I highly suspect that at Safaricom decision making is done by Michael Joseph as follows:

• A roulette wheel of ideas, most of which are half baked is prepared
• MJ puts on a blindfold
• MJ is spun around in his chair 15 times by an energetic staff
• Roulette wheel is spun
• Dizzy MJ throws dart at spinning wheel
• Idea struck is implemented

This can be the only explanation for something as doofus as free calls.

FREE CALLS?

Surely you jest!

Is this the same Michael Joseph who complained bitterly about the congestion being caused by Kenyans and their ‘peculiar calling habits’?

How quickly we forget!

Have Kenyans changed overnight? Are different people inhabiting Kenya? Why didn’t I get the memo!

Thanks to the free calls (from 9 to 6) for the last week the Safaricom network, quicker than knickers in the red light district,  has been dropping completely.

The most printable of responses from Safaricom customers has been WTF. If Michael Joseph is interested in byte size bites of exactly what people think of Safaricom, he can drop me a line and I will, with the greatest of pleasure, let him know in great detail just what Safaricom is thought of, especially last week.

Safaricom may be known for many things but quality of service is not one of them. When the multitude of customers are not waiting for five loaves and two fish to be disbursed at Customer Care centers with 10+ help desks staffed by two, they are weeping and gnashing their teeth at congested networks.

And they have the temerity to offer FREE CALLS? It’s like George Bush and Lucy Kibaki offering to start a Mensa Chapter. The dang capacity ain’t there!!

And In Other Scandals

If you have not heard of kenyaipos.co.ke, then you probably live under a lichen infested rock.

When the site was launched, an initiative of Citi Group, offering Kenyans the ability to apply for shares online, like sheep we clicked the register button and proceeded to send all our personal details and share applications into the digital ether.

If you sought to read the small print you would have come away unimpressed. Nowhere was it explicitly stated what your information was used for, where it was stored and what rights you had with regards to your information.

What it did say, however, was that Citi group and all of its affiliates and partners could access and use it.

And before you ask, no, nowhere were these affiliates and partners listed.

Now, late last week someone discovered that with judicious manipulation of the URL you could pretty much view anyone else’s share applications and personal details.

Let me put that a little differently.

If you applied for your safaricom shares online anyone and I do mean anyone could have seen your personal details.

Any yahoo could have seen your phone numbers and email addresses, details of your applications and God knows what else.

In a show of the crass ineptitude that I’ve come to expect from Big Business in Kenya, the people behind kenyaipos.co.ke have simply taken the site down. There is nothing at the URL anymore.

This has the stink of a cover up.

A cover up that I am afraid will not be possible. We know about this lapse. And what’s more a few screen captures demonstrating the flaw can be tabled (suitably obfuscated of course).

In short, answers, and a full disclosure, and an apology are expected in very short order from:

• Citibank
• The NSE
• Safaricom
• The Capital Market Authority
• kenyaipos.co.ke

Resist the temptation to cover this up. I know, I know it’s tempting. But Kenyans put their faith in many institutions and they deserve a least one of them not to make a mockery of their faith and their intelligence!

I will keep an eye on the papers and the institutional websites and hope you do the right thing.

Additional information? Threats? Drop me a line.

So this past weekend, the missus moved house. Aside from lacking a swing inside, the new digs is fantastic, up to and including the huge window on one wall of the living room that overlooks a garden. While no one was looking I secretly did a cartwheel to measure the living room. The exact measurements using this metric are a trade secret I shall take to my grave. Suffice it to say they are the exact dimensions necessary for us to unfold our master plan of world domination by producing sleepers that will be introduced into key sectors of industry ready for activation by us at a moment’s notice.

This is the point at which evil laughter should be introduced.

I am of the opinion of hedging our bets my producing as many troops as possible, but my co-conspirator will have none of that, seeing that she is in fully charge of the production process. I am pushing keenly for at least 5 sleepers, to infiltrate the finance, manufacturing, ICT, government and hospitality.

But I digress.

As with all things the move was replete with lessons

1. The female of the species, like iron filings to magnet, collects shoes at a prolific rate
2. While planning construction (or purchase of a new house) right after bathroom and kitchen, make allowances for a room for shoes (not yours, of course)
3. Shoes are heavy. Especially when transported together. Especially when carried up 3 flights of steps. Especially if due to a communications breakdown it is the wrong 3 flights
4. The possessions of the female of the species follow closely the handbag rule. What is the handbag rule? The volume of materials inside the female handbag is inversely proportional to the internal volume of the handbag itself. The same applies to the contents of the flat and the flat
5. Cushions are bigger than their respective covers
6. It does not matter how thoroughly you measure curtains before purchase. They will always mysteriously shrink en route

But at the end of it all everything was unpacked, the broken dishes tossed out on their ears and Phase I of the master plan is nearing completion.

Here’s to many more milestones my dearest. Many many more! :)

Light It Up

Roberta is sans insurance, and knowing full well that these are just the circumstances God chooses to exercise his excellent sense of humour, I decided not to chance driving. I would not put it past the man upstairs to have me involved in a menage a trois with a S Class and a VW Touareg that will force me to sell my car and sell my self and my immediate future family to pay for my sin.

But with Angels and whatnots to entertain, God makes excellent use of what appears at first sight to be limited material.

Which is why as I was proceeding to work, minding my own business, the matatu I was in caught fire. Not much of a build up I know, but one minute am fiddling with my phone and the next minute I look up to a classic Babel. The interior of the matatu is full of smoke and with amazing dexterity the tout has effected an exit through the open window.

Why he has departed we are not exactly sure. Until a tongue of flame appears amid the smoke.

Now in most buildings there is some sort of plaque the says things like

“Do not panic. In an orderly fashion proceed to the nearest exit
and assemble at the designated collection point”

What happens in reality my friends is nothing short of the opposite. There is no orderly quiet movement. You can practically hear the audio soundtrack to the situation.There is acrobatic and energetic motion of the human body from all the players. A large woman of motor boat like proportions will attempt to exit the vehicle head first at the same time a large man of Maruti like proportions is attempting to exit the same vehicle from the same window foot first. Where the sum of the parts is larger than the whole of the window, things grind to a halt. There are then shouted instructions to move mammaries and backsides out of the way.

I would have stayed for more entertainment but the thought of a vehicle on fire while my person and future lineage are still within is one that prompts action. A slid open window and a dive and roll through the window are but a moment’s work.

AOB

Airport Official: First name?
Passenger: Batman
Airport Official: What?
Passenger: Batman
Airport Official: (Holding Head) Your first name is Batman
Passenger: Yes
Airport Official: Spelling?
Passenger: Just like it sounds. Batman
Airport Official: Right. And your surname?
Passenger: Superman
Airport Official: Right, that does it! Security!

Mariah Carey

I cannot off the top of my head remember a song I despised as much as Touch My body. I cannot put in words just how much I can’t stand it. Please for the love of Humanity can someone please touch Mariah Carey’s body? Preferably with Anthrax?

I have in the past expressed my concerns about the mainstream media, specifically the newspapers. When they are not sensationalizing trivial issues like what the Speaker’s Wife was wearing during a national crisis rather than focusing on real issues, many reporters betray a lethargy that verges on the comical.

Today for instance I have received a number of text messages informing me that I am in today’s standard. Many of them addressed me as Mwangi.

With some resignation I secured a Standard to find out what had been said about me and why I was being referred to as Mwangi.

Here’s the bit about me:

Mwangi of Thinker’s Room sympathized with “genuine” ODM supporters who seem to be watching their hero betray them”

The facts are as follows:
1) The Mwangi quoted there is not in fact myself. It is a comment that was left by a reader.
2) I am not, have not, and do not intend to be called Mwangi.
3) The reporter would do well next time to differentiate the sentiments of the blogger from those of the commenters. There is, you know, a difference. Now I am waiting for a deluge of threats and outrage from PNU yahoos who will finally feel that I have been exposed as an undercover ODM sympathizer (which I am not). I choose to attribute the failure to make the distinction (despite the fact that the quotes above and below mine were from the actual bloggers) to lethargy rather than a deliberate misstatement.

Inviting your rival for mediated talks on a possible coalition government on Friday and then even before putting the phone down proceeding to name your cabinet and the important portfolios on Tuesday.

Can someone check that the Presidential Garage is opened BEFORE the presidential limousine’s engine is started?

Or is Kibaki out of his DOGGONE MIND?!

How the FUZZ can this possibly help matters any?

This is tantamount to eating a man’s lunch, inviting him to dinner to appease him some and then proceeding to eat the dinner before he gets there!!!

One would think that a modicum of sense in the Kibaki administration would last longer than a Brazilian in a British tube station. How wrong one would be! I’d start making sanity comparisons to shithouse rats but the rats are objecting

Disturbing news from the Buru Buru area (thanks WathiiFM)

• Paramilitary men are camping right outside gates
• There is the modern equivalent of the Passover in operation. If your security lights are not on mobs will enter your house. Woe unto you if you and yours are there
• Mobs have been forcefully circumcising people. Latest counts indicate about 20 people have suffered that fate. (NB circumcision is generally not practiced by the Luo community)
• 5 people have bled to death after forceful circumcision

More news from the rest of Kenya

• More about the burnt church in Eldoret. There are conflicting stories as to the number of people that were inside. Numbers are ranging from 50 to 250
• Despite the government banning the rally on Thursday, the ODM insists it will go forward. I plan to be nowhere near Uhuru park. Mobs repulsed from rallies are generally not forgiving.
• There is looming fuel shortage in most petrol stations in Nairobi
• The unrest in Kenya is affecting Uganda as well. (Uganda, being landlocked, gets a lot of its supplies from Kenya). Fuel stations in Uganda are running out of fuel.
• Goods are being held at the port at the request of buyers for fear that they will be looted/destroyed en route.
• Kibaki still refuses to directly address the issue of insecurity. Sometimes silence speaks volumes
• Samuel Kivuitu, ECK chairman has made some interesting comments on TV
1. He was under intense pressure to make the announcement
2. He contemplated resignation but felt that he would be perceived as a coward
3. He claimed that the ECK had no legal standing to act on the objections of the political parties (Which I don’t buy, especially the discrepancy between results announced at constituency level and those at the KICC)
4. He made an even more fascinating statement about presidency being very challenging, and then proceeding to say that the problem was some of the people around the presidency. He culminated by saying that some of the people around the presidency should never have been born

• US Ambassador denies that the US had ever congratulated Kibaki for his victory. He clarified that what the US had congratulated were the Kenyan people.
• So far the US, the EU and Australia have voiced concerns about the presidential poll results.

 
Neighbours gather to discuss the events

Thanks to all of those checking into the welfare of myself and Ory. We’re OK.

For some reason shortly after my post I was unable to access any websites at all. I like to think that it was a purely technical hitch, which persisted all day. I’m now blogging from another connection.

News

• 140 people reported dead as per police estimates. Which means actual numbers are probably larger
• City Mortuary ringed by heavily armed guards, presumably to contain details of numbers of dead
• Government spokesman claims violence is in “one or two places”. Dr. Mutua, I think you need glasses and a hearing aid
• SMS messages threatening prosecution for forwarding some messages beginning to trickle in
• Government bans ODM rally scheduled for Thursday
• Nairobi Women’s hospital reports sharply increased incidences of rape, gang rape and sodomy based purely on numbers of people that have accessed their services. Considering the public transport system has ground to a halt I shudder at the thought of the actual numbers on the ground
• Kisumu and Mombasa have all but ground to a halt.
• Kibera has been cordoned off, as of yesterday afternoon. No going in or out.
• Mwai Kibaki’s New Year’s address goes out of its way to stress the elections were free and fair.
• Raila Odinga refuses to negotiate with Kibaki unless Kibaki concedes that he indeed lost the elections

The Morning After

My hood, South B, is right next to the Mukuru slums. As you can well imagine I have had ringside seats to the action. Stones have been thrown at me, my neigbourhood shops have been looted and torched, houses were broken into and looted and cars have been set on fire. Armed police have been patrolling ever since the 30th and we have been operating with our lights off. Sporadic gunfire, sounding suspiciously like machine gun fire peppers the night.

Mercifully the only damage I have suffered is a few broken windows.

I managed to get some pictures of the aftermath. I dare anyone to hold back their tears after meeting face to face people who have lost everything because of the selfishness of a few.

The above shots are from where two kiosks and adjacent homes owned by friends of mine were looted and burnt

Proprietors review their looted salon

This man ponders what to do after his livelihood is reduced to rubble

Debris strewn after the rowdy mob passed through

This shop was completely gutted

Remnants of the rioter’s roadblock

These shops were broken into and looted

Some businessmen flee

Police on patrol in their chopper

Remains of a gutted house

This shop was broken into and looted

Another shop that suffered the same fate

Depressing does not begin to describe this. Will post more pics later with a response to all those Pro PNU and Pro ODM messages/emails from people who have no clue exactly what happened on the 30th and exactly what we have lost.

It’s official. ECK has just declared Mwai Kibaki winner.

Despite

• PNU only securing about 40 seats out of 210
• Extremely suspicious activities revolving around presidential and parliamentary results
• A confession from a commissioner of inflation
• A confession from an aspirant of vote stuffing
• Televised footage of vote stuffing

The ECK chairman claimed that it had no jusisdiction to act on the issues raised  by the ODM to do with irregularities in some 48 odd results.

I find this difficult to buy.

Quote of the day, from a thoughtful passerby

So what was the point in voting?

I no longer feel able to respond.

Meanwhile there is unrest in South B and Eastlands.

The much awaited announcement from ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu never was. He had began by reading results by Molo when the ODM loudly challenged the results.

Things speedily ground to a halt.

Shortly after aspirant Raila Odinga held a press conference where he bemoaned the doctoring of the results, which was confirmed by William Ruto who tabled a copy of the Form 16A where the total votes for Kibaki were at odds with those that were announced.

Then came the shocker.

An ECK commissioner stepped up and confessed that there had been doctoring of results at the ECK, specifically during the generation of the sheets that were used to read the results. According to him numbers favouring Kibaki were inflated in his favour. He said he was in Team 2 in charge of Coast and Upper Eastern and he confessed after doctoring 3 constituencies he could no longer stomach what was being done.

We’re not done.

Juja aspirant William Kabogo also appeared on TV and complained about the rigging of the Juja vote in favour of the PNU candidate, George Thuo. He claims there is significant deviation between the parliamentary votes and presidential votes.

What. The. Fuzz?

If this is a fact, then to tell the truth I am stunned. I cannot believe that people are naive enough to think that Kenyans are foolish enough to buy this sort of thing. This is 2007 for God’s sake! Do people still think that this sort of thing works?

I am very angry that a mockery has been made of Kenyans and the electoral process. Kenyans sacrificed on the 27th to vote and now some bigwigs are conspiring to silence the voice of the people. I am very bitter and very angry that the electoral process seems to have been stolen from Kenyans.

I remember laughing when watching Mwai Kibaki attending that KANU National Delegates conference and finger in the air singing “KANU yajenga nchi“.

I’m not laughing so hard now. Does anyone recall the last paragraphs of Animal Farm?

We can forgive buffoonery, ineptitude and passivity. We will not forgive our voices being silenced. Will post when I learn anything new

WHAT HAVE YOU PEOPLE DONE?

Pray for this country. I’m getting the sinking feeling in my stomach that some greedy people are on the verge of irreversibly ruining this country