Is it the President or AG who’s above the law?
By LUKOYE ATWOLISunday Nation 15 November 2009In 1991, newly appointed Attorney-General Amos Wako stood on the floor of Parliament and proclaimed that “a characteristic of the rule of law is that no man, save for the President, is above the law”. All analysts and academics who have studied Mr Wako’s career as Attorney-General have focused on this statement as an indication of his subservience to the whims of a corrupt Executive and evidence of his complicity in subverting the will of the people.What is lost in this analysis is the more fundamental implication of the statement as regards the position of Mr Wako in this scheme of things. In his

Focus attention on the real examination cheats
By LUKOYE ATWOLISunday Nation 08 November 2009As the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations enter the home stretch, allegations of cheating and exam leakages have risen stridently to fever pitch.Never mind that the ‘‘evidence’’ proffered this year has consisted of handwritten approximate questions rather than the full papers that have been offered for sale in the past. Indeed, one of the teachers arrested in connection with examination cheating was accused of collecting money from candidates and failing to produce the leaked papers as promised!AllegationsQuite apart from the fact that the le

Applauding the few brave women of Malindi
By LUKOYE ATWOLISunday Nation 01 November 2009Almost unheralded, a revolutionary act was committed by a few brave women at the Kenyan coast last week. During a Sunday sermon in Malindi, female members of the congregation protested loudly when the priest suggested that men were becoming homosexual because women ‘‘had failed to do the job that God gave them’’.This statement was made in the context of the reported ‘‘marriage’’ between two men of Kenyan descent in the United Kingdom. The local media was awash with the story, interviewing distraught parents and villagers in a bid to contextualise the matter and, of course, outdo their competitors in

Insecurity talk cannot be swept under the carpet
By LUKOYE ATWOLISunday Nation 25 October 2009This past Kenyatta Day, President Kibaki issued a stern warning to criminals in typically harsh fashion, promising to ‘‘crush them’’ and asking wananchi to help in the effort by revealing criminals in their midst and refraining from criminal activity.As far as the Rift Valley was concerned, the President seemed to allude to recent reports indicating that communities in the province were rearming in readiness for the next elections when he asked residents to ‘‘discourage arms buying in families and our villages …’’Different scriptEven as the President made his

Tribal alliance talk sets the stage for the next conflict
By LUKOYE ATWOLISunday Nation 18 October 2009A new furore has been unleashed on unsuspecting Kenyans following Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka’s call for an alliance between himself, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Minister for Agriculture William Ruto.The VP’s remarks came only a few weeks after some Rift Valley politicians and their Central Province counterparts had floated the idea of an alliance between Ruto and Kenyatta, touted as the ‘‘KK’’ alliance, ostensibly bringing together the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin communities.Kalonzo’s new alliance has already been christened ‘‘KKK’’ to bring on board the VP’s Kamba com