pole ndugu reuben kigame
Author: jamaapoa
•Sunday, September 10, 2006
this must be a hard and grieving time for my favourite kenyan gospel artist reuben kigame. maybe even harder for him than when he realised he was becoming blind while still young. mercy wanderwa kigame, reuben’s wife passed on last tuesday following a road accident near kabarak university after her car rammed into a lorry. that was the most shocking news to my ears since last year september when i lost a loved one. death has a way of defying comprehension and kigame’s loss resuscitated the grief, denial and guilt that has refused to go away one year down the line. myriads of questions clouding my mind regarding the fairness of living go unanswered. mercy had been kigame’s best earthly companion and only god understands why he needed her that soon.

reuben has been a source of consolation and encouragement to many through his musical ministry with sifa voices (who brought us the popular church worship ‘wastahili bwana’). in addition, through his word of truth ministries and the newly launched 97.1 fish fm based in eldoret, he has touched many hearts. i never missed his sermons whenever he was scheduled to preach at main campus taifa hall or nairobi chapel during my campus days. quite philosophical contemporary christian dialogues that are to say the least stimulating. i will never forget how his first album ‘kweli itakuweka huru’ while he was a student at kenyatta university with his old time buddy douglas jiveti impacted my early church life. reuben and jiveti have this year released a nice christian reggae album ‘god’s reggae’. i hope and pray that god will give reuben strength to cope with the demise of mercy and strengthen his outreach programs.

may he too be consoled like he did to many during the august 98 nairobi terrorist attack when his song ‘cry the pain’ featured in his country album ‘never alone’ filled the airwaves. i long for that time prophesied when we will look at death and ask ‘death where is your sting and grave where is your victory?’ (another country – gospel country album). this track was in reflection to the death of a partner in ministry; brother ngumba.

it was touching to see such union across tribal boundaries (that our politicians use to hatefully divide us) and visual challenge when mercy (kikuyu) wedded reuben (luhya). later when reuben’s father in love went to be with the lord, reuben put together and sung a kikuyu album ‘unyite na guoko’ translated ‘hold my hand’ comprising mercy’s father favourite kikuyu hymns. mercy lived the theme of a prominent song in the album, ‘ngukinyukia o kahora njerekeire o matuini’ translated ‘i will steadily make my way to heaven’.

to his three daughters may the lord be with them as they face life without their loving mother in the spirit of his song ‘enda nasi’ (‘go with us lord’) featured in his album with sifa voices ‘ombi langu’ (my prayer). for reuben kigame may you be strong, consoled and have ‘amani moyoni’ mwako as you sung in your kiswahili hymn collection album ‘amani moyoni’.

as sad it is for kigame, his daughters, relatives, friends and those of us who have benefited spiritually from his ministry, am sure mercy kigame is sharing the glories of the land where there is ‘no setting sun’ just as reuben dedicated that album to his wife.
| comments (23)
nairobi stock exchange: another electronic leap
Author: jamaapoa
•Saturday, September 09, 2006
monday the 11th september 2006 is a d-day within the stock exchange fraternity. the much awaited automatic trading system, simply ats will go live on this day. this will phase out the open outcry system and pave way for electronic trading of shares. transactions will no longer be written on the board but will be beamed and electronically projected for every one to follow the dealings. the trading floor located at first floor of nation centre will still be a much visited 'palace' since all the brokers will still be congregated there religiously. dealers will be armed with a flash disk, cd or a diskette (wow!) of their excel-saved orders to the trading floor and into their designated computerized compartments within the trading floor.

no more shouting and haggling, ats will automatically match orders. surely some jobs are on the line. unlike the tea harvesters and the fiery central organisation of trade union boss one francis atwoli, who are embroiled in a deadlock with tea plantation owners over the introduction of tea picking machines, nse brokers have welcomed the ats system albeit grudgingly. millennium corporation from sri lanka or wherever who brought us the central depository system a.k.a cds and share investors are the ultimate winners. trades will be taking a maximum of three days to settle, buy on a monday and sell them by thursday. dealers manipulation of the market prices will be severely limited and their larger than life lifestyles will for once be checked, though to a limit. i am sure there will be loop holes to exploit, necessity is still the mother of invention my friends. no one knows the father yet.

well, nse is still a mile away to achieve full automation including by the minute online update of dealing progress, integration of broker systems with ats and cds as well as brokers enhancing their systems to cover prompt online trading. slowly we are seeing the disappearance of prompt trades and secret nominee accounts, choreographed share price increases, unchecked across the book trades that have been an avenue of ripping off unwary investors.

the brokers are under hellish pressure to professionalize their operations, improve their customer relations, perfect service delivery and enhance their systems to be more efficient and allow for online management of accounts. capital markets authority is under pressure to license more brokers as the clientele base permutates. the government is being pushed from all directions to privatise more money minting parastatals. though the govt have to mark time to allow the trancentury merchants of venice to capitalise on the deals.

sadly a number of the brokers are overwhelmed by the share craze that hit the market during the kengen ipo. one wonders what will happen when other gems like safaricom, kenya re, suntra stocks, eveready, nakumatt, mega bank, nse, pipeline as well as further privatisation of mumias and national bank hits the market. one broker has even adopted a policy of operating from nine am to three thirty pm, chasing clients who want to be served before nine or after eight (they have a casually dressed and rude ceo who literally does that on their main door). that broker seem to have raked enough money and if you chance to threaten to leave coz of their black and white services, they are more than happy to send you packing. of course, after waiting for your sale or ipo refund cheque for more than a month and nasty feedback that the system is down so no cheques are being processed at the time. this is very frustrating for most investors. unfortunately, where you think you will have better services coz of word of mouth referrals you have to queue on the street announcing to all and sundry including paparazzis and githongoisers* that umehepa job.

i feel that ats will be a comet to some brokers, hot, heavy, impactful and out of this world crunching lazy bones into smithereens and plutonizing others from the planetary knighthood.

*githongoisers – acquaintances, colleagues, buddies etc who smile and talk to you nicely when they see you queuing on the street waiting to sell or buy shares only to tell on you later.
| comments (4)
the human trinity
Author: jamaapoa
•Sunday, August 13, 2006
it has been a while since i visited the blogsphere. life has been flying off the shelves for the last two months and i think i need to take a charter flight through life. seconds ticks faster, hours whiz past like minutes and days have never been this shorter before. this is unlike a few years back when things seemed to fall apart and the sky was falling. those were the days when those things that i held dearly; be they beliefs, ambitions, family, life et cetera slipped slimly through my fingers. in those days, the second hand was slowest and time dragged. the nights were the worst. sleep and i were divorcees. presently everything seems to be coalescing into joint and expanding solidly to the four winds of the earth, faster than i can say good morning.

apparently i had a startling revelation in a dream. i went to this serene and mind quietening place where everyone was in threes. people were queuing for what looked like a soul check up. the master was inside dressed like a surgeon while the slave-master beings were ushering in one human at a time. the slave beings only needed to direct the first of the three parts of the human and the rest would follow obediently to the examination table. the first part of the tri-human was the more active, brighter and alive of the other three. i didn’t quite understand what transpired inside the examination room but whatever happened was evident in the faces of those who got out judging by the smiles emanating from the triple human that got out. i badly needed that kind of an operation. unfortunately i was outside the reception area and only observed what went on inside from a crack in the wall. worse still i had difficulties coordinating my human trinity. my active triplet was stuck in the fence where i had jumped in, hung upside down from the barbed wire. the other two parts had just trampled over him and left him for the dead, only that he wasn’t dying.

i later learnt that this is the place where humans are brought once in a while for a genetic check up and make up especially if their minds seem to run too fast for time. when human minds race beyond time, they start interfering with transmissions in the meta-physical world. they see higher wavelength energies than they are physically allowed. they get receptive to frequencies beyond human hearing and responding to ultra-energies to the amusement and absurd observations of the ‘normal’ humans. that’s why the genetic correctional facility exists so that the master can make them move through life at a human pace. that makes them not get lost beyond time or get lost through time. it makes them learn that there are only twenty four hours in the whole world since creation, recycled every other clock cycle and day so that human can tread water, chase after the wind and play their major role of renewing energy for the master race. don’t believe me, i got all this from a renegade slave who tricked me into jumping over the fence and made me miss my appointment and come back to ‘reality’ with a wounded inner man.

| comments (0)