Why UhuRuto falling out risks splitting security forces ahead of 2022

The postmortem following the 2007-08 post-election violence within security circles centered on just how intelligence and criminal investigations agencies could have been caught flatfooted by the violence.

Security agencies can thoroughly scapegoat when caught unawares, as with 9/11, when many US intelligence and investigative organisations couldn’t agree on which one had dropped the ball.

The Kenyan version of scapegoating after the 2008 Accord was signed, basically dug into who was more responsible for security failures and how the country could avoid a repeat of the same.

A retired Lt Gen has in fact previously written an op-ed stating that certain people in the chain of command should have faced court martial for dereliction of duty for allowing the violence to run for so many days.

Conventional wisdom has it that the security apparatus has had a whole 15 years to correct the tactical, operational and intelligence shortcomings, which could have contributed to the near collapse of law and order in 2008. Or have they?

This country has a very strange way of compartmentalising security.

On one hand, there are the well secured major urban centres and common tourist destinations, as well as core agricultural and production zones. On the other are the vast lands covered by armed pastoralists and porous borders largely accessible to all sorts of unsavoury characters.

The general population largely ignores the latter parts, where education, social amenities, law and order are alien, leaving this wilderness to roving militias.

We get away with it because these armed militias appear uninterested in our politics and whatever else we do in Nairobi, until of course drought or land conflict incited by politicians brings the armed guys into contact with “the rest of us”, like it happened recently in Ol Moran and Rumuruti.

In my view, general elections revolve around three M’s; Money, Masses and Military. One needs a huge campaign war chest, the people to vote for him or her and a security apparatus aligned to the new regime.

Depending on who you ask, people have been elected in this land who did not take office because one of the M’s did not properly align. We can ignore the middle M and crack the Money and Military parts for a bit.

President Daniel Moi was in power for 24 years, and by the 2022 poll, there will have been two presidents from Central Kenya for a combined total of 20 years.

As far as tribal privilege goes, it means the security apparatus of the country is dominated by people from these two communities. But the more intriguing matter is that in attempting to stop residents ancestrally from Central Kenya from being used for target practice by tribal militias in the Rift Valley like happened in 2008, the community in power for the last 19 years must obviously have made “arrangements” to avoid being caught asleep again.

The critical question to ask at this juncture is, given the 2008 scenario, and the fallout between the President and his deputy, how would it play out if one side refuses to accept the results and there is a breakdown of law and order?

A few weeks ago, when Deputy President William Ruto’s security detail was changed, there was an interesting moment as he was pictured meeting his new Administration Police guards for the first time.

In a well-choreographed “tea” session, he saluted as he walked towards them. To a layman’s eye, this means nothing. But the security and command structures in typical democracies envisage only one civilian commander-in-chief taking the salute. The DP may be the president’s principal assistant, but the role of C-in-C is a one-man role.

In a divisive environment like the Uhuru-Ruto presidency, it is such actions that give the impression that the DP is pushing the stakes so high that, in the words of law scholar Prof Makau Mutua, he is not averse to dividing members of the security forces.

As for the money, because experience has shown how much it determines the direction of our democracy and since money does not fall from trees, the easiest methods available to those who want lots of it to manipulate the vote, are also illegal methods.

I don’t intend to jog anyone’s memory, but the coming contest in 2022 includes people who have previously been accused of printing money at election time! To dish out hard cash in ways we have witnessed in our politics these past few years, the sources of money naturally have to be limited to drugs, the “wash wash” culture, fake tenders, inflated prices of public projects and good old theft.

I’m sure no politician wants to contradict this view because we know their salaries. The net effect of this big-money-by-shortcut to win elections is a disturbing rise of the criminal enterprise into taking over the country’s executive and legislature.

Nearly everyone on the radar of security agencies for crimes of this nature also wants to run for elective office. The desperation to protect ill-gotten wealth means we are looking at many aspirants for office, from the presidency to MCA level, who would rather go down with the entire country than lose elections. What are the security implications for this desperation? Where is our democracy headed if a large number of such characters get elected into office?

I am convinced that neither President Uhuru Kenyatta nor DP Ruto has taken time to examine all the implications of the two of them fighting a vicious verbal war ahead of such a crucial election.

Having been the two most powerful people in the country for 10 years, the loyalties they attract encompass all sectors of the economy and security establishment.

They also come from the two communities whose electoral disagreement nearly brought the country to its knees in 2008. We can only imagine what would happen if the two communities decided to engage again 15 years later.

Beyond that, there is the not so small matter of criminal enterprises seeking to stash insane amounts of money using the security gaps created by this unending fight.

We don’t know how far they’ll go. Probably the most positive thing from the 2008 PEV was that despite taking blame for its inaction as the country burned, the military walked out of the whole thing as the only remaining national institution still enjoying public confidence, because its stand remained the usual “apolitical”.

We can only hope that when the rubber meets the road in August next year, the military will once again steer the wheels without getting drawn into a civil disagreement over elections.

But in an uncharted territory where a sitting Deputy President and his boss, the president, choose to play a zero sum game from two opposing sides, and the possibility of one side refusing to accept the results, can we still trust that the dynamics are the same as 2008 and the military will behave the exact same way?

We must pray for the country and beseech the Lord to give wisdom to the folks who run our security sector, that they may love the country more, despite all that goes on in the land.