The year must have been 1999. Then Kenya Army Commander, Lt Gen Adan Abdullahi (now deceased) did something that had not been thought possible previously.
He allowed the media to embed with the troops in their annual war games out in the jungles in Lokichar. As you would expect, the army men showcased their skills, capabilities and hardware. Out came the mobile bridges, the borehole drilling equipment, the instant road maintenance and pothole repair machines and all the equipment of war that facilitate the flawless movement and sustenance of troops on the frontline.
Clearly mesmerized, the media asked Lt Gen Abdullahi why all these brilliant capabilities were not being deployed to assist civil authorities in infrastructural development and in bringing certain projects to margnalised communities.
Of course the media may have wanted to throw in at the end a line politicians loved to use then — “instead of just enjoying duty free beer in the barracks”. However, they were being hosted by the army in the bushes and this would have been a little unwise!
The General replied, rightfully, that the army was not a commercial organisation and would not enter into civilian tendering and procurement processes. He, however, noted it was ready to deploy in national development whenever called upon by the Commander-in-Chief.
I have often wondered why the then Commander-in –Chief, President Daniel Moi, and his successor, Mwai Kibaki, didn’t explore Gen Abdullahi’s idea.
I suspect even President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has turned to the military a lot more, only did out of frustration with the manner in which civilian tendering and procurement has become corrupt.
Indeed, if the President hadn’t activated the long-idle Civil-Military Cooperation activities, we probably would never have known that the military was capable of rehabilitating the Kisumu meter gauge rail line, the Kisumu Port or the Nanyuki rail line. And the men in uniform have been doing this with serene silence and meticulous workmanship, without the predictable tender wars and corruption investigations made normal by their civilian counterparts.
A few months ago, Nairobi Metropolitan Services director general Major General Mohamed Badi made a rare appearance on a TV show. Let me first state that one of the things that make generals admirable is their aversion to media appearances. This means Nairobi residents now have someone working for them who doesn’t appear on TV punching walls and shouting profanities.
Anyway, on the show, Maj Gen Badi first announced that he would be launching 24 hospitals in about three months, a fete the elected previous city father would never have hoped to achieve in 24 years. But Gen Badi also said something quite telling: That when he visited county workshops, he would find, for instance, graders damaged and needing repairs of say Sh200,000. However, the staff and tender merchants were instead ordering new graders worth millions!
Basically, the drill was that as soon as any equipment showed a little problem, a new one would be tendered for so that the people in the supply chain could eat. That seems to be an all-round cancer in both the national and county governments.
Gen Badi then got to work repairing all stalled equipment and was not surprised that he spent a fraction of what the civilian procurement people had been asking for. The problem, as he found out, was replicated in all departments and field operations at City Hall.
It seemed the first action was always to procure something new. And he had to change that. In that short time, Maj Gen Badi has brought professionalism, dignity and a predictable leadership pattern to the running of the city.
I am tempted to say that democracy is overrated, given the sort of people the ballot produces, but I will leave that story for another day. However, you really must ask this pertinent question: Given that the military has the capabilities and the equipment to build dams and manage irrigation projects, how different do we think the story would have been if we had asked the army to build Arror and Kimwarer dams, and/or run the Galana-Kulalu project?
I am not in any way suggesting we kill our democratic institutions in preference for the military, nor insinuating that the military itself is free of past audit queries. But as far as stop gap measures and temporary solutions go, they appear to me at this time to be one of very few institutions in the country left with some credibility.
A typical Kenyan political appointee to a government agency thinks quite the same way. If you make me the director of a parastatal today, my first instincts will be to build my mother a huge riverside villa back in the village, get myself a prime plot near Runda and fly to Paris to attend some wine festival. This as a way of announcing to poverty that I have left its ranks.
And because this thinking is quite prevalent, state appointments have become avenues for fulfilling wealth ambitions that we have held for years. Therefore, while we work to reverse the emergence of this national greed, possibly in the next dispensation, the men in uniform can watch over certain key state institutions.
If the Kenya Meat Commission resumes operations and begins exporting meat again, after being transferred to the Ministry of Defence, we will have one more compelling reason to see cooperation with the military as a good thing, without necessarily compromising democratic and civilian ideals.
In my view, the biggest problem in our country is a lack of discipline, be it fiscal, professional or political. It will take time to reset our thinking and restore pride in nationhood, enough to start building the nation. It may be a while before we reform the government in a way that promises focus and fidelity to the ideals of growth and development, all which require total discipline, which we lack now.
In the meantime, we can outsource the running of our more crucial institutions to the people in uniform, to whom discipline is a staple diet. Between now and the 2022 elections, we will all be buried in electioneering and political divisions. Not much goes on in this country at times like that. In fact, even technocrats in the civil service charged with running state projects until the election, will be eyeing elective political seats and working with one leg outside.
It is imperative that we engage in more CIMIC to get some work going, because we now have proof that it does more good than harm.
