Sex? Just Like Obama, Yes We Can.

O...Bummer! *Runs away from the N(A)SA*

“You have 18 kids? Do you pay child support?”

“I can’t pay no child support! They [the women] know…” he can’t afford it, says the very 'ign'ant' black American-sounding young man.

“What about contraception? Is that not an option for you?” responds the bemused inquisitor, to the amusement of a live crowd, from the cued laughing sounds of it.

“I was young…and ambitious.”

This was an audio recording played yesterday morning on my trustee @105.5XFM, the everyday all-day Kenyan rock-head’s station. Of course I don’t know that the perp was black, nor do I know that the inquisitor was white. But: suspicions a-sneaky, my mind a-freaky.

Now think about it. Is this kinda brouha (because the last ha was deemed inadmissible to sense) not the very crap we allow in our society when we consciously ignore any and all talk about sex? Forget that he has a whole football team, nay, an entire changing room, of children. They could probably play a game of 11-aside, with the women part of the teams, and still have enough bodies leftover to play linesmen and part of the fan support. As the man plays referee, since any self-respecting football fan will tell you that the ref is the biggest fool on the pitch.

I’ll admit to being sorry, however, for being so overly presumptuous as to figure the man could actually afford all the equipment required to facilitate this kinda game, let alone a Sunday dinner complete with cornbread and some Kool Aid. Because drinking Kool Aid makes you Kool, nigga!

See what we do to ourselves, black people? Of course there are crazy white people out there, as there are reds and yellows; the KKK and general redneck fuckerries of yore, the red Communist brouha, the red vein-juice regularly flowing in the Middle East and India. But this? This could be avoided with a simple culture of honest open talk!

“Son. This is your penis. If you put it in this…” father proceeds to show Google image of a vagina to Young Turk, “…without this…” another Google image of a condom “…being wrapped around your penis…”

How hard was that? Are your sensitivities now pricked anywhere near hard enough?

No harder than this poor sod’s prick was when he went on a fucking rampage, I might imagine. I sincerely hope you won’t prefer thinking that your daughter is not going to be affected. How do you know? How can you say, for certain, that this, or worse, is not what awaits her in the jungle we cultivate for our future by not talking about sex and the precious gift that is womanhood? Or as one particular wench I’d like to biblically ‘know’ says, her ‘laughter and the sweet scented sanctity between [her] legs’?

Story #2 for Storymoja Africa

Imagine a world in which sex was discussed freely. I’m talking about Vagina Monologues held in the chief’s baraza out in the middle of Jangwa County, in the desert, not in Capital Cities and City Halls. Waza Dunia. Imagine. Your. World.

Is what we have here enough? Can we prevent the proliferation of single-seed families all over our world without engaging our children in better preparation for their futures? And believe you me, sex runs this world, so the kids had better get used to the idea. As should you, dear reader.

Any time I hear or sniff out even the sneakiest scent of sex, I just as quickly wanna sign up for a piece of that action. Take Sunday, for instance. I promise it was after the duly allowed church-going hours, so you can set those anti-XFreddy placards and Red-Armed pitch-forks down. The effigy looks good, though; methinks me likey!  

*wink wink-back at The 150 Shades, me love you long time*

Back to Sunday, and Back to The Future. At least mine, that’s for sure. There I was, seated by my trusty lappy… We’ll call her Lap-Dance™. So there she is dancing on my lap, sailing through the Twitter sphere of life, and voilà: a new follower! A female follower at that, mused my mind. Something about the profile picture and name just oozed femininity.

Now, normally, I don’t bother myself too much with who follows or doesn’t, until, at least, I use a Social Media tool or other after a while and bulk-unfollow any baggage I don’t need on my timeline. 

But something about her Twitter love handle just got me curious. So I shift Lap-Dance™ on my place-that-we-will-not-mention-coz-society-says-so, and click on the profile.

The following is a word for word transcript of what my mind told me, and what I said back to it, in the next 15 minutes:

Mind:            

Dude! This has got to be the Social Experiment of the Hour!

Me:                

Nay, nay, nay, nigger! This one will serve for the decade!

Mind:           

It was just an interesting Twitter handle, with an interesting regal looking feather of a profile pic that followed me.

Me:                                

        Curious, you read her bio.

“Davina Owombre, a Nigerian short story writer. A published author of a
sexy title known simply as ‘Sarah’, in a collection titled ‘See You Next
Tuesday: The Second Coming.’”

Mind:            

The bio said coming. Twice! Further, it said that she would, would ‘Sarah’, see you next Tuesday!

 Me:               

And so you engaged her. Asked her if you were really gonna see her next Tuesday.

Mind:            

Then you immediately sent a link to her, a review I had just finished reading, about her story. Sometimes you can be such a nitwit, Me.

Me:                

Yeah, right. I didn’t hear you complaining as we sparred on, did Davina and I, segued in jest...

Mind:            

But whose idea was it to request a trade? One of my stories, for her 'Sarah', remember that, nitwit?

Me:                                

One of ‘your stories’? Are you kidding me right now? Who types them out? Do you fool? And will you stop calling me nitwit, nitwit?

Oh well…let the two of them keep on arguing. You and I, dear reader, can be happy to know that, as it turns out, Davina said yes. She sent me a copy of ‘Sarah’, which began thus:

“A sweaty cowboy staggered up, grabbing a chair. The cowboy still on the floor crawled toward the bar. Other cowboys in the room went wild booing and cheering. The chair-grabber raised the chair and broke it on his opponent’s back.”

The ending, however, was less Coward of the County, and more Hero of the village:

“Sarah smiled her new special smile. And she parted her legs ever so slightly to reveal white underwear only he could see. Ani settled down to read.”

The short story was effortless, Davina’s scenes so flawlessly curved out that they formed a mental picture as they oozed out of the page straight to my eyes. She is now in my box :) 

The gmail kind, just so we're clear. Not the vagina synonym. Or the Kenyan version of it, Just plain little old inbox. And the ‘she’ in this case is 'Sarah'...not Davina.

OK, I lie. The last email I sent Davina, after a series of them between us,  ended thus:

You naughty gal you. Wink accepted. Wink countered, seen and raised with a 

tip of the little Johnny. Or is it the little Akpor?

__________________________________________________________________________

Davina Owombre is a pseudonym that the author of ‘Sarah’ keeps as private as possible (hence no picture) because she had to sort of go 'underground' after receiving a barrage of criticisms and threats in Nigeria for daring to publish a same-sex short story involving Africans long before it was fashionable to do so (we're talking about a decade ago).

She will feature in Freddy’s second piece of the month for Storymoja, every month, between now and October 1st. So tune in, every second Tuesday of the month, for more of Sarah’s wiles ;)

First Published on June 11th 2013, for Storymoja Hay Festival.

Occupy HELB, says the Fiddler on my Non-existent Roof

Tom, as Rabbi

“Rabbi! Rabbi! Is there a prayer we can say for the Tsar?”

“Yes! May God bless the Tsar…and keep him far far away from us!”

-          Scene III of Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Dear HELB*, 

(*Higher Education Loans Board)

90%Sold Out, you say?

Where have I heard that sold out threat before? Oh, yeah, that’s right. Every new skyscraper that litters the lines in Nairobi’s horizon has that pitchfork aimed at our sights, long before it’s actually complete.

Every event organizer threatens that advance (cheaper) tickets are about to sell out, despite tickets also being ‘available at the gate’. Every other radio show host will promise you juicy call-in sessions that are (I swear!) unscripted. Safaricom threatened to trap all unregistered trappers in the whole of Kenya oga oh. Digital TV threatened to go ham on Analog TV late last year. 

We’ve become a society that feeds on – nay; gobbles up and hobbles off with, to use pigliamentary language – Public Relations exercises and marketing gimmicks. I have no doubt that this SMS I received from you during the course of this week was inspired by State House’s hyperbolic antics.

Your loan balance is Kes. 888,888 for Idno. 2xyz2abc. Repay your full University Loan by 6^th June 2013 and get a full penalty amnesty; contact HELB - 0711052000

Sender: (no name) HELB 

Received: 18:43:27 0y.05.2013

So allow me to respond in kind, dear no name.

I will not contact you.

As we have already established, I have no money. See text you sent me above. In case you need advance settings on that simple message, I will be willing to assist. Bank statements from my 2 money changers should bring you to tears. I can assure you that they will be no joy drops, either, as the Revenue Authority may well choose to alert you. Simply put, even my Mpesa statement - nay, Okoa Jahazi Account! -  is by and large a casting call for phantasmagoria. *Google is your friend, dear no name*

‘History records that money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance. ’

         -          President James Madison

I am willing to pay.

If I could eat will, I would be one helluva fat man. Complete with the willing wrist and neck chains, glistening with will as I stand on a podium of will, next to the president of will, and chant willingly about the will of the Kenyan workers' ill will against the House of Common thieves. I am sure, however, that you understand that will is not yet a currency. As soon as it is, however, I will more than likely pay you.

‘You can be killed just as dead in an unjustified war as you can in one protecting your own home’

       -          Will Rogers

I have not refused to work.

This is not a statement of my lack of intent to pay. I know you bureaucratic types have a way of selecting what you listen to, and even then you've already filtered out what you hear. 

This is a statement of my lack of ability to pay. 

Show me the money, and I will quickly give it to you. So in the spirit of giving back, and all, how about you give me back my dignity before you attempt to take away my liberty?

‘We don’t have to worry about anything. No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit.’

          -          Will Rogers

Of course, to quote Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof (the movie), "we don't eat like kings, but we don't starve either."

I will not be threatened.

You said there’s a penalty amnesty? I wish, oh how I do, that I had 2 weeks of my area MP’s salary. The current one, not the one he wants. 

Then I would, in order of priority, buy a quarter acre of land in some Savannah of the un-silicon kind, buy a trailer container, use it to ‘develop’ said kaquarter, buy a mattress and fit it midway into the container, then – and only then – I would send you the change.

In the meantime, take a chill pill as my MP and I negotiate. 

Unfortunately, he is not a cougar (that’s an older woman into younger boys, no name) – and I don’t roll that way, neither does he; I haven’t heard it on Ghafla! anyway. If he was a she, an actual she, not a he-she, I would consider giving him some.

‘A man only learns by two things; one is reading, and the other is association with smarter people.’

              -          Will Rogers

Find yourselves a book. Or else look for smarter people. You’re reading one right now, by the way, no name. Thanks to your Loan, Varsity was a blast. The reading part, the partying part and the women part; we even learnt to do all three at once. Don’t believe me? Google the World’s Loudest Library (@pmbclibrary)

Are you so out of touch with reality, in your penthouse offices and leafy suburban bliss, that you forget why you gave me the loan to begin with? Because I could not pay my way through Varsity on my own; now you’re going to sit there paying for this bulk SMS system, advertising rigorously that I pay ‘or else’?

You are called the Higher Education Loans Board – higher education is pointless if I will not be working anywhere without being either underemployed, or overworked and underpaid. Then you expect me to simply watch as you deep your claws into that piggy bank I call an existence? Whatever happened to a saving culture?

‘We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.’

                 -          Will Rogers

I have a right to peace of mind, and a piece of meat in my daily meal. Not the 3-course you’re on as you demand your money back! And you have the right to a piece of my mind. I’ll try serving you to your fill.

                     

If I were a rich man ... there would be no questions. When you're rich they really think you know

I will put up my own house.

This particular one is a message from my ol’ man. He may be my guarantor, but there is absolutely no way he is paying that loan. He says, by the way, that you can find him on Twitter, and he'll gladly reiterate that sentiment. 

I wouldn’t have it any other way. He builds his own houses, and I will build mine. If that means the penalty (Kes. 5,000 a month is it?) will continue to dig a hole through my as torn pocket, then so be it.

I have after all been out of Campus for two years, and by my estimation of my own worth, I should be paying the Revenue Authority at least Kes. 15,000 a month. That, over a duration of 24+ months means I owe the Government of Kenya at least Kes. 360,000. By my reckoning, I have at least 2 more years before my loan, plus the monthly penalties, gets that far. I can live with that…scratch that; I can SURVIVE with that.

‘Ten men in the country could buy the world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.’

                    -          Will Rogers

Just as I will pay my own bride-price should it come to that, I do not expect to be emasculated any further by having the man who foots my bills when times are thick (whale-skin thickness, not your regular hide) and has fed me regularly over the past 24 months, also have to pay my dues at no name.

***

Incidentally, what is the world coming to when a man has to take out a loan to pay back a loan he was granted as a student loan? Forget interest-free loans, President Uhuru…we want a rebate!

So as we plan to #OccupyParliament in less than 48 hours, I challenge every defaulter who has defaulted not by choice but by lack thereof it, to join me in asking President Uhuru to budget for a government bail-out of we the meek.

I do not seek to ask for a handout. I seek to receive a scrapping on the BS penalty that ignores the fact that I need to earn to pay back my dues. So before any Salaries and Remunerations are upgraded for 400 odd able-bellied men, how about the richest man in Kenya by Forbes’ account help us #OccupyHELB?

Think of it as indemnity for the youth, Mr. President, and your soon-to-be parliament.

"He's right and he's right? They can't BOTH be right!"

"You know; you are also right."

                                       - Fiddler on the Roof 

If we deserve to ‘accept’ your nomination of political devil incarnates who have ‘moved on’ and reincarnated as technocrats, don’t we deserve to also give the youth a second chance to pay back their student loans interest- and penalty-free?

As a man who appreciates more flair and panache in a speech than Kibaki, I’m sure you can relate with this one.

‘There is one thing in common with all revolutions (in fact they are pretty near like wars in that respect) nobody ever knows what they are fighting about!’

                                                  -          Will Rogers

How to Write about Kenya's Post-Election Economy

This piece illustrates how to write about the Kenyan Economy's response to UhuRuto. It contains Sex, Nudity, Violence and foul/ adult Language. This is to say that it consists of nude optimisms that will leave many in peaks of blind satisfaction much akin to the throes of sexual arousal; truths established by violently repetitive enforcement; and language foully intended to kidnap public adult opinion. Key optimisms will be highlighted in red. The bigger, bolder and darker the claims, the bigger, bolder and darker the text. Attempts will be made sparingly to avoid highlighting entire paragraphs. Or the entire piece. Reader discretion is advised.

_____________________________________________________________

Post Election Glow: A Report on a ‘Jubilated’ Kenyan Economy

Despite having been caught up in a political and legal limbo wrought with pecuniary losses over the just concluded fiscal year quarter, the memo from the Kenyan economy to the rest of the world seems to be a resounding, ‘nothing personal, just business.’

Investors and entrepreneurs alike have experienced a downturn in fortunes since the end of the second fiscal year quarter, with some companies such as Jetlink Express – a Kenyan airline – having shut their doors down at the end of November last year. Effectively, the World Bank’s distance to frontier (DTF) measure of the Kenyan economy – which compares the current state of Kenya’s economy to that of the best performances across all world economies over time – showed a marked reduction in the ease of doing business from 2012 to 2013. The Stock Market is frequently a most straightforward harbinger of an economy’s well-being, and financial analysts noted that the market reacted stalwartly to the peaceful election process. It responded largely in a largely comparable trend to the respect of former premier Raila Odinga’s due process in seeking legal redress to his loss at the ballot, sending a powerful subliminal message of investor confidence.

The beginning of the last financial quarter of the year – on 1st April – coincided with the upholding of Uhuru Kenyatta’s election win two days earlier by the Supreme Court, ending a prolonged period of uncertainty; and along with it, all the attendant glum brought about by the glacial progress of business prospects. The bullish market reacted ever stronger to President Uhuru’s inauguration eight days later, closing at a multi-year high on 11^th April. Even with mild recoils ever since, it is clear that key players within the Kenyan business scene were relieved that the president said all the right things; the attendance of past and present African heads-of-state, as well as diplomats the world over, particularly came off as a “tempered hope” that “if Kenya succeeded, they too would succeed.” (author's note [henceforth, AN]: Too Big To Fail?)

While it may not have hit the ground running as fast as the bustling and carping Kenyan population demands, the leading indicators of this administration’s commitment to building upon the immense gains made by the past regime appear quite promising. In his first address to both Houses at Parliament a week after his inauguration, President Kenyatta emphasized that his government would emphasize “lean and effective” governance, and a restructuring of Public Service operations. Indeed the first step towards this envisioned end was taken within the past week, with the short-listing and presentation of 16 out of the 18 Cabinet secretaries who – pending the outcome of an ideally meticulous public scrutiny and Parliamentary vetting period – will take to office in mid-May at the earliest.

With the composition of Cabinet brought down by more than half, and the fact that a good majority of the nominees are technocrats with vast experience as leaders in both Public and Private sector organizations locally and abroad, a “lean and effective” Government appears within reach. These appointments may yet prove to be a masterstroke for the Kenyatta Government, particularly with the broader economic environment in mind. As the president noted, his term begins amidst a deepening world economic crisis and “recession in the West”, compounded by “rising costs in the East”. The nominees’ understanding of world trade and industry operations will be invaluable in shoring the economy up, protecting vulnerable industries and building up those in comparative advantage; it would seem that this knowledge informed his reference to pan-African collaboration during the inauguration, coupled with a well-placed allusion to the relative robustness of African economies in his speech to the Houses of parliament.

Further, roughly 60% of the country’s population comprises Kenyans aged between 15 and 35, with this demographic, according to Youth Challenge International, comprising 61% of Kenya’s unemployed. The Jubilee Government’s statistics place this figure at closer to 70% (AN: a Trojan Horse display of honesty); with the youth  literacy rate estimated at around 80% (AN: the rate only considers very simple sentence construction), and that of young citizens between ages 15 and 24 approximated at 92.72% in a 2009 World Bank report, this represents a massive untapped workforce potential. During the latest announcement of Cabinet nominees on 25^th April, President Kenyatta stipulated that the first item on the Cabinet Secretaries’ agenda upon assumption of office will be to come up with an inclusion plan for women and youth in their respective portfolios. This, he elaborated, explained his decision not to allocate special dockets for women and youth affairs in his Cabinet, and was in part a fulfillment of his earlier pledge in a 5 year agenda unveiled in his address to parliament regarding job creation for these two demographics.

The new nominees have expressed their own commitment to include more youth and women in government, as well as implement new loan provisions for the youth and women from the anticipated kitty amounting to US $ 70 million in interest-free loans promised by the Kenyatta administration. President Kenyatta has further given assurances that he will push for obligatory allotment of a third of his government’s contracts to young people, in addition to the review and revision of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, establishing official responsibility on government institutions and parastatals to prioritize buying locally produced goods. Kenya’s vibrant corporate scene – particularly the innovative mobile and tech industry that has led to the country’s strategic positioning as the Silicon Savannah – has long pushed for favorable policy review. Entrepreneurs will no doubt laud his effort to create procurement quotas for youth and women in his government.

In the face of being the region's biggest economy boasting strong Financial and ICT sectors, the country’s Agriculture, Manufacturing and Transport sectors have largely left a lot to be desired in the past. Approximately 45% of Government revenue derived from the Agriculture sector alone, which also directly contributes 24% GDP according to a food security report prepared by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, KARI. With “the right combination of policies with a steady hand (AN: unless the whiskey gets to him) and determination” envisaged by Kenyatta’s plan to project Kenya to middle-income nation status within a generation, a more efficient and harder working generation of farmers (AN: when not drinking themselves to a stupor) would augur well both for the economy and for government revenue. The plan to modernize and expand agriculture by opening up at least 1 million acres of new land through irrigation, while ambitious, is backed by flagship projects identified under Kenya Vision 2030, among them the development of irrigation schemes. Implementation will be crucial to revolutionizing agriculture, with some of the other projects aimed at improving the sector including the reduction of fertilizer costs, branding of Kenyan farm produce, establishment of livestock disease-free zones, and the provision of publicly accessible land registries.

Stealing Africa - Why Poverty? 

Glencore, the biggest company you've never heard of: How much profit is fair?

Slow registration and corruption continues to hamper progress (AN: do not use cripple; too dark) at the Land Registry, which has affected both the agricultural and building industries, where multiple licensing requirements for construction permits hinder (AN: see last note) business operations. News that the registry digitization project funded by the Swedish government is due completion in mid-2014, however, makes a strong case for improvement in transparency and speed of operations. Government estimates put the need for home constructions to cater for the population at 150,000 per year (AN: or 250,000, depends on who you read, just like the Kibra census), yet so far only an approximate 50,000 units are constructed annually.

Of these 50,000, the lively real estate scene in Kenya has focused primarily on high end and upper middle-class needs, locking out the low-earning majority’s needs. UNICEF estimates, however, that over half of Kenya’s population lives below the poverty line, less than KES 100 a day, even on the most optimistic estimates. This implies that while low-cost unit schemes, beyond those by the National Housing Corporation, should certainly be considered, reduction of poverty as a priority would make more business sense. Accordingly, the president’s calls for investment in “our greatest capital resource,” the people, by transforming our economy to enable our exports to “compete across the world and drive the growth necessary to create jobs for our youth and lift 10 million of our brothers and sisters out of poverty by 2017” are a bold statement of intent to provide the purchasing power that would justify low-cost housing units.

Prospects for oil in Turkana and mineral resources (AN: see graphic below for what copper has done to Zambia and Switzerland-based Glencore) in the Coast have whetted investor appetites recently. While the discovery is still in the test phase for commercial viability, the confidence exhibited by investors such as Base Resources, a subsidiary of the Australian Base Titanium in Kwale, as well as discovery of natural gas deposits suggests that there are alternatives for further investment in the Energy sector. This would be a welcome boost in the manufacturing sector, dogged by persistent energy shortages that have become a necessary added cost to many a businessman in the country, in the way of standby generators. President Kenyatta noted that in Argentina, whose population is roughly equal to Kenya’s, the national electric supply capacity is at 24 Gigawatts, to a paltry 1.5 Gigawatts comparatively in Kenya. His pledge to invest in bolstering the energy sector by sealing leakages in the revenue collection system and enhancing transparency would in turn reduce the cost of ordinary household goods, including food, housing, energy and transport. Coupled with the envisaged growth of the agricultural sector, these projected developments would in turn drive export led growth.

While Kenyatta’s government has been viewed as potentially debilitating for Kenya’s economy due to the pending ICC case against them for war crimes, the more likely scenario is supported by a background setting of absolute pragmatism. Simply put, Kenya is too important to close the eyes to. British corporations have a great deal of investment in this economy. The local creative industry is by and large experiencing an increased drive of international investment in the way of innovation hubs such as the iHub, Pawa254, 88mph, and the Go Down Arts Centre among myriad others. Kenya’s port connects a landlocked Uganda to the world trade scene, and the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, JKIA, still serves as the air transport hub of the region. Kenya’s Defense Forces, KDF, are currently invested in battling Muslim fundamentalist militants in Somalia, while the country plays host to a United States forces’ base in close proximity to Somali perimeter. The UK military is also hosted in a base in Nanyuki, where British soldiers train in the wild territory as a precursor to their being sent to actual wars around the world. Also a major patron and noteworthy importer of Kenyan products is the European Union, whereas the United States, primarily through USAID, supplies around $900m in financial assistance annually. Nairobi recently became the United Nations’ environmental headquarters, with an upgrade of UNEP’s Governing Council to universal membership. The least intimation of sanctions or choices that could disturb Kenya’s economy would have far-reaching consequences.

Still, corruption is one of the biggest threats to Kenya’s development agenda. While Transparency International ranks Kenya at 139^th out of 174 on the 2012 global corruption index, admittedly a marked improvement from her 154^th position out of 182 in 2011, there is still a great deal of effort required to streamline the conduct of business in Kenya, and improve Government’s purchasing power. Especially so in the context of devolved government, with the county structure having increased the avenues of public service countrywide, and with the counties still dependent on the Central government financially, there is need for better managing of resources and stringent defense of public interests in line with the constitution of the people of the Republic of Kenya. Mechanisms for the resolution of administrative challenges are in place, according to the Jubilee administration, to enable devolution, and similar mechanisms for the punishment of corrupt officials are to begin implementation as the economy heads into a protectionist mode to survive in the global backdrop.

It would be incumbent on trade and industry forecasts to however note that the Jubilee government is still in the transitional phase of a long journey ahead.

"Blue Colour" Crime