Muniini K. Mulera

Rigathi Gachagua’s day of Machiavellian reckoning

By Muniini K. MuleraOctober 21, 20240 comments

#Gachagua #Ruto #Kenyatta #Moi #Pinto #Mboya #Kariuki #Tuko #Muge #Machiavelli #Kenya #Uganda #Nyayo #Moi

Photo: Nyayo House, Nairobi © Muniini K. Mulera Following his fall from the deputy presidency of Kenya last week, Rigathi Gachagua expressed his shock at the way his “brother and friend” President William Ruto had treated him. “I did not know that ...

Ruto should complete Zakayo's story

By Muniini K. MuleraJuly 16, 20240 comments

#Ruto #Zakayo #Zacchaeus #Kenya #Uganda #Kangire

Photo: Children in rural Uganda; are they citizens too? ***************** Kenyans call their current president Zakayo, after Zacchaeus, the height-challenged tax collector at Jericho two thousand years ago, who was reportedly very wealthy. President William Samoei Ruto’s ...

Kenya: a warning sign for those with eyes and ears

By Muniini K. MuleraJuly 1, 20240 comments

#Kenya #Ruto #Uganda #Museveni

Photo: Kenya Parliament Buildings, Nairobi (built in 1954). After years of chaos in the land, the people that captured power in Uganda in 1986 had the excellent opportunity, space and time to discharge the generally accepted responsibilities of a government, namely, (1) human ...

Why Kenya’s Gen. Omondi Ogolla’s death needs independent investigation

By Muniini K. MuleraApril 24, 20240 comments

#Kenya #Omondi #Ogolla #Ruto

The death of General Francis Omondi Ogolla, Kenya’s Chief of Defence Forces, has sent shockwaves through his country, with ripples that have extended to all who care about stability in our region. His death in a helicopter crash on Thursday April 18, along with Brigadier ...

Honouring the dead with humility, and simplicity

By Muniini K. MuleraNovember 13, 20230 comments

#Cook #Nomvula #Mashoai #Odera #Wangalwa #death #funeral #Uganda #Kenya #South #Africa

George Otis Cook Jr (1934-2023) and his wife Nomvula Mashoai-Cook. (Photo © Nomvula Mashoai-Cook) ************* Recent telecommunication advances enabled me, sitting in our living room in Toronto, Canada, to attend two funerals in Africa on Saturday. Mrs Winifred Wangalwa Odera, ...

Dr. Aggrey Kiyingi, Dr. Joseph Bukenya and The Class of 1977

By Muniini K. MuleraOctober 23, 20230 comments

#Kiyingi #Bukenya #Makerere #Mulago #Class #1977

Photo: Dr. John Mary "Joseph" Bukenya It has been a very dark October for The Class of 1977, that being the year that we graduated from Makerere Medical School, Kampala. Our ranks have been thinned once again, with the deaths of two dear brothers with whom we shared five ...

British are not our enemies

By Muniini K. MuleraSeptember 19, 20220 comments

#Britain #Elizabeth #Charles #Nkrumah #Mandela #Nyerere #Kaunda #Tutu #Ghana #South #Africa #Kenya #Tanganyika #Diamond

A photograph is a wonderful thing. It tells a story better than the finest wordsmith. It emits emotions that the pen can hardly bring to life. It forces the truth on those who flourish on emotion and supposition. There is a beautiful black and white photograph, captured at ...

Hand over election management to the Commonwealth or United Nations

By Muniini K. MuleraAugust 15, 20220 comments

#Kenya #election #IEBC #Ruto #Raila #Odinga #Tanzania #Chebukati

Writing about this year’s presidential election in Kenya was akin to chasing a bouncing, curving tennis ball. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Signs of hope. Signs of despair. Not because of who was leading, but because of the cumulative evidence of fraud within the work ...

Lessons from Kenya’s history of political assassinations

By Muniini K. MuleraAugust 8, 20220 comments

#Mboya #Pinto #Kenya #Ngala #Kodhek #Kariuki #Kenyatta #Moi

Tom Mboya Statue, Nairobi. Photo: © Muniini K. Mulera Tuesday August 9, 2022 Kenya votes today. Theirs is a real election. The president of Kenya has been on a hunt for votes for Raila Odinga. No overt state violence against opposition candidates. The two main ...

How will history judge Uhuru Kenyatta?

By Muniini K. MuleraAugust 1, 20220 comments

#Uhuru #Kenyatta #Raila #Kenya #Ruto

The Kenyan political marathon enters the home stretch with the country, and the world, in Olympic-size suspense. Will the next president of Kenya be Raila Amolo Odinga or will it be William Samoei arap Ruto? Will the result reveal a decisive winner, or will there be a runoff, complete ...

Njonjo and Tutu: quiet departure ends an era

By Muniini K. MuleraJanuary 4, 20220 comments

#Njonjo #Tutu #Kenya

Charles Mugane Njonjo. Desmond Mpilo Tutu. Different in many ways. Similar in others. Blessed with long and impactful lives, one a centenarian, the other a nonagenarian. One a secular leader, proud of his African heritage, who helped steer independent Kenya through its wobbly infancy. The ...

Kenya’s Charles Njonjo: misunderstood normal gentleman

By Muniini K. MuleraOctober 11, 20210 comments

#Njonjo #Kenya #Seretse #Khama

Well, to the right, in fact: Njonjo and Khama in London, late 1940s. ******* The weekend brought a rumour that Charles Mugane Njonjo of Kenya had died. The trigger-happy folks, upon receiving the hoax, hit their keyboards, eager to be the first conveyers of “the news.” Even ...

ELSPETH HUXLEY: A BIOGRAPHY by C. S. Nicholls (Thomas Dunne Books, 2002)

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksSeptember 15, 20210 comments

#Elspeth #Huxley #Kenya

Elspeth Huxley (1907-1997) was an Anglo-Kenyan woman whose literary work on colonial Kenya and East Africa stands tall among the many books on the subject. Her books are witty, vividly descriptive of her subjects, and unafraid to say things as she saw them, unworried bout political ...

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Journey through East Africa by Elspeth Huxley (1948)

By Muniini K. MuleraMay 14, 20200 comments

#Elspeth #Huxley #Sorcerers #Apprentice #Colonial #East #Africa #Kenya #Uganda #Tanganyika #Zanzibar

Elspeth Huxley (1907-1997), perhaps best known for The Flame Trees of Thika, authored more than 40 books, among them this first-rate travel journal that beautifully paints an image of a colonial East Africa at a crossroads. Between February and June of 1947, Huxley, a long-term ...

Forward to Independence: Memoirs by Fitz de Souza of Kenya

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksMay 13, 20200 comments

#Ditz #de #Souza #Kenya #Pio #Gama #Pinto #Kenyatta

Fitzval Remedios Santana Neville de Souza was a Kenyan, born in Goa, India, raised in Zanzibar, called to the Bar in London and with a lifetime of outstanding accomplishments, mostly in Kenya. One of the defence lawyers for the Kapenguria Six, including Jomo Kenyatta, ...

Daniel Toroitich arap Moi: iconic leader or prince of darkness?

By Muniini K. MuleraFebruary 10, 20201 comments

#Moi #Kenya #dictatorship #Africa

The death of a person is a sad moment. It reminds us of our mortality and forces us to reflect on life’s meaning. The death of Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, Kenya’s former ruler, has saddened me more deeply than I thought it would. No, not because he has died. At ...