Politics
It’s Not a Goon Problem: It’s a Violence Market
A Coase-inspired reading of political violence as a market of demand, supply, brokerage, plausible deniability and rented force.
Article Archive
Economics
From SACCO Savers to Asset Owners: The Radical Promise of Democratic Capital
A case for transforming SACCO savings into voluntary, professionally governed ownership of productive infrastructure without violating members’ trust.
Politics
Ndindi Nyoro and the Politics of the Donkey Between Two Bales
A Buridan-inspired reading of Ndindi Nyoro’s Finance Bill absence, fence-sitting politics, and the cost of refusing to choose when the record matters.
Economics
Ruto at the G7 and the Quiet Repricing of Africa
A Bagehot-inspired argument that Africa is punished by the price of perception, and that Ruto’s G7 diplomacy was a fight against the continent’s invisible risk tax.
Economics
The Unseen Budget: Seeing Beyond the KSh 4.8 Trillion
A Bastiat-inspired reading of Kenya’s KSh 4.8 trillion budget, focusing on the fiscal choices, trade-offs and quiet gains that are easy to miss.
Governance
School Arson Wave: Tyranny of the Timetable
Before the 1840s, time was a local affair in Great Britain. Every town kept its own clock by the sun, and noon in one town was not noon in the next. Then came the trains. In Nov...
Governance
Ebola Quarantine Facility: Defending the Indefensible
In 1854, London's Soho district was consumed by the worst cholera outbreak England had seen in a generation. The response of most residents and institutions was to flee. They...
Politics
Hassan Omar: The Anatomy of a Non-Apology Apology
In late 1992, United States Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment from women who had worked with him across two decades. When the...
Economics
Fuel subsidies: If we must subsidize, subsidize the household not the pump
A sharp case for moving public support away from leaky commodity subsidies and toward the households that actually need cushioning.
Diplomacy
Hosting the Africa Forward Summit was Kenya’s Chutzpah moment
Kenya’s Africa Forward Summit moment as diplomatic audacity: not deference, but a claim to convening power and strategic centrality.
Politics
Governor Kangata’s exit from UDA: Principled or Calculated?
A reading of Governor Kang’ata’s UDA exit through Agikuyu ideas of dignified departure, political timing, and self-preservation.
Politics
Gaucho’s benefice and the politics of public boards appointments
Why Gaucho’s appointment to a hospital board is best understood through the old politics of benefice, community voice, and obligation.
Politics
Senator Methu's candour to the president: was it bravery, insolence or parrhesia?
A viral confrontation becomes a deeper question: does Kenya defend frank speech as a democratic rule or only as a factional weapon?
Economics
The fuel GtoG framework is a wicked problem
Kenya’s fuel architecture is not just a scandal story. It is a wicked problem whose solution created its own chokepoints.
Politics
ODMs Diadochi: Who Inherits the Empire?
ODM after Raila faces its Diadochi moment: succession, legitimacy, and the danger of consuming the empire in the founder’s name.
Politics
Should President Ruto turn the other cheek?
A political reading of restraint, retaliation, and whether a president should absorb public humiliation or answer it on his own terms.
Governance
Is Road Safety Our Collective Sisyphean Curse?
Kenya keeps pushing the road-safety boulder uphill. Can automated enforcement break the cycle without trampling due process?
Governance
Fixing Nairobi: Can a better driver fix a broken car?
Nairobi’s floods are not just a drainage problem. They are a land, planning, and political-courage problem wearing gumboots.
Economics
Is NYOTA Kenya’s New Deal?
NYOTA as a test of whether Kenya can rebuild youth faith through access, certification, savings, and disciplined implementation.
Opinion
Kenya National Infrastructure Fund: The wrapper is not the poison
A defence of KNIF’s corporate structure — and a warning that the wrapper only works if governance is engineered from the start.
Politics
From faith to buyer’s remorse: How the Church got played
A sharp reflection on the Church in Kenya, political endorsement, moral authority, and the painful lesson of buyer’s remorse.
Politics
Gachagua’s impeachment: Paradox of power and the doctrine of necessity
A reflection on Rigathi Gachagua’s impeachment, the doctrine of necessity, due process, and the difficult balance between power, urgency, and fairness.
Politics
DPs ouster: Decisive win or Pyrrhic Victory for Parliament?
Pyrrhus was king of Epirus and was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. In 280 B.C, he invaded Italy after allying himself with Tarentum, a Greek speaking city that...
Politics
Ruto and Riggy G’s fallout: Betrayal or Selectorate Theory?
This is a line from the movie Ides of March. In this movie, Governor Mike Morris is running for the U.S. presidency. He relies heavily on his skilled and idealistic campaign...
Governance
What Gen Z Morara Kebaso’s activism can learn from Goodhart’s Law
During the height of Soviet Russia central planning, government imposed production quotas across various industries, such as the nail factories. They were given strict...
Governance
Adani Group Scandal: Is Kenya at the precipice of Herb Stein’s Law?
This is a line from the movie A Bug’s Life which is an animated story of an ant colony living under the exploitative rule of grasshoppers. In the movie, the ant colony was...
Economics
Critics of labor exports have misidentified the enemy
This was a question that God asked Moses. You see, Moses was a man full of excuses on his inadequacy to rescue the Israelites from Egypt. He questioned his identity, his...
Economics
Benefits of a borderless Kenya is a no-brainer
The First World War is often seen as a turning point in the history of migration policy. Prior to the war, country borders were largely open, and each emigrant could decide on...
Governance
Kenya’s breaking news: Are they the anatomy of a lie?
This question was posed by Pontius Pilate who was a Roman governor appointed in 26 A.D. under the emperor of Tiberius. It means “What is truth?”
Governance
Is Ruto failing his way to success?
SpaceX. This is a private aerospace company founded by Tesla and X CEO, Elon Musk. The company designs and manufactures spacecraft, rockets, satellites, and offers private...
Governance
The hawkers menace is the tragedy of the commons
Moana is an animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. The film is set in Polynesia and tells the story of Moana who is a strong-willed daughter...
Governance
Additional public holidays: wrong solution for the right problem
“Leisure is an indispensable ingredient in a growing consumer market because working people need to have enough free time to find uses for consumer products, including...
Governance
Corruption in Kenya: Who will guard the guards?
This is a phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal which is translated as “who will guard the guards themselves?”. It is used to describe a situation in which those who have power to...
Governance
Is Brian Mwenda a victim or villain?
“Of all the things I did, the easiest profession to fake was the lawyer. As a lawyer, I found most of it was a matter of research, which I was great at. That’s what I did to...
Governance
The Portland Cement land demolition is a consequence of auditory illusion
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them...
Governance
The false consensus effect on the Israel-Palestine war
In 1977, university students at Stanford University were asked to walk around the campus wearing a sign that read “Eat at Joe’s”. 62 per cent of those who agreed believed that...
Politics
Is the fifth-generation warfare President Ruto’s trump card?
Traditionally, warfare was executed within defined periods of time, identifiable terrain, with tangible tools of war that included aircraft bombers, tanks, and rifles. The war...
Politics
Understanding Riggy G through the cocktail party effect
Imagine you are at a party. Loud music is playing. Glasses are clinking. Champagne bottles are popping. Drink bubbles are fizzling. DJ is scratching the vinyl. And dozens of...
Politics
Politicians should pay the Pigouvian Tax for loose lips
Loose lips sink ships was a slogan promoted by the United States Office of War Information during World War II. This wartime expression warned people in the military, as well...
Economics
To pay taxes or starve the beast?
Taxation is an instrument of organized society. It exists for the service and promotion of other institutions and is the price we pay for civilization. In and of itself, it...
Governance
Firing KAA director was dishabituation not leadership
Infants are one of the purest sources of information about human thinking and learning because they have had very few life experiences. If they are left in the same...
Politics
Ruto’s Kaunda Suits: Decision Fatigue or Flamboyance?
“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other...
Politics
Political turncoats: epiphany or survival?
In 1967 there was a Member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly from Palwal district in India. His name was Gaya Lal. He won elections as an independent candidate and soon...
Governance
Ndichu brothers: you cannot unring this bell of gender-based violence
Her beauty was legendary. Her skin was like fresh white snow. Her hair was brighter than the sun. Her eyes were greener than the Aegean Sea. And her lips were redder than the...
Economics
Raila’s welfare program for the unemployed is a cobra effect
In the reign of British Raj of colonial India, the Government of Delhi found that there were too many cobras in the capital city. As a solution to prevent the deaths of British...
Governance
Pandora Papers exposé: Uhuru should apply the rule of the middle urinal
Don’t ask me how I know; but there are universally accepted unwritten rules when using a public men’s toilet. One, if you are the first guy in the toilet, always pick the...
Politics
Are the sizes of a politician’s crowds bankable support or astroturf activism?
Solomon Asch was an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania and is considered a pioneer of social and Gestalt psychology. His thesis was that human beings behave...
Politics
Moses Kuria should respect the Nemo Dat Rule for Mt. Kenya voters
At the time President Andrew Jackson took office in the United States in 1829, it is reported that he was still very angry at his predecessor, President John Quincy Adams. He...
Politics
Is Governor Waiguru the master of the boiling frog syndrome?
There was once a Russian student whose cat had a litter of kittens. When asked to write a paper for her class, the student wrote about the mother cat and her kittens. The next...
Politics
How post-truth is weaponizing our politics
This was a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle. The conspiracy revolved around a pedophile ring that was linked to...
Politics
Is the ‘war’ on DP Ruto a modern-day Fabian Strategy?
The first Punic War was fought from 264 to 241 BC. It was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, which is modern day Tunisia, and the Roman Republic. For 20...
Politics
Alice Wahome’s Dunning-Kruger effect on the bottom-up economics
In 1995, a guy called McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburg banks and robbed them in broad daylight in full view of everyone. He did not attempt to disguise himself, wear...
Politics
One Kenya Alliance should adopt the fog of war principle to pick their presidential candidate
Carl von Clausewitz was a Prussian military general who lived in the 19th Century. Clausewitz was often intrigued by the manner in which Napoleon, one of the leaders of the...
Economics
Raising taxes to increase revenue is similar to making a fat man skinny by tightening his belt
This has never rung truer than in the past week. The hue and cry on the increased taxes on gas and airtime has reverberated across class, tribe, and political divide. This is...
Governance
Is the extension of the Covid19 containment measures a tactic of drained-pool politics?
The Fairground Park Pool was built in 1919 in St. Louis, Missouri, and was the largest in the country. It was built during a pool-building boom when cities and towns competed...
Governance
We don’t need MPs with degrees; we need leaders who are willing to eat last
Do you know why the Marines are the best at what they do? Because like goodc mothers, their leaders eat last.
Politics
Will Kimunya’s pork barrel politics deliver the Kiambaa seat to Jubilee?
In the pre-refrigeration era, pork was preserved in large wooden barrels of brine. To increase the plantations slave’s loyalty to their masters, the antebellum slaveowners...
Governance
President Uhuru, is the price of your pyrrhic victories worth it?
Pyrrhus was king of Epirus and was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. In 280 B.C, he invaded Italy after allying himself with Tarentum, a Greek speaking city that...
Politics
Speaker Muturi’s coronation was a Chutzpah strategy
Swifty Lazar was a Hollywood agent. Early on when he was starting out in his career, he went out for dinner with a hot young starlet who was in high demand in the movie...
Governance
Jubilee’s tyranny unmasked in BBI High Court ruling
This is a German word that refers to the process of Nazification, a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of the German society. It was designed to...
Politics
Isaack Mwaura: It is better to starve free than be a fat slave
As a young boy, Conan watched his parents slain, his village plundered, his tribe destroyed, and himself captured into slavery by Thulsa Doom, a savage warlord and sorcerer, in...
Politics
James Orengo and Otiende Amollo: are they ODMs fifth column?
The Spanish Civil War occurred from 1936 to 1939. Ahead of the Siege of Madrid, General Emilio Mola claimed that he would capture the city using four columns of troops under...
Governance
BBI typos are an affront to the Brown M&M Principle
Van Halen was an American heavy metal rock band that was formed in 1974 in Pasadena, California. The band was widely credited for restoring hard rock music to the forefront of...
Politics
Renounce the zeitgeist of sympathy hereditary politics
She said, “grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
Politics
The presidential aspirants meetings are psyops. So who is the invisible gorilla?
A social experiment was conducted in 1999 by two researchers, Drs Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. In this experiment, they divided their subjects into two groups, and...
Governance
Cyrus Oguna: drought does not cause famine; bad politics does
The worst famine in history occurred in the 19th century. This was the Great Irish Famine of 1845. A fungus-like organism called phytophthora infestans spread rapidly...
Politics
Is One Kenya Alliance a Post Turtle?
In 2008, Ms. Sarah Louis Palin was nominated by the Republican Party to run for Vice President of the United States, alongside the presidential nominee who was the then Arizona...
Politics
Handshake betrayal. Will Raila fall into the sunk cost trap?
This reasoning was advanced by former President Trump in 2017 to his fellow Republican lawmakers during the final vote on the Affordable Care Act repeal which failed, and its...