Endless blame game over military role in poll will take us nowhere

NASA's press conference on Friday felt like the beginning of a terrible Nollywood film. For two reasons. First, like the West African productions, the plot was impossibly thick but at the same time painfully predictable.

Secondly, despite being an exposé, uncovering earth shattering revelations, it was, at the same time confusing- leaving the audience with more questions than answers. Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka alleged, amongst other things, that KDF have formulated a plan to rig the election and have enlisted the support of loyal officers by tribe and those considered 'regime friendly'. They further alleged that a cohort of officers were undergoing training on amongst other things how to cut off power and water.

Let us poke holes into some of the plot lines. Plot problem number one. If KDF has a covert and sinister plan to rig the election, why would they put it down on paper? Why would they minute their deliberations as a high level military operation engaging in an illegality? Would they not want to have plausible deniability?

Delinquency

Number two. If the government is to engage the defence forces, the tasks assigned to its officers are like a case of using a hammer to kill a mosquito that has landed on your knee. For instance, are chainsaws required to disable electricity by cutting live electrical wires?

What kind of logic would inform this? Would it not be better to pay a junior officer at Kenya Power Company to pull a lever somewhere? If a simple monkey was the cause of a national power outage last year, why do they need uniformed officers armed with chainsaws?

Number three. It is baffling that the person who aspires to be commander in-chief would discredit the same institution he intends to lead. That he would seek to divide soldiers in barracks along ethnic lines, insult their intelligence and professionalism by claiming that the military owes allegiance to an individual rather than the State. Perhaps the elaborate 'KDF scheme' is a projection of NASA's own delinquency, they are only exposing what Raila would do if he was the incumbent in this election; which is to order an execution of banditry and vandalisation.

Number four. Given that the people who revealed this 'grand scheme' have been crying wolf about every aspect of the election, how do we know that this is not part of their machinations? The purpose of the press conference is vintage NASA. It is a continual discrediting of the electoral process, and a conditioning of the electorates mind to reject the results if they do not favour NASA.

Now let us flip the argument and assume that the documents NASA was referring to are authentic, and that they have been allegedly read out of context with the purpose of furthering political ends. And they could be genuine because this should be standard operating procedure for the military, especially during such periods. At any given time, KDF is mandated to keep the realm safe from its enemies both within and without, as outlined in Article 241 of the Constitution.

Weak links

The government cannot capitulate to the demands of NASA to withdraw curfews where deemed necessary and revoke deployment of uniformed officers in vulnerable areas of the country. The right to security is just as important as the right to exercise one's democratic right. And the government is duty bound to ensure that every Kenyan can vote in peace.

And so in the event the documents are genuine, the main concern is that they leaked. Military documents, the world over are highly classified and when they leak, it is a sign of cracks within its ranks. Still more concerning is that such occurrences are early signs of a mutiny. In the words of Sun Tzu, "one may know the condition of a whole army from the behaviour of a single soldier."

And if this is the case, the Chief of Defence Forces should see this as divine revelation. Now he knows the weak links in his camp. He should redeploy accordingly. The reason I say so is because Kenya cannot afford any further reckless speculation and politicisation of its military during this period.

Such statements as the one made on Friday jeopardise the stability and security of our country. This is, after all, real life- not a sensational Nollywood film.

The writer is a PhD candidate in Political Economy at SMC University and a Research Fellow at Fort Hall School of Government. [email protected]