{UAH} Pojim/WBK: I told you so!!!!! Standard Digital News - Kenya : Blame not poor Ole Lenku, but his boss
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Standard Digital News - Kenya : Blame not poor Ole Lenku, but his boss
It is not Joseph ole Lenku who failed, but the person who ignored his inexperience and threw him into the deep end of the swimming pool expecting that miracles would happen and he would step out of the water with a gold medal.
We shall come to that shortly after the following analogies, but suffice to say there is no room for internship and apprenticeship in the Cabinet.
I mean the guy looks innocent enough, he means well, and has the charm and furtive character of average Kenyan men who want to remain behind the scenes. Unfortunately for him, he had been thrust to the forefront complete with a flag, a motorcade and men in suits tailored to conceal the guns they carry for the protection of the boss. The first analogy comes from the courtroom, when some former university students considered to belong to the dissident group called Mwakenya or Pambana as per the leaflets then circulating at night, were asked if they had a plea to make to the court. Charged with derailing trains, they argued that they were humane enough and had even checked that the train approaching them was not a passenger train.
One of them, I believe it was Tirop Kitur, the firebrand who was literally as tough as nails, told the judge he would not legitimise the Kangaroo court process by pleading and the court official could go ahead and pick any sentence it deemed fit! Of course those were the days the courts were perceived to be appendages of Kanu.
On why he put the lives of others at risk to vent his disaffection with the system, Mr Tirop retorted: "You do not blame the vulture for landing on the carcass, but the killer of the animal!" The second analogy is from my community: "The hare being chased does not blame its killer, but the person who flushed it out of its burrow."
As we have argued in this space before, how come that for almost every nominee to the Cabinet Mr Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto read out in the season they wore matching shirts, suits and ties, as if one was the groom and the other the best man at a wedding, left us marvelling, "Na huyo ni nani?" (who is that?)
Yes, many of them turned out to be very educated men and women, and in line with our neo-colonial hangover, majority at some time studied in Europe and the US.
Yes, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto were running away from appointing persons from the political kraal, and whose faces are smeared with the cow dung of politics and the profession's excesses and baggage of corruption, tribalism, dirty money, subterfuge and connivance.
But then they seemed to have in several cases ended up with superbly educated men and women, but thoroughly inexperienced in the execution of public service. You saw it in the public gaffes they made, the fangs they bared at the media, the venom they spat at critics, as if they themselves were infallible, and the protocol breaches and unlawful decisions they made.
But the bigger question today is not why Mr Lenku was perceived to be a hapless failure in safeguarding our security, but what difference Joseph Nkaissery, the retired major general, brings into office.
He has only one asset; experience! He has been in the trenches, he has been in the hot kitchen, he has been in the country's hotspots. He knows the role of intelligence and how to inspire the fighters. He knows through the military hierarchical tradition, when to speak, shut up, or when to let the boss take the bullet by facing the country in tragic and sad moments.
The experience Mr Nkaissery has is also what surpasses him as a person in the way big brands are. In fact, I am now convinced Mr Kenyatta and his team are indeed 'digital' world trawlers because the name of the retired major general had been floated Online as the next choice for Mr Lenku's job.
But that said, there is the reality we must confront; the experience, personal clout and the assurance that accompany him, are all these are useless if the security apparatus remains the way it is. In other words, much as the shoe was too big for Mr Lenku, Mr Nkaissery's star will only shine if supportive systems work well.
These include: Immigration to ensure terrorists don't roam free in our land; intelligence to deploy technology over and above sitting at listening posts inside mobile telephony; Kenya Defence Forces to secure our borders; the national government to give us ground and air cover; county governments to take care of domestic security; the police and other units to watch every footstep in our land; and the rest of us to ensure our own security in a more prudent than the way the President meant when he said we are personally responsible for our safety.
Then at the top, the President and his deputy must radiate messages that give a sense of assurance to Kenyans that they are not on the saddle of power for prestige's sake, but are alive to the fact that the rest of us Kenyans do not drive around with an army or even live inside VIP military barracks. They kill this sense of comfort when for example after Mandera's second attack, Mr Ruto tells us the victims had been warned to leave, but they ignored.
If we delude ourselves that Mr Nkaissery will work miracles, then we shall also demand he is sacked and Mr Kenyatta if insecurity persists. Then we will have to ask for the CV of the next available Maasai leader to forestall backlash from Kajiado, Narok or even Trans Mara.
The relief that met Mr Nkaissery's entry and Mr Lenku's exit is literally the public relations coup the President was dying for, as the news spread of the massacre in Mandera. The question is what shall we do if and when (God forbid) another attack happens?
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000143634&story_title=blame-not-poor-lenku-but-his-boss#disqus_thread
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