President Uhuru Kenyatta warns of foreign threats to security

President Uhuru Kenyatta (right) and his Deputy William Ruto during a seminar on National Security Strategy at Kenya School of Government in Nairobi, Friday. [PHOTO: KIBERA MBUGUA/ STANDARD]

The government will not entertain foreign governments and interests that threaten the country’s national security, the Head of State has warned.

Speaking Friday at a meeting with his Cabinet Secretaries and top security advisers in Nairobi, President Uhuru Kenyatta tasked them to find a way to make sure foreign governments and interests are not used to threaten the country’s security.

The President said the goal of the security agencies was to make sure threats were neutralised, the country’s sovereignty is protected, and that there’s room for the country to “politicise national security”, the heat of the ongoing referendum politics, and ethnic politics; his concern over the large number of idle and unemployed youth. These issues, together with the conflicts in neighbouring South Sudan and Somalia, he said, pose a threat to the country’s security.

In the meeting hosted by the country’s military at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi, Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and the rest of the Cabinet plus other top officials in his administration, also warned politicians not to jeopardise the government’s crackdown on terror.

Perhaps aware of the chaos in Burkina Faso, where angry people torched the country’s Parliament and ran their President Blaise Campaore out of town a day earlier, President Kenyatta asked his top men at the helm of the Jubilee administration to take note of Kenya’s “youth bulge”.

“If not well managed, a large number of idle, frustrated youth pose significant risk for the survival of the State. They can be drawn to ideologies that undermine the legitimacy of the State and can be used to destroy our democratic dispensation,” said Kenyatta.

However, he remained optimistic that if the many young people get money and opportunity to earn a living and “buy into the Kenyan dream”, then, they will be a source of “immeasurable potential for growth”.

Kenya’s Institute of Economic Affairs in 2010 pointed out that up to 78 per cent of Kenyans are below the age of 34 years. In a January 2013 report, the United Nations Development Fund recorded that nearly 80 per cent of Kenyans are below 35 years.
“Failure to invest in our young people to enable them have a livelihood, they will be a direct security threat...,” said Kenyatta.

The twin referendum politics – governors’ Pesa Mashinani and CORD’s Okoa Kenya — for a 45 per cent share of all the national revenues are also a source of headache for the President. “It will mean that the politics of ‘sharing the cake’ by utilising ethnic mobilisation will continue and may lead to local conflicts with many fractures, that if unattended, will threaten us particularly during elections,” President Kenyatta said.

He was not happy that there were gaps within his own administration, and he told the Cabinet Secretaries that he will, henceforth, rate them based on how well they work to ensure the country is safe and stable.

“Among us in this room as well, there is often lack of consensus on how to tackle clear and present dangers to the State. It is no exaggeration that there may even be dire threats that some of us regard as mere irritants. Or threats that some of us think do not concern our dockets,” the President said.

The Head of State also touched on loyalty of ambassadors to his Cabinet and the security bosses.

He said the envoys have a duty to take care of the country’s interests abroad.

The civil society gag debate was also weaved in the President’s speech.

While the good news was that foreign nations and donors had no significant influence on the country’s public coffers, they had a freehand when it comes to splashing billions to the civil society.

“A large section of the most vocal civil society is hopelessly dependent on foreign funding, particularly from governments with interests that may conflict with our national security. How can the State’s pursuit of national security be protected from actors that may be drivers of divisive agendas,” said Kenyatta.

In the meantime, the statutory NGO Co-ordination Board has warned the NGOs Council over inciting its members into opposing the proposed amendments on funds.