It is time to get tough on Al-Shabaab and terrorist sympathisers among us
What you need to know:
- There seems to be a general consensus that Al-Shabaab has been planning attacks against Kenyans for a while, that many of their fighters have infiltrated the country, and that the Garissa attack is likely just the first in a series of atrocities.
- It may well be that in a coalition government, sacking Cabinet secretaries implicated in corruption may come with its own political costs, but I tend to think the cost of inaction, or half-hearted action, would be greater, and not just to the President.
- First is to raise an army, a serious army. I know our patriotic forces will bristle at the thought that they are not up to the task, but I suspect there is a meanness and quickness of response that we must cultivate. We need help.
There comes a time to take off the gloves and confront evil with force. Thursday’s attack on children at Garissa University College demonstrates the hatred and barbaric backwardness of Al-Shabaab.
I spent the day yesterday trying to understand what is happening and what we are doing about it.
There seems to be a general consensus that Al-Shabaab has been planning attacks against Kenyans for a while, that many of their fighters have infiltrated the country, and that the Garissa attack is likely just the first in a series of atrocities.
The British, in their usual helpful manner, seem to know something because they have stiffened their travel advisories. In my view, President Uhuru Kenyatta should adopt towards Al-Shabaab the same attitude he has taken towards corruption: we can either cower in our homes and wait for them to come and kill us or we can resolve to die in battle, so to speak.
It is impossible to defend oneself against terrorists, especially if you share a border with their nest and you have a reasonably open and weakly governed society. So what options are open for you?
First is to raise an army, a serious army. I know our patriotic forces will bristle at the thought that they are not up to the task, but I suspect there is a meanness and quickness of response that we must cultivate. We need help.
Secondly, let us go to the nest in greater numbers, let us fight harder, let us find more of them and take justice to them.
Thirdly, the country is crawling with Al-Shabaab sympathisers, recruiters, spotters, scouts, and such other filth. The Mau Mau, a small poorly armed group fighting a super power, were reasonably successful because of the effectiveness with which they dealt with the enemy within.
This is a war being waged against children who are being slaughtered in their dormitories. There can be no difference between those who shoot or behead the children and those who speak for them. How about we do a little less talking and do a little more fighting?
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If President Kenyatta was a man who frequents my local, I would tell my favourite waiter: “Musyoka, ask His Excellency what he is having tonight. His bill is mine.” Of course Mr Kenyatta does not come to my local and I do not go to his; he probably drinks herbal tea, for all I know. I, however, do know that for the first time in his presidency, he is deserving of praise and commendation. He has demonstrated clarity of thought and courage in confronting an issue which has enslaved Kenyans in poverty for decades: high-level corruption.
He has also approached it without taking prisoners or conserving any sacred cows. His friends and allies, as far as I can tell, received the same treatment as everyone else.
When you have a government in which the minister for Lands is accused of being a member of a gang of land thieves, where a minister is said to have asked for a bribe of $15 million, where another is said to have tied the country into a contract where a company he is associated with is given all the clearing and forwarding work for a massive national project — and for 14 years — that is actually not a government, it is a criminal enterprise.
It may well be that in a coalition government, sacking Cabinet secretaries implicated in corruption may come with its own political costs, but I tend to think the cost of inaction, or half-hearted action, would be greater, and not just to the President.
In comparative terms, the corruption exposed in the Uhuru dossier dwarfs Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg. In those two instances, people were eating on a cluster of deals, in one case the Central Bank and Treasury and in the other on security contracts. In the case of the Uhuru dossier, they were allegedly eating on everything and its grandmother. It is evident that corruption in Kenya is getting worse, not better.
How did we go so wrong? How did we end up as a country with a government whose core business seems to be the theft of public, and increasingly, in the case of land, private property? Even MPs have become like cows, just eating and eating, during the day, at night, in the rain, at dawn, always eating.
Mr Kenyatta should not stop at having suspects step aside: where evidence exists, their property should be seized, they should serve time and be barred from serving in a public capacity —forever. It is the only way to stop this nonsense.
