This past week, in unfortunately sombre settings, I was happy to catch a rare glimpse of my all-time favourite Kenyan hero, the reclusive General (Rtd) Daudi Tonje, former chief of the Kenyan military.
The occasion was the funeral service of Senator William Cheptumo, last Saturday in Baringo North constituency.
Tonje graced and spoke at the service as patron of the Baringo clan he shared with the departed senator.
Speaking later, President William Ruto showered praises on the retired general, reminding the mourners and viewers about Tonje’s period of service when the celebrated KDF boss turned around the Kenyan military and initiated reforms that created the modern fighting machine that it is today.
Quite aptly, the President also reminded all and sundry that Tonje’s reforms were, in fact, a disadvantage to himself, culminating in the general serving only a four-year term, although he could have served longer, given his revered credentials.
As I watched the service, I briefly wondered if the head of state was going to both ask himself and the rest of the country why, years after the retirement of the general, there has never been another selfless, focused and principled public servant in the mould of Tonje.
Public service has become more and more an avenue of self-aggrandisement and personal enrichment.
Between Tonje’s retirement and now, things have only become worse and public institutions have been on a downward spiral.
Speaking of which, another general has been in the news these past weeks for all the wrong reasons.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the chief of the Uganda People’s Defence Force and son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
I need to point out that both Tonje and Muhoozi undertook officer courses at the Prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, decades apart.
Military officers who have been to Sandhurst love to identify with its glittering traditions and the finesse of its graduates.
However, through his X (formerly Twitter) account, the Ugandan military boss has become infamous for his outrageous tweets, often crossing geopolitical boundaries and making comments about delicate matters in regional nations.
When not tweeting about his Tigrayan “brothers” in the Ethiopian conflict, he will be dabbling in the Congo war, expressing support for his Tutsi “brothers” in the M23 rebel group.
In between, he is likely to be out bragging that his UPDF has the ability to capture Nairobi within a week, and this is when he is not threatening to visit pain on Uganda’s opposition leaders, Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, and Dr Kizza Besigye.
Two weeks ago, Muhoozi’s X account set the app ablaze, when he unwisely delved into his father’s retired bedroom secrets, incredibly tweeting about President Museveni’s whispered affair with Winnie Byanyima, a former NRA cadre who also happens to be Besigye’s wife.
Everyone agreed this was one step too far, but as Africans, we must have all hoped that on this latter issue, Muhoozi’s Banyankole elders would probably intervene to read the riot act, as this violated all tenets of African customs.
But after weeks of his social media shenanigans, a Kenyan media house made a headline story of Muhoozi’s increasing infamy.
The story angered him considerably, but his response showed just how little he understands about the advances in Kenya’s democracy and free speech, because he tweeted a promise that his “brother”, President Ruto, would arrest the writers of the story! Muhoozi’s catalogue of blunders didn’t seem to end there.
Not content with just the threat of Ruto having journalists arrested, the UPDF boss subsequently tweeted that he had discovered that the scion of a prominent Kenyan political family owns the Kenyan media house.
He promised to target the said politician’s businesses in Uganda with the aim of crippling them.
There are unwritten geopolitical principles when it comes to matters of this nature. For instance, crimes against Jewish people in Germany tend to raise the antennas of security services very fast, because of the burden of responsibility placed on the German state over the Holocaust.
Similarly, the sociopolitical and economic repercussions of the expulsion of Asian businessmen from Uganda, by dictator Idi Amin in 1972, are still discussed to this day.
That a top leader in Uganda, the CDF of UPDF, no less, can casually threaten to target the businesses of a foreign investor, confirms that Muhoozi is neither well-read nor well-grounded in geopolitical issues.
One shudders to imagine that this is in fact the man rumoured to be Uganda’s heir to power. Every course undertaken by a military officer aims to create a fierce warrior and battle commander, as well as a perfect gentleman.
On the battlefront facing enemies, a general is an uncompromising combat leader.
But while dealing with civilians, the same person is respectful and friendly. This responsibility is heavier on a four-star general of the level of the UPDF boss.
That someone who sits at the apex of a nation’s military can publicly threaten to crush the genitals of an unarmed civilian, or cause harm to civilians in general, negates the principles of his training and high rank.
Muhoozi’s theatrics, thankfully, are not our burden to carry here in Kenya.
But the silence within the region, whenever he shoots out many of his petulant tweets, is quite telling.
Either, they don’t think much of his pompous posturing on social media, or they have decided that his actions are consistent with certain factors that they would rather not talk about.
But obviously, regional intelligence agencies must be running thick files and desks dedicated to these outbursts, which provide very rich avenues for psychoanalysis of an individual who may soon be the overall leader just next door, with a huge military at his disposal.
For context however, a Kenyan would have to imagine our own General Charles Kahariri threatening to capture Kampala in a week, or to shoot opposition activists in Nairobi, to make sense of how bizarre Muhoozi sounds.
As for the threats directed at the Standard Group, it is laughable that Ugandan intelligence services, or even President Museveni himself, haven’t taken time to educate the UPDF chief about the liberal manner of Kenyans.
We live in a country where the President of the republic is routinely caricatured as a dead body inside a casket.
Well, once in a while, one or two young people may be arrested for such ‘crimes’, but none really gets processed through the judicial systems because of the stark reality of anticipated failure in prosecuting such expression of freedoms.
We, after all, are not a one-man power operation whereby citizens can be arrested and tortured on a whim.
We must invite our neighbours to the class of enduring Kenyan democracy where no matter how poor the electoral systems may be, we still conduct elections and transitions every five years, with a living ex-president and two ex-presidents dying just recently, of natural causes.
Besides, our generals and chiefs of the military, from Joseph Ndolo, through Tonje to Kahariri, do not dabble in politics or threaten to harm our more delicate body parts.
We in the media also write what we like, and no one can stop the pens of those who buy ink by the barrel!
