Does the government foresee the mess Kenya could get into?

The 148 people who were killed in Garissa are martyrs and you and I have a duty to ensure this country gets back on track and doesn’t go down the wrong path. Unfortunately, it may not be in our hands alone.

Whereas I have been very optimistic in the past about how things, however bad, can be improved and how the nation can still excel, this one event can lead us into a spiralling vortex. If there is any one event that gives way to a cascading set of events, then the Garissa attack could be it.  

The attack will lead to some typical knee-jerk reactions and other, more just ones. Money transfer services are under scrutiny and soon there could be massive snoop-and-search operations in pockets of Nairobi and other smaller towns.

The law graduate-turned-terrorist in the Garissa attack could have become radicalised when such operations were undertaken after the Mpeketoni attacks, and there is already talk of how this young man is the first "jihadi pin-up boy" for the region.

There are also reports on how radicalisation has now moved to the so-called middle class and is not just reserved for the poor and the lower strata of society.

With mega corruption back with force, I am not entirely sure the government has a handle on the situation, and more importantly, if it can foresee the mess Kenya can get into.

MORE DEFENCE SPENDING

Water seeks its own level and at this rate, I think there is a chance for ISIS or Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to start providing auxiliary support to Al-Shabaab, with men, material and soft power, i.e., "social strategy" and better chains of command. 

Already, lots of people are fleeing Yemen for Djibouti. This movement can provide an ideal conduit for bands of  extremists to sneak into Kenya through Somalia.

Somalia could suffer the fate of Syria, where inter-clan clashes propped up by various powers are vying to control and keep power, ultimately leading to utter collapse of the country.

This leads us to another scenario, whereby Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) jets start bombing targets well within Kenya’s borders. The Saudis are already experiencing this, where they started bombing areas in Syria but now have to defend against attacks in their own borders. 

With limited resources at hand thanks to the "corruption tax", there will be immense pressure to increase military spending. Kenya is currently ranked seventh in Africa in defence spending and could break into the top five in a few years.

The immediate impact of this for Kenya could be a massive drop in tourism revenues, bursting the already unsustainable unemployment at the Coast but also in city-based jobs in the offices of this industry.

Due to this drop and overall subdued interest in the economy, property prices would plummet. An increase in unemployment would lead to more robberies, making it unsafe for companies to operate and making Nairobi lose its coveted status as a hub for multinationals looking to expand into Africa.

'REGIME CHANGE'

With a likely stable government in place in Nigeria, under the new leader, Lagos could stake a claim for large companies to shift their headquarters there. As oil revenues begin to flow in places like Turkana, local militias may sprout, perpetrating violence under the guise of "lack of development and resources" for the locals. Militias in the Niger Delta began under the same conditions with the potential for oil revenues leading to instances where they were in cahoots with local politicians and bureaucrats.

This would be the final nail in the coffin. It would expose the entire financial sector and put its assets under duress, leading to a further drop in real estate prices. Collateral would shed value at alarming rates.

In the same set of events, Kenya could default on its debt (the debt-to-GDP ratio is already very high), leading to a collapse of the bond market, and forcing Kenya to offer higher rates on its coupons.

This would be an opportune time for "structural adjustment programs" by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which would come in to prop up the Central Bank while demanding consolidation of Kenya’s banks and recapitalisation of their balance sheets.

Creditors would then demand future revenues from public service providers like Kenya Power and others, load the country with more debt and obligations and demand austerity measures, which ultimately hurt the common man, since none of this cash will actually benefit citizens.

While Mr Jaindi Kisero has advised that the new CBK governor needs to be able to foresee such scenarios and protect the common man against the banker consortiums, the shortlisted candidates don’t fit the bill.

All this would finally lead us to the 2017 elections, where populism would prevail. With conditions ideal for "regime change", and with all sorts of allegations on offer, the country could be pushed to a repeat of the post-election violence of 2007-2008, and tribalism would get worse.

DEPENDING ON RED CROSS

Media freedom is already at an all-time low and politicians, both in power and in the opposition, are busy hurling insults instead of coming together for the good of the country and its people.

Despite disasters like Westgate and Mpeketoni, the government and people still depend on non-governmental organisations like the Red Cross to deliver aid and come to their rescue.

How difficult is it to establish a structure of 200 ambulances, 20 helicopters and mobile hospitals, which can be mobilised when such tragedies happen?

Government machinery is dedicated to generating PR and scoring cheap points. Kenya’s government is probably the most Twitter-savvy in the world, with expertise in creating hashtags, getting topics to trend, and using bots to promote empty successes and hide failures.

The government can still arrest this slide with commitment to core economic areas like agriculture and manufacturing and by creating a better policy to handle terrorism and the support structure required for emergency response and intelligence gathering.

Mr Khante is the general manager of the Digital Department, Nation Media Group.