Articles

Among the state corporations earmarked for dissolution following a January decision by Cabinet is the "nondescript" President's Award-Kenya. The President's Award Scheme, as it was formerly known, was introduced in 1966 with President Jomo Kenyatta as founding patron and Chief Trustee - ten years after it was set up by the late Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburg.

I have had reason on many occasions in my life to question whether I should have been a skirt wearer; the logic being that a man is circumcised to be fearless and immune to suffering and I am not. When I was young and foolish, I didn’t have to think about it because I was too busy courting danger and suffering.

On the bleakest of days, most people in their 40s often sit back and reflect on their sorry lives, their hearts dark with disappointment at paths not taken, or wrong paths taken. I am jobless, they mourn.

I loved teaching. I think it is the most rewarding job in the world.

One of my colleagues was arrested last week on her way from the office as the curfew hour slipped ominously into view. A single mum whose domestic manager went on short leave only to send a text message declaring herself married, she was in a rush to get home before her two young sons burnt the place down in a kitchen competence-based curriculum lesson.

Nothing, it seems, attracts many women to a man than ill-gotten wealth. Haven’t you noticed how every corrupt Kenyan man, drug dealer, or purveyor of fake money and gold scams tends to be a polygamist with a string of pretty mistresses and a football team of wild oats?

When those aged 80 or more say life was better in their day, we are obliged to take their word for it. We were not there.

Your family fled Kenya in 1992. Why?

Controversial ecologist, author and scholar Dr Mordecai Ogada (pictured) talks about racism in conservation, and why academics play dump when the government is screwing up You co-authored The Big Conservation Lie with environmental journalist, John Mbaria. What is the philosophy behind this book?

There is something such as being too clever and that’s probably what happened to me when I quit my nice teaching job for greener pastures. As a teacher, my job came with nearly four months of paid leave annually.

If senior bachelors thought life was hard, they should ask their sisters who never got hitched. Girls were born to grow up and as soon as it was convenient, transit from the home forever — after ensuring their husbands paid their fathers for the bother of raising them.

When you are a successful citizen, with a lovely wife with fertile eggs, smart children, money in the bank, a good car and you are in excellent health, you don’t visit pastors for miracles. You go to tee off at the golf club, see a shrink when you sniff depression and unwind in the Bahamas, too.