The aborted Uhuru US trip: I still want answers. For the last couple of weeks, Kenyans have been asking the question, who is to blame for this million dollar gaffe? I’ve watched the conversations on social media like one does a comedy of errors. You laugh, then you cringe, then you laugh and when it dawns on you that this is no laughing matter, one becomes puzzled, even uncomfortable.
Everybody has become an expert in giving their near most purported infallible interpretations: from the media, to government and even the mortals on the streets - we all seem to want to have our say on who should take blame for the aborted trip to the US.
We must of course understand and accept that the outbursts are deservedly necessary because the life of the Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces of the Republic of Kenya, our President and the sovereignty of Kenya was at stake. I remember Al Kags and even Sam Gichuru pondering on Facebook about the issue. Robert Alai was as usual too blunt - some guy in intelligence slept on the job.
However, I want answers, so that we all know who to smack if this ever happens again (God forbid). I want real answers, not comedy, not political back-talk and other forms of yak-yak. I want to know where the buck stops and who dropped the ball?
Who is in charge of the presidential jet dispatch and discharge? Which office manages the air control towers?
Who is constitutionally mandated with the security of the president on air and on land?
Further still, do we have a team in charge of routing and re-routing the presidential jet?
These are questions that remain unanswered in the abortive flight and I’m concerned they have exposed the incompetence and laxity within the office of the President.
Incidentally, I don’t buy that diplomatic African folklore that’s being peddled around. I’m a Capricorn and far too old to believe in unicorns.
The initial allusions that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not done their work have been so far demystified by the respective Eritrea and Ethiopian ambassadors.
These two have confirmed that the clearances were done and there was no airspace standoff. Meaning that we can give diplomatic blame, a pass.
That kaka-sungura story was there to help someone (in defence or OP perhaps) a chance cover their arse.
To dismiss the security breech as a diplomatic thingy is not only undermining the magnitude of the matter but it is also trying to take us all for a ride and implying that we are daft. No we’re not!! We like juicy gossip but that doesn’t mean we are ignorant nor are we blind to the fact that there are glaring incompetences and operational dysfunctions in top security apparatus handling the President.
I noticed that once both Eritrea and Ethiopia made it clear that the diplomatic side had been handled, our government went strangely quiet.
My pertinent dilemma is, how can we allow the president to fly and midway realise that the route he was to fly over is risky? As we taxied at JKIA, hadn’t we already done part 1 -international intelligence and coordination, then upon approval undertaken diplomatic clearance and not the reverse.
I’d like to suggest (not humbly at all) that what we seem to have done in handling the life of our President was putting the cart before the horse then blaming the cart. Alai’s comments come to mind yet again. Eish
Someone with an intelligence, security or military docket, who is in charge of the presidential jet routes, went to sleep on the job, thereby subjecting the president to global ridicule and possible danger by not providing security intelligence on the route chosen on the ill fated flight.
#justsaying. However - I still want answers and I don’t believe in fairy tales.