AFROPTIC

As the world continues to be a small global village thanks to modern communication technology, countries are more aggressively embracing multilateral cooperation. Regional integration today is much stronger than ever before with some regions yearning for confederation. Africa is not left behind in this regard with some leaders floating the idea of the United States of Africa.  Traditional regional integration efforts on the continent have largely been championed through regional trade blocs. Key among such blocs include the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC),  Communauté Économique des États de l'Afrique Centrale (CEEAC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). All of these bodies have been driven by common objective: to promote free movement of people and goods across their borders. Although the above-named bodies have h...

General Dedan Kimathi appeared to me in a dream last night. He was furious. He held a giant bow in his left hand and a steel arrow in his right. A dozen other arrows where in a buffalo leather sheath that was strapped on his back using a crocodile leather strap. He positioned the arrow in the bow as he angrily questioned why I had ignored his instructions. That was not the first time he had appeared to me. It was the 7th time in a month.I had ignored them as sheer dreams. I am not a very superstitious man but last night's dream was too vivid to be just a dream. In each of the instances he appeared to me, he ordered me to sweep the streets of Nairobi. But I did not know what he meant until he appeared with the weapons. So after failing to answer his question, he aimed the arrow at my upper between the thighs. I froze. I desperately pictured how the Bukusus would bury me. I must have been a disgrace to the community for having failed to produce enough publications to carry my name....

I told you people. This thing happens a lot in Nairobi's Ronald Ngala Street and Haile Selassie Avenue towards Muthurwa. Just three days after a failed attempt to snatch my old Huawei cell phone, I witnessed another robbery in the Green City in the Sun. I was seated in my homebound bus; the green Mwi Sacco PSV taxi commonly known as matatu. Commuters have nicknamed this particular Sacco Mwizi Sacco because of the theft that goes on in there. If the street thugs are not robbing you of your mobile phone, the bus crew rob you without robbing you. A distance of Ksh 50 they charge you Ksh 100! And if you give them Ksh 500, be rest assured they will “forget” to give you your change! They always forget and your chances of forgetting are equally as high as mine. I can bet. Now back to the Nairobbery incident. This seemingly gracious lady was a few seats ahead of me but on the same outer side on the bus. She must have been busy on her phone giving written instructions to her house ...

It is very notorious in Nairobi, especially along Ronald Ngala Street and Haile Selassie Avenue. This uncouth street behavior makes the great Pan-Africans who are named after them turn in their graves. It is disgusting and irritating. Very immoral! Sadly it happens and Nairobians largely seem unperturbed. Rumor has has it that the culprits enjoy the fruits of their labor with the supposed law enforcers. Sad! They have unsuccessfully attempted it on me several times. But last Saturday's attempt was quite memorable. I was seated in the inner row of the green MWI Sacco bus going back to my landlady's house after a very long day of hard work. Building this nation is not a joke! That day I had not had time to do Shadrach's standing assignment. So I decided I should do it on my way to the house. I was seated on the second seat from the window. I thought I was safe enough. But I was wrong. Very wrong. My plea to have the pseudo-slay queen seated on my left, next to the window,...

One day these careless and irresponsible politicians are going to burn all of us. But of course they burn us without burning us. They will simply give us fuel and a single matchstick then we will ignorantly and foolishly set ourselves on fire. It has happened before where for instance Tutsis and Hutus in the country of a thousand hills called Rwanda decided to kill each other without any good reason. Political historians tell us that about 800,000 innocent Tutsis and "moderate" Hutus were killed within 100 days in 1994.  Burundi has suffered the same, Kenya tasted it in the 2007/08 political violence that assumed an ugly ethnic face. In South Africa we have a madness called Xenophobia where "amakwerekwere," the foreigners are hunted and lynched just for being foreigners in that rainbow nation. Since we never learn from our past political mistakes, the pogrom that awaits us is unfathomable. The signs are already on the wall. Today in a remote Chepturo village of ...

A lot of things in Africa do not make very good sense to me. One of them is unnecessary security checks at some places considered "important." Woe unto you if you do not subject yourself to these, sometimes very annoying, security rituals. But do they really make sense?  Does a slight bending of these rules threaten national security? I work in a big organization that treats security of its members "very seriously." However, I find some of their security practices very ridiculous, annoying and/or irrational. They do not make sense at all. But you should see the zeal, enthusiasm and seriousness with which their custodians enforce them. The other day I was entering some building of the organization. Its entrance is designed in such a away that strangers and certain employees have to pass through some walk-through metal detector to "detect" if they are carrying an atomic bomb. At such entrances, all your metallic possessions are supposed to pass through...