Mysterious cancellations of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s trips point to administrative lapses

I am not a fan of Jubilee, or its leadership. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what goes on in the state under the ruling party.

I do — deeply. Only a Martian wouldn’t know that Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta — the state’s CEO — has suffered several aborted trips abroad. The mystery of the still-born jaunts is complexified by lack of information from State House. Mr Kenyatta’s otherwise excellent public relations machine has fumbled the ball – badly.

Someone should tell his press officers that innuendo, rumour, and disinformation thrive in darkness. The first rule of a good press corps is to fill the void with credible narratives. This is where Mr Kenyatta’s propagandists have fallen flat on their faces. That’s unarguable.

Let’s clear the brush first. A country’s CEO isn’t the hoi polloi. He doesn’t go to the airport to wait in line, go through humiliating security checkpoints, face menacing immigration officers, sit haplessly in an uncomfortable sardine-packed public lounge, and wait to be herded single-file like cattle to the dip on to the plane. No — the state’s numero uno arrives in a convoy, is received by the highest officials, and board’s the state’s jet. Then off he disappears into the clouds. The trip’s logistics, beyond benign public announcements, is held in confidence.

We, the “wretched of the earth,” only know the CEO has departed for X country, accompanied by Y, to do such-and-such, and will return on Z date.

We — mere mortals — assume the country’s CEO has first-class treatment when he travels abroad, and all prior arrangements have been made to assure safety. That’s why it came as a major shock to Kenyans that Mr Kenyatta’s jet was turned back in foreign airspace while on his way to Dubai to connect to a commercial flight to Los Angeles. Wow — that’s a first.

Only a mechanical problem, or a sudden crisis that requires his attention back home would warrant such a drastic step. The state offered no credible explanation when Mr Kenyatta’s trip aborted.

Eritrea and Ethiopia rebutted claims they denied his plane safe passage. The state tried — incredulously — to blame the mess on fighting in Yemen.

To compound the mystery, upon return Mr Kenyatta went into seclusion at Sagana State Lodge. I’ve no doubt Mr Kenyatta was seething with anger.

It’s unfathomable that Mr Kenyatta was going to Los Angeles to speak at a conference by ex-convict Michael Milken. For those who don’t know, Mr Milken, the king of market “junk bonds,” is the most notorious felon in the history of Wall Street.

He was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud in an insider-trading scheme. He pleaded guilty and was fined $600 million and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Why would Mr Kenyatta grace a conference organised by the Junk Bond King-turned-philanthropist? Someone must be asleep in Foreign Affairs, NIS, and the AG’s Office.

As if the debacle of the California trip wasn’t enough, this past week Mr Kenyatta yet again abruptly cancelled another foreign trip. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Apparently a disgruntled official leaked the list of the mandarins who were to accompany Mr Kenyatta to Abuja, Nigeria, for the swearing in of Gen Muhammadu Buhari as the country’s president.

The list contained 84 names drawn largely from Central Kenya. There seemed to be no other rationale for inclusion in the list. A furore on social media forced Mr Kenyatta to call off the trip and order DP William Ruto to represent Kenya. Mr Ruto took a skeleton staff. Mr Kenyatta hasn’t commented on the California and Nigeria trips.

Foreign Affairs PS Karanja Kibicho cheekily came out to lambast the media for reporting on the aborted Nigeria trip. He gave a series of unconvincing explanations as State House Spokesperson Manoah Esipisu sat by stone-faced. Mr Kibicho rubbished the list of 84 would-be travelers and termed it “illegitimate.”

But — and this is critical — he didn’t explicitly deny the authenticity of the list, or the high number of “splurgers” and “free-riders” — leeches — who would’ve accompanied Mr Kenyatta. He attacked some names on the list as “foreign” – Chinedu, Odili, and Lawal. He unbelievably said such names wouldn’t have been included on the trip. Most Kenyans didn’t seem to believe his half-hearted denials. I know full-blooded Kenyans named Lumumba, Diop, Kwame, and Obi.

My point is that a pattern of bureaucratic incompetence, corruption, intellectual laziness, ethnic myopia — and perhaps worse — is manifest in the inner sanctum of power.

Mr Kenyatta has folks close to him who are either malignant, or don’t have a clue. He should cut them loose pronto before they cause more damage. He can’t keep on absorbing such blows. These head-scratching misadventures will hurt Kenya abroad. People who control Mr Kenyatta’s diary must be up to snuff, or be gone.