Tales from the ‘hotbed of terror’, and other silly stories

It is hard living in a country that is a hotbed of terror; just ask CNN. The American news channel worried themselves sick that President Barack Obama would get killed as soon as he landed in a country more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan. They did a lengthy segment, with supposedly informed talking heads, to plant fear in the minds of right-thinking American citizens.

Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr got some scary footage of Al-Shabaab and cobbled together a scary package to bring the point home. Terror scaremongering has a new name — CNN.

WORSE THAN WAR ZONE

Even that fantastically horrible characterisation pales in comparison with Politico Senior White House Reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere and his outlandishly ignorant reporting on the American president’s fifth visit to Africa.

“Obama’s most dangerous trip yet,” the headline proclaimed before adding helpfully: “Visiting Kenya is arguably riskier for the president than an active war zone.”

I know West Wing reporters inhabit some of the same bubble the president constantly lives in and know little of the world outside, but surely they’re allowed dictionaries, aren’t they? If Mr Dovere employed the use of one of those language guides, he would discover that a war zone is “an area in which belligerents are waging war.”

Predictably, the article hurtled quickly downhill from there on, seemingly overplaying former US ambassador William Bellamy’s comments about security and the Al-Shabaab threat.

For reasons we may never know, his editors allowed him to write 1,200 words of this tripe, added a picture and released it on the Internet. Take, for instance, his speculation why Obama didn’t go to Kogelo.

“There’s also the possibility that a visit could incite trouble, either by Al-Shabaab or by members of the Luo tribe, looking to capitalise on the visit of the world’s most famous Luo to attempt to make a point to the Kikuyu-run government.”

Many of the comments supported his assertions in the preposterous excuse of an article, so they clearly deserve each other, which is nice. I assume some fine Americans also read his column and take him seriously and he would want them to believe that Nairobi is far worse than that. Someone should take away his computer and shield him from interacting with others. For all we know, his ignorance could be contagious.

WORKING FROM HOME

President Obama was just working from home for a few days. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. In any case, all work and no play makes Barack a dull boy, so we got Sauti Sol to teach him the Lipala Dance. Once he leaves office, we will judge his suitability and readiness for a Kenyan passport by his Kenyan moves. It’s in the Constitution, look it up.

As for CNN, they capped an embarrassing week of gaffes on Kenyan reporting by telling the world that Obama had “lectured” President Kenyatta on gay rights.

I was at the State House joint press conference on Saturday afternoon. If anybody did any lecturing, it was Kenya One, who insisted to Obama’s face and the world that homosexuality was a “non-issue” at this time.

It’s almost as if the folks at CNN — idolised and loathed by Kenyans on Twitter in equal measure — throw away the facts and just broadcast whatever single-story garbage is left.

In this hotbed of terror, President Obama still seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly, breaking bread with his large extended family, kicking it with the opposition and civil society types, speaking entrepreneurship at Gigiri, granting a local interview and addressing the nation.

In between, more roads than were necessary were closed, we learnt more than we’ll ever need about ‘The Beast’ he drives in, the fabulous Auma Obama won the Internet, and Kenyans became overnight armchair experts on everything, from US air defence tactics to presidential protocol.

It was a busy weekend in this corner of the world that’s more dangerous than a messy war-torn country. To the surprise of CNN, Politico and their ilk, President Obama left with his head intact and not a strand of hair amiss.

In the midst of the hot mess of international reporting out of Kenya, whom did everyone on social media attack?

The Kenyan media, naturally.

This is on the same day a foreign journalist asked the most powerful man in the world what he discussed at dinner with his family.

Granted, there were some truly facepalm-worthy moments in the local media, but having a Twitter account is a remarkably low qualification for criticism. These are truly strange times.

You’re probably itching to go and call me a colourful name on the Internet right now. Go for it!

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MTV MUSIC AWARDS

Americans shine again at MAMAs

I wanted to write about the MTV Africa Music Awards last year but we had not started publishing this column yet. When I saw American actor and producer Anthony Anderson host this year and fellow US acts Ne-Yo and Jhené Aiko performing, I pulled out what I wrote last year but never made it to print.

To the surprise of nobody, Kenyan Hollywood star Lupita Nyong’o won Personality of the Year at the MTV Africa Music Awards 2014 in Durban. She didn’t even bother to make the trip to accept it, sending a video instead. But you know who made the trip instead? Trey Songz. And French Montana. And Miguel. Alongside his reality star girlfriend Khloe Kardashian. All Americans.

Kenyans Sauti Sol and Amani were nominated, but they weren’t the main acts. Nobody from Africa was. Another American, Marlon Wayans, was the host of the show, bringing along no small amount of poor jokes about clicking African sounds, buttocks and the names he couldn’t pronounce. My friend Ali Naka wondered loudly on Twitter: “A continent of one billion people couldn’t produce a host?” That’s a new low, even for MTV Base.

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SAFE TRANSPORT 

Pivot East recognises EA entrepreneurs 

It is safer to use a motorcycle taxi or boda boda in Rwanda than almost anywhere else in Africa. They give you a helmet, they ride reasonably and obey the traffic rules. I didn’t imagine it could be made safer until I saw the start-up Safemotos pitch at Pivot East, a competition of some of the best mobile entrepreneurs in the region.

They figured out a way to combine an Uber-like hailing service with a clever way to rank a rider’s safety based on some pre-determined metrics. They were just one of the 25 pitches on Wednesday in Nairobi from four countries in East Africa.

Excellent ideas such as tenderpreneur.net built by two 22-year-olds were presented to investors, media and potential clients in the fifth edition of the programme by the m:Lab East Africa. Sheila Birgen and her team do an important job of shining a spotlight on the mobile innovations that will shape our future.