12 October 2008
column
Nairobi — If controversial American writer Jerome Corsi did not understand Kenyans' affinity for Barack Obama before he flew into Nairobi a week ago, he does now.
Corsi, author of The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality was hastily deported by Immigration authorities just minutes before he addressed his first press conference in Nairobi, sparking outrage among some local activists about Kenya's "intolerance" of dissenting views.
Circumstantial evidence however indicates that the overwhelming majority of Kenyans were in favour of the deportation.
What's with Prof. Yash Pal Ghai, the law academic who presided over Kenya's abortive Bomas constitutional review process?
Recently, the good professor resigned his position as the United Nations' Special Representative to Cambodia, after Prime Minister Hun Sen called him "arrogant" and "deranged."
It must have caused a feeling of déjà vu; Prof Ghai's his attempts at constitution-making in Kenya were essentially one big name-calling party.
Seeking salvation? Buy your own church then
Have some $1.2 million to spare? If so, here's your chance to become the new owner of one of Eldoret's best known addresses, the Pope John XXIII Catholic Church.
The church and an adjoining seminary will be put under the hammer on October 28 for failure to repay some $370,000 owed to the Agricultural Finance Corporation The entire complex stands on 20 acres of prime land.
"We expect very handsome bids," said Njoroge Mbatia, the auctioneer charged with the complex's disposal. "So far, three people have confirmed interest."
Death of a would-be husband
Transition: James Kamangu Ndimu, who two years ago grabbed the imagination of a nation when he claimed to be the estranged husband of one of Kenya's best known evangelists, Bishop Margaret Wanjiru, died last Wednesday.
Kamangu, a struggling cobbler, claimed to have sired Wanjiru's two adult children during a tumultuous relationship in the 1980s before the bishop, now also an assistant minister, rose to national fame.
He emerged on the national stage himself in 2006 when he sensationally halted Wanjiru's marriage to a South African preacher, claiming she was his common-law wife.
Welcome back to Africa, you high and mighty
South Africans like to refer to the rest of the continent as "Africa" in a dissociative mannerism that seems to say they are not part of the continental mess.
The recent xenophobic attacks underlined this mindset.
The deposition of Thabo Mbeki, and the resultant political mess, however seem to indicate that South Africa, economic might and all, has more in common with the rest of the continent than many would like to admit.
Now, across the country there is hushed talk about the dictatorship of the ANC, party splits and backroom coups.
Welcome back to Africa, dear South Africans. You never quite left.
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