This first episode of “Kanjo Kingdom” begins an in-depth investigation into an extortion ring ran by officers from Nairobi City County’s notorious Inspectorate department. Every month, officers from this department fleece hundreds of thousands of hawkers and informal traders of up to one million dollars.
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Why Elections (Don’t) Matter in Kenya
“If Kenyan politicians were to serve the citizenry as they are when vote-hunting, many Kenyans would not be going hungry or living from hand to mouth.”
Kennedy Ouko, a newspaper vendor, lays this on me with a matter-of-fact tone, so well placed in this very Kenyan of afternoons; it’s hot, matatu touts are yelling, and irritated drivers are pulverizing their horns. We are seated at his newspaper stall along Tom Mboya Street. Once in a while, our conversation is interrupted as Ouko rises from his seat to attend to a customer. They come by in irregular drips, so he has time to lay out what the world looks like from his stoop.
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Kanjo Kingdom – Part 4
How does money extorted from informal traders on the streets of Nairobi wind up in the formal economy? The answer lies in one of Kenya’s most cherished inventions; mobile money transfer service, M-pesa. The final episode of Kanjo Kingdom tracks the liquid cash that corrupt City Inspectorate officers have taken from hawkers, and has a lesson from one of the whistle-blowers who have filmed these men and women for over a year.
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THE LONELY WARRIOR: Post Traumatic Stress and the Kenya Defence Forces.
“Many a veteran’s wife has said, “What’s wrong with you? We were just at your mother’s funeral and you didn’t shed a tear. You didn’t even look sad. You just looked like a block of stone.” Excerpt from Odysseus in America
On an otherwise fine day in March 2016, the shine and sparkle of a quiet village in Busia County was muted by an unfolding event. The villagers woke up to the death of one of their own. A man held in high esteem. A man who had fought for his country and came back home alive. What made his death that much more poignant was its manner. Death by his own hand. Joash Ochieng’ Magar, 52 who had just come home from a mission in Somalia against the Al Shabaab had taken his own life. He was reported to have suffered from some mental problems that had him sent home on indefinite leave.
