and the trade has already weakened Kenyan institutions and infected politics.
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How to define impunity: MP visits VIP nightclub operating in contravention of a court order, open way after closing hours and serving a banned substance is caught on video calmly and without provocation shooting someone in the neck -- and many wonder if he will even go to jail.
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Before he died, Ken Wafula told me that Felicien Kabuga was hiding out in Eldoret, where he allegedly owned a shopping centre. He said he was being protected by Kenyan intelligence and a certain prominent Kalenjin politician. /1
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Kenya's deputy president William Ruto just spent 5m of his own cash on goats at a charity auction in Kajiado. That's 3 months salary for Ruto! What generosity! If he keeps doing this his family are soon going to struggle to put food on the table. He must think of his poor kids!
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Kenyan government messaging to tourists in past 48hrs:
1) Return to Nairobi immediately if you want to get home
2) You have until noon Monday to return to Nairobi
3) Don’t cancel your holiday, you can hire private planes
4) No, you can’t
5) Ignore 1-4, fly around as you like.
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If true that Magufuli is in Nairobi Hospital, I hope this resonates with Tanzanians: The man who sold you denialism and quackery, and risked the lives of ordinary Tanzanians and his colleagues, scurried to the best private hospital he could find when Covid-19 felled him.
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The Ruto administration has made a surprising number of misjudgements but one that stands out is the belief that you can hike taxes without addressing corruption. No-one will be willing to hand over more cash if they believe it will be stolen. A short 🧵 on Ruto’s blunders.
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Charles Njonjo was undoubtedly a titanic figure in Kenyan history, but I find it strange that Uhuru Kenyatta attributes Kenya’s “progressive constitutional regime” to Njonjo’s “robustness”. Njonjo was constitutional affairs minister when Kenya became a de jure one-party state.
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In 2018, Uhuru Kenyatta said that every public servant's wealth must be declared. Did he declare that he had stashed $30 million abroad? If not, could this be grounds for impeachment? Will the
@EACCKenya
open an investigation into the president?
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Amazed from my exchanges on Twitter today to find that so many Kenyans are imperialists, cheering on Russia as it tries to rebuild its empire and denouncing states trying to assert their independence. The irony is quite extraordinary, really.
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More footage from Mombasa and yet again, at the end of the clip, police mercilessly beating a guy lying on the ground. This is no way to fight a coronavirus epidemic.
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If Moi really was worth Ksh300bn (and it seems entirely plausible) that money does not belong to any of his family, it belongs to the people of Kenya from whom it was stolen.
Moi was worth over Sh300bn, grandson says in wealth battle
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Raila Odinga is a fascinating politician whose career has swung between great bravery and great opportunism. He has been cheated of at least one election. But he also has a gang of rather unpleasant followers who threaten and abuse anyone who ever questions him, however mildly.
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I've covered 4 Kenyan elections as a journalist, lived through 5. No pre-election crisis seems as profound as this.
#KenyaElections
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There’s much irony in Makau Mutua’s piece, but the saddest is this: the Nation once published trenchant op-eds by the likes of David Ndii. Now it publishes childish hatchet jobs about Ndii. Another example of the pap that has made the DN unreadable.
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First goats, now tea. I don't begrudge Ms Mugaisa, but she shouldn't feel too grateful. Kenya's economic system seems to be based on a reverse Robin Hood principle: plunder from the poor, redistribute among rich, then placate poor by giving them a tiny bit of their own money back
Yesterday a lucky Susan Mugasia served tea worth Sh 250/- to
@WilliamsRuto
& these VIPs at her kiosk at Shianda market in Kakamega. The Deputy President gave her Sh 100,000/- en told her to keep change!
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This is big: the first glimpse behind the veil. Until Kenya can hold the Kenyatta family to account for how they amassed their vast fortune, it can never make real progress.
Here's our
#PandoraPapers
investigation into the Kenyatta family's secret companies:
@ICIJorg
@AfUncensored
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With police reportedly surrounding the nation and reports of arrest of Linus Kaikai, we need to remember that journalism is not a crime.
#MediaShutDownKE
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Kenya's deportation of Somali delegates is not only churlish and childish, it is self-harming. The EU will (and should) think about alternative venues when it next holds big events. If you have to engage in (unjustified) diplomatic bullying, let it at least be subtle and skilled.
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Swearing in ceremonies should be a time when a nation comes together. Instead, Kenya looks starkly divided. At Kasarani there is triumphalism, a campaign rally feel. In Embakasi, police beatings, teargas and despair.
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Has the Kenyan government discussed closing the border (and airspace) with Tanzania to non-goods traffic? Covid-19 is clearly becoming a very serious issue in Tanzania, and there is some evidence that it is the South African strain. Surely a step to consider to keep Kenya safe.
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Kenya's election is one of many ironies. Most obviously, it pits a renegade who became an establishment figure against an establishment figure who became a renegade and pledges to drain the political swamp he has himself inhabited for 30 years. /1
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So the alternative for all those who cannot take their cars into central Nairobi on car-free days is to get on one of the new buses. Even though there are only 67 of them and they are not yet in the country. Can I have some of what Cabinet Secretary James Macharia is drinking?
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Kenyan politicians continue to shoot the messenger. Anne Waiguru seems to have misunderstood how opinion polls work. It was not Ipsos that judged her corrupt but a scientifically sampled cross-section of Kenyans. So really she should sue the people of Kenya, not Ipsos.
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Very odd. So Tom Kajwang is essentially charged with enabling Raila Odinga to commit treason. Meanwhile the person accused of committing treason remains at liberty. And Kajwang is then freed on a kshs5,000 bond, about same as bond for minor traffic offence not a capital crime.
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A decent performance by IEBC. This may be harsh, but I would say it has been an underwhelming one by Kenyan media houses. If you are going to do a parallel tally, you need to plan for it. Or was the plan just to regurgitate IEBC results and they now find themselves caught short?
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The Sun claims this is the 1st time a melanistic leopard has been photographed in 100 years. So the BBC blindly repeats it. Yet Kenya's Nation pictured one, also from Laikipia (on Ol Jogi), in 2013. So it is the first in 6 years. At best.
#blackpanther
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Apparent arrest of David ndii a worrying development. He has an international reputation but not just that - a possible sign of gov't response to people's assembly
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Under big four initiative, Uhuru Kenyatta announced plans to build 500,000 low cost homes by 2022. By the end of this year a total of 228 will have been built. If building continues at this rate the 500,000 target will be reached in the year 8598...
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Have been offloaded by KQ, which wants to put me up for night at Weston hotel. This is Ruto's revenge! So now we know how he affords to buy goats in kajiado- from a sweet deal with the Pride of Africa! I want my compensation in 50,000 bob goats
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I would imagine there might be some international response to detention of David Ndii tomorrow. West has been very silent on Kenya in recent weeks, with little reaction even to last month's deaths. There will be pressure now for that to change.
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In a disturbing development that recalls the 1980s, President Uhuru Kenyatta allegedly summoned media managers to state house last Friday and threatened to shut down any media that broadcasts tomorrow's swearing in live. This according to the editor's guild
#RailaSwearingIn
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2nd Battalion, the Mercian Regiment (soon to be no more) came to Kenya on last hurrah, brought Covid with them, burned alive an elephant calf and then set ablaze 10,000 acres of cedar forest and wildlife sanctuary. Finest army in the world or a new version of Carry on Camping?
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The speech by Martin Kimani, Kenya's ambassador to the UN, at the UN Security Council is being described as one of the best speeches delivered at the forum in recent years. It is here (from 49 minutes) . Excerpts from the speech follow /1
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Been in Kibera today with those forcibly evicted in August. Telling that Raila Odinga, so often in Kibera over the election, has not been back since the handshake, locals say, not even to comfort the thousands left homeless. Political support is bought cheaply in Kenya.
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Given that he had two kidney transplants and lost both his legs in a 1993 plane crash that he believed was a failed assassination, Richard Leakey had a good innings to get to 77. Reducing poaching in his first stint at KWS was his high-point. He achieved less politically, however
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Apart from the free, donor-funded vaccines it has received under the COVAX facility, Kenya was to buy additional doses at cost from AstraZeneca. The Kenyan government pulled out, saying it had no cash. Yet it had the cash to pay for MCA car grants. Priorities?
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If there were people out there who thought the future could not be worse than the present, there is a shisha-smoking, DJ-shooting MP out there who would like to disabuse you of that notion.
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Merali was indeed a "top industrialist" but he was also seen as a frontman for Daniel arap Moi, accused of helping him to hide his assets, and, of course, a partner to both Nicholas Biwott and the Kenyatta family (through CBA)
PRESIDENT KENYATTA eulogises Naushad Merali as a top industrialist whose businesses created thousands of jobs, helped stabilise economy.
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I've not been to Machakos for a while. Just wondering how close to Alfred Mutua's vision of 2013 Machakos has come?
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A rather dismaying statement by Uhuru Kenyatta, attacking the Supreme Court for inconsistency and incoherence and declining to mention Ruto by name. Some might not see this as a statesmanlike departure from office.
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Some cars leaving the deputy president’s official residence in Karen are driving rather erratically. Perhaps they had something to celebrate tonight?
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For many the most tangible consequence of the Ruto administration has been a huge rise in red tape. It is simply much harder to get things done that were once easy. For example this is the queue to get into Nairobi National Park this morning. We have queued for nearly an hour.
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Police beat women and fire teargas at terrified commuters, children among them, desperately trying to get onto the Likoni ferry ahead of Kenya's coronavirus curfew. This what happens when thugs are unleashed and given free rein.
Chaos at the Likoni channel as GSU officers descend on ferry commuters, an hour before curfew.
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Looking at a photo of Kiraitu Murungi blessing a kneeling girl in Meru after she read a poem. Didn't realise The Almighty now channeled his divine favour through Kenyan government officials. I would humbly suggest that officials in Heaven reconsider this policy.
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No surprise here: uhuru kenyatta's re-election declared valid by supreme court in very brief ruling reminiscent of 2013 ruling. Court may see Mr Kenyattas as validly elected. Many Kenyans will not.
#SupremeRuling
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Seeing the patently illegal Chinese developments going up near where I live reminds of why Kenya was so easy to colonise. Kenya wasn't invaded; most of its land was given away to colonisers by local elites for short-term political and financial gain.
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0.01 percent of the vote is 1,420 votes. It is not 142,000 votes, as the four dissenting commissioners say. I am struggling to understand this.
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Michael Joseph is cross with anyone who criticises proposed Kenya Airways takeover of KAA but doesn't answer following issues: 1) It is normal practice for a profit-making business to take iver a loss-making one, not the other way around... (1/2)
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I notice
@dailynation
and
@NationBreaking
have made no mention of
#NMGExodus
. A black day for a storied newspaper. One cannot really see the point of buying the Nation any more.
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Fred Matiang'i first says there is mercury in tested sugar, then says there wasn't and he was only trying to scare people. Is this not the type of fake news I thought the government was trying to ban?
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“There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin’s quote feels true of Kenya in the last week. Another extraordinary day today.
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Journalism 101 training in understanding reporting priorities:
PRIORITY: reporting on how Kenyans will put food on their children’s plates with no government help during lockdown.
NOT A PRIORITY: BBI (unless asking if it is a cynical exercise in manipulation and distraction)
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A mysterious guy in a purple bow-tie and grey fedora, who calls himself Prof Safraz Niaz, has told Ugandans he has invented a magic spray that can kill coronavirus. Museveni has met him and speaker Rebecca Kadaga is convinced by what looks very like a scam
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Kenyans (like other nationalities) are banned from entering Australia. Will Kenya also impose forced quarantine on Australians? Just wondering what Kenyan policy is going to be in future? Will reciprocity be the basis for policy or health considerations?
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The Economist endorses (rather tepidly) Raila Odinga. I would add, from a personal perspective, that if a man who was the victim of rigging in the past comes to power because of rigging his legacy will be ruined forever. Hoping for a clean vote on Tuesday.
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How Twitter works:
Me: I like chocolate. It is sweet.
Response 1: You do realise other things are sweet, like sugar, right?
Response 2: what do you generalise; you know some chocolate is bitter?
Response 3: Stop talking about Kenyan chocolate and go back to Britain, Mzungu.
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Nairobi Metropolitan Services may or may not have done a good job but it is worrying that it is accountable to no-one (its website doesn't even work). Kenya's media could ask probing questions but just writes puff pieces like this:
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Imagine if Kenya's elite channeled the energy and ingenuity they use to steal towards serving the people they are supposed to serve. My God, this country would fly.
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I wonder if Uhuru Kenyatta regrets the fact that the government in which he served as deputy PM ignominiously sent President Ramaphosa packing from Kenya in 2008. Will be interesting to see relations between the two men.
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This is truly frightening— it is the kind of thing that happened in Idi Amin’s Uganda. If President Ruto does not want his international reputation to go the way of his domestic reputation he has to come out and denounce these kinds of abductions and order them to stop.
Former Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter abducted by police as his wife, children watch in dismay
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I don't understand Uhuru Kenyatta's rationale in making the armed forces a player both in the economy and the administration of the state. Egypt and Turkey are both cautionary examples of the risks in creating an over-mighty military.
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Rex Tillerson - sacked while on tour in Africa. Priti Patel - sacked while on tour in Africa. Lesson to western ministers: visit Africa at your peril...
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So, essentially, Nairobi has been placed under military command? Whether or not there are arguments that the current crisis justifies this, there should be some unease if this is a long-term appointment. The creeping militarisation of the state does really seem to be a thing.
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Even if we accept the NSAC’s version, it still smacks of interference. It is the job of the IEBC to tally, verify and announce results not to consider security issues, so why did the NSAC place pressure on a body that was doing its job in the time allocated by the constitution?
Question: In the discharge of his mandate to tally up the 34Bs and announce results (along with any errors and discrepancies), should the
@IEBCKenya
chair,
@WChebukati
, have paid attention to the concerns of the NSAC?
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Kenyan gov't doesn't always deliver on its campaign pledges. But it is meeting its promise to punish the judiciary - by slashing its budget. As some Kenyans celebrate, it should be noted that few states thrive in the absence of a strong, independent judiciary.
#SomeoneTellMaraga
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Residents of Nairobi, wake up! Our city is being turned into a health-endangering hellhole by unscrupulous, bribe-paying developers motivated solely by greed. We need planned, legal development not a corrupt, chaotic free-for-all.
#savenairobi
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This is just extraordinary. It is like there is a deliberate strategy to do one particularly dumb thing every day, whether it is calling protesters treasonous, blaming the Ford Foundation or seizing one of the country’s most famous journalists.
The family of veteran journalist Macharia Gaitho have alerted us that he was abducted this morning. He was intercepted while driving to Karen and taken to Karen Police Station from where he was transferred into a different vehicle and driven off to an unknown location. This
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Aga Khan doctors say Kenyans who are self-isolating should have a room and ideally a bathroom set aside for exclusive use in their homes. Good advice in principle - but 70 percent of Kenyans lack access to even basic sanitation. Far fewer still have multiple bathrooms.
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One other question. If you were a UDA agent hacking the IEBC to tamper with results, why do it in Bomas when you could do it from many other locations where it would not be found by Azimio agents? Seems rather foolish.
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Satire is not a crime. The president should show his critics that he is not so thin-skinned as to take offence at this by coming out and demanding that police
#ReleaseKiama
Activist Edwin Kiama was arrested last evening. He's being taken to court this morning on cyber crime offences. The police are accusing him of making the below public notice asking the world to stop lending money to Kenya. The money Uhuruto borrows is stolen.
#ReleaseKiama
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This is a blow upon a bruise for the tourism and hospitality sector and for many other sectors of the economy. I'm not saying it was wrong for the President to take action, but if he does he has a responsibility to help those who will suffer.
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KDF yesterday indicated that the
#AlShabaab
attack on Camp Simba in Manda Bay had been repulsed with minimum damage. The US says one of its soldiers and 2 of its contractors were killed. Given cover ups over El Adde etc, one has to question if the KDF are telling the whole truth.
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Raila Odinga announces he will be sworn in as president on December 12th, Kenya's independence day, Reuters reports
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Nkurunziza to be buried today. Kenyan flags have been at half-mast for two weeks now. I would hazard a guess that this could be the longest mourning period in our history, longer than even for the victims of the 1998 embassy bombing. A strange figure to honour in this way.
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My questions for
@KenyaAirways
today: 1) what is the nature of your deal with William Ruto with regards to putting up passengers at the Weston hotel? Was there ever a tender? Have asked this before and not had an answer. 1/2
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The crowds that jeered Ruto today entirely played into his hands today. When they boo and catcall him for presenting himself as the champion of the poor and the hustler, they present themselves as the vanguard of an out-of-touch elite. He must have been loving it.
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We’ve a friend who has been waiting for a covid test result from Aga Khan hospital for 3 days now. If that person is positive all the contacts they were in touch with have possibly been spreading the disease for 3 days. Slow return of results means epidemic in Kenya will worsen
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My latest analysis looks at why Kenya’s president finds himself in the position he does — weakened and humiliated — the result of a basic failure in gauging your opposition and the arrogance of a political class partying like Marie Antoinette.
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US troops deployed in Gabon by Donald Trump last week to be on standby if Congo implodes get a crash course in African politics as junior army officers launch a coup attempt in Gabon to depose ailing Ali Bongo
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Kenya’s foreign ministry needs to explain the inconsistencies between its Note Verbale and press statement. The former bans flights between the UK and Kenya and demands proof of vaccination from UK nationals, the latter makes no mention of these measures.
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My latest piece in the Economist looks at how Kenya's protests could change the country. Humiliated and weakened, President Ruto will struggle to implement his agenda. Kenya's public finances will come under further strain. But there is good news, too 1/2.
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Construction of Cytonn Towers poses huge threat to Kilimani. 3 towers, each 100ft higher than KICC, + parking for 1,500 cars is more than Kilimani's infrastructure can withstand. Kilimani residents, please attend tomorrow's meeting at MAF on Argwings Kodhed Rd from 9.30am
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@DonShupo
@HassanOmarH
@HassanAliJoho
In Kenya we have politicians who steal billions from their people and then fling back a few thousand here and there to win popularity. Should I bemoan the theft of billions or applaud the hand outs of thousands?
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So in our cabinet we have a woman accused of murder, another woman previously accused of assaulting an electoral officer, a man frequently accused of hate speech and a man who promised to build a Formula One racetrack in Machakos. This should go well.
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A strange one. If the interior ministry is correct, Miguna Miguna, a foreign national, stood for governor (and previously for mp in party primaries) and also voted. Given the checks done by the IEBC, how would this have been possible?
INTERIOR MINISTRY claims Miguna Miguna denounced his Kenyan citizenship years back. Spokesman Mwenda Njoka says the lawyer never bothered to reclaim it.
#MigunaDeported
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What are the constitutional provisions for pulling television stations off the air because they apparently failed to follow orders from the president? I cannot remember this ever happening before on Kenya.
#darkdays
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I get that things are tricky but a little bit of strategy and foresight would help. How many tourists have cancelled trips to Kenya already and how do you explain to Kenyans that you think foreigners are less diseased than they are?
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Kenyans are being asked to make huge sacrifices for the common good. For some those sacrifices mean being unable to feed their families. In return they have the right to accountability, responsibility and dignified treatment from their government. That did not happen last night.
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Just wondering how Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru's call with Mrs Kochalle went: "I'm so sorry I hadn't noticed your husband had been dead a year - I thought he had just gone on a really long holiday. Anyway, to make it up to you, do you fancy his job?"
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Still unanswered on the Githongo affidavit: if a 56-man team changed the electronic results, they could not have changed the hard copies, which were verified against the soft ones by all the IEBC commissioners, including the four that dissented. /1
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@OleItumbi
@WilliamsRuto
@nhifkenya
@UKenyatta
How does he afford such constant generosity? I do wonder if less corruption in Kenya might be a more efficient way of redistributing wealth than harambee politics - which some mps means giving back a fraction of what they stole from Kenyans back to Kenyans
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As I have said before, it is possible that Wafula was just a conspiracy theorist. Arrest of Kabuga might give credence to that. But we cannot put this to him because Ken Wafula died in January, 2018 a few months after my conversation with him in his Eldoret office. 6/6
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Doonholm. "Nairobi is a big enough space to let those who want to mourn mourn and those who want to celebrate celebrate. So why is that not being allowed to happen," one bystander says.
#NASAMemorial
#UhuruSwearingIn
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I hope that the first question asked at tomorrow’s government briefing, after what we saw at the Likoni ferry and the beating of people carrying food, is who is going to resign for the fiasco of the first night of the curfew.
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