Author: Paul Ochieng

By Paul Ochieng As Kenya grapples with pressure to reopen schools, questions are being asked whether it made the right decision to keep children out of schools for seven months due to the corona virus pandemic. Kenya, just like many African countries were overwhelmed by the Covid-19 surge at the beginning of the year opted for the safety of school children by keeping them at home which has resulted to almost the loss of one full academic calendar. Whereas health experts argue that it was the right decision to close schools and learning institutions until the Covid-19 curve is flattened,…

Kenya has moved a notch higher in fighting terrorism by widening the search net to financiers and sympathisers of terror operations.On Wednesday, the country’s Cabinet Secretary in charge of Internal Security Fred Matiang’i announced that the government has frozen the accounts and assets of nine individuals suspected to be funding terror activities within the East Africa region.The country has been a victim of numerous terrorism attacks executed by the Somali based Al-Shabaab terror group, the latest of which happened in January 2019 at a hotel and office complex in Nairobi. It left more than 20 people dead.The Security Minister announced…

For centuries in Africa, burials have been an important social occasion for communities to honour a departed soul. In many instances, the norm has been to preserve the body for some time to allow all family members attend the funeral and to allow relatives, friends and even strangers to pull together resources to give a departed soul a fancy, befitting send-off.From the dancing pallbearers of Ghana, the professional mourners of Kenya to the loud rhythmic mourning cries in Zambia, many communities in Africa respect the dead and hold spectacular events not only to mourn and comfort the bereaved but also…

With rising cases of the novel coronavirus being experienced in Africa, so is the need for funding to help majority of the poor and middle-income countries cope with the demanding need for healthcare. What is baffling is the corresponding revelations across many African countries of the looting of public funds meant to help the sick and mitigate against spread of Covid-19. The script is the same from Southern Africa Countries, Central Africa, Western Africa, Eastern Africa to Northern Africa. Ironically, Somalia, a country regarded globally as being lawless and ungovernable became the first example among countries in Africa to crack…