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Articles by Ken Opala
Kenya: How Kenya Bungled Somalia Border Talks
Kenya bungled negotiations that would have led to an amicable solution to the raging dispute over its maritime border with neighbouring Somalia, the Daily Nation can reveal. All indications point to the fact that authorities tasked with handling the issue failed to take serious the initial talks initiated by Somalia.
How Kenya bungled Somalia border talks
In Summary According to highly-placed sources, Kenyan authorities failed to deploy the requisite diplomatic tools to dissuade Somalia from moving to the ICJ. The negotiation team led by officials from the Attorney General (AG) and the Kenya International Boundaries Office (KIBO) slept on the job.
How Kenya bungled Somalia border talks
In Summary According to highly-placed sources, Kenyan authorities failed to deploy the requisite diplomatic tools to dissuade Somalia from moving to the ICJ. The negotiation team led by officials from the Attorney General (AG) and the Kenya International Boundaries Office (KIBO) slept on the job.
How Kenyan bungled Somalia border talks
In Summary According to highly-placed sources, Kenyan authorities failed to deploy the requisite diplomatic tools to dissuade Somalia from moving to the ICJ. The negotiation team led by officials from the Attorney General (AG) and the Kenya International Boundaries Office (KIBO) slept on the job.
Kenya: Reversing Mau Plunder Is Not a Walk in the Park
It was the best of Kenya; it was also the worst of the country. On the one hand, we were awed by some of the most conserved forests whose cool sensation and serenity evoked the aura of the pristine age when man and nature were at perfect peace with each other.
Reversing Mau plunder is not a walk in the park
In Summary Several task forces have recommended ways to stop further degradation of the Mau Forest Complex, but political expediency has always trumped the long-term good of the nation. Their call for the relocation of the people residing in the forests faced stiff opposition and a malleable government, which see-saws depending on the political weather, has often winked at loggers and encroachers.
Inside political intrigues that killed Mau economic dream
In Summary According to various studies, the plunder threatens the Maasai Mara wildlife ecosystem, tea plantations in Kericho and Bomet highlands, livestock and other farming activities, hydroelectric power generation in western Kenya and the health of millions of Kenyans who depend on Mau complex water for domestic use. Kenya Forest Research Institute, in a report last October, revealed that Mau is among three key water towers that contribute an annual Sh357 billion to the economy.
Inside political intrigues that killed Mau economic dream
In Summary According to various studies, the plunder threatens the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti wildlife ecosystem, tea plantations in Kericho and Bomet highlands, livestock and other farming activities, hydroelectric power generation in western Kenya and the health of millions of Kenyans who depend on Mau complex water for domestic use.
Kenya: How Moi Played Role in Plunder of Greater Mau Forest
About 50 kilometres north of Sierra Leone in Maasai Mau lies Kiptunga forest. We arrive here on the fourth day of our tour of the Mau complex after driving through the thick-canopy Transmara block, Kiptagich Tea Estate and the Olenguruone area of Kuresoi South constituency in Nakuru County. BUBBLES OUT It is at the end of Kiptunga that we arrive at Enapuyapui, the source of the main tributary of the Mara, 300 metres off the Olenguruone-Njoro road.
How Moi played role in plunder of Greater Mau forest
In Summary The agitation for the excision of the forest also coincided with the return of multi-partyism in the 1990s. Kanu insiders at the time told the Nation that President Daniel arap Moi needed a constituency out of Molo to secure a Kanu seat in a region dominated by the opposition. To meet the number of votes required to form a constituency, the gerrymandering went deep into Mau, opening up the forest for a free-for-all with big commercial loggers taking advantage.
Focus now shifts to compensation as Mau evictions near
By KEN OPALA More by this Author By JULIUS SIGEI More by this Author To compensate or not to compensate is the elephant in the room as authorities move to evict about 5,000 families from the troubled Maasai Mau forest. The removal scheduled for end of next month has sharply divided political leaders in the expansive Rift Valley region. The stakes are high.
Kenya: Big Names Face Arrest in Mau Land Crackdown
The government has lined up for prosecution tens of individuals it believes bear the greatest responsibility for the dishing out of huge swathes of the 46,000-hectare Maasai Mau forest. Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya says the government has collected all it needs -- green cards, topographical maps and gazette notices -- and that it was all systems go for their arraignment to face charges for the destruction of one of the largest closed canopy forests in Africa.
Big names face arrest in Mau land crackdown
By KEN OPALA More by this Author By JULIUS SIGEI More by this Author The government has lined up for prosecution tens of individuals it believes bear the greatest responsibility for the dishing out of huge swathes of the 46,000-hectare Maasai Mau forest.
Kenya: IEBC Dilemma After Ban of Controversial Kiems French Firm
By Ken Opala The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has been exposed -- and now finds itself between a rock and a hard place. The electoral body could be thrown into disarray after Parliament on Wednesday blacklisted a French multinational firm that supplied last election's voter registration kits.
IEBC dilemma after ban of controversial Kiems French firm
By KEN OPALA More by this Author The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has been exposed — and now finds itself between a rock and a hard place. The electoral body could be thrown into disarray after Parliament on Wednesday blacklisted a French multinational firm that supplied last election's voter registration kits.
Kenya: State Capture - How Drug Lords Control Political Power in the Country
analysis By Ken Opala Instructively, the Akashas' case in the US has excited a public convinced it is definitive in Kenya's fight against hard drugs. And this exhilaration is because American authorities earlier promised to swoop down on Akashas' accomplices -- judges, police officers, politicians, and many other public servants who aided or abetted the enterprise founded by Ibrahim Akasha, the poster boy of drug trafficking in Kenya.
State capture: How drug lords control political power in Kenya
In Summary The Akashas were an easy target because they failed to bankroll politics and, therefore, fell out of favour with power brokers. Kenya wouldn’t have surrendered the Akashas to America had they been controlling political power. Kenya’s narco-industry is widespread, beyond the understanding of the common person. It’s deeply entrenched in national politics and governance and has thus become the first-choice playground for foreign networks.
Kenya: How Corruption and Impunity Are Aiding Terrorism
By Ken Opala As the country struggles with jihadists, two concerns may complicate the counter-terror war and thus force authorities to revisit their strategy: One, the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) is pulling out of Somalia in 2021, and two; the new terrorist is no longer the foreigner but Kenyan. The planned military drawdown has left experts confused on what next for Somalia and the anti-terrorism war worldwide.
Graft, impunity aiding terrorism in Kenya
In Summary Kenya is a powerhouse — politically, militarily and economically — in this part of the world. And on paper, it is governed by one of the world’s best counter-terror strategies. So, why is Kenya a sitting target for extremists?
How corruption and impunity are aiding terrorism in Kenya
In Summary Kenya is a powerhouse — politically, militarily and economically — in this part of the world. And on paper, it is governed by one of the world’s best counter-terror strategies. So, why is Kenya a sitting target for extremists?
Kenya: IEBC Headache As It Plans to Redraw Electoral Map
By Ken Opala The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is grappling with a number of challenges as it gears up for the politically volatile task of redrawing Kenya's electoral map. The commission has an unenviable mandate to increase or decrease the number of constituencies in the country. Economic realities (read hardship) or population figures will guide the review, according to sources within the commission.
IEBC headache as it plans to redraw electoral map
By KEN OPALA More by this Author The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is grappling with a number of challenges as it gears up for the politically volatile task of redrawing Kenya’s electoral map. The commission has an unenviable mandate to increase or decrease the number of constituencies in the country. Economic realities (read hardship) or population figures will guide the review, according to sources within the commission.
IEBC theft 'was beyond the imaginable'
By KEN OPALA More by this Author The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission went flat out to award contracts to certain firms, against all legal and regulatory challenges, to the loss of the taxpayer. IEBC also bought some items at three times the market rate even as it paid for materials that were delivered long after the 2017 election had ended.
How IEBC lost Sh9 billion in irregular tenders
By KEN OPALA More by this Author The 2017 election was designed more as a cash cow than a process to midwife the next crop of leaders. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) conduct from procurement of goods and services to electronic transfer of results, appeared designed to covertly sabotage the people’s will. Multiple interviews and audit reports unravel an electoral agency allergic to ethics and laws of procurement.
Tension between Chebukati and Chiloba made matters worse
By KEN OPALA More by this Author The Chebukati-Chiloba relationship was always mechanical. It exhibited a clear lack of trust among them to an extent even mundane internal issues were detailed in memos. Chebukati seemed convinced that Chiloba was wily and in need of constant micro-managing to bar him from undermining authority. On his part, Chiloba was dismissive of his boss as a person in haste to fault-find and lay blame.
Intrigues and secrets at IEBC doomed 2017 election
By KEN OPALA More by this Author Days to Christmas last year, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairperson Wafula Chebukati instructed Mr Marjan Hussein Marjan, the commission’s then deputy chief executive officer, to hand him a “report” by January 5, 2018. This was the day Marjan’s boss, Mr Ezra Chiloba, was to resume duty from his annual leave.
Kenya: No Need to Celebrate Yet As More Drug Lords Are Still On the Loose
By Ken OpalaColombian drug lord Pablo Escobar killed more than 2,800 police officers and 1,400 civilians to protect his Sh2.2 trillion annual narcotics empire. His end came in December 1993 when Americans hauled him from his hideout and pumped bullets into his body. Colombian authorities would hail the killing as major success against the drug vice. Not long later, the authorities reported a drop in drugs-related deaths. Yet this dip wasn't because the Medellin Cartel boss was no more.
More drug lords are still on the loose
Corruption has ensured barons and kingpins never get punished for their heinous crime. Just like in the Escobar case, the exit of Akasha brothers may just open a can of worms as rivals occupy the subsequent void. Two reasons explain this. First, as stated above, there’s likely to be fallout in the local and regional drug kingdom, which could occasion a scramble for the void left by the Akashas.
FROM PRESTIGE TO HUMILIATION: Uganda-Ethiopia In The Age Of Trump | The Elephant
I had arrived late to Ethiopia, when I first visited it in 2012, barely managing to see the vestiges of the early 20th century nation of lattice work balconies, of Lada taxis, family pizzerias and piazzas; also the Ethiopia of Red Terror squares and state surveillance carried out on such a scale you did not buy a new shirt without the president potentially hearing of it. That was late 2012, three months after the death of Meles Zenawi.
WAR ON DRUGS: Kenya, the Forgotten Hotspot of the Heroin Trade | The Elephant
In downtown Mombasa, a nondescript office sandwiched between multistoreyed buildings is busy as usual. Every five minutes or so, gaunt youths, eyes bloodshot, walk into the tiny reception and straight away dash to the water dispenser at the far corner. They refill the only plastic glass next to the dispenser without rinsing it, and eagerly empty its contents before turning to the reception desk.
Kenya | Gentrifying Kibera
A transnational investigation in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC by the African Investigative Publishing Collective Kenya chapter Nairobi, March 2017 They had come, way back in the year 2000, to promise Lucianna Wanjiku, 58, that her mud shack in Soweto settlement in Kibera, Nairobi, -often called ‘the greatest slum on earth- would be rehabilitated. She would get a title deed to the piece of land on which her single-room was built, the government men had said.
OPALA: Probe may not get to the bottom of 2013 poll tender mess - Opinion
“We have a strong feeling that (the letter by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) was written after we refused to compromise on corruption.
How Barack Obama Sr’s brilliance changed Kenya
Indeed, the cynicism in media coverage of the icon’s death opens the inside of a controversial lifestyle — and perhaps the modest life of the man. To the media, he was personification of Mr Toad — excitedly self-destructive.
How brokers and MPs conspire to rip off Kenyans
The Sh28 billion Moi Referral and Training Hospital controversy has exposed how tenderpreneurs, public servants and politicians conspire to steal from Kenyans.The saga, which has sucked in Deputy President William Ruto, ODM leader Raila Odinga, hospital director John Kibosia and businessman Herbert Ojwang, is being investigated by Parliament’s Public Investments Committee.Mr Ojwang claims he brokered a deal in which a Chinese company was to upgrade the hospital at a cost of Sh17 billion but...
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