For a long time, ANC was seen as a terrorist organisation by the then right-leaning West, yet every conscientious people the world over stuck their necks out for them. We even boycotted Olympics severally for them. As a little boy, I wore countless 'Release Mandela' tee shirts, with a portrait of a legend with a pugilist's menacing eyes recessed beneath a craggy brow, regarding the world from behind a barbed wire barrier. But suddenly the visit by the Dalai Lama, a non-violent, modern day Mandela, is not in SA's interest. Aw!

Mandela will go down history as a most agile compromiser, right from Robben Island, according to his autobiography. His snub of Kenya ( ati he was too tired to meet even our protocol flunkies when his plane was right here at JKIA) ignored the sacrifices we made for SA, and put SA's economic hegemonic aspiration as a foremost consideration and the basis of engagement with Kenya.

For his party, and the government, whose policy tone he set, to snub the Dalai Lama IN HIS LIFETIME is a festering blemish on his legacy that the publicists will have to do their uttermost to blot out. I imagine there will, in due course, be a 66668349626666 concern at Sandton to sop everyone's conscience and remind us of his moral stature.

Kenya is a hustler-nation, a regular survivor trying to stay afloat, without any claims whatsoever to wanting to change the world. If anything, we are doing our best to destroy it, as long as a few bob will be made on the way. It is South Africa that has always rubbed its 'moral icons' in everyone's face, and which should be roundly condemned for a singular and disastrous myopia.

* * * * * *

We are a capitalist country with very strong leanings to free market rapacity and so on. As we should be. However, the goings on in the property market, particularly in Nairobi, need to be watched very closely. It is foregone that no unnecessary query will be raised by the authorities concerning the identities of the persons behind the deluge of cash cascading from the sovereign Republic of Eastleigh, nor the provenance of certain collossal amounts of capital being casually deployed like a child's toys. There have been complaints of warlord cash being laundered into our economy. There have been questions concerning the economic threat posed by artificially-inflated property prices, and lamentations concerning the security implications of allowing everyone, including very suspect people, to invest robustly in our economy, and establish themselves as legitimate movers and shakers around here.

On the other hand, there have been arguments defending the right of the willing buyer to sell his property to a willing seller at whatever price they choose to agree. Added to this, we have been told to consider, if you own any property at all, whether it is good for our health if your foreigner neighbour caused property values where we own a few too, to multiply tenfold. The 'scrutinise-these- suspicious-tycoons' school of thought have been branded a bandwagon of green-eyed xenophobes without any iota of understanding of the principles of a capitalist market economy.

I must state at the onset that I agree vehemently with both the warring sides; in doing so, I am unaware of any sense of contradiction whatsoever. I agree, because, for a large part, the opposing argumets nicely answer each other, and going by the principle of moments in Physics, what we will be left to grapple with is what they called 'the resultant moments about x'.

In keeping with that, the resultant issues my untrained mind sees as necessitating inquiry and explanation are as follows.

According to a few people who know these things, markets have very delicate mechanisms that respond to any distortion exponentially. Therefore, for evey marginal gain, there is an exponential cost to someone else downstream, so to speak. This deluge of liquidity, brought about by artificially-inflated property prices will engender a brief bubble where we will all celebrate the influx of new foreign capital and all that humbug. Unfortunately, the drunkard who wrote the laws of economic physics forgot to ensure that every bubble become a self-sustaining vituous cycle forever more. It was more fun for the addled author, in stead, to write simply that for every bubble, there is a bust. Now, things would have been manageable if the bubble bust were equal and opposite, quantitativly speaking. Unfortunately, the impact of the bust shall be more severe than the bubble by an order of magnitude. Inflation to me means the escalation of prices on account of excessive liquidity. Somewhere along the way, prices becomes exaggerated, meaning that what you stand to lose at the bust-point has no relationship to the actual amount of money input initially, etc, etc. I hope you follow me, because economics is boring.

Now that the real property tycoons are waddling their sweating, flabby, incontinent behinds, farting and smiling all the way to the bank, does it not strike anyone as at all odd that this is happening at a time af a massive global economic recession? More particularly, that the said recession was caused by the busting of a similar bubble in the US? (forget the fancy economic jargon and whatnot, just know that at some point non-existent money was being chased, 'created' by very, very brilliant Harvard chaps who knew what they were doing.)

If there is a complaint that there is a trend which is distorting property values and giving rise to exaggerated notions of value, ought not the Treasury be paying a little attention?

The stories of warlords and other shady characters are, to my mind, absolute hooey. M. Felicien Kabuga is a well-respected landowner in Kenya. That is beyond doubt. So shuddup already. But for a few minor hitches, one Oddeh was our very convivial resident. Fazul is said to be hereabouts thriving very well indeed. If a few warlords want to live in peace and brotherhood, and share plenty within our borders, si basi? What should concern us is that the warlords do not take our economy down by poisoning the well with inflationary chicanery. As for carnage and the other thing, we can do it excellently on our own, thank you very much.

I want economists and every other wannabe to tell me whether we are agreed on that point (the economics of warlord investment, not vain, moral posturing).

* * * * *

With immense delight, I have the honour to report that the weekend press has finally stopped pissing me off. Once I understood that they are written by clowns, purely for the sake of comic entertainment, I actually began to like them.

The constitution, that reviled document, sets out exactly what happens when the president, God forbid, is rendered incapable of discharging his office. It has actually happened before, and the sun continued to rise in the east, every morning without hitch. Are We Sitting On A Timebomb, as Oscar Obonyo breathlessly simpers? Why? Not because we do not have an electoral body, mind. Apparently, it is because the constitution as amended by the Accord, does not provide what happens to the Prime Minister then. Because he has this humongous majority in parliament, and has appointed half of the government, a constitutional crisis is going to occur. I could not follow brilliant Oscar's thinking. When I cannot follow someone's argument, I always doubt myself first. So I read Oscar again.

Then it occured to me. The constitutional amendment to accomodate the National Accord, the PM and so forth, is a special purpose vehicle with an automatic expiry. It therefore does not go much into the question of parliamentary majorities, the effect of the leader of a majority not being the president or vice president and connected matters. In fact, numbers in parliament do not determine who becomes president. The president is the chap who leads the total national tally AND gets 25% of the vote in at least five provinces. His deputy is the vice president.

The National Accord does not make, and never intended to make the PM the president's deputy, or vice president. Far from it, it was devised to create an alternative centre of power, not a successor in office. In the 90 period when the VP takes over the office of the president, the PM would, by then be relaxing, waiting for the election, so that he can vie to be a member of parliament, or even president, against the acting president, formerly VP. No crisis at all there. No time bomb, either. Or is there?

* * * * * *

Talking of constitutional crises, we now approach the skies with bafflement. In Kisii, there is a village whose name I have unilaterally changed to Constitutional Village. It was there where our beloved president's 30 year old, second hand, Cold War era, airforce maintained, Anglo Leasing-acquired Puma helicopter spewed dark, ominous smoke, returned our beloved PNU leader to the ground where, baba wa taifa, courageous as a lion and unflappable as ever, boarded a similar helicopter and hopped along for dinner in Nairobi. There I was, thinking, how simply frightful!

But no! Apparently, the mishap had mechanical components, to wit, a defective fuel tank seal, and constitutional ones in addition. Right there in Consitutional Village, the accident-that-never-was, somehow formed a bold, uninterrupted nexus with the absence of an electoral body, and the consequent constitutional lacuna. When thinking becomes such a violent physical exertion, journalism bears the brunt of it.

The atrocious, cold-blooded, dastardly, downright thinking behind this sudden paroxysm of 'consitutionalism' gripping our chattering classes is this: It is not in order to expose the head of state to danger when there is no electoral body. That is to say, the president can be carried in any and all manner of deathtrap as long as an electoral commission has been set up. Yaani, indeed, it is perfectly constitutional for the president to hurtle to the earth in an incendiary junk if an electoral commission has been installed. I still get goosebumps and lose my sleep over the evil thinking of our 'constitutionalists'.

If you think I am being simplistic, sample this:

1. There was undeniable state failure during the immediate post-election period.

2. A judge of appeal, bestowed with a presidential commission of inquiry and thus, being an instrument of presidential executive powers of an exclusive and prerogative character, devised a mechanism that insulated his commission from accountability and placed it beyond the reach of presidential power, and in the hands of an alien who has ever since, been terrorising the country and holding the president to ransom, and thereby grossly undermined and defiled the Commission of Inquiries Act, and the constitution.

3.The PM, Justice minister and all manner of members of parliament, abetted to an immense extent by our chattering classes and newfound 'constitutionalists', sent home the entire ECK without a thought of replacement, or to institutional continuity.

4. The election court subsequently nullified the election of the Bomachoge member of parliament.

To me, all those are a few issues which presented weighty constitutional headaches, and were deserving of every bit of gasping wonder, worry, blabber but also of cold, dispassionate analysis.

But because we are a nation of perverts, an ideal 'constitutional' crisis should be a scenario where, to our sad, unwashed minds, we have an excuse to indulge in morbid imagination, fantasy and visualisation of the president's death. Recall that, earlier in the week, Oscar Obonyo had been busy speculating on exactly the same unhealthy subject and predicting a 'constitutional crisis'.

If we had to think that way of all mishappenings, everything, including your lawnmower's refusal to start, would raise profound constitutional issues. As a nation, as a people, we need to think healthy thoughts. Even if only for our children's sakes. Please.

* * * * * *

It is very probable that William Samoei Ruto has, in the course of his eventful career, made errors of omission and commission that neither he, nor anyone else, would be proud of. Equally probable is that he may have done things that the law takes a dim view of. Heck, so have I! Think of the illegal U-turn at 4 a.m. when no one else is on the road. What about the failure to notice the gross underbilling by the water company? Or the failure by Safaricom to deduct my call rate for a whole three days? Or waiting until HELB gently reminds us of our outstanding loans and generally acting as though you think HELB is an industial parastatal in the EPZ? I am speculating wildly, mind.

When Ruto claimed that Martha met him severally at night, the latter dismissed him offhand, saying , I quote, "no politician worth their salt would meet someone with so much baggage over corruption and violence". It took Jirongo to set the record straight: Martha lied. Kabisa.

This week, when the whirlwind blew from the American embassy concerning some new blacklist item, the media reported that the blacklisted party was :

1. A Minister.
2. Was implicated in corruption.
3. Was implicated in post-election violence

Consequently, much innuendo and insinuation was deployed to nudge those three pieces of 'information' towards one, and only one possible conclusion: that Ruto had been barred from entering the USA.

Now Ruto shoots from the hip and does not seem to fear any consequence. He promptly denied that he was the one blacklisted, and went further to say that we need concrete measures to fight corruption, and that the Americans have a right to resort to whatever measures they see fit.

There was laughter all round. Who had said it was you? Why are you denying? Is there something you know? The guilty are afraid. So on and so forth.

And then the inconvenient Rannenberger clarifies that no minister has been blacklisted. That it was someone else altogether. That although they usually keep such things confidential, he had been forcd to disclose just this one item to end speculation.

How simply tiresome. How tawdry.

That is how prejudice works. It gives you scanty information, but requires you to make a conclusion. Usually it leads you to leap to extremely embarassing verdictss. Afterwards, you realise that the conclusion had nothing to do with the facts, but was pre-formed, on account of other factors, including fear, dislike, contempt and discrimination.

One of my lecturers always admonished us that 'even the devil deserves a hearing'. That is a cardinal requirement of justice.

When, on account of pre-formed notions and biases, we refuse to grant a fair hearing to anyone, be they Martha Karua, Alfred Mutua, Harun Mwau, Fai Amario, Maina Njenga, Hussein Ali, Thomas Cholmondeley, irrespective of their known shortcomings and all, we do them a grave, unforgivable injustice.

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