Kenya is currently in the middle of a heavy debate about the proposed 1050 megawatt coal power plant in Lamu. This plant will cost us 2 billion dollars, which is about 202 billion Kenya Shillings. We also seek to start the mining of coal at the Mui Basin in Kitui, where Africa's largest coal reserves are located. This has been met with much protest, due to the harmful effects of coal to people and the environment. We are joined by Omar Elmawi , a coordinator of the #deCOALonize movement, to talk...
Jun 13, 2018•23 min
The last few weeks have been jarring for Kenyans as we found out that we'd had yet another maize scandal, and this time we lost KES 2 billion at the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) to 21 people. We also found out that we lost KES 9 billion to 10 companies that were irregularly awarded National Youth Service (NYS) tenders. That’s a total of KES 11 billion. A few days ago, it also came to light that we had lost between KES 70 - 95 billion at the Kenya Pipeline Corporation (KPC). This sca...
Jun 07, 2018•29 min
Welcome back to Season 2 of Otherwise?! We're so happy to be back. Today, we're going to be looking at some of the legal issues that may be pertinent in Kenya in 2018, including freedom of expression, press freedom, fake news, data protection, cyberterrorism, the two-thirds gender principle, and the #Repeal162 movement. We're joined by Jeptum Bullut , a lawyer and partner at BMN Advocates, to discuss them. Press play! Resources Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, 2018 Court suspends Cybercrime ...
May 31, 2018•27 min
It's been a year of podcasting here at Otherwise?, and to mark this occasion we have Owaahh of Owaahh.com with us this week to discuss what we call the Kenyan experiment. In what order did the communities currently settled in Kenya arrive? How did they interact? What impact did colonialism have on tribe/ethnicity in Kenya? How did this change or remain the same at independence? Why have we entrenched ethnocentrism as a means of organization in our successive governments? What do we know about se...
Aug 24, 2017•2 hr 11 min
The 2017 general election is now behind us, and we are still asking ourselves questions and processing how it went. This week, we are joined by Mark Kaigwa of Nendo and Odanga Madung of OdipoDev to discuss how the election season played out online. How many Kenyans are there on social media? How does the diaspora feature in conversation? Is fake news new to the Kenyan scene? What role did Cambridge Analytica play in this election? What can we learn from the April Primaries? Were there any missed...
Aug 17, 2017•3 hr 15 min
Tomorrow is D-day – we will have our second election since we got the 2010 constitution, and our sixth as a multi-party democracy. What do you need to be aware of as you head to the ballot? We’ve got you covered, press play! Resources FACTSHEET: What you need to know about Kenya’s 2017 general election Women gear up for elections in Kenya Why Are Kenyan Elections So Expensive? UchaguziBot PigaKura.com How to be a citizen Observer without hanging around the polling station all day Patrick Gathara...
Aug 07, 2017•11 min
NOTE: the figures quoted for the number of women running were from UN women and UNDP. According to Africa Check, however, we have 9 women running for Governor, 131 women running for Member of National Assembly, 21 running for Senator, 299 running for County Woman Representative, and 900 running for Member of County Assembly. That comes to a total of 1,360, out of a total of 14,523 candidates, coming to 9.36%. We are now four days away from the 2017 general election. This week, we are joined by N...
Aug 03, 2017•1 hr 24 min
We are only 11 days away from the 2017 general election, and this week, we are joined by Dr. Njoki Ngumi of The Nest Collective and HEVA Fund to discuss sports, arts and culture, and what it means to be Kenyan. Has the Jubilee Coalition delivered on its promises that were focused on bolstering sports, arts and culture? Why is Kenya so hostile to its artists? What can we learn from the closure of Phoenix Theatre? What challenges does our sports sector face that prevent it from being as vibrant as...
Jul 27, 2017•1 hr 29 min
We are 18 days away from Kenya's 2017 general election, and this week, we are joined by Nanjira Sambuli , Digital Equality Advocacy Manager at the Web Foundation and awesome digital citizen to talk about ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in Kenya, which is billed as the Silicon Savannah. Has the Jubilee Coalition delivered on its 2013 manifesto promises? Will we have an internet shutdown during/after this election? How is Kenya's tech ecosystem doing? How does it compare to the res...
Jul 20, 2017•1 hr 54 min
NOTE: The Isiolo International Airport has since been completed and is operational. We are now 25 days away from the general election, scheduled for 8th August 2017. This week, we talk about Kenya's economy with Kwame Owino , the CEO of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Has the Jubilee Coalition delivered on the promises in its 2013 manifesto? Is our approach to infrastructure such as roads and rail the correct one? Have we managed to make Kenya a manufacturing hub as we envisioned? Do Kenyans ...
Jul 12, 2017•1 hr 42 min
We are 32 days away from the 2017 General Election. This week, we are joined by Dr. Wandia Njoya to discuss education in Kenya, with a focus of curriculum reform. What do we want to achieve when we educate our children/citizens? Are we focused on the right things? How did the missionaries and colonialists affect how we still educate our children today? Why did we switch from the 7-4-2-3 curriculum to 8-4-4? What did this switch do to our country? What are we hoping to achieve by switching from 8...
Jul 06, 2017•1 hr 36 min
We are now 39 days away from the 2017 General Election. This week, we speak with Dr. Mercy Korir , a medical doctor and healthcare correspondent, on the state of health services in Kenya, with a focus on the last five years. Has the Jubilee coalition fulfilled the promises they made in their 2013 manifesto regarding healthcare? Why is it that healthcare practitioners have been on strike so much? Are we in the middle of a Cholera outbreak? What role does leadership and governance play when it com...
Jun 29, 2017•1 hr 33 min
We are now 46 days away from this year’s general election. This week, we talk to Christine Mungai , a writer and journalist, about Kenya’s media. We talk about the July 2013 media breakfast at State House, the laws this government has passed to undermine press freedom; the impact media ownership and advertising have on what gets covered; the intimidation of journalists, bloggers and social media users; censorship by Ezekiel Mutua and the KFCB, and the 2017 general election. How are we doing as c...
Jun 22, 2017•1 hr 15 min
We are 53 days away from this year's general election, and this week, we talk to Nanjala Nyabola , a writer and policy analyst, about Kenya's foreign policy. In 2014, for the first time since our independence, we published a written foreign policy document. Its vision is the pursuit of a peaceful, prosperous and globally competitive Kenya, and its mission is to project, promote and protect Kenya's interests and image globally through innovative diplomacy, and contribute towards a just, peaceful ...
Jun 15, 2017•1 hr 29 min
We are 60 days away from the 2017 General Election, and this week, we talk to Scheaffer Okore , the vice chairperson of the Ukweli Party , on what it means to be an active citizen, why they founded the party, what challenges they faced when starting it, how they are different from other political parties, how they propose to increase the representation of the youth, women and other marginalized groups in power, why they are crowd-funding chairperson Boniface Mwangi's campaign for Starehe MP, and...
Jun 08, 2017•1 hr 13 min
We're now two months away from the 2017 General Election, so we thought we'd do a status check. As we've learnt from past Kenyan elections, and recent elections worldwide, election coverage is very important, and we’ve seen media coverage get used to results in wild directions. So today, we ask and answer a few questions. Why is this election important? Who are the key players? What is at stake? Press play! Resources Statistics of Voters IEBC Registered Voters Per Constituency 2017 Half of 19mn ...
Jun 01, 2017•10 min
This week, I share some interesting highlights from a daily writing experiment I'm running over at adventuresandexperiments.com where people send me writing prompts on issues that are of interest to them and I respond with my perspective. For example: What are your views regarding the criminalization of attempted suicide [in the Kenyan context]? Shouldn’t anyone choose if they want to die? Why do we need borders in today's society? Aren't we all the same people after all? Thoughts on Afropolitan...
May 25, 2017•17 min
Yet again, because we are experiencing the effects of a drought, we have a food shortage, and food prices have gone up. 2 kilos of sugar are going for 400 shillings, and until very recently, 2 kilos of maize flour were retailing for 150 to 200 shillings. Recently, to reverse this, KRA lifted the import ban on maize, and opened a window for duty free imports of both yellow and white maize. The first shipment of the maize got here in record short time. People suspect that we are in the middle of y...
May 18, 2017•12 min
This past week has been a downer for me news-wise, what with the news that the US government (through USAID) is suspending its support of the Ministry of Health's departments due to corruption and weak accounting practices. This support is worth KES 2.1 billion, and affects crucial health services. We also found out that the Jubilee campaign has engaged Cambridge Analytica, a firm said to be behind Donald Trump's victory in the US and the Brexit vote in Britain. I've been asking myself: what doe...
May 11, 2017•9 min
This week, we’re gonna talk about Kenya’s middle class, or what I like to call Schrodinger’s middle class – you know, the guys powerful enough to cause the price fluctuation of goods through their tweets , while not being powerful enough at the ballot box to cause change through their votes. What is the middle class? Who is a middle class person? Why does this matter? Press play to find out! Resources Estimation of Size of the Middle Class and Main Characteristics Estimation of the Middle Class ...
May 04, 2017•13 min
This week, you guys wanted to talk about democracy and development from a Kenyan lens (to vote on what we discuss, follow us on Twitter @thisisotherwise , we run a poll each week). Is democracy the best form of government for countries like ours? Why is it that it is the form of government most associated with development? Is it because democracy is inherently and instrumentally good? Does democracy lead to development? And if so, how is Kenya doing on the democracy vs development scale, seeing ...
Apr 27, 2017•11 min
One of the most iconic things to happen on our continent is when Thomas Sankara came to power and changed the name of Upper Volta to Burkina Faso - the land of upright men. How may we best carry out Sankara's vision for Africa? This week, I wish to share a pet topic of mine with you - the continuing debate on the role of Africanization and Decolonization on our lives. Are these two movements still relevant? Still necessary? Must we Africanize or decolonize, or must we do both? Press play! Resour...
Apr 20, 2017•12 min
On March 31st 2017, a video went viral on social media of two men, said to be plainclothes policemen, having a scuffle with a young man. Shots are heard, and understandably there is screaming and scampering. Then, we see the young man on the ground. One of the men then shoots the young man again, and again. Then the video fades to black. In the days after, there was polarized debate on extrajudicial killing, with some people strongly supporting it, and others strongly condemning it. So we’ll tal...
Apr 13, 2017•11 min
Kenya's longest serving Finance Cabinet Secretary (this position was formerly known as Finance Minister) read the budget statement for 2017/2018 on the 30th of March 2017. This is a special reading since it is this government's last budget in their first term, and this being an election year, there is a possibility that they may or may not be re-elected. It is also full of interesting-ness, in as far as budgets can be interesting, so we think it's a good idea to take a closer look at it. Press p...
Apr 06, 2017•12 min
Like many other Kenyans, I find myself constantly wondering about the hold our political class has on us, and why they continue to hoodwink and oppress us with impunity and consistency. I have analyzed our systems, institutions and approach to governance for over five years in my work – yet somehow I still find myself coming back to this. This past week, my run in with a street con artist gave me insight as to how and why this happens. Press play! Resources The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for I...
Mar 30, 2017•9 min
Last week, on March 18th 2017, Uhuru Kenyatta traveled to Dhobley Military camp in Somalia to visit the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) troops stationed there as part of the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission stationed there. He wore his military fatigues (they come with his role as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces). This happened just a few weeks after a US Congressman blew the whistle on a US$ 418 million arms deal that Kenya has with a US based company to buy 12 weaponized crop dusters ...
Mar 23, 2017•13 min
This week, we begin to focus on our upcoming general election, starting with the political party nominations that are in the near future. Our representatives have been making many promises and inflammatory statements across the board, and there has also been a lot of party hopping. We take a look at why the nominations are so important, why there is so much party hopping, and what we can expect of the nominations. Press play! Resources Uhuru signs new law allowing politicians to merge parties Ba...
Mar 17, 2017•8 min
This week, you guys said you wanted to talk about food inflation - that is, the increase in the prices of food in Kenya. Between February 2016 and February 2017, the cost of food and non alcoholic beverages has gone up by 16.5%. The cost of making a meal has gone up by as much as 30%, and this week, we ask why. Why is food so expensive, and what can be done to make sure that we reverse this trend? Press play! Resources Episode 24: Drought Begins With You Food Inflation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Cau...
Mar 09, 2017•12 min
It's 2017, and the world feels like it's falling apart. The gains that we have made as a people feel like they are being erased - instead of love, acceptance and growth, we have hatred, intolerance and division. The fight against fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia feels like it's about to be lost. Is it too late? No, not if we arm ourselves with the right knowledge and tools, and fight against this wave. There is hope on the other end of this tunnel. Press play! Resources Winning...
Mar 02, 2017•12 min
We made it to episode 26! That's half a year of podcasting guys, let's pat ourselves on the back! :D This episode, I ran my first experiment. Recently, I sat down and a thought jumped into my mind - wouldn't it be nice if we (Kenyans) could map a course between where we are now as a country, and where we wanna be? And, wouldn't it be nice if this were a simple exercise that anyone could do in less than 3 minutes? I wanted to know: 1. If you could describe Kenya as it is now in 3 words, what woul...
Feb 24, 2017•12 min
