A new kind of challenge

When the year began, my mind was set out to achieve a number of goals. I however didn’t set my eyes on the challenge I am experiencing now. I was optimistic about the year that lay ahead. I am always optimistic and look forward to any new year with great hope – just like everyone else. Ten months down the line, I have achieved a number of my setout goals. As a PhD student, I completed my course work in July, 2018. I  won a research grant in February. I began doing part-time teaching at various local universities in Nairobi. In the months of May and June, two journal articles I co-authored were published. Everything seemed to be going well for me. In August, the editor of the book volume in which I had contributed a chapter wrote to me. The final manuscript was out and I needed to have final look before going to print. In the first week of September, I received an author’s copy of the book. 

Amid this great academic success, my personal life was not that great. It was actually unraveling. It is not something that I am going to speak about today. The great accolades and achievements on the academic side meant nothing amidst this life challenge. The smile that I always exuded has faded. Nothing seems normal again. I try and look at the positive side of things. But am reminded of what happened. It is hard. Very hard. I take courage and get encouraged by my close friends. This one friend has been very helpful. A shoulder to cry on and always a call a way. I am grateful for the friendship. As I look forward to the close of the year, am reminded to be thankful of what I have. The joy that comes from being alive and healthy. As a Christian man, I hold to God’s unending love. His mercies endure forever. I know all things work for good to them that love God – because I am called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

As I await the PhD Comprehensive Exams in the first week of November, I believe things will have turned around. I now prepare for the exams with anxiety – but with hope. It shall be well. In the fullness of time, there will be a renewal and restoration. It is always the darkest just before the day dawneth.  

Kenyatta-Trump Meeting: The 'Big 4'- AGOA Conundrum

By Muthuma Njenga

President Kenyatta is scheduled to meet his counterpart POTUS Donald Trump at White House, Washington on Monday 27 August. The much anticipated and hyped meeting presents a chance for the two head of States to formally engage for the first time since the election of Donald Trump, with discussions ranging from trade to security issues. The visit maintains its traditional skewed development nature: Kenya seeking to get more funding (aid) in its 'Big 4' development programmes and regional security initiatives (Somalia mission). Kenya will also be seeking to maximize on preferential trade deals and opportunities and signing new ones. This comes at a time when US and China are locked in tariffs confrontation which could lead to a trade war, in this scenario Kenya proves to be an important pawn if there were to be a trade war between the two global economic giants, owing to the fact that Kenya is the economic gateway to the eastern region of the continent.

Trade discussions are expected to stretch to Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), where the US is mulling on replacing 18-year multilateral program with preferential bilateral programs with respective African states, Kenya being fronted as one of the first States to benefit from the new program. The ministries of foreign affairs and trade and industrialization are keen to clinch the deal which has its shortcomings and poses a threat to 'Big 4'.

President Uhuru Kenyatta. Picture courtesy 

Under manufacturing pillar, Textile and leather industries are key sub-sectors which the Kenyan government want to revive. Their revival terms and solution has been easy: reduce inflow of cheap second-hand clothes into the country. Prior to the Big 4, EAC head of States had sought to revive the textile industry in the region. They directed ministers of trade to draft regulations to guard local textile and leather products back in 2015. The ministers presented a draft policy document whose main recommendation was a joint restriction on imported second hand clothes and shoes. The draft policy was adopted unanimously and was set to be implemented by 2018. However only Rwanda took the leap of faith and courage by slapping imported second hand clothes and shoes with the agreed 25% EAC joint tariff. This causing a possible trade confrontation between Rwanda and US (which benefits highly from exporting second hand clothes), where US threatened to withdraw AGOA privileges from Rwanda.

Kenya and its two counterparts Uganda and Tanzania choose to stick to a 'pragmatic' policy of wait and see, and eventually 'chickened out' of the agreed tariff proposal. Defending Kenya's move former industrialization CS Adan Mohammed cited effects of the burn to importers and entrepreneurs of mitumba, and also considering the ultimate consequence; Kenya losing the AGOA privileges where it benefits greatly by exporting textile and apparels products. which are very valid justifications, but do not offer a long-term solution to the crippled local textile and Leather industries.

The Kenyan delegation will be faced with a great task of balancing between AGOA and Big 4. On big 4, they will seek funding to revive the local textile industry, and on the other hand the Kenyan delegation will have to appease the US delegation by caving in on mitumba restrictions so as to clinch the new bilateral deal, with the latter likely to carry the day. We might gain one and loose the other but we will certainly, never gain both.

Muthuma Njenga

International Relations Student

Technical University of Kenya

Tanzanian Opposition Needs to Remain Steadfast in the struggle for democratic space

Amid the gloom, doom and distress over the defection of its members to the ruling party, the opposition in Tanzania should not relent in their pursuit of competitive multiparty politics in the country. Over the past few months there has been a plethora of defections, both at the parliamentarian and councilor levels across mainland Tanzania. So systematic has been the defection that whenever Humphrey Polepole, the Ideology Secretary of long time ruling CCM party calls a press conference, we expect nothing less than another unveiling of an opposition defector. The most dramatic one was the unveiling of Monduli constituency legislator Julius Kalanga late into the night. It was almost like the European football transfer deadline frenzy where clubs try and beat the 11:59 PM transfer deadline. Another Chadema MP Mwita Waitara also announced his defection to the ruling party. He was received and handed a direct nomination for the Ukonga seat. And just like the ones who defected before him, smeared and besmirched his former party and its leader Freeman Mbowe.

Chadema leader Freeman Mbowe in a past political rally

The politics of defection is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the opposition was a beneficiary of high profile defections in the run up to the general elections in 2015. To curb what is known as party hopping or party switching, advanced democracies world over have come up with legislations that are restrictive and punitive to the defectors. There is no doubt that the wave of defections in Tanzania has made a mockery of the country’s fledgling democracy. With a weak Political Parties Act, a government-controlled Office of the Registrar of Political Parties, an electoral commission that is hostage to the ruling party and a parliament that is controlled and dominated by CCM, it is going to be very hard to build a country with strong democratic ideals.

Tanzania’s political culture is still drawn from the Ujamaa legacy. The way people are politically socialized in Tanzania is as if they are beholden to the ruling party. The legacy of the single party rule even compelled people to overwhelmingly propose that Tanzania remain under single party rule when the Nyalali Presidential Commission that looked into political reforms in the early 1990s. About 80% of the respondents said they wanted the single party rule to continue. It took the intervention of Mwalimu Nyerere to change things.

The opposition in Tanzania since the election of President John Magufuli has been crippled with government restrictive pronouncements and periodic crackdown of its main leaders. President Magufuli banned political rallies until the next election in 2020. Opposition lawmakers have also been arrested, harassed and embarrassed by the state. Arusha Urban lawmaker Godbless Lema of Chadema was denied bail and jailed for alleged seditious remarks against the president. Other opposition MPs have also tasted state wrath with constant arrest and detention. Outspoken Chadema MP Tundu Lissu was almost assassinated when his car was riddled with bullets in September 2017 in Dodoma. He is still recuperating in Belgium. His counterpart Joseph Mbilinyi “Sugu” was also jailed for five months for allegedly insulting the president. The political space in Tanzania has really shrunk. There is fear and anxiety among the people. The police force is by effect has become an extension of the ruling party with constant harassment of opposition leaders and even journalists.

The systematic coopting of opposition leaders into the ruling is being facilitated by the electoral commission – the National Electoral Commission (NEC). The ruling party CCM gives the defectors direct nomination for the by-election. The by-elections are characterized by fear, intimidation and electoral fraud with the result being a free pass for the defector. The recent defections mean another by-election. These by-elections are very expensive especially to an administration that rallies on the mantra of ‘cutting down government spending’. When asked about the cost of the by-election, Mwita Waitara shamelessly remarked “the expenses of the elections do not concern me.”

Despite the testing times, the opposition in Tanzania should weather the storm and not relent on the struggle for democratic space. The turbulent political times the country is going through will only awaken the need for political reforms through a resuscitation of the stalled constitution process.  

Uhuru Kenyatta's Foreign Policy; More Assertive and Focused

President Uhuru Kenyatta will in the coming three weeks meet with the world’s top three nations. He will be hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House on 27 August, before playing host to British Prime Minister Theresa May on 30 August. President Kenyatta will then be hosted by Chinese President in the first week of September. Speaking on the visits, Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Ambassador Monica Juma spoke on the importance of the three countries in relations to President Kenyatta’s Big Four Agenda. “America is one of our greatest supporters in the counterterrorism effort [], the discussions are strategic and valuable,” said Amb. Juma. She also spoke on the special relationship with the UK pointing out that Kenya has favorable balance of trade between it and its former colonial master.

Since the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013, Kenya’s foreign policy has been more assertive, engaging and strategic. In his first term in office, President Kenyatta forged a more Afro-centric foreign policy. This can be attributed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) involvement in Kenya and the subsequent efforts to lobby African states to defer the Kenya cases. President Kenyatta also made African diplomacy his key foreign policy objective in his first term in office. To show Kenya’s African focus diplomacy, the country fronted its Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed to contest the position of the African Union Commission. Despite her losing to Moussa Faki of Chad, it showcased Kenya’s ambition to cement her Afro-centric foreign policy.

After his reelection in 2017, President Kenyatta continued to commit to an Afro-centric foreign policy. During his inauguration on 28 November 2018, he underscored Kenya’s commitment to Pan-Africanism with a pledge to all Africans visiting Kenya to be eligible for a visa upon arrival. He also promised that all East African will be treated as Kenyans and they will be free to “work, do business; own property, farm and [..] and marry and settle in Kenya”.

President Uhuru Kenyatta with China's President Xi Jinping

President Kenyatta’s appointment of Amb. Monica Juma to head the MFA further reinforces his foreign policy ambitions. She is a career diplomat and an academic who has written on Kenya’s peace and security policies. Her entry into the MFA has brought scholarly rigor into Kenya’s diplomacy. She was instrumental in Kenya’s push to defer the ICC cases at the African Union – and has been described as an excellent behind the scenes operator.

Under President Kenyatta, Kenya has showed that it wants to take charge in regional and international issues. Through the five diplomatic pillars of Kenya’s foreign policy, President Kenyatta is going about strengthening Kenyan interests globally. The meeting with US President Donald Trump will further strengthen the trade ties between the two states. Kenya also remains America’s key ally in the region. The meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing will also bolster trade and investments and enhancing manufacturing – which is one of the President’s Big Four Agenda.

Meeting the erudite Toyin Falola

As a young emerging scholar in Africa, there are several African academics I look up to. Last semester (Spring, 2018), I was fortunate to be a PhD Teaching Assistant of Prof. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. Despite being the Vice Chancellor of our university, USIU-Africa, Prof Zeleza normally teaches one class every year. That course is African International Relations. I learned a lot from him during the course of the semester. Despite it being an undergraduate class, Prof. Zeleza exposed the students to interesting postcolonial discourse in Africa. It was part of the extensive readings he shared to the class that I reconnected with the writings of Professor Toyin Falola, a distinguished African academic now based at the University of Texas.

This year, my university was the host of the Eighth Toyin Falola International Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora (TOFAC), which was first staged at the Nigerian Premier University in Ibadan. This year’s theme was: Beyond Histoty – African Agency. As a PhD student, it was my dream to present one of my papers at this conference. I worked on my conference paper titled “The Individual in Decision Making Theory: Some Perspective on Jakaya Kikwete’s Presidency in Tanzania.” After the conference opening remarks by the organizing committee and VC Prof. Zeleza, it was the turn of Prof. Toyin Falola. It was the first time I was seeing him. He spoke briefly on the conference theme and the history behind TOFAC. The Guest of Honor was Prof. Funmi Olonisakin who gave the keynote speech. She touched on the meaning of ‘African Agency’ – which I tweeted exclusively.

After the short health break, we broke into the thematic groups. The conference had many themes ranging from cultural dynamism, Africa and China relations, Africa and Globalization, Human Rights, Democracy and Leadership issues in Africa and Diaspora. My paper was under the latter theme. I presented the paper and got very good feedback which will further enrich my paper. After the first day, I was happy to finally have a small chat with Prof. Falola. We spoke about the keynote speech by Prof. Olonisakin, which had generated a lot of debate. We also spoke about his contribution to the debate earlier that morning – which touched on the role of the community in African societies, which was now dead. As a student at the university, I was tasked to take the professor back to his hotel that evening. I was happy to do that. Dr. David Mwambari, a former lecturer at USIU-A who was part of the organizing committee also asked me to “take care of the Professor” and make sure everything was okay until the end of the conference. The next night, I took the professor to a local joint in Nairobi for Nyama Choma. We spoke at length about academia, life, publishing, books, family and many other things. I was curious to understand how he could publish that much and what his motivation was.

He told me he was now working on several Palgrave Handbooks. He has published over 100 books and many other academic works. I asked him how he does this and he responded with a question: “How many days do we have in a year?” I responded. He replied “Write a page a day, by the end of the year, you will have a book.” Apart from the academic talk during the four days I stayed with him, I found out that he was an extremely humorous person. He cracked jokes to the waiters, hotel porters and the conference participants.

I took him to Maasai market at the city center on his last day in Nairobi. He was very happy when he bought some exquisite paintings. “That is my best buy” he said. As a collector, he says that the paintings are the best he has ever bought. As I dropped him at the airport on Saturday evening, I realized how much I had learned a lot from this giant academic. To me, learning is through shared experiences that is beyond the classroom.  

Nairobi,

8 July 2018