President should play vital role at such times

Whenever a nation is plunged into collective shock and grief, the people look up to their leaders for comfort and reassurance.

During those trying moments, a people need their leaders, not just to mourn with them and comfort them, but also to assure them that the State will restore and guarantee peace, security, and stability so they no longer need to be afraid and fearful.

It is also incumbent on the leadership at such moments to assure the citizens that swift and firm action will be taken to hunt down, apprehend, and punish the culprits.

Leadership at moments such as these is seen to repose in a caring, firm, and strong Head of State, not in a faceless bureaucracy, public service and security sector mandarins, or ruling party politicians.

And that has been the big question since the Mandera bus massacre that laid to waste the lives of 28 innocent Kenyans early on Saturday morning. Where is the President?

Kenyans know that President Uhuru Kenyatta left the country on Friday for a visit to Abu Dhabi. A posting on his official Twitter and Facebook pages informed citizens that the President had left that evening for a four-day official visit to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where he would attend a series of bilateral meetings focused on expanding and deepening cooperation in areas of mutual interest between Kenya and the UAE. The message was accompanied by photographs of the President being seen off by politicians and government officials.

The terrorist attack on a Nairobi-bound bus from Mandera happened the following day, probably soon after the presidential flight landed in Abu Dhabi. One can appreciate that the President must have felt helpless and frustrated, being away in a foreign land while his people were hit by yet another outrage from the Al-Shabaab terrorist group.

ASSURANCES OF ACTION

Perhaps in such a situation, the President should have seriously considered cancelling his mission and rushing back home to stand in solidarity with grieving Kenyans. His hosts would surely have understood.

Even if coming home immediately might not have been possible due to logistics or other factors, it would have been important to send a strong message comforting the bereaved and giving assurances of action.

The statement read by Deputy President William Ruto on Sunday — rather belated, coming a whole day after the terrorist atrocity — was not enough in this regard.

What has confounded many, however, is the continuing absence of and silence from the President since. Even the usual updates and pictures on his activities and functions usually distributed by his media team while on overseas visits were curiously absent. Until Tuesday afternoon, when a few pictures were issued, there was no information on the business from the visit.

What Kenyans got, instead, were reports from Abu Dhabi media that the Kenyan President was among the dozens of world leaders who attended the final race of the 2014 Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit.

When the world is joining Kenya in mourning those who have been so brutally murdered by terrorists, the President’s place, and that of his deputy, is by the side of the families of those who lost their lives serving their country.