President Uhuru Kenyatta has had enough time to calm the turbulence that characterized his rise to the Office of the President. He has learnt the hard way. He has learnt that there is only one Kenyan entrusted with the instruments of state power. And even though he allowed Deputy President William Ruto to use his official pen for two hysterical days, he never quite handed over the sword and the seal. He was in charge even when he wasn’t. In Africa, you never really trust your deputy, ask Thomas Sankara about Blaise Compaore.
Yet Uhuru Kenyatta has never shown his willingness to step up to the plate whenever the chips are down. Granted, he flew to Kapedo immediately he heard his officers had fallen in the hands of merciless traditional guerrilla tacticians. The Kapedo lagtime was encouraging as compared to Westgate and Mpeketoni. But the manner in which he handled the bandits was as shocking as it was immature.
The whole country watched as he handled the culprits with velvet gloves, negotiating with them to surrender government-owned guns snatched from the slain police officers. He was visibly enraged, but still had the restraint to negotiate with terrorists. He showed signs of being gripped by fear, the fear of the unknown. What if I unleash terror on the spot and wipeout everyone attending this meeting? It reminded me of that famous picture taken by the White House official photographer on the goings-on inside the Situation Room during Seal Team 6 raid on the Abbottabad hideout of Osama Bin Laden. Sarah Kaufman, the body language critic contracted by the Washington Post to break down the non-verbal communication of individuals in that photo, said this of President Obama:
Obama has the most to lose if things go awry, but the president’s taking up the least amount of room. In contrast to Vice President Biden, with that broad open torso, spread out, filling out his seat, Obama has drawn inward, sucked himself into a small place. If this were a stage, you’d never guess the buck stopped there…
This is a diplomatic way of saying Obama let his juniors do the job, you get the feeling he is there because the President must be there, otherwise he would be shooting hoops in his backyard in Illinois. Likewise, President Uhuru Kenyatta had better personal things to do, you get the impression that these bandits were wasting his precious time he would better spend teeing off in some lush-green golf course, or just having nyama choma with his bossom buddies laughing off ODM’s latest miseries.
Uhuru Kenyatta was not prepared for the daunting task of leading a highly insecure, ethnically polarized, nation. His national cohesion report card still makes for grim reading. In Kapedo, he fell short of negotiating with the bandits. The old men in the audience could not believe their luck. They were like Baba yako pia alikuja hapa na hakuwahi kutuongelesha, yake ilikuwa ni kutuma tu jeshi kutumaliza. They are sitting there and praising Mama Ngina for giving birth to a more considerate, more empathetic, more patient, less ruthless, son. I watched the West Pokot Senator saying the killing of the policemen was a case of mistaken identity. My friends, kama ingekuwa Jomo, huyo mtu angelala ndani that night.
The Office of the President needs a firm hand, not a soft face. The mass public relations hypnosis, by our media, for the government, is unwelcome at this particular time.
President Uhuru Kenyatta can ride on anything he wants. Whether he rode on a broomstick to the Kenyatta International Convention Centre to launch a project he has no knowledge about is not the subject matter here. If you were to ask a forsaken Nairobi commuter to list his demands in order of priority, the mode of paying for commuter fees will rank lowest in his checklist. In March 2014, Governor Evans Kidero promised Nairobians that by July 2014, Nairobi City County will have its own metro buses with their designated lanes, to ease traffic congestion. I don’t need to remind you which month we are in, and whether any of those buses and, or, designated lanes, have been presented to the public.
Uhuru Kenyatta may look cool launching a card my father’s goats could mistake for a digital bush, but as long as the media in this country keep chasing brown envelopes slid through the State House back-door we shall head nowhere as a growing poor middle-income country.
CSOs, the only remaining government watchdog, are about to be slapped with a massive duct-tape. The 4th Branch of the government have been reduced to cheerleaders glorifying selfies taken with skinny jeans and mini-skirts the size of military belts. Do not cry for my beloved country, join in the eating instead. But first, you must belong.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” – George Orwell
