U S Sky spy satellite…
[SIZE=7]U.S. eyes in the sky track risks of global reopening during the coronavirus pandemic[/SIZE]
Catherine Herridge gets an inside look at the U.S. government’s eyes in the sky that capture satellite intelligence to help U.S. agencies and allies chart the way forward as new coronavirus hot spots crop up while countries reopen.
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Mom always said, “When torching a vehicle, always try to keep your face out of the explosion.”
But hey, at least she was wearing a mask. Instant karma…That is so stupid of her.
Too bad. she wasn’t in the car…or maybe she should have waited till him and his girlfriend were in there.
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History is written by winners, and as far as Kenya goes, Hezekiah Ochuka is not one of them. He lies in an unmarked grave as a criminal who committed the high crime of treason against the republic, and thus properly made his rendezvous with the hangman’s justice.
But it is within the realm of probability that a future Kenya government will revisit this episode of our history. Such a government could conclude that Ochuka and his cohorts were not criminals but patriots attempting to free Kenya from dictatorship. And like terrorists who morphed into freedom fighters before or after their deaths, he would be rehabilitated and claim his place in the sun in our national story.
That may or may not happen. What, however, is certain is that in profoundly personal and public ways, Ochuka’s intervention in our political life on August 1, 1982, changed our lives.
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As his date with the gallows that were to be his destiny neared, the career of his nemeses on that wild Sunday morning, Gen Mahmoud Mohammed, started on its meteoric rise.
Somewhere in an unmarked grave behind the high walls of Kamiti Maximum Security Prison lie the remains of Hezekiah Ochuka. Kamiti is the place where Kirugumi wa Wanjuki used to hang condemned people before Kenya lost the stomach for that practice.
The story of how Ochuka’s attempt to overthrow the government of President Daniel arap Moi failed and took him straight into Kirugumi’s hands is now well known in Kenya. Less analyzed is how it fundamentally affected the course of the country’s political development and life in general.
After Ochuka’s execution, his body wasn’t given back to his family, and although no official reason was ever given, the thinking behind such an action is easy to make out. After the oftentimes violent episodes in any country’s life, graves of people like Ochuka can become shrines of worship and magnets of inspiration for people disaffected with the government.
People who court martyrdom, even when to the objective observer their plans – like Ochuka’s – are a cocktail of ambition, foolhardiness, and incompetence. They have a habit of attracting deep public sympathy, and in death they become icons.
Even the greatest of political actors are never able to compete with the power of the dead and they try to neutralize its appeal by always paying homage to the memory of the heroically fallen. But it is easier done when the dead are out of sight and reach.
https://www.nation.co.ke/…/how-ochuka-coup-attempt-changed-…
You should know people, that is what former deputy chief justice Nancy Baraza once told us.
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Former District Commissioner Fred Mwango (left). PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
So, in the days of Fred Mwango, DCs also decided who won or lost elections. DCs were the election returning officers. Their orders came from State House, irrespective of the outcome at the ballot box!
My next encounter with the tough DC was during the (in) famous Mlolongo (queue) voting of 1988. At the time I was a Nation correspondent in Nyahururu. That year, President Daniel arap Moi had decided to do away with the “nonsense” of ballot boxes where a candidate wasn’t wanted. There would be a mchujo (preliminary) voting through queuing, to sort out unwanted characters.
In Nyandarua, the tough DC had instructions to make sure that the then MP for Nyandarua South Constituency, Kimani wa Nyoike, didn’t make it back to Parliament.
The DC, apart from being the district returning officer, appointed himself the presiding officer in Nyandarua South. We, journalists, kept to his trail, as we knew that was where the action – and hence the big story – would come from. At every polling station, he had police disrupt queues, make a quick “count” and give him the “results”. The candidate with the shortest queue was declared winner. It was mathematics using the Nyayo formula!
The shave
It happened on the third Sunday of January 1990. The furore it raised remained in the headlines for rest of the year. The tough DC had convened a meeting to resolve a leadership crisis at a church near Ruiru town. He began by calling church elders to come forward and make their remarks before “he gave his orders”.
The first one to come forward was one Joseph Mwaura, a man with a well kept, long beard .
Once the goatee-man said that besides being church elder, he also was a school headmaster, the tough DC jumped from his seat and cut him short.
“You say you are a school headmaster and you keep that kind of a beard? Have you read the civil servants’ code of conduct? It prohibits your kind of dirty beard. You will shave it right here!”
There and then, Mwango ordered one of his bodyguards to go purchase a razor blade as two others pushed the school head to a corner. A razor blade was brought and the school head was shaved without water, soap, or mirror!
DC PROMOTED
The teachers union, Knut, took the matter to court. The teachers’ employer and the Attorney-General put up a defence. After a back and forth, the matter “disappeared” . The tough DC was promoted to a Deputy Secretary and “hidden” in Nairobi, until he retired to his rural home in Rongo, Migori County, where he still lives.
A few years ago, I was seated with a colleague at a hotel in Kisumu City – but do I say! – when he pointed out a smartly dressed man chatting over lunch with friends. He asked me if I remembered who the old man was.
I looked and – for all the fish in Lake Victoria – I could not tell who he was. He told me it was the once tough DC Fred Mwango.
That raised journalistic adrenalin in me and I decided to hang around until the retired DC and his companions were about to leave.
I would walk up to him and ask for an interview. Journalists in pursuit of a story are like cows on heat: they can’t wait.
When I introduced myself and told him it would be good to write on his reflections as a retired senior officer and senior citizen, the old man told me he would think about it and get back to me. I gave him my telephone contact. But I made sure to give him the last laugh: I told him once he gave me the appointment, I would remember to come clean-shaven. He walked away laughing.
I am still waiting for his call.
https://www.nation.co.ke/kenya/news/fred-mwango-dc-forced-school-head-shave--1911026