Judiciarys Mutually Assured Destruction 21 October 2013 By Brian Obara, The Star If it is true that brutal honesty is the mark of true friendship then President Uhuru Kenyatta is no friend of the military. In a speech to mark the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) Day at the Laikipia Air Base, the Commander-in-Chief this week urged Kenyans to model their behaviour after that of our troops; I call upon every Kenyan to emulate the discipline and professionalism of our Kenya Defence Forces and wage total war on mediocrity and its practitioners, said the President. The President was aiming for praise but his words ring a little hollow in light of recent events. By this I mean of course the abominable behaviour displayed by our disciplined forces during the siege at the Westgate Mall. The KDF officers looted the mall of its cash and valuables and then attempted to cover up their deeds with vague denials and talk of repatriation. As one commentator put it, the terrorists stole lives while the KDF soldiers stole livelihoods. Reports from Somalia also suggest that some corrupt KDF officers are involved in smuggling charcoal from the war torn country, a practice which mints money for al Shabaab and helps fund their terror activities. That is a deadly symbiotic relationship if there ever was one. Our military seems to have developed such a taste for easy money there is no depth it wont stoop to. If this is the example our President wants us to follow then we are really in trouble. Talking of unbecoming behaviour, the intrigues at the Judiciary continue. This one has been inching forward in a very public way ever since the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) set its sights on the Judiciarys Chief Registrar Gladys Shollei for alleged financial impropriety. Shollei has refused to go quietly. Her decision to dig in and fight the charges has parted the curtain on the goings-on in the Judiciary revealing a world of petty grievances, cronyism and thin skins. The plot thickened in late September when a trove of e- mails appeared to show that Chief Justice Willy Mutunga had formed a war council to help hasten Sholleis departure. This week Mutungas office issued a statement reacting to the revelations - without confirming their veracity - claiming the CJs e- mail had been hacked and his phone bugged; The Judiciary leadership is determined to eliminate this surveillance culture by closing in on the small, cowardly and criminal enterprise that believes that it can violate official and private communication at will. Anyone who can hack e-mail can also doctor documents, read the statement. This is one of those mutually assured destruction type deals. Nobody is going to come out of this looking good. That said, keep it up coming people, some of us have newspapers to sell. This week also Parliaments Justice and Legal Affairs Committee met to debate whether or not to recommend the dissolution of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC). The commission came into some caustic criticism from the MPs; Has this commission changed anything for the last three years? posed Emurua Dikirr MP Johana Ngeno. If we were to disband it, nothing would change. Were spending millions on a commission that has done nothing. I agree that everyone has to earn their keep but I think we should cut the NCIC some slack. Its mandate is a tough task in a country where even words like donors, sovereignty and neo- colonialism count as a dog whistle to the tribal base. Tribal telepathy has a 50-year head start and friends in high places. Next to it fighting corruption almost feels like a winnable war. Some people have to be pushed out of office, others are ready to jump. Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana has threatened to step down from office over a standoff with members of his county assembly. The sticking point is the budget allocation for the county assemblys operations which currently stands at Sh624 million. Kibwana wants to shave this to Sh554 so that the county can have more money for development projects. Noble intentions but the county assembly members say no dice! This would be a high stakes game of chicken if only Kibwana hadnt shown his hand. Everyone would have thought the Governor was serious about quitting if he hadnt chosen Facebook as the platform to make the announcement. I have realized that I cannot effectively respond to what I perceived to be the county assemblys insensitivity to the peoples development agenda, reads the Facebook post in part. Rookie mistake. No one takes anything on Facebook seriously. If the Governor is serious about quitting then he should call a press conference. Till then he needs to save the armature hour tactics for election season. Lastly, every month it seems a new index comes out showing Kenya doing badly at something. We are like the snot-nosed kid at the back of the class who cant catch a break. This week saw the release of the latest Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG). Kenyas performance, ranked against 52 African nations, in such categories as security (42) and rule of law (33) makes for depressing reading. Heres the good news though. Apparently its not our fault. According to IIAGs executive director Ms Hadeel Ibrahim Kenya is getting a bad rep because we have neighbours like Somalia.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 11:03:11 +0000
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