AJUOK: Politics of tribe and bias no place in military promotions

The public narrative is that members of the National Security Advisory Committee visited Bomas to try and overturn Ruto’s win. Then-Vice Chief of Defence Forces Lieutenant General Francis Ogolla would have been in the delegation to represent his boss, CDF General Robert Kibochi. The high-powered team comprised at least five people, but the Kenya Kwanza regime has perennially stuck the whodunit tag on General Ogolla.

Defence Chief Aden Duale said Ogolla was directed to go to the Bomas of Kenya where others in the delegation called for results to be altered so Raila Odinga, not Ruto, would win. Ogolla and Raila are from the same community.

Typically, as the military man in the delegation, number two in the KDF to boot, General Ogolla likely said nothing the whole time, or most probably said the least. You wouldn’t find a Three Star General letting his guard down in such situations. But he was from the military and the only one in the team from the ethnic community of Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga, so those who play politics with critical security matters picked him to carry the stigma.

Since there has never been a verbatim reenactment of what really happened at this meeting, everything has always hinged on the word of former IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati. Given a choice between believing General Ogolla or Chebukati, there is one man whose word I wouldn't take even to my village’s table banking shed, and it is not the General’s. That anyone considered Chebukati’s to be the credible narrative just goes to show how shallow the Kenya Kwanza brigade can be.

Regardless, in persistently harping on this, Ruto has never actually said General Ogolla admitted to attempting to overturn the results at Bomas. All we have heard, again from only one side, is that the General told the President, “I have no defence, Mr President.” I would have been surprised if Ogolla had said anything else. Military principles frown upon shirking responsibility, so my assessment is that General Ogolla was never going to start explaining to his Commander in Chief how he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and was only representing his boss.

I doubt President Ruto surrounds himself with serious advisers on military matters, if the incompetence bedevilling the rest of his government is anything to go by. If he did, he would know that whereas military generals are trained to put their lives on the line for the republic, and to stand on fairness and principles, their subservience to civil authorities obviously means that they have to salute every command from their civilian overlords. These overlords, often with tainted backgrounds and flawed character, couldn’t make it anywhere near the general ranks of the military.

In this scenario, the unwritten rule is that the civil authorities will extend the same respect and dignity that the military bestows on them. This is why it was utterly improper for the President to repeatedly cast aspersions on the character of a serving defence chief, all the way to his death. Especially so, when fully aware that given his military office, the General had no way of setting the record straight. I dare say if Ruto had been convinced that Ogolla had personally played a direct role at Bomas, there was absolutely no way he would have appointed him CDF.

It is total hypocrisy to on one hand to accuse the General of having attempted what would amount to a coup, and then on the other hand give him the reins of the military as the top boss. But while watching the ceremony and listening to the President repeat the narrative, I wondered if perhaps Ruto was held in the grip of a messianic complex and a narcissistic streak, which made the ongoing posthumous adoration of Ogolla unwelcome for him, enough to send a subtle reminder that “he wasn’t as clean as you all make him sound.”

Predictably, as is obvious with the President, it didn’t end there. He let the cat out of the bag by revealing that ahead of the appointment of General Ogolla, his advisers had asked him to appoint a member of his ethnic community, to be safe. I was shocked that Ruto would verbalise what, for all intents and purposes, should have stayed a private conversation.

When Officer Cadets take the oath of allegiance at the Lanet Military Academy, or when Servicemen do the same at the Recruits Training School in Eldoret, they swear allegiance to the Republic of Kenya, and to the president as a symbol of national unity. In their minds, their promotions would be based on the military ideals of professionalism, loyalty and dedication to duty.

What does it do to their morale when serving military people and fresh intakes hear directly from their Commander in Chief that his advisers actually asked him to appoint only his tribesman to the top position? Effectively, that would plant in their minds that only when a member of their community is in State House, can they rise to certain ranks.

President Jomo Kenyatta was in office for a good 15 years. He had two military chiefs in Major General Joseph Ndolo and Major General Jackson Mulinge. Neither was from his tribe. President Moi did a whopping 24 years in power. He had three chiefs of the military, the longest-serving being Mulinge, whom he had inherited from Kenyatta. Gen Mahmoud Mohamed, whose heroics in crushing the 1982 coup made him a Moi insider, succeeded Mulinge.

General Daudi Tonje in turn succeeded General Mohamed; the first and last time a Kalenjin was military boss. Incidentally, Tonje also became the shortest-serving boss at four years, having rejected a term extension.

Of Moi’s 24-year reign, his tribesman was head of the armed forces for only four years. To be fair, those were also the best four years in the history of the Kenyan military, having had a reformer who transformed the forces into a professional, modern fighting machine. Meanwhile, President Kibaki served his entire first term with the military bosses being General Joseph Kibwana and General Jeremiah Kianga. Neither was from his community.

In a country where institutions have fallen prey to greed, mismanagement, and corruption, the KDF has remained nearly the only one still enjoying the confidence and trust of the population. Even though the Commander in Chief is an avowed political animal with an obvious poor sense of presence when it comes to public pronouncements, he has a duty to lead from the front in sustaining the apolitical standing of the military.

This comes with a heavy responsibility, which includes an acknowledgement that certain pronouncements that can be made at political rallies are not fodder for military events. One of them is the place of tribe in military promotions.

It may be obvious to all Kenyans that the General ranks of the military tend to be filled by people from every President’s community, but since the President himself will make these appointments while attributing them to “advice of the Defence Council”, it is disrespectful and improper to also state openly that there are unelected people around who see the military only in tribal prisms!

Political commentator