Aggynims

/Work Hard, Play Hard,Pray Harder/

[Michelle Obama @MichelleObama]

Barack: You told me all those years ago that you couldn’t promise me the world, but you could promise me an interesting life. Of course, you outdid yourself and managed to give me both.

Eight years in the crucible, and not once did you melt from the heat. Not once did you let it harden you. Instead, you used it to reveal your truest essence: your stubborn optimism and unflinching courage, your dazzling brilliance and unpretentious decency, your ferocious work ethic and absolutely unshakable moral fiber.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

Michelle and I loved reading to this bright group of kids today!

We hope this new Chicago Public Library branch at the Obama Presidential Center will be a place where folks come to read, check out books, and connect with one another for years to come.

[Aggynims @aggynims]

A silent parade of black ants on the move.

[Aggynims @aggynims]

In search of adventure. Streams.

[Wellness Xplorer @WellnessXplorer]

Health tips an old doctor with years of experience taught me

[Aggynims @aggynims]

I am whole. I am called. I am unafraid.

I steward wisely and expand faithfully.
Restored to thrive,
Rooted in God and rising in purpose

[Holistic Fitness @HolisticFitnes_]

Your organs are literally begging for these 5 tiny habits.

Just a few minutes a day = a happier, healthier you. 💯🥹

[Steve Harvey @IAmSteveHarvey]

I’m the wrong person to fold on. God didn’t build me to fold —
He built me to fight through it.

See, when the odds stack up against me, that’s when something in me wakes up.

Pressure don’t scare me — it introduces me.
Doubt don’t stop me — it fuels me.

I’ve been counted out before.
I’ve been laughed at before.
I’ve been told “it ain’t gon’ happen” more times than I can count.

But listen…
I don’t run when it get hard.
I don’t quit when it get uncomfortable.
I go harder.

Because God didn’t build me to fold —
He built me to fight through it.

So if the odds are against me?
Good.
That just mean I’m exactly where I do my best work.

[Healing Tai Chi @GymBr_o]

This blew my mind 🤯 The correct way to fold clothes 👕🎽🩳👖

[Talk Church @churchtalkative]

Commit to God🙏🏾

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Unforgettable night. Unforgettable performance.

[Aggynims @aggynims]

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[Aggynims @aggynims]

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[Aggynims @aggynims]

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[KenyaOSINT 🇰🇪 @StratCorpGlobal]

ASSASSINS POISONED KENYA'S VICE-PRESIDENT GEORGE SAITOTI

Nation Media Group
February 12, 2023
By John Kamau

Some 33 years ago tomorrow — on the afternoon of February 13, 1990 — assassins finally caught up with Kenya’s Vice-president George Saitoti. The previous night, Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko had been lured (some say pulled) out of his Koru home, brutally murdered and had his body burnt in a nearby hill, Got Alila.

As usual, Prof Saitoti, and a handful of close allies, had gone to the exclusive Indian food restaurant at the Muthaiga Shopping Centre in Nairobi.

It was a place he loved. It was quiet. Elitist. Great food and ambience gave him what he wanted — a secure environment away from the political madness and backstabbing of the Nyayo era.

Prof Saitoti loved Indian dishes. Had he known about Dr Ouko's disappearance the previous night, he would have been careful. But, as one of his close allies once told me, this was the only other restaurant in Nairobi where he would take food.

As the Vice-president, Prof Saitoti was a heartbeat away from the presidency. As a result, he was always cautious about the toes he stepped on — those he jumped and those he completely evaded.

Though a wonderful schemer, he did not love open political battles. He was a shy man and an introvert. In public, he looked timid, and though he looked rigid when dancing, Saitoti always walked very fast. That way, he thought he was always safe. He wasn’t.

Trusted bodyguards

To feel secure, he kept the number of friends and confidants at a bare minimum. Few would know where he was at any one time. He lived like a hermit. Prof Saitoti would hardly be found in Nairobi’s social scene. He evaded the city's social circuit, and for his security, he had retained the same trusted bodyguards for years.

There was the ever-present Inspector Joshua Tonkei, personal assistant Michael Tanju and a bodyguard named Sultan.

Those who observed Prof Saitoti’s political character thought it was odd for a highly successful politician to appear in flight mode. Even today, none of his friends has ever come out in the open to explain who Prof George Saitoti was.

So, when they finally caught up with him and poisoned his food, Prof Saitoti was at the place he trusted.

So frightened were his friends that after spending a few days at the Nairobi Hospital,  they decided to turn one of his rooms at home into a ward with an ambulance always on standby.

One close source told me that it was only when he required some blood transfusion to clear the poison from the system that he would be taken back to the hospital.

Interestingly, Prof Saitoti’s illness, or poisoning, was never reported in the mainstream media, nor was his hospitalisation.

However, his disappearance from the public when Dr Ouko’s death was making international headlines was noticeable.

Bad state

Those who saw him say he was in a bad state and that his skin was literally peeling off.

So controlled was Prof Saitoti’s life that when he returned after a few months, he denied “rumours” that he had been poisoned.

He would later say that he did not know those who killed Dr Ouko because he “was unconscious when Ouko was being killed”.

It was after President Moi had told a public meeting — some years later — that the people who killed Dr Ouko were the same who “poisoned my Vice-President” that Prof Saitoti admitted that, indeed, he was poisoned.

As the Finance minister and Vice-president, Prof Saitoti found himself at the heart of complex transactions and powerful webs of deceit that he could never leave voluntarily.

Unknown to many, and perhaps — and I am saying possibly — not related to the poisoning, Prof Saitoti had received a note from a company known as Arum Limited suggesting that gold exporters be granted a subsidy to allow them to compete with smugglers.

There was also a push for a gold compensation scheme by mandarins stationed at the Office of the President.

In the few months to the June 1990 budget, Prof Saitoti was out of Treasury and recuperating at home.

It was then that the Commissioner of Mines and Geology wrote a letter to Arum Limited saying that an inter-ministerial decision was being awaited.

In the June 7, 1990 budget speech, Prof Saitoti announced that an Export Compensation Scheme would “be expanded and supplemented with an import duty exemption scheme”. How much he knew about this shift in policy as he was recuperating is not clear. If he knew something, as usual, he kept it to himself.

By examining the events that followed, we now know that the following month, Prof Saitoti received two people in his office: The head of Special Branch, James Kanyotu, and businessman Kamlesh Pattni.

The two had incorporated a new company, Goldenberg International Limited, and wanted to be granted 35 per cent export compensation.

Looting exercise

They also made sure that he knew they had been to State House to lobby for the same, according to an inquiry report into the saga.

The reason I have related the two events is that they formed part of the predicaments that would face Prof Saitoti later at the Treasury, where the Kanyotu-Pattni company engaged in a looting exercise.

Having survived death, Prof Saitoti had little room to maneuver and when one looks at the drama that followed, he was a man under siege. But that is not to say that Prof Saitoti was a clean man. Nay.

He was thuggish in his way and was part and parcel of the cartels that ran that Nyayo system. Only that in that space, there are lions and jackals.

By approving the Goldenberg scheme — which snowballed into a monumental scandal — Prof Saitoti was trapped in a murky and frightening world where sleaze and skulduggery ruled.

He had become one of the hydra-heads of corruption in the Nyayo era. The Goldenberg loot became the feeding tube to entities such as Youth for Kanu — a militia-like group that wanted the status quo maintained.

Life as Moi’s VP was hell for Prof Saitoti. Although he managed to build some solid networks within the system quietly, which he hoped to use post-Moi, he never showed his presidential ambitions.

It was too dangerous. And as the Dr Ouko inquiry gained momentum, one of Prof Saitoti’s friends, Mohammed Aslam, the chairman of Pan African Bank, made the mistake of appearing.

Aslam, the brains behind the Grand Regency Hotel, now Laico Regency, was an insider in the Goldenberg scam, just like Prof Saitoti. Whatever he wanted to reveal was never known. He died in mysterious circumstances.

The Nyayo era had frightening moments— those who think it was a walk in the park should read its history of intolerance.

Some 33 years ago, Kenya’s vice-president was poisoned and made to keep quiet by a frighteningly obnoxious system.

*****

Postscript: On June 10, 2012, Prof Saitoti died in a mysterious helicopter accident. The brand new police helicopter went down after leaving Wilson Airport. Prof Saitoti was by then the Minister for Internal Security and was eyeing the presidency.

Attempts to unravel the truth were not conclusive, and Prof Saitoti’s poisoning and accident remain the most mysterious events in his life. It was a sad end for a man who was too careful with his security. Lessons learned.

On June 8, 2012, two days before he died, George Saitoti was in Mombasa where he addressed a workshop that was to reflect on Kenya’s politics and transition.

Prof Saitoti was booked in Room 213 of Mombasa Continental Resort, where the workshop was held.

Without informing anyone, he slipped out of his room and checked into another hotel. He gave the key to his bodyguard, Inspector Joshua Tonkei.

“He would only eat his food at select places. He even fired his cook after he found him at State House,” a close family friend says.

For years, Prof Saitoti had three trusted security confidantes, Insp Tonkei, Mr Michael ole Tanchu, who was his personal assistant, and a bodyguard, Mr Samson ole Surtan, from Kilgoris, whom he fondly referred to simply as SS.

[Chinasa Nworu @ChinasaNworu]

Listen to the #Zambia president Hakainde Hichilema @real_IpobDOS @_AfricanUnion @EmbassyofRussia @Zambia @mfaethiopia @AbiyAhmedAli @GoitaAssimi @CyrilRamaphosa

[The Earthshot Prize @EarthshotPrize]

Introducing the extraordinary Class of 2023 ✨

15 incredible environmental solutions to repair our planet 🌎

Read everything you need to know here: https://t.co/pjQwSwMNqw

[The Earthshot Prize @EarthshotPrize]

🌎🏹🏆 COMING SOON...Get to know all 15 of our amazing 2023 Earthshot Prize Finalists in our 5 part YouTube series!

Episode 1 is coming in 🔥 September 27th, with a new episode every Wednesday!

Who will be watching? 🙋‍♀️👀

[Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority @EPRA_KE]

Super Petrol, Diesel & Kerosene will retail at Kshs.211.64, 200.99 & 202.61 respectively in Nairobi effective midnight.

The prices are inclusive of the 16% Value Added Tax (VAT) in line with the provisions of the Finance Act 2023, the Tax Laws (Amendment) Act 2020 and the revised rates for excise duty adjusted for inflation as per Legal Notice No. 194 of 2020.^DC