Tioko Ekiru Emmanuel

KABU Press Announcement 📚🎉🎉 The Kabarak Law Review (Vol. 4, 2025) is now out. This edition reflects on 25 years of the African Union and interrogates its future trajectory - is it fit for the next 25 years? Engage. Critique. Reimagine Africa.

As is often the case with Mwalimu, there is little nuance here. I know many profs who continue to teach radical classes, continue to do important theoretical work, who continue to call out govt. And btw, among our academic elders, for every Kivutha Kibwana there was a JB Ojwang.

LOWERING THE BAR NO DECORUM State House and Harambee House, the highest offices in the land where the Presidency resides, has been turned into an amphitheatre of ridicule, shame, deal-making and stomping ground for nefarious characters under President William Ruto’s first term. From hosting shadowy businessmen, rebel leaders accused of funding ethnic clashes and electoral fraud in their countries, President Ruto has reduced the prestige of the top seat than any other Head of State. And last week, Ruto launched personal attacks on opposition figures using unprintable words in public, which further reduce the aura of the Presidency. How low can the Head of State go?

@waikwawanyoike The centrality of the people in this Constitution is the best innovation. I do not know how it sneaked past these politicians 😆

There is something 2010 Constitution did to/for the people that the regular politician and your extractive elite will never fully comprehend.

A sitting judge was cited in a judgment for interfering with a registrar’s decision. Did the Judicial Service Commission know this during vetting of the judge for promotion? We cannot answer that, because the process is secret. See the lessons from Kenya!

So what is the Government of Kenya smoking? Kenya initially nominated Prof. Phoebe Okowa to the ICJ. Every inhabitant of planet earth knows Prof. Okowa is one of top 10 imminent scholars of international law and is supremely qualified to sit in court. She was elected in 2025 to fill a casual vacancy created by the resignation of Judge Abdulqawi Yussuf of Somalia. She is the 8th woman in history to sit in the ICJ. Her term runs till February 2027. Subsequently, Kenya launched her candidature for a full 9 years term. Last month, the government nominated Justice Njoki Ndugu of the Supreme Court of Kenya to the ICC. Of course Kenya knows it doesn't have the leverage or political gravitas on the international plane (Kenya is neither superpower nor even a mid-level power) to have two judges in the ICJ and ICC. So what game is GOK playing? Of the two good ladies who is being set for FAILURE and WHY? Note this...Election for the ICC is in December 2026. While Prof Okowa's campaign for a new 9 years term is in 2027. If Justice Njoki is elected in December 2026, Prof Okowa's chances in 2027 will be diminished and vice versa. Many countries (Kenya is competing against Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Switzerland, Combia and Japan) will rightly argue during the December elections for the ICC that Kenya already has Prof Okowa at the ICJ and electing Justice Njoki to the ICC isn't fair to regional/international representation. So what REALLY informs Kenya's strategic (mis)step to have the two good ladies run for the two courts in the same electoral circle? Mimi na smell a RAT!

More people should follow @CecilYongo (Cecil Abungu). Simultaneously one of the most impressive and humble people I've met. Important work on legal rules for algorithmic auditing, AI safety & security in Africa, global majority participation in frontier AI governance, and much more. Has led the development of the ILINA fellowship from a Kenya hub to a pan-African one, creating opportunities for many of the most promising talents I've come across in recent years. I don't know when he sleeps. Developing into the kind of leader a field should be proud to have.

Two weeks left to submit (short) proposals for Public Law's themed collection of analysis papers for 2027...

Leopold of Belgium ruled Congo as his private property for 23 years. He cut off the limbs of Congolese who did not meet their daily quota on the plantation. At the end of his rule, he had killed 15million Congolese people. But we are taught only about Hitler. 😭😭

Justice prevails. The long arm of the law will find you, no matter where you run. Congratulations to the Lumumba family. A powerful win for you, and a defining step toward accountable, democratic governance in Africa. 👊🏾👊🏾👊🏾 uk.news.yahoo.com/belgian-court-…

BREAKING: Senegal’s government demands “independent international investigation into suspected corruption within CAF’s governing bodies.” It calls CAF’s decision to award AFCON title to Morocco “grossly illegal and profoundly unjust,” promising to challenge it in global courts

Katiba Institute Board Chair, Abdul NoorMohamed, has raised concern over the growing strain on constitutionalism across Africa. Speaking during the official opening of the symposium on Constitutionalism, Term Limits, and Public Debt Accountability in Africa in Nairobi, he noted that many countries are witnessing increasing executive dominance, the weakening, or outright removal, of presidential term limits, and mounting pressure on institutions tasked with upholding the rule of law and democratic accountability. He also highlighted public debt as governance challenge that is rapidly gaining urgency. Across the continent, unsustainable borrowing, opaque debt contracting, weak parliamentary oversight, and limited public participation in fiscal decision-making are raising serious constitutional questions. “Public debt is not just an economic issue—it is fundamentally a constitutional one. When decisions are made without transparency or effective checks and balances, it is citizens who bear the long-term consequences.” He warned that such practices risk undermining democratic accountability, threatening economic stability, and compromising the realization of socio-economic rights for both present and future generations. #AccountableGovernance

When the State deploys criminal lawfare to silence dissent, no one is safe. The misuse of criminal law will reach every household. It may begin with the hoi polloi, but it will not end there, it will reach your leafy offices too. Never say, 'It is not me.' We must all resist it.

Join us! @TiokoEmmanuel

Martha Koome’s judiciary playing games to keep presidential advisors in office is the cost we have to pay for her philosophy of cooperation with the executive branch. Shameful.

To be clear, if Ruto's advisors go back into office they will be in contempt of Orders in Petition 312 of 2025, which have not been appealed & no stay exists against those orders. That is how ill-advised & ineffective the stay orders issued by COA yesterday are. @shadrack_mose

Too many stinky points on this matter, including AG - sneakily appealing only one of the two judgments that rendered the Advisors illegal Court seemingly enthusiastically playing along to AGs mischief when it ought to have known its stay orders would be legally untenable.

Update: We have learnt from social media that the Court of Appeal appears to have stayed the High Court Judgment that had declared the Office of Advisors to the President and the subsequent staffing unconstitutional. On 23rd February 2026, the Court of Appeal heard the Attorney General's application to stay the judgment and declined the request to grant an interim stay pending the delivery of the Ruling on 24 April 2026. The news of this ruling today comes as a shock, as it was due to be delivered in a month and we, the Petitioners at the High Court and the main Respondent at the Appeal, have received no notice. Apart from the copy circulating in the social media, we are yet to receive the Ruling from the Court of Appeal. .@joshuamalidzo .@NoraMbagathi

Call for Applications! The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) is excited to announce the Africa Climate Academy, happening 25–29 May 2026. This one-week intensive programme brings together policymakers, media professionals, civil society leaders, and academics from across Africa who are passionate about shaping the continent’s transition to sustainable and inclusive energy systems. The Africa Climate Academy is more than a training programme. It is an educational platform designed to shift perspectives and deepen understanding of climate change, energy transition, and their implications for Africa. If you are ready to engage, learn, and lead conversations on Africa’s climate and energy future, this opportunity is for you.