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By:
HARRISON MAINA | |||||||||
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Apr,18-2017 23:37:10
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(AJABU AFRICA NEWS APRIL 1, 2017), BOSTON__A toxic mix of tribal, religious and business rivalry that haunts the Kenyan community in Boston marred attendance to a town hall meeting by the popular and high performing Kenyan education Secretary, Dr. Fred Matiang'i, when a total of 32 Kenyans and 10 guests turned up for the event held at the PCEA Neema church last Wednesday in Lowell, MA, reliable sources at the event told Ajabu Africa News. Dr. Matiang'i, a member of the Kisii community from Western Kenya was in Boston last week to attend an education seminar at Harvard University when one Kenyan with "privy" information about the visit decided to host the team to a townhall meeting in Lowell. Lowell, located about 40 miles north of Boston, is a popular city to host Kenyan community events as it hosts several thousand Kenyan nationals, who form part of the over 20,000 Kenyans in Boston. Majority of Kenyans in Lowell and the entire Boston region are from the Kikuyu tribe, the largest of the 42 tribes making up the east African nation with a population of more than 6 million out of a total of close to 40 million. Thus, accompanied by a large delegation of about 10 members from the Kenyan education sector among them Prof. Chacha Nyaigoti Chacha, the current Chairman of the Kenyan Commission for University Education (CUE) and the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC), Dr. Matiang'i was slated to address an expected large group of Kenyans in the region and take questions regarding the recent developments and reforms he is instituting in the Kenyan educational sector that had seen an uptick of cheating in national exams and strikes by teachers before Matiang’i started turning the tide around.
However, according to Kenyans attending the event, Matiang'i and his team seemed totally baffled as they addressed only a handful of few Kenyans who showed up, barely filling up one row in the large Kenyan community church that serves over 400 members from the Kikuyu tribe. According to most Kenyans in Boston interviewed by Ajabu Africa News, most were not aware of the scheduled event until news broke Thursday morning after the fact; hence part of the reason many who would have wanted to attend did not get to do so resulting to the embarrassing situation. Many felt they were denied a chance to ask serious questions they would have liked the minister to answer regarding the good and bad education sector trends reported in the media from back in the motherland that are of concern to the Diaspora residents. According to event organizer, Daniel Kamau from Worcester and publisher of a local Kenyan Jamhuri Magazine, Dr. Matiang'i was in Boston to attend an educational seminar at Harvard University. "They were in Boston to attend a conference on education at Harvard so I invited them to meet Kenyans here for a town hall meeting. We passed the invitation to all the pastors in all Kenyan churches to announce last Sunday. We also sent the information and it was advertised in Samrack, ThuoThuo and many Whatsapp groups around," said Kamau while responding to inquiries from Ajabu Africa News via a telephone interview. However, a spot check with several Kenyan pastors in Boston indicated that no one informed them about the event not request for announcements. "No. We did not receive any request to announce this event through all the churches affiliated with us as central organization representing various churches. Unless the organizers invited pastors individually, I don’t know, but we did not get any request," said Rev. Joseph Waiyaki, Secretary of the Kenyan American Pastor's Fellowship Association. "We did not announce about the event as no one requested to. We can't announce everything so see on social media in church since you don't know who has organized and the purpose unless the organizer asks you to announce. Too many Kenyans here have been cheated and lost billions of funds through some unscrupulous businessmen and politicians who come through church so we are now very carefully what we announce in our church," said Rev. Samuel Kimohu, pastor of the St. Stephen's church in Lowell. Similar sentiments were expressed by Rev. Dorcas Albreltch of the new Faith Anglican church in Bridgewater, father Samuel Mathenge of the Boston Kenyan Catholic and Friends Community and Raphael Mungai, chairman of the St. Peter's Catholic Community in Worcester and several other church leaders, all who said they had no idea the event was even happening. Ajabu Media also was one of the networks kept in the dark about the townhall event until complaints from concerned Kenyans started pilling in when news broke. "This is very embarrassing to all of us to have such a government minister who has done so much for Kenya come all the way and be embarrased by lack of quorum. I only came to know about this event around 6pm on the day it was happening when a friend at the event sent me a text to inquire whey we are not there to listen to Dr. Matiang'i who comes from our village in Western Kenya, said Vincent Magasi, a Kenyan insurance agent from Leominster, MA. Magasi added that even if the event was announced at most Kenyan community churches as purposed by the organizers, it is important for Kenyans to realize that not all Kenyans in the region attend those churches as people are scattered all over New England hence impossible to reach most of them through churches. He lamented that there was a notable trend where a small group of Kenyans in the Lowell area are always hosting high profile public figures with selfish motives and end up alienating other Kenyans that they don't agree with on community issues by withholding crucial information. "I don't have anything against Kenyan community churches. If they want to serve their tribal groups, that is ok with me. But anyone inviting a public figure to the Kenyan community in Boston needs to realize that we have a lot of Kenyans attending the SDA and other international multicultural churches in Leominster, Fitchburg, North Reading, Revere and other areas. If you fail to publicized this kind of an event in all known Kenyan media and social media networks, then some of these Kenyans will never know about it as you can not announce Kenyan community events in these international churches," he added. Magasi a member of the Kenyan Kisii tribe said it would have been very nice to meet up with Dr. Matiang'i and give him some ideas from the Diaspora that Kenyans would like to see instituted in the Kenyan education system. Other Kenyans who spoke to Ajabu Africa news said that they were concerned with such high profile guests visiting the region on tax payer funded missions were being organized in church settings especially due to the well known infighting among many Kenyan churches that has caused bitter divisions among members of the relatively small community and their rapidly increasing children living far from home. "Holding business or political events in Kenyan community churches is not a good idea because this leaves the door wide open to the leaders of those churches to use the events to try and alienate those they don't agree with or settle personal scores. It's also smells of corruption and greed since some Kenyans are using churches as venues to try and make their investment solicitations look holy and genuine as long as they were advanced through a certain church with the blessings of that pastor," said another Kenyan who requested anonymity to avoid usual retribution from church leaders uncomfortable with certain discussions affecting the social dynamics of the community.
Some clergymen in the Kenyan community have been accused of offering free of charge church facilities for political or business events as a dangling carrot to attract new members, get financial favors and control the direction of the community while tacitly resisting any efforts by the community to unite under a civic group with rotational leadership that would host such events at rented halls. The clergymen have also resisted to join efforts to help the Kenyan community put up their own Kenyan community center that would serve as a neutral venue to disseminate public community information and host civic leaders, both from Kenya and locally in USA. In the process, other Kenyans who operate small social media blogs have colluded with some pastors to host such events in churches with the goal of attracting readership and business solicitations, while doing everything possible to keep the information from rival media outlets. Other Kenyans questioned why even hundreds of members of the Neema church themselves did not bother to attend the event, yet it was clearly announced in the church the Sunday before. "This is the big elephant in the room. If Dr. Matiang'i was from the Kikuyu tribe, the church would have been almost full even if it happened on a weed day. We have seen Kenyan in Lowell attending weddings and burials in their hundreds even on week days. There is clearly an undeniable tribal angle to this embarrassing situation. It's also worth to note even other tribes hardly come out to attend events hosted for Kikuyu leaders or community events, so the problem cuts both ways,"” said another concerned Kenyan mother. Most Kenyans said that there is an urgent need to change the dynamic and divisions currently at work happening in the Kenyan community in Boston. Reached for comments on why the townhall was allowed to take place at the PCEA Neema church and not inform all Kenyans in the region about it, Dr. Karimi Mumbui, the pastor of the church to Ajabu Africa News that he was not involved in organizing and thus had no role to play in the sub standard advertising of the Dr. Matiang'i townhall. "I was just approached to provide a venue for the event and I agreed to provide the venue for free. I did not know anything else related to the event. In fact, I also did not attend the event as I was at work." The pastor remained non committal when asked on the veracity of hosting political or community-wide civic events in churches in light of the massive divisions among Kenyan churches in the area. "No comments," he said emphatically. However, Kamau, the event organizer, turned irate and hanged up the phone when asked if there was any relation between hosting the Cabinet Secretary to the disappointing town hall as a way to promote the private Kenya University Project he has been promoting and soliciting investment funds for. Kamau, who two years ago run a campaign to try and prevent Kenyans from attending the Boston Kenyan Festival taking place in Lowell by falsely accusing the Kenyan embassy in D.C of charging Kenyan nationals in Boston $25 in order to be issued with Kenyan ID cards during the Boston Kenyan Festival attended by the Kenyan Ambassador in USA hanged up the phone when pressed for answers. However, the $25 fee was charged by the event host, the New England Kenyan Association as the cover fee to help pay for the venue rental food, and goat meat. The Kenya embassy had only paid for a small room adjacent to the main event venue where Kenyans entered free of charge to apply for their new generation Kenyan ID cards.
However, according to Kenyans who attended the townhall on Wednesday, Dr. Matiang'i and other officials provided great information of the recent trends in the Kenyan education sector. Among the highlights included the elimination of cheating during national exams and issuance of fake certificates, expansion of private universities and colleges, the wings to fly program that has currently sponsored over 300 Kenyan students studying abroad, the 90% rate of electrification of public school which is expected to hit 100 % in 2017. He also said there was a lot of innovation in technology by young Kenyans which saw the Catholic University won a research project sponsored by the IBM tech and computer manufacturer. However, Dr. Matiang'i also said there were still a lot of challenges facing Kenyan education system including rising rates of HIV infection among students, over 3,000 unwanted pregnancies per year, parents abandoning their parenting duties to schools, rigidity of exam time tables, bullying of new students, and a myriad of fake satellite universities for profit, some of which have been set up on top of butcheries to minimize expenses and detection as they fleece unsuspecting parents and students. David Mambo, a.k.a Jomo, serves as the moderator for the event. The Matiang'i fiasco in Boston presents a prime manifestation of the dysfunction and disintegration that has rocked the growing Kenyan community in Boston as churches, tribes, business owners and individuals engage in a maddening rivalry for control and dominance. In the process, the unfortunate scenario has left many in the community divided into a myriad of small cocoons that cater mainly for profit interests of most leaders. Unfortunately, to establish dominance, the small groups often disparage rival groups, shun any event organized by others with anyone calling for unity of all Kenyans under one roof getting criticized to oblivion, replicating the vicious cycle with no solution in sight as yet as the groups dig in their heels. | |||||||||
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Source:
AJABU AFRICAN NEWS
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