L. Muthoni Wanyeki

In the face of an ever greedy, self-interested ruling class, L. Muthoni Wanyeki considers what the majority of Kenyans could do to challenge the seemingly relentless ravaging of the public purse perpetrated by those in office. Firstly, Wanyeki suggests a tax boycott, taking the cue from the Langata Residents’ Association’s response to the Nairobi City Council, and secondly, preparing for new elections, albeit within a political system still in need of broad change. With the political settleme...read more

cc I am shaken. I am shocked. And that is, apparently, the intent. For all of us to be shaken, for all of us to be shocked and for all of us to hear the threat and heed the warning implicit in last week’s assassinations of Oscar Kamau King’ara and John Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation.

Let me be clear about this. I had questions about the Oscar Foundation. Last year,...read more

cc We are a year away from the shocking events of last year — a Presidential elections whose results (we are told) can never be definitively known and the violence that followed the belated (and then hurried) announcement of the supposed results. The net effects we all now know—over 1,000 deaths, a third of which were at the hands of our security services, women (and some me...read more

Thinking about Nelson Mandela’s birthday, what comes to mind is how I felt—how the world felt—watching his release over a decade ago. Watching him walk down the road, hand in hand with his now ex-wife, Winnie Mandela. Watching South Africa prepare for its first full elections in 1994. Watching him assume the Presidency. Watching him re-marry, this time Graca Machel, the former wife of his slain Mozambiquan comrade, Samora Machel.

There were so many moments that made me cry. Cry that th...read more

L. Muthoni Wanyeki, executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, recently spoke to AllAfrica.com about a wide range of aspects of the crisis that erupted over Kenya’s disputed presidential election.

On the elections:

The position of my organization, and the coalition we've been working in, has been that the anomalies, malpractices, and illegalities witnessed with respect to the counting and tallying of the presidential vote were substantial enough to alter the outco...read more

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/Lynne_Muthoni_Wanyeki.jpgA survey by the African Centre for Open Governance finds that corruption is the number one issue in the forthcoming Kenyan elections.

The people have spoken. And, unsurprisingly, what they have said is diametrically opposed to what their leaders have been saying on their behalf.

What am I ...read more

This paper attempts to re-visit the history of African unity and highlight the reasons for the current impetus toward union among Africa’s leadership; explore the implications of the union on Africa’s current inter-governmental organisation, the AU; outline challenges to the union project and set out conditions for its success.

The upcoming mid-year African Union (AU) summit of heads of state and government has as its primary agenda a ‘Grand Debate on the Union Government’. The ideolo...read more

"Community radio is participatory radio with a social development purpose"
The World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC)-Africa

A colleague of mine told me an interesting story recently. She works with a project that has to do with the establishment of three rural community radio stations--one in Mang'elete, Kenya, one in Terrat, Tanzania and one in Kagadi, Uganda. The aim of the project was to enable the communities involved to analyse and debate development issues fro...read more

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