Uhuru´s Next Steps After The Failed Westgate Operation Terrorists And Looting by KDF

By Dikembe Disembe “The transformational leader must be capable of dreaming for the country and wading into the unknown. Such leadership should demonstrate a strong intellectual capacity that promotes deep informed public policy discourse. It should be able to elaborate and communicate a strong national vision and putting together solid strategies, policies and programmes to implement the vision. Transformative leadership mobilize the intellectual and business communities as well as critical mass of the people to buy into and support the new vision and strategies; and manage the challenges that change management entails, including having an efficient and effective bureaucracy. It influences people toward predetermined goals, which are meaningful, desirable and attainable. Finally, it has the necessary character, capacity and credibility to manage the difficult transitions associated with nation building. Leadership is cause, everything else is effect”- Ndung’u Wainaina, Civil rights leader. According to a local daily newspaper, the Kenya Defense Forces, having been at the receiving end throughout the week for looting and wanton theft at Westgate now claims they ‘secured’ people’s businesses. From the foregoing, the army, guilty as charged, are now saying they vandalised banks and businesses to safely keep the money and the other goods they are accused of stealing. Honchos in DoD are, without shame, telling Kenyans with any information on the alleged impropriety of the army to come out and share with authorities. TELL THAT TO THE BIRDS! What was the overriding goal of the army at Westgate? Secure businesses or salvage the hostages? As civilians like Abdul Hajji and others risked their lives to save Kenyans from the jaws of death, the army, with all the training and the machinery, went for the money! I think, compatriots, that we need to hold a few people to account. What instruction did the Commander-in Chief give? Were they followed? If not, why were they not followed? Because we are engaged in an endless war, we must begin to live with that realization. The civilian head of the army must, when he sends our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers in harm’s way, take measures against those who, willingly and with greed, put at greater risk, the lives of others. The army is not a sacred institution. It must be accountable. We pay taxes to sustain a standing army. Until recently, they, unlike us, were living off a lot of tax requirements imposed on the civilians. You hear of AFCO. Right? At Westgate, the army seems to have been more concerned with the money and other material goods. It can be argued that once they were through with pilfering, they then bombed the whole mall down. This is unacceptable! Who was the commander? What did he or she do? As the President, and other leaders, including Hon Odinga said when the whole operations were still ongoing, terrorism is universal; however, how a country responds to terror when it strikes is NOT universal! How many Kenyans are convinced that those who died did not die in vain? That with disciplined soldiers and proper command we still would have come to the same conclusion? President Kenyatta has been praised by the media, ooh and those whom, even if not a single soul would have been recovered in the orgy, would still have praised him. I here mean the ‘tyrannised souls’. But really, did westgate show us the mettle our president is made of? I only saw a mourner-in-chief. In another country I know, by now the whole army thugs would be in military jail! By now, the whole top brass of the security apparatus would be languishing in different jails! I would have fired so many people that by the time Ruto arrived from the Hague, he wouldn’t be aware of the who is around and who is gone! But that is President Dikembe. Your president is incompetent! Why lie? See what he did, just continued filling his kitchen cabinet with “endless sameness”, if I may borrow Odinga’s phrase in new book The Flame of Freedom. Take charge Kamwana, fire people! Let the guns ricochet BANG! BANG! BANG!