An Ode to Wanjiru

Gone too soon, and that we rue
A brighter star we'll wait to see;
our nation's pride, Sam Wanjiru,
reaped from the sky's starry sea.

Happy, you made us; sad now sore,
Mad, failed we to see your true right
amid the accolades and wins more;
tumultuous us, you burning bright.

Now gone, journeyed single way,
Now mourn all friends and foes
of runs long and jaunts short, say
respect and regrets throats force.

A man so rare, a name unique..
to speak, foot after foot, long pace
Bronze, Silver, no Gold to pick;
in cities and roads famed for race.

Toothy smile, sweaty face, nighted!
Where just this morning, peaceful
and full of hope, gilt medal lighted
the slopes of a town alive, blissful.

Nyahururu, where comes another?
Wanjiru, what replaces a true guru?
Dare we speak in pain for bother,
or silently mourn a beacon of Uhuru?


Beijing in Zero Eight, in full rapture
a world held atrance by Marathon.
The gods of Olympus did capture
a glimpse of one fit them to dethrone.


And their ire stoked, didn't subside
plotting with Minerva, to jot demise.
Woman beguiled, money lots beside
This day, against you, we surmise.

Jealousy, greed, desire, inhumanity!
False friendships, faked dalliances;
Now consigned to cavernous vanity,
Head first, proving Death's valiance!

Then again, you always came first,
beating and winning, your prowess;
Should we bewail your utter thirst
to vanquish Death? No, we confess.

Rest in Peace, ChampionWanjiru.

How many people may a police officer shoot and kill legally?

Human life is precious. I strive with honest desire to discover, and greatly struggle against the strong subjectivity of my circumstance as a human, yet find nothing more sacrosanct than the vital force in a person. This, to me, therefore, is a self-evident truth: that the life of any and every person is worth more than everything and anything else.

I have personal reasons for respecting human life, above being well aware of the inherent evil of human minds, but will not recount them here. I will, instead, lean standing at the foyer of Law, on the Pillar of our national Constitution. The lofty preamble, in the mould of that immortal American bequest to democracy, starts us off with this promise:

   We the People of Kenya …
         COMMITTED to nurturing and protecting the well-being of the
                            individual, the family, communities and the nation:…

as evidence to the value of the individual to the nation.


My guiding law, at Article 3

    [(1) Every person has an obligation to respect, uphold and defend this Constitution],

enjoins us all to regard the national values and principles espoused in it, and set out at Article 10. Here, human dignity is not included in error. Neither is the emphasis on the rule of law, nor accountability. These are all key values of my nation.

That being so, from where does our persistent impunity and extra-judiciality originate?

I will not excuse, or be accused of defending crime in any hue. And that is exactly the point! Crime is not codifiable into private or public categories. Crime by a wanted brigand, or a wanton state brigade is crime. I will not fork out my taxes, to be protected by a police ‘force’ of whimpering sissies; nor will I foot the bill for a ‘service’ of marauding, blood-thirsty and trigger-jacking hounds. Neither is contemplated in law or fact.

I, nay, we the people expect to be served by professional, humane and law-regarding police officers.

Murder is a crime recognized in all law, and especially without resistance, cannot be used as a defense against another crime. Listen to this:

   Article 26 (1) Every person has the right to life.

Short and precise: every person, including the common criminal. There must be a part of that sentence that the superintendents at Vigilance House do not recognize, and it is spelled E-V-E-R-Y.

Article 27 appears as an oasis of life in this desert of perversion.

    (1) Every person is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law.
     …


    (4) The State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against any person on any ground, including race, sex, pregnancy, marital status, health status, ethnic or social origin, colour, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress, language or birth.

Many will claim that criminals have no consciences; which is vapid nonsense. We will not be in good reason expecting the conscience of each individual to work in exactly the same way, with the same markers, beacons and light-houses to point right from wrong. Just as some eye-sights are colour-blind, failing to differentiate green from blue, some consciences are as naturally out of tune.

That must reasonably be recognized as a disability. At least a modern, civilized society should. And most do, creating judicial and correctional facilities to preserve and protect wider society from these vagaries wreaked by Nature herself. If science endeavours to correct failing eyesight, so evidently and avidly should science attempt to correct consciences.

Call it character management, behavior control, mind engineering, what not. Many organizations and groups do it. My church did it to me, before I realized and took leave of absence. Further about consciences, it is the moral duty of every social grouping to protect the individual within it from being rendered soulless and totally taken over by the addictive routine of the rituals and performances of their jobs.

When Pavlov (Ivan, and his protégé, Ivan Filippovitch Tolochinov, 1901) confirmed conditioned reflex action by experimenting amongst dogs, he was testing the power of mind over the functioning of the body. Have we trained and raised our police organs to such callous and murderous conditioning, that the only way – they know – of reacting to crime is to cock-aim-and-twitch-the-index-finger? If we have, then it becomes our task as society to shed the habit, unlearn the condition, learn fresh approaches, and relearn our compassionate instinctive nature.

The Kenya Police Service owes a duty to its officers to protect them from running amok, armed amongst millions, maiming and ruthlessly lining up a morose, mournful trail. It is an urgent good: that the people trusted with the protection of society, and the maintenance of its law and order, must in turn be protected, for their own good – in the mind.

Otherwise, we sow some sort of Pavlovian anchoring, a gluttonous, Tekayo-esque[1] appetite for human blood, and reap the whirlwind – a Lamarckian[2] adaptation to murder.

We have thus far, ended up with criminal investigators and intended crime busters who no longer bother to exercise their minds. They are tired of being ‘played around with, ever running on recurrent fools errands.’

When witnesses to crime, or even while contemplating its possibility, they act – rather, react – reflexively. They are run as hostages by sudden resurgences of desires and sharpened, animalistic reactions to crime scenes, and will kill without choice or will.

Someone mentioned the late king of Nairobi shots – a Mr. Patrick Shaw, infamous for performing final rites amongst the pot-shot clans. He met his end the same way, to confirm the adage. Still, Shaw was a man hardened by the weight of his time: policing a city in the aftermath of an attempted coup. Men had died of the gun, and many soldiers had been loosed on society, relieved of their honourable duty, due to indiscipline. They knew how to use guns, and were out of the regimented sequestration of the barracks without much hope or welcome.

They were roaming the streets with angst and disillusionment, victims of the State’s indifference, and willing to pay back in kind to a society that bailed from their side at the smell of trouble. They needed a force to control them, and due to a failed Police policy, Shaw had to run the show. He did his bit, standing up to a rabid army only as one man can, until the inevitable happened. But Kenya today is not Shaw’s Kenya.

We have reached a point of national maturity and identity. We have something in us that we sorely lacked in 1985. Yet the Police of today do not seem to adapt to this national maturity and recognition of change. They want to be Patrick ‘Show’, instead of serving their country, like did Mr. Shaw. Shaw acted to protect the society from a rogue military element. Show me who will protect us from ‘a service’ that discriminates on the basis of conscience, against our sacred Constitution.

I would like someone to answer this: How many people may a police officer kill, before he is psychologically declared disabled of conscience, unable to deliver the public good, and therefore unfit to hold a gun? One. Three. Five?

Determining this number is the solution to extra-judicial shootings in Kenya. The number will act as a touchstone, a defence post beyond which officers will not venture. It will be a second deterrence, beyond normal human feeling, and will definitely save lives. The number will advise action, control choices and recall to sense any officer in a moment requiring use of gun-force. Hit this tally and retire. Or simply, serve without killing people.

Self-defence as an excuse has been adulterated. In my opinion, if a single officer can shoot three armed, ‘dangerous’ criminals in a single ‘fight’, then the danger is imaginary.

A man, a criminal man, any man will give their all to live. That three men are routinely downed by one officer in an instant is a measure of skewed aggression. That ten police officers maroon a thug and pound him to steaming pulp, is still a measure of misplaced choices. Either the others were not armed, or they were not interested in the shootout. But most probably, the police just wanted to ‘finish off the job.’

How else, would we explain their daily ‘dangerous criminal’ tag? How dangerous, if always ending up stiff on the mortuary slab?

Main and disarm, arrest then charge!

Or is it because there are never any facts to prove a crime in court?

Callous: "Lie dowb well, so that we may finish you off!"

Scavenging: "Loitering with intent to cause a breach of the peace..."

[1] Grace Ogot, 2001: Land Without Thunder, East African Educational Publishers, Nairobi.


[2] Jean-Baptiste Lamarck: ‘Soft Inheritance’ - works and heritage, online materials about Lamarck (23.000 files of Lamarck's herbarium, 11.000 manuscripts, books, etc.) edited online by Pietro Corsi (Oxford University) and released by CRHST-CNRS in France.

My Vision; My Pledge

CORRUPTION:

A society grows when it transforms and adapts to ethical conduct. Acts of corruption occur with the confluence of three factors:

1). One party with a 'critical need' that must be solved fast;
2). An event that hinders a quick end to the need, and
3). A third party that bears the power to allow access to the remedy.

Of all effects of graft on society, the ultimate is delay. What is corruption but delay of the ideal? People’s values vary and states may not legislate on morals, but time stays true and fair. An hour is sixty minutes, whether in the city or in the wild. To wait for justice, service, healthcare, licensing, amenities, education and security, wastes time and wreaks torment. A whole nation must wait longer for a future when people will serve the roles they are paid for. Because everything delays, some adapt to 'greasing palms', to get served.
When this becomes a way of life, the cost in money matches the cost in time. More people paying bribes raise its costs and induce more delays, "since everybody knows it takes time..." What a city must have is delayed for decades on end.

Always, one party has a quick need that must fester or go awry, unless another party is induced to ‘help.’ Corruption occurs when one offers inducements to another to arrest delay.

Were all services offered in reasonably quick time, corruption would abate. Where enough facilities exist, there is no need for long queues and shortages of options. Corruption is delay, and the easiest way to deal with delays is to embrace time limits for every service. The Kenya POA assures that all officers will declare fair time frames for their work, and will not bear the power both to permit and perform tasks.

Equality vs Equity: What to Choose?

The Purpose of Government

 It is a common occasion in policy debates for the interlocutors to skirmish over the principles of equity and equality. Depending on the ocular power of the lens one elects to view the stage through, there is a veritable glut of mallets and pick-axes available to any protagonist, for breaking the rock of these broad principles into smaller pieces of scary projectiles, to be hurled at the opponent, as time will unfortunately have stood him. Since skirmish we must, then we might as well understand the reasons for our opposed array on these fierce battlefronts.

Having no luxury of dictionary definitions I will, in their stead, present my 'surprised-out-of-sleep' understanding of the two, to explain why and when either is necessary.

To my mind, equity is best represented in the Gadhian expression: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. But since that only helps to address the supply side of the economic coin, we shall flip to the 'coat-of-arms' and observe on the demand side that to whom much is given, much is expected. Fair exchange! The goose will only lay the golden egg if she is fed on the finest grain and assured of life by the farmer; who will only secure these assurances if he must, without option of default, ultimately obtain his prized eggs.

Equality on the other hand is a concept born of all communal effort. At a certain basic level of humanity, all people are distinguishable only by the outturns of their mental exertions. We are just male or female, all requiring each other for successful accomplishment of our most basic endeavours.

Just as men cannot beget babies without women, geniuses cannot exist in a vacuum - they are born, raised, recognised and celebrated amongst the blundering hordes of the 'average.' They are children of someone, parents to someone else. We all, for the harmony and advancement of society, must shed our 'public airs,' hang the frock of fame and fortune on the office coat-stand and bolt the door behind us as we walk home to common society. At 'home' within society, we are mere participants, equal partners to everybody else co-operating in society's progressive trek though the treacherous plains of life. We become boys or men, girls or women; warriors, farmers, teachers, students, etc., each working for the final benefit of all. Selfish actions and restrained participation, aiming to reserve one’s best for own benefit is the bane of all societies.

Nature roots for equity, advancing its majestic law of survival of the fittest. In the wild, disability counts for certain demise. Human history - that is what we read, for we know nothing of the histories of reptiles: who are their heroes, which their wars, who their gods? - not only records but also recounts the deeds of our finest. Everywhere it is apparent, then, that life, left to its own vagaries, will always lead to equity. It is vain and wasteful effort, to fight for equity. Being the natural law, it does not require our weak slaps on a mountain to shake it.

Our business distils itself to understanding the purpose of social organization: why people seek groupings - to spread and share the high benefits of genius among the greatest number, to carry along those whose beneficial output is only but a future expectation, and to lend a helping hand to 'precious' laggards, those rare creatures amongst us whose value lies in extreme adaptation derived from debilitating deprivations of other 'normal' faculties, the sub-normal. This calls for a more compassionate look at all members of society. That what good one human deserves, is what all people deserve. Society, therefore, cannot afford equity. Compassion quickly resolves itself into equality.

Competition on the other hand will bring about equity. Consider an athletics sprint race at the Olympic Games. The organisers will provide a level track, in similar weather, at the same race time, with similar curves, a flat slope and accurately equalized distances for the participants to run on. The starting conditions are therefore equalized for all competitors from all over the world. When the race is started, by a ringing shot and ended later at the laser tape, the fastest and slowest runners are recorded by the time-stretch photo equipment. The athletes run an equal distance on an equalized track. The only difference, the main one indeed, in their positions at the tape is a product of their desire and physiques. That is the flower of equity blooming from the stem of equality. Nature wins out, again.

Where do I lead to with this? Just a simple point really! That we organise ourselves in groups to seek equality, because left to our own devices, we can only obtain equity. So, what is the role of common social organizations like Government? To provide equality - that level playing field - so that the individual brilliance of endowed individuals will separate common folk only when they advance well outside levels of tolerable life. That a boy in Turkana and a boy in Alego will have an equal chance in the Society's schools. That when a girl from Lamu beats them both, it should not be because her school was preferred, but because she has a higher IQ than these boys.

For national development, let us seek to equalize the facilities and amenities available to all persons and regions. Those that will squander their opportunities will thus be left behind, but from a tolerable starting point. Those who excel will, therefore, earn the respect of all, for their industry without imputations of graft, thievery and favouritism as are the usual fare here. And just like in the Olympic race, the winner will only be one metre ahead of the last to arrive, not a difference of the whole distance ran, as can be attested to by our rich-poor gap.

Government must be a tool for equality; equity is a natural grant.

Tech Terror Quakes Lethargic Banks

Mobile Money Transfer is Mere Usurpation and Exposure of Banks' Lethargy

The idea of a telecommunications company transfering money is much like a salon that offers a snack to its clientele.  The meal is only an enticement; and the salonist has no obligation to improve the quality of her morsels.  Infact, it becomes a health hazard to eat in such a place, though it provides the proprietor with vital experience, were she to diversify her interests into food. At the salon, whereas you certainly get your hunger satiated, the meal can never be as good or as safe as at a dedicated eatery. 

I concur with Crown Paints' Peter Marangi and join him in chanting his chorused exhortation to us: ask the experts!  Safaricom's M-Pesa and the whole litter of cash-zapping rival chefs are mere usurpers; they will never feed us on a first-class full course meal served with five-star grace.  The reason is simple, a barbershop that stocks beer can never beat a real pub.

Every business has a core competency; its raison d'etre, its sine qua non. And the basis of banking is money.  If anyone has the natural instinct for creating and transfering money, it is the bank.  We only happen to live in an age of timorous bankers and stagnancy of innovation.  Although the idea of mobile money transfer is great; its conduct by mobile phone service providers (MSPs) is not. One just wonders when banks will awaken from their slumber to leverage their licences and reclaim their forte.

Thousands of jobs

That the mobile money transfer phenomenon has transformed lives and transfigured townships cannot be gainsaid. Millions of households are being rescued from excruciating poverty and literally saved from sleeping on empty tummies. But at what cost to the economy?  Unfortunately, humans are only impressed by sensual perceptions, and in this instance, by what they see happening. In most pursuits, however, what we do not see is more significant. For instance, what is the real cost of this industry? Respectfully, may I posit that MSP money transfer is not unlike a boil, a sort of sore abscess; principally, an inefficient outpouring of pent energy and waste, resulting from clogs in the natural systems. It is not only uncomfortable and difficult to hide, but also very painful. Let me expound.

The Kenyan banking system is too slow to react to new ideas and technological advances.  Ever since Western Union and Moneygram came up with the secure Transactional Reference Code for money transfer, it was obvious that someone would use the idea for mass money movements across local wallets.

Why banks have never invested in technology that allows them to adopt this concept defeats logic.  Fair lady Idea met MSP Technology along Money Avenue, and while staid Lord Banks hesitated, his lumpen servant, MSP quickly set up a candy store and stole her languorous attention. Can Mr Banks reclaim his street and woo back his pledged lady?  

In responding to this query, we have to consider the efficiency and merit of the MSP offering against the natural competence of the banking industry. 

To transfer money in the MSP model, the sender has to get cash - from some trade transaction, bank counter or cash machine and 'deposit it' into her mobile phone account at an agent of the MSP. Only then can she send it over the phone system to the recipient, who may send it onwards to a further recipient (or visit her local MSP agent) for 'withdrawal' and expenditure. This process involves at least four person to person exchanges, the first: when a sender trades commodities or visits the bank for cash; the second, when she visits the Send Agent for deposit; the third, when the recipient goes to the Receive agent for withdrawal; and the fourth, as the recipient exchanges cash for commodities. 

This model is seriously vulnerable to insecurity and criminal intervention, as would be the case were thugs to accost the 'sender' and confiscate the cash while on her usually distant way between the source of cash and the Send Agent's premises; or even the recipient after withdrawal. Further inefficiency is encountered because these cash exchanges can only occur during the working hours of each Agency, which, again for security reasons, are limited to an average ten-hour day.

And does the economy work well with all these informal money agencies? Everyone cannot be a good doctor; certainly not many can make good bankers.  Why do we need all these MSP agents? Systemic banking inefficiences are directing precious entrepreneurial capital into this MSP industry, away from greater social pursuits and achievements. 

We do not need any informal bankers in an economy of over twenty thousand formal bankers working in forty-five commercial banks and serving only nine million bankable individuals. (Considering that Kenya's population of forty million is comprised, upto fifty-five per cent, of children below the age of majority, whose accounts, if at all anywhere held for them, are funded and operated by their guardians; and taking as granted that of the remaining forty-five percent, only about a half, still many of whom are enjoined as spouses, have the financial weal and muscle to hold a bank account), the banking system is adequately manned.  The few account holders have even fewer monthly transactional counts. 

Yet these few are the people transfering money within this economy.  Any more agents are just rent-seekers. What can be more inefficient than that?  We just end up with more people 'getting to know who has received how much,' exposing the recipients' privacy and as a consequence inflating consumer prices - because we must pay the excess baggage of informal bankers, and we must charge a premium on commodities sold to 'the newly rich villager, who has received money from Uppity.'  Can an economy grow on internal transfer payments without matching productivity increases? Mobile Money Transfers are a form of intra-economy transfer payments, and their impact can only be inflationary, on the microeconomic scale.
That is the underlying social cost.  Next time you want to complain of deteriorating standards of living and persistently higher costs of goods, perhaps we should consider blaming the twin C*K regulators - the Communications Commission of Kenya and the Central Bank of Kenya.

Now, in the bank-provider model; the bank runs a money transfer platform, employing the MSPs only for data exchanges. Any bank account holder can register to the premium service at her bank and access her account anywhere, anytime.  The transaction process involves a data message to the Bank's software modules, and a virtual transfer of funds from own account to any individual mobile number in the republic.  Every transaction only yields a reference and report of new virtual balances to each party concerned.  And the bank system keeps a complete, safe and secure record of transactions per each account and associated mobile number.

This way, a registered user can access money on call from the comfort of her bed, any time of the day or night, and pay rent, school fees, water bill, purchase airtime, send pocket money to her old folk or young boarding school child, send money to the shamba boy, pay Mama Mboga, the doctor, the supermarket bill, and so forth; and the money can flow within twenty or thirty trades, without anyone touching any cash.  Then we will not need to carry cash to Namanga because our bank has no ATM out there.

Your phone only transfers data.  The money stays at the bank, and anyone needing hard cash should walk to their nearest bank or sacco branch for 'download'.

This way, banks deal with money, and the telcos with data.  Fair trade! Neat division of labour and exercise of comparative advantage.  The economy enjoys complementarity, not undue competitive pressure.  But the banks must first wake up to this!