{UAH} Pojim/WBK: GAITHO: Editor’s arrest rings with echoes from Kanu’s oppressive era - News | Daily Nation

http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Editors-arrest-rings-with-echoes-from-Kanu-oppresive-era/-/1056/2953062/-/lu6ylv/-/index.html

GAITHO: Editor's arrest rings with echoes from Kanu's oppressive era - News

For a person plucked from Opposition ranks in Parliament to take the post of Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government, Gen (Rtd) Joseph Nkaissery seems to be doing his best in aid of Jubilee's attempts to replicate the dictatorial Kanu ways.

Nothing exemplifies this better than the arrest of NationParliamentary Editor John Ngirachu over an article on possible loss of public funds in security procurement, together with a statement warning that media, opposition and civil society's exposes of corruption were aimed at undermining the Government and were a threat to national security.

Mr Ngirachu was detained on Tuesday by Criminal Investigation Department officers after Gen Nkaissery demanded that journalists who reported on his closed testimony before a National Assembly committee be forced to reveal their sources.

Although the journalist was released the same night following public outcry, the brazen attack on constitutional guarantees of media freedom — and specifically constitutional provisions protecting journalists from being forced to reveal their sources — was symptomatic of a regime lashing out at imagined enemies when under scrutiny for its own failings.

THE RETURN OF GRAND CORRUPTION

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto have been under intense pressure to fight the return of grand corruption.

Most recently in the news has been revelations of unchecked corruption in Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru's giant Devolution ministry.

Funds intended for some of the President's pet projects on youth are apparently being frittered away in corrupt deals.

Calls have been made to suspend her like other ministers who have faced graft queries.

Even as the public increasingly begins to question the Jubilee coalition's commitment to the war on corruption, it seems that instead of trying to live up to its rhetoric, the government's strategy is to go into a laager mentality and lash out at those raising questions.

The arrest of the editor therefore reveals a pattern in which the entire strategy can be seen from Gen Nkaissery's outrageous statement linking exposes on corruption to efforts to destabilise the government.

The statement reveals a Jubilee mindset that seems to have the DNA of the one-party Kanu monolith where any discordant voices could only come from "disloyal elements" and "enemies of development" acting at the behest of "foreign masters."

One big irony is that the report on the suspect Sh3.8 billion expenditure was read out to at an open session of the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee in the presence of the media and Gen Nkaissery.

It was only after the letter for query from the auditor-general was read out that the minister asked for the session to go in camera but never was the issue of the proceedings being expunged raised at any point.

When the Interior minister thereafter cried foul and demanded that the source of the reports carried in all main daily newspapers be investigated and punished, he already knew the origin.

In citing national security as the reason for his alarm, it is likely that Gen Nkaissery is moving largely to cover his own back after appearing before the committee that might be exposing continuing corruption in the security sector.

His order that the journalists who reported on an open and privileged forum be arrested is therefore highly irregular.

Just as irregular is the fact that Director of Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro and Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet went ahead to act on an illegal directive by the Cabinet Secretary, when they know full well that their offices enjoy operational independence and are not supposed to be under undue influence from any other person or authority.

According to the Interior Secretary, exposure of government corruption was part of a plot to incite Kenyans into mass action aimed at destroying the government.

The chilling message was that security agencies had been put on alert to arrest the alleged plotters, noting even the "internationalisation of this hysteria, with the articles in international media outlets aimed at harming the nation. We can only presume that they are authored in cahoots with people intent on executing this insidious agenda."

The statement dovetailed with the circulation of alleged minutes of an ODM strategy session where opposition leader Raila Odinga and his key lieutenants allegedly planned how to sustain pressure on the government.

The patently fake minutes bear the hallmarks of 2012-2103 Jubilee election campaign propaganda team. They identify the same old Jubilee bogeys — opposition media, civil society and foreign interests — as the co-conspirators, raising the red flag on corruption.

GAITHO: Editor's arrest rings with echoes from Kanu's oppressive era - News | Daily Nation

http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Editors-arrest-rings-with-echoes-from-Kanu-oppresive-era/-/1056/2953062/-/lu6ylv/-/index.html

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