John Kamau

4 days ago | nation.africa | John Kamau

James Orengo is uneasy with the ongoing political dalliance between Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA). If there are others sharing the same discomfort within ODM, they have adopted silence as a weapon. Orengo built his career on principled opposition, often positioning himself against the status quo.

1 week ago | nation.africa | John Kamau

A proposal currently before Parliament, tabled by Suba MP Caroli Omondi, may well open the door to members of the global Black diaspora, who claim an emotional or ancestral connection to Kenya — offering them, perhaps for the first time, a legal pathway to call this land home. It is a quietly radical proposition, rich with historical resonance and contemporary significance.

1 week ago | nation.africa | John Kamau

On paper, the Francis Atwoli-led Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) was born, 60 years ago, to unify Kenya’s fragmented labour movement. But in reality, it was conceived as a political tool to contain the rise of an independent and militant workers’ front that threatened Jomo Kenyatta’s consolidation of power.

2 weeks ago | nation.africa | John Kamau

In the mist-draped hills of Murang’a, the village of Tuthu holds a luminous place in the annals of Kenya’s religious history. Here, faith arrived not as a conquest, but as a conversation between cultures, across continents and in the souls of a people whose spiritual story was beginning to unfold. It was here, in 1902, that the seeds of Catholicism were sown in upcountry British East Africa. As the world mourns Pope Francis, it is also important to think of Tuthu as a symbolic place.

3 weeks ago | nation.africa | John Kamau

If you hold land tainted by controversy — or acquired property through irregular or unprocedural means — it’s time to be very afraid. That warning extends even to President William Ruto, whose Weston Hotel sits conspicuously on a public parcel along Lang’ata Road. It also goes to those attempting to get the land meant for the expansion of Nairobi’s Ruai Sewerage Treatment Plant. Here is why.