13 March 2022
Kenya: It has come without surprise: For the next presidential elections, President Kenyatta (who will have served the maximum of two terms) will not back his Vice-president but his former long-time enemy Raila Odinga.
BBC Africa Latest Updates 12 March 2022. 15:13 12 Mar
South Africa: In Alexandra township (one of the poorest areas of Johannesburg), support mainly of marginalised people is growing for Operation Dudula and the Alexandra Dudula Movement, two movement that campaign against undocumented foreigners. “Dudula” in Zulu means “push back” – foreigners are accused of stealing South Africans’ jobs. More outbreaks of xenophobic violence could be in the offing. It had happened in 2008, 2015 and 2019… Some may be tempted “to make political capital out of the issue”, e.g. the new Patriotic Alliance (PA) of ex-prisoner Gayton McKenzie or even the Economic Freedom Fighters.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60698374
12 March 2022
Kenya: He considered the poor a danger to the public good. Charles Njonjo, first Attorney General of independent Kenya from 1963 to 1979, then Minister of Constitutional Affairs and MP for Kikuyu Constituency from 1980 to 1983, has died recently aged 101. “The legal and administrative regime that he defined and defended was meant to guard the security and prosperity of Kenya’s wealthy and entitled upper classes. It was a regime that was paranoid about dissent, scornful of the poor, and focused on the security of property. It was a regime where - in the name of the common good - many categories of people found themselves incarcerated.” Though Njonjo eventually did fall (in 1983), the system that he created is still in place and many have been and continue to be imprisoned. “Today Kenya’s elite lives behind security walls, while - under the guise of counter-terrorism - Kenya’s police target poor and marginal residents of Nairobi.”
https://theconversation.com/charles-njonjo-and-the-genesis-of-kenyas-fixation-with-security-178547